Jo Hamilton, ex-official involved in St. Vincent's Hospital condo conversion, fined for ethics violations

Jo Hamilton was on the take

Jo Hamilton, former member of Manhattan Community Board 2, which rubber-stamped and fast-tracked the demolition and luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital, was on the take.

Jo Hamilton was given free Soho House membership for "reasons related to [her] position on #CB2" http://t.co/9nIffehl7X via @danielleiat

— StopNYMRT (@StopNYMRT) November 26, 2014

From the Demand a Hospital listserv :

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
From: Demand A Hospital
To: Demand A Hospital
Subject: Jo Hamilton was on the take
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 04:41:25 -0500

Dear All :

For a decade, Jo Hamilton was receiving free gifts from an entity that had business before Community Board 2. Please read the following reports :

    (i)    http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/community-board-member-fined-free-soho-house-membership-blog-entry-1.2022053

    (ii)    http://nypost.com/2014/11/25/board-member-fined-10k-over-free-soho-house-membership/

    (iii)    http://gothamist.com/2014/11/24/soho_house_2.php

    (iv)    http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20141124/meatpacking-district/community-board-2-member-fined-for-accepting-free-soho-house-membership

    (v)    http://www.scribd.com/doc/248068157/COIB-Disposition-CB

How many other members of Community Board 2 were on the take ?

What did the former chairs of CB2 and the former subcommittee chairs know about Jo Hamilton being on the take -- and when did they know it ?

How many lobbyists paid for entertainment, meals, and other gifts for members of CB2 that were never reported or may have crossed the line to be inappropriate or illegal ?

Never give up.

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Tell Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop closing our hospitals. Call 311 for the mayor and 1 (518) 474-8390 for the governor.

You can also tweet your concerns to : @BilldeBlasio -and- @NYGovCuomo

Quinn Flip Flops On Outside Campaign Finance Corruption

With State Senator Brad Hoylman at her side, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said that she was changing her mind about accepting the corruptive influence of outside campaign money to help boost her sagging bid in this year's mayoral race.

In April, Speaker Quinn denounced the use of outside campaign money, sometimes called "independent expenditures" to soften the sound of corruption. That was back when Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign was ahead in the polls. But then in late June, once Speaker Quinn's campaign began a sharp nose-dive, she welcomed the assistance of outside campaign money.

Meanwhile, it was Speaker Quinn who supported loosening restrictions on the role of corporations in being able to spend money to influence municipal elections when she watered down the city's campaign finance laws.

Is this how Bill Rudin does business ?

In exchange for $30,000 in campaign donations, did New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn sell out her community ?

To Preet Bharara : Do @chriscquinn's official acts come as a result of campaign donations ? christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2011/02/rudin-… #StVincentsHospital

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) April 4, 2013

In 2009, Bill Rudin and New York City Planner Amanda Burden were photographed at the same plush "Observer 100" party to celebrate money, power, and influence. In spite of their cozy relationship, Ms. Burden did not recuse herself during the zone-busting approval process for Mr. Rudin's billion-dollar luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest in New York City government, and the Department of Investigation is a joke.

The conflict of interest in respect of Ms. Burden paints a pattern of how Bill Rudin does business. Mr. Rudin also participated in an arrangement with the appearance of being a quid pro quo with former mayor Ed Koch.

Rudin family offered #EdKoch posh apartment.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/nyr… ; Koch promoted Rudin condo plan for #StVincent's. dnainfo.com/new-york/20110…

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) February 3, 2013

But Ms. Burden and Mr. Koch were not alone in compromising the integrity of the government approval process that stacked the deck in favour of Mr. Rudin's devastating zone-busting plan, which seized a charitable community hospital as the site for his billion-dollar luxury condo conversion plan.

Did Christine Quinn Give Up On Saving St. Vincent's In Exchange for Campaign Donations From The Rudin Family ?

In an apparent conflict of interest, Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. Not only did Speaker Quinn say that we only needed an urgent care center to replace St. Vincent's, but she approved the Rudin family's plan, allowing St. Vincent's Hospital to be rezoned into luxury condos. Since 2010, the Rudin family has been trying to get approval for a billion-dollar real estate development plan for the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, and since they needed City Council approval from Speaker Quinn, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn did nothing to restore a Level I trauma center and full-service hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ? Does Speaker Quinn's official acts come as a result of sizable campaign donations from the likes of the Rudin family ?

