Tweeding involved in Wyckoff mess

From the NY Times:

In recent years, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn has often gone hat in hand to the city and state, lamenting cuts in government assistance and questioning whether officials truly understood the burden of running a nonprofit hospital in Bushwick, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

For much of that time, Wyckoff’s chief executive was driving to work in a Bentley Continental GT, a $160,000 automobile, and at one point, the hospital paid thousands of dollars to insure the vehicle, according to hospital records and interviews. When the chief executive lost his license after an accident, hospital security guards chauffeured him and his wife around the clock in a Cadillac Escalade or a Lincoln Town Car.

The chief executive, Rajiv Garg, was not the only one who benefited from his ties with Wyckoff. One member of the hospital’s board obtained for the pharmacy that he owned the exclusive right to market prescription drugs to hospital patients. Another board member lent $2.4 million to the ailing Wyckoff at 12 percent interest, with the hospital required to put up several of its buildings as security.

Local politicians also joined in. Allies of United States Representative Edolphus Towns, Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez and Councilman Erik Martin Dilan have landed high-level positions at the hospital, despite questionable qualifications, further weakening its management. Mr. Dilan’s wife became the hospital’s director of public relations.

Many hospitals in downtrodden areas of New York City and across the state are faltering, raising concerns that a wave of closings will deprive poor people of badly needed care.

A three-month investigation by The New York Times into Wyckoff, based on dozens of interviews and an examination of internal documents, offers a sobering portrait of how one such hospital has been undermined by the very people entrusted to run it.

Electeds call for repair of Navy Yard structure

From HDC Blog:

February 28, 2011

The Honorable John McHugh
Secretary of the Army
1400 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1400

Dear Secretary McHugh:

We are concerned about the historic structures of national significance on the Admirals Row site at the Army’s former Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. Admirals Row is a six-acre section of the property which was vacated in the mid-1970’s but has remained in federal control. We ask that you ensure quick action to allow emergency stabilization of the Timber Shed and Building B in advance of the planned property transfer, while also completing the transfer expeditiously. These historic structures are severely deteriorated and in need of emergency repairs and stabilization if they are to be saved.

The National Guard Bureau (NGB) has identified these two buildings on the site to save. However, due to agency constraints is unable to perform the needed work on the Timber shed. The potential and likely purchaser, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC), which controls the remainder of the Yard, has communicated their willingness to undertake that work, but has been unable to obtain the necessary agreement from the Army Corps of Engineers and the NGB. The BNYDC has successfully executed other building preservation efforts at the yard, and is the designated agent of the City of New York to which the property is slated for transfer, by an act of Congress.

It is disappointing to see these historic structures further deteriorate while their preservation is held up by administrative processes. The 1853 Timber Shed is the last remaining of its type in the country and Building B would be the only one of the row buildings preserved. Understanding that the Department of the Army takes its responsibilities for historic preservation seriously, the current delays are surely the result of well-intentioned actors. However, the urgency of the situation needs to be addressed. We understand that two million dollars of federal funding has been identified for preservation of this property. We applaud that level of commitment by the Department of the Army, and ask that while the transfer paperwork is being completed, all efforts be made to hasten the site access by BNYDC to perform the urgent stabilization work on these two historic structures.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer, United States Senator
Kirsten E. Gillibrand, United States Senator
Edolphus “Ed” Towns, United States Representative
Nydia Velázquez, United States Representative

Mary Immaculate to become cancer center?

From Crains:

Backers of a hugely expensive proposed proton beam cancer treatment facility in Jamaica, Queens, are pinning their hopes of winning the necessary state approvals on ties to several powerful local politicians.

Currently the New York State Department of Health is reviewing three competing proposals for a proton beam facility in the area, including two in New York City.

Proton beam technology allows radiation to be emitted in precisely focused cancer-killing doses, but the cost of building and equipping such a facility is more than $200 million. The cost is so prohibitive that currently there are only eight such centers in the U.S.

The leading contender is a consortium of several of the city's leading hospitals: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Beth Israel Medical Center, NYU Langone Medical Center, Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian. They are pitching a $227 million facility proposed for West 57th Street in Manhattan. The hospitals will provide some equity, with additional financing arranged by their partner 21st Century Oncology, a national developer and operator of about 100 radiation therapy centers.

A second contender is Vassar Brothers Medical Center, which hopes to join with New York-Presbyterian to open a $201 million proton-beam center upstate in Fishkill, N.Y.

A $273 million center proposed for the former site of Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens is the most controversial of the three, in part because of its heavy reliance on political muscle to carry the day. Officially known as The Proton Therapy Cancer Center of New York, or TPTCC NY, its backers are negotiating with the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System and SUNY Downstate Medical Center about a clinical affiliation with the proposed center.

But against overwhelming competition from its Manhattan rival, the consortium of New York's most prestigious medical centers, the Queens project ranks as the distinct underdog in the race for approval.

To improve its odds, TPTCC NY has enlisted the aid of three politicians. For openers, TPTCC NY is behind a Senate bill (S8419), sponsored by Sen. Majority Leader John Sampson of Brooklyn, that would make the state approve more than one of the three projects. Referred to the Senate rules committee on June 30, the bill reads “the operation of more than one demonstration site in a large city will better allow the Department of Health to test the efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness of proton beam therapy. Furthermore, estimated demand for such services exceeds maximum capacity for a single site.”

The Queens project has other politicians on its side. Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Ed Towns are supporting a controversial plan to help it raise capital. Its backers filed a request with the Department of Homeