Muhlenberg: City's appeal shows Mayor confused, ill-prepared

Plainfielders may well breath a sigh of relief that the city is filing an appeal against Commissioner Heather Howard's decision to grant Solaris Health System's request to close Muhlenberg.

The language, cited in today's front-page Courier story (see here) is succinct and to the point --

that Howard's decision was "arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, and ... not supported by substantial credible evidence."

Which is what Muhlenberg supporters, led by the Peoples Organization for Progress, has been saying all along.

So, hooray for the City putting a little muscle in, even though Assemblyman Green seems to damn the move with faint praise --

"She wants to protect the city, and that I have to support her on.''

What is alarming is how little Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs seems to have learned from the months-long struggle over the closing and how ill-prepared she is to mount a real effort on the closure question.

In Tuesday's story, Mayor Robinson-Briggs told the Courier --

"We had what I felt was a very good meeting last week with the commissioner and her staff, and it does appear that the state would like to continue to work with us. They were very helpful, and everyone who spoke at the meeting did say positive things that really made me feel they wanted to work with the city,'' Robinson-Briggs said. "But the situation is that the deadline is this week, and since my office has not received any correspondence (regarding) what was agreed upon at the meeting, we have to have a notice of appeal ... in order to protect the rights for the community of Plainfield.''

Firstly, the mayor seems to confuse the nicey-nice of a sit-down meeting with real commitments to do something (which, to be enforceable, are always given in writing). And second, she acknowledges she was waiting for Commissioner Howard to set down in writing what was agreed upon.

The Commissioner and Solaris have made it perfectly clear over the last six months that they share a common strategy: Let the clock run out.

If Mayor Robinson-Briggs had grasped that fact, she could have been more proactive, including taping or transcribing the meeting and following up immediately with her own -- pre-emptive -- letter to the Commissioner outlining what the City saw as agreed to.

Such a letter, by the way, could have been used by the Mayor to rally the community and the Council, and could even have been posted on the City's website. (But that's a communications issue, and we've been there before.)

Lastly, Mayor Robinson-Briggs seems not to have given a thought to rallying the other affected communities until Ward 3 candidate Adrian Mapp raised the issue.

This has been a sore point all along. While the Muhlenberg supporters and POP worked intensively to rally ALL the communities affected by the closure and not just Plainfield, Mayor Robinson-Briggs and Assemblyman Green threw their efforts behind the Assemblyman's task force, the principal object of which was to smooth the way for Solaris' plan to close Muhlenberg.

So it is hardly any wonder that the Mayor comes to the idea only after being prodded. Only time will tell, but Robinson-Briggs' statement hardly sounds like that of a firm leader of a cause --

"There will be communications within the next day or two with area mayors just to see what the position is for their municipalities and seeing whether or not we move forward together, finding out who's on board."

She hasn't been in touch all along? She hasn't rallied them and worked out a common plan of action?

Given Robinson-Briggs' prior leadership and her comments on the current situation with regard to an appeal -- and her stated willingness to withdraw it -- it is hardly surprising that Solaris has, as their spokesperson Steven Weiss says --

"...full confidence that the commissioner's decision was made in the best interests of health care in the region...and reached through an independent assessment of all necessary facts and information."

Which is pretty much what the Assemblyman's task force concluded.

And there you have it.


Quibble: Whoever is counting the Council votes on the matter, a vote with 6 ayes, 0 nays, and one abstention would be recorded as "6-0-1", not "6-0".

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• Courier, Wednesday: "Solaris confident as Plainfield files appeal"
• Courier, Tuesday: "Plainfield to file notice of appeal over Muhlenberg closing"

-- Dan Damon

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