Does Bill Rudin use the Association For A Better New York to further his economic interests ?

Not only has Bill Rudin and his family funneled money to the mayoral campaign of Christine Quinn, but he also helps to fluff Speaker Quinn's image in the media. Mr. Rudin put Speaker Quinn on the podium to give her a venue to talk about the post-Sandy real estate projects, from which developers are eager to make money. The emergency response to Hurricane Sandy was still on-going at the time of Speaker Quinn's speech, but the political and economic opportunism was shown to be in full swing.

Does Bill Rudin use the Partnership For New York City to further his economic interests ?

Another vehicle, which Mr. Rudin uses to great effect, is his position as a director of the Partnership For New York City, an elite chamber of commerce-like entity, which helps billionaires and large corporations buy insider influence with government leaders.

For example, while Brad Hoylman was chairman of Manhattan Community Board 2, which was overseeing the initial elements of the zone-busting real estate approval process for the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital, Mr. Hoylman was then employed by Mr. Rudin's Partnership.

Of course, if you were Bill Rudin, you would look successful if you had the resources, the conflicts of interest, the malfeasance, and the gall to corrupt so much of the government for your own personal gain.

Downtown Hospital Needs Lifeline ; Calls to Action on Single Payer and Fracking

From the Demand A Hospital (St. Vincent's activists) e-mail list : 

Begin forwarded message:

From: Demand A Hospital <demandahospital@gmail.com>

Subject: NEWS ALERT : Downtown Hospital on brink of collapse ; plus, CALLS TO ACTION on Healthcare and Fracking

Date: 28 janvier 2013 21:00:18 UTC-05:00

To: Demand A Hospital <demandahospital@gmail.com>

Reply-To: demandahospital@gmail.com

Dear All :

NEWS ALERT.  From our friend, Barbara Ruether, that Downtown Hospital has been on the verge of financial collapse and will be acquired by New York-Presbyterian.

This article points out how Downtown Hospital had to double the beds in the neonatal intensive care unit in 2010, which was when St. Vincent's Hospital was closed.  Downtown Hospital could not afford the expansion of maternity care, but the State Department of Health gave Downtown Hospital no extra support in the face of the closing of St. Vincent's.  In contrast, Medicaid reimbursement rates were cut by Gov. Cuomo.  It is almost three years since St. Vincent's closed, and we are still dealing with the severe effects to public health.  And the State Department of Health still has no plan to equally fund all of our hospitals and medical centers, so that each hospital can fully meet the needs of all patients.  

Link : http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130127/HEALTH_CARE/301279973

NY-Presbyterian to bail out Downtown Hospital

Lower Manhattan's last medical center on brink of collapse.

 

By Barbara Benson @Barbara_Benson

January 27, 2013 5:59 a.m.

The last remaining hospital in lower Manhattan, financially unstable after years of operating losses, is being bailed out by a wealthy uptown white knight, Crain's New York Business has learned.

New York-Presbyterian Hospital has asked state health officials for permission to acquire New York Downtown Hospital, the only institution below 14th Street since St. Vincent's Hospital closed in 2010. Downtown "has experienced persistent, significant financial difficulties that threaten its future viability," New York-Presbyterian officials wrote in December in a request to the New York State Department of Health. '[Downtown Hospital] is projected to have a significant operating loss in 2013, unless the current situation is changed."

Downtown will become the sixth campus of New York-Presbyterian. Currently a 180-bed community hospital, Downtown may look very different as a campus of an uptown owner, although it was not clear late last week what plans the huge health system has for Downtown. "[The facility will] transition into a sustainable and financially feasible model of care," according to New York-Presbyterian's application to the state.

The proposed deal seems similar to the transaction struck last week between Montefiore Medical Center and New York Westchester Square, a bankrupt Bronx community hospital. Both Montefiore and New York-Presbyterian are buying financially troubled community hospitals. Under Montefiore's ownership, Westchester Square will cease being a hospital and will have only emergency, surgical and primary care services.

Unlike its Bronx counterpart, Downtown will stay a hospital, simply because lower Manhattan can't do without one. Manhattan overall has 6.3 hospital beds per 1,000 residents. Lower Manhattan has a paltry 0.57. New York-Presbyterian executives believe they can save Downtown by improving the "quality, delivery and efficiency of the existing services."

