MUHLENBERG DISPUTE CONTINUES

That is the main headline in today's Courier. Mark Spivey writes to the status of the preconditions that Commissioner Howard placed on enacting the MRMC closure. The status or lack thereof has been a repeated subject of public comments at the Council meetings as well as of the "Plainfield Bogs"

As Mark Spivey writes the subject seems to be in limbo with accusations from the city protagonist and Solaris as to who is responsible for the non action. Who to believe?

It is difficult to accept Solaris' spokesman Steve Weise assertion that on Oct 10th there was a handshake agreement which the city has not signed. Solaris has been less than honest from the onset of its manipulations to close MRMC. Many of the conditions imposed in the granting of the CN that were required to be met have been given only lip service, others ignored completely. Despite many press releases there have been no positive results.

On the other hand Plainfield's Mayor seems to be unavailable too many times for comments. Assemblyman Green's blog is full of childish tirades against all the bogymen on the Internet to be believable. He also has lost public confidence in the secrecy associated with all his proclamations of the great deeds that he is accomplishing to negate the present disaster for Plainfield's health needs. Accountability is not there. Nor does responsibility for the City's position rest on his shoulders, instead it should be the Administration and Council's prerogative.

Plainfield Today does do an excellent job in exposing failures by all involved in this mess. However, as Green points out, there is a political taint to his column resulting from his active involvement in the so called New Democrats that clouds his remarks and puts a damper on motivation. This is unfortunate because "White is white and Black is black" and unless definitive factual rebuttal to his charges are produced, then their validity must be accepted.

Sadly, there is no transparency as to (a) any viable plan to in situ replace Muhlenbedrg, (b) What value Solaris has placed on the Muhlenberg campus,(c) is it realistic in today's economy or just an insincere attempt to satisfy a precondition,(c) Is the so called valuation for the total property of just segments? The Mayor not the city party chairman should answer.

Let us face it, all the conditions Green and the Administration are seeking from Solaris are no more than a band aid in respect to what Plainfield requires for even minimally adequate health care. No amount of money poured into the Neighborhood Health Center can supply that need.

In an unrelated subject, my granddaughter who is employed by the State of Ohio has informed me that the state has imposed a mandatory 10 days furlough without pay on all state employees. More large government units are going to do something similar, already New Jersey has intimated that they will not honor the home owner's rebate. We can not hope that the "stimulus" will eliminated cost saving measures, just hope it can prevent complete financial collapse.