Ad praising Jerry part of plan to embarrass Council?

Full-page ad thanks the Assemblyman.

The full-page feel-good ad (see image HERE) in this past Tuesday's Ledger thanking Assemblyman Green has raised quite a few eyebrows.

The first question on readers' minds is: Where did the money come from to pay for the ad?

With this size ad running upwards of $7,000, it's a good question indeed -- especially since the signers include Muhlenberg, JFK and the NHSC Plainfield Health Center. So, for all the poormouthing, Solaris can still dredge up money for this kind of ephemeral nonsense? The Neighborhood Health Services Corp. (PHC) is also rumored to be feeling the financial pinch, but they have money for a throwaway piece like this?

Are the city's coffers so flush that Mayor Robinson-Briggs can chip in -- or did she get a free ride? If she did chip in, where did her money come from and who authorized the payment?

Word in the street, however, is that the ad is not a freewill love offering by the signers, but that they were solicited to chip in $1000 or more apiece for the puff piece. The Assemblyman owes it to his constituents to verify the truth or falsity of the rumor -- maybe with another full page ad?

Secondly, the ad cites Assemblyman Green's "strong leadership and steadfast advocacy in the fight to preserve access to affordable, quality health care for residents of the greater Plainfield communities". One reader notes that all the Assemblyman ever had was 'a Plan B' (smoothing the closing of Muhlenberg) instead of a 'Plan A' to fight for keeping it open.

Lastly, in an email currently being circulated by Dottie Gutenkauf, she writes

Monday's meeting (6:30 pm at duCret) will be brief ... at 7:30 pm we are going to the Plainfield City Council agenda-fixing meeting in the City Hall Library to demand that they show some leadership in the struggle to save our hospital. It's long past time for them to take action!

Is the full-page ad thanking Jerry Green part of a coordinated effort to paint the Council as unsupportive, with Dottie G. leading the charge?

Readers should understand that the Council has done and said exactly what it has been allowed to do and say -- by Assemblyman Jerry Green. All the growling by the Council President at the State's hearing at PHS on June 6 was strictly per the Assemblyman.

Whether or not the Council could have taken any effective action, the reason they didn't act was they were told not to upstage the Assemblyman by looking more pro-active than he. Not even by passing a resolution of support for the universal health care bill then working its way through the Legislature.

So, Monday night's Council meeting will be, like the full-page ad, just another piece of political theater -- designed, not to save Muhlenberg, but to leave the Assemblyman positioned as the statesman who smoothed the way for the shutdown of Muhlenberg Hospital.

Which is at least half true.

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-- Dan Damon

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