"Our plan is for Downtown to remain a community hospital," said a New York-Presbyterian spokeswoman, declining to elaborate further. Jeffrey Menkes, Downtown's president and chief executive, declined to comment.

Downtown has been in the New York-Presbyterian health system's sprawling network since 2006 but is a separate corporate entity. Downtown has struggled for years, even selling off a parking lot to developer Bruce Ratner in 2004 to raise cash.

New York-Presbyterian, meanwhile, is a behemoth with nearly $4 billion in revenue. It employs some 20,000 workers, including 6,000 doctors, and has nearly 2,300 beds.

Heavily reliant on Medicaid

The uptown health system expects to be able to absorb Downtown's losses and assume all its outstanding debt. Under new ownership, Downtown would become a "financially viable division of NYP Hospital," according to the state filing.

New York-Presbyterian blames Downtown's financial collapse on federal and state reimbursement cuts and the hospital's inability to either boost revenue or reduce costs. Downtown is heavily reliant on revenue from Medicaid, the government program for low-income and disabled people, which covers 45% of the patients it discharges. Among patients treated in the emergency department, 20% are uninsured.

Downtown also has been forced into the red by maternity care. Between 2002 and 2011, the number of obstetric patient days grew about 3.3% a year, prompting the hospital to convert eight regular beds to maternity beds, for a total of 24. That move followed a doubling of beds in 2010 in the neonatal intensive care unit. Now the neonatal IC and maternity units lose more than $1 million a year, thanks to high staffing and operating costs, pricey medical malpractice insurance and low reimbursement rates.

Despite that shaky financial foundation, Downtown is the only hospital serving the 314,273 New Yorkers who live below Houston Street—not to mention the daily surge of 750,000 people who work in the area. And once the September 11 Memorial and 1 World Trade Center come online, those numbers will spike even more.

Downtown evacuated before Superstorm Sandy hit, based on the assumption that lower Manhattan would lose electrical power. It suffered no damage beyond the loss of revenue for about a week. And a good thing, too: In early January, more than 20 passengers from a ferry crash in lower Manhattan were treated at Downtown.

A version of this article appears in the January 28, 2013, print issue of Crain's New York Business as "NY-Presby to bail out Downtown Hospital".

CALL TO ACTION / HEALTHCARE.  Please contact the new State Senator Brad Hoylman.  He has been assigned to the Investigations and Government Operations Committee, which is charged with investigating the state's infrastructure collapse in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.  Please contact Sen. Hoylman with your concerns about the lack of adequate full-service hospital care in New York City : 

http://www.nysenate.gov/senator/brad-hoylman

District Office

322 Eighth Avenue, Suite 1700

New York, NY 10001

United States

Phone: (212) 633-8052

Fax: (212) 633-8096

Albany Office

Room 413, Legislative Office Building

Albany, NY 12247

United States

Phone: (518) 455-2451

Fax: (518) 426-6846

Here is information to read before you contact State Sen. Hoylman :  please make a plug for the single payer bill that is being discussed and reviewed by the state legislature.  

Link :  http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/january/single-payer-system-is-only-way-to-keep-health-costs-down

CALL TO ACTION / FRACKING.  From our friends Barbara Ruether and Carol Yost come word about this invitation from CREDO Action :  Everybody is being asked to show up to an anti-fracking demonstration outside Gov. Cuomo's Manhattan offices : 

Governor Cuomo has until February 13 to decide whether he will lift New York's fracking moratorium.1 If he doesn't lift it, he will have to announce another major procedural delay.

That gives us less than a month to put overwhelming pressure on Governor Cuomo to maintain the current moratorium on fracking. Our friends at New Yorkers Against Fracking are organizing a rally at the governor's office in New York City to tell him to ban fracking forever. Will you join them?

What : Rally to ban fracking at Governor Cuomo's NYC office 

When : Friday, February 8, at noon 

Where : Governor Cuomo's office, 633 Third Avenue, Manhattan (between East 40th and 41st streets) 

Thank you for all that you do.

Hurricane Sandy - Bellevue, NYU, and Coler Hospital Evacuations - Political Accountability

Who is politically accountable for the failure of the emergency management plan in response to Hurricane Sandy that lead to infrastructure failure at New York City hospitals ?

Following the infrastructure failure of critical hospitals in New York City because of flooding and storm surge associated with Hurricane Sandy and related power failures, some healthcare activists began to demand answers for the failure of New York City's emergency management planning. The fault does not lie with the doctors and medical staff at the impacted hospitals ; rather, the politicians in charge of the city's emergency management plan must account for this irresponsible and dangerous situation. How could it be that New York City's resources would prioritise reopening business when critical hospitals could be left in the dark ? One activist has posted a new YouTube video requesting political accountability for the dangerous risks posed to public health by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's lack of real emergency planning.

Video Link : http://youtu.be/ggjOOjbTKZs

Background

In the community effort to demand a replacement hospital for St. Vincent's, politicians imposed on the community the burden of participating in a needs assessment to determine if a full-service hospital was required in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

"The hospital evacuations following the destruction by Hurricane Sandy expose the risks of the Rudin Condo Conversion Plan approved for St. Vincent's Hospital," said Louis Flores, an activist who produced this YouTube video. "New York City needs a Level I Trauma Center and full-service hospital in the Lower West Side for disaster recovery efforts. And New York City needs real resources to improve the infrastructure of all of our hospitals, including Coler Hospital on Roosevelt Island and SUNY Downstate Hospital in Brooklyn."

Hurricane Irene

In 2011, St. Vincent's activists organized a mass civilian trauma event exercise to demonstrate what grassroots community activists described was a major risk to public health : where would sick and injured patients receive emergency and trauma care in the event of a major national disaster under conditions that had created an irresponsible geographic distribution of hospital beds in Manhattan.

See related link : http://thevillager.com/villager_443/traumadrama.html

Hurricane Sandy

In the time leading up to and following the landfall of the effects of Hurricane Sandy, the infrastructure of full-service hospitals on the East Side of Manhattan has failed. Hospital patients were forced to be evacuated from NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals.

To Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, to City Planner Amanda Burden, Brad Hoylman, Bill Rudin, and to the Partnership for New York, where are New Yorkers supposed to go now, in case of a medical emergency ?

Murray Hill Flooded Near Bellevue Hospital Hurricane Sandy

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Hurricane Sandy Exposes Risks Of Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

Bellevue Hospital Without Power ; Backup Generators Failing Due to Floods ; No Level I Trauma Center Below Midtown Since St. Vincent's Hospital Was Converted Into Luxury Condos By Rudin Family.

Bellevue hospital can't get the generators running, 2 ft water in the basement -- FDNY scanner

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) October 30, 2012

The area near Bellevue Hospital in Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan is flooded. According to this Twitter posting, 34th Street and First Avenue is under water.

Unbelievable. Be safe friends. RT @shamir_kNot just lower Manhattan - this is 34th and 1st i104.photobucket.com/albums/m166/ow… (Murray Hill...)

— Emily Kuhn (@EmKuhn) October 30, 2012

#OccupyWallStreet Marches to St. Vincent's Hospital

The activist group called Hands Off St. Vincent's endorses the #OccupyWallStreet march to St. Vincent's Hospital.

Jason Mansfield #OccupyCB2

You are invited to participate in the enactment of a mass civilian trauma exercise on the sidewalk outside St. Vincent's Hospital.

Watch this YouTube documentary for background information about the controversial Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital :

Join community members as they plan to organise a field hospital on the sidewalks, form into make-shift blood donation lines, visualise what it would look like to set up alternative decontamination showers, help each other to tie on surgical masks to protect each other from air-bourne particles, and finally to think through what steps would need to be taken to request provisional mass casualty tents.

Some of the participants will ''not make it,'' because there is no Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street. And it probably takes ambulances over 30 minutes to respond to the Lower West Side of Manhattan, and then it would probably take another 30 minutes for ambulances to drive through busy cross-town traffic to any of the hospitals on the East Side. The ''survivors'' will have to figure out what to do with the “injured” participants.

Then, a team of survivors will walk over to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Ave., Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of Manhattan Community Board 2's Environment, Public Safety & Public Health Committee. Community Board 2 is about to approve the rezoning of St. Vincent's to allow the billionaire Rudin Family to convert the hospital into luxury condos. Community residents hope that this civilian trauma exercise will educate and mobilise the public to stop CB2 from approving the dangerous Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital.

The community's goal is to keep the real estate zoning intact, to attract new hospital investors to restore a full-service hospital at the former site of St. Vincent's.

2011 10 17 RE ACT OccupyCB2 Flyer
2011-10-17 Stop the Rezoning of St. Vincent's Hospital Flyer #OccupyCB2

St. Vincent's Document Shredding

Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia Morris has let the management of St. Vincent's avoid Freedom of Information requests and has let the Rudin Family to gut St. Vincent's and is about to let the Family take a wrecking ball to it. Now, Judge Morris is going to let the Management and the Family destroy evidence.

Management of St. Vincent's Asks Bankruptcy Court to Approve Document Destruction, So That No Investigation Can Ever Determine Why the Hospital Closed Abruptly And Without Any Legally-Mandated Closure Plan.

No politician -- not CB2 Chair Brad Hoylman, not City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or Senator Tom Duane -- is willing to do anything to prevent the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's. With the shredding trucks about to pull into the ambulance bays of St. Vincent's, the obstruction of justice will be complete : there may be no more hope to ever investigate the shady decisions that lead the hospital to close on April 30, 2010. It's exactly as Sarah Jessica Parker said : ''The community needs a hospital — and I think there’s been some clever obfuscation.''

1782-Motion Re Info Mgmt Services and Trust Ageement and Document Retention Plan

Will the Rudin Family seek to profit from Mayor Bloomberg's spree of School Closings ?

OP-ED : After Rudin Management converts St. Vincent's Hospital into Luxury Condos, will the billion-dollar real estate empire next convert closed schools into more luxury condos ?

Since he has become mayor, Michael Bloomberg has waged a sustained campaign to layoff teachers and close schools. Once wonders why he is systematically attacking public education, which is such an important underpinning of our society.

Remember how New York University got away with demolishing the Edgar Allan Poe house to build a new mega-building ? Well, yesterday, word was received that St. Vincent's Hospital, which closed after mysterious back-room meetings last year, is being converted into luxury condos by the Rudin Family. Are we beginning to see a pattern ?

In the last 10 or so years, no public institution (not a historical landmark like the former house of the famous poet Edgar Allan Poe, not St. Ann's Church, not the fabled St. Vincent's Hospital, not even public schools, where children go for an education) has been safe from being condemned and closed down -- all in the name of more and more reckless real estate development.

It is time for people to wake up and see what is on the horizon : the time is going to come when children are going to be loitering in the streets, having nowhere to go, nothing good to occupy their time, and no future to create, after all the teacher layoffs and school closings. There will be less firehouses and fewer hospitals. What kind of urban design for a metropolis is Mayor Bloomberg creating ?

But according to the real estate development wet dreams of Mayor Bloomberg, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and other development-crazed politicians, that is exactly what they want. Their vision for a new ''partnership'' for New York must include closing down public institutions, like schools, firehouses, and our historical landmarks, to make room for more luxury condo conversions and mega-buildings.

What happened to wanting to live in an exceptional city ? Aren't we capable of being better than this ? We need to organize grassroots efforts to block the elitist urban-renewal projects of real estate developers, like the Rudin Family, who seem to be joining Mayor Bloomberg on a renewed campaign to destroy the fragile character and experience of our local neighborhoods. It's time to get organized and fight back !

Hospital Needs Assessment and Survey were stalling tactic, activists say

Jane Jacobs is turning in her grave !

Christine Quinn's Bluff Pays Off : Needs Assessment Provided Cover For Back-Room Real Estate Deal For St. Vincent's

We don't want to say, ''We Told You So,'' but we told you so. First, Christine Quinn said, ''We are not going to fall for that BAIT-and-SWITCH.'' But, like time and time again, Speaker Quinn was just pulling the wool over our eyes.

It was reported earlier today that St. Vincent's Hospital is going to become luxury condos. Naturally, it should come as no surprise that the announcement coïncides with a Joint Meeting of Manhattan Community Boards 2 and 4. The upcoming needs assessment (aka Monkey Survey) was nothing but a farce, SMOKE-and-MIRRORS to provide the Rudin family cover to buy St. Vincent's and turn it into luxury condos.

Assess Your Access Community Forum

Voters have no say in their government under the administration of Speaker Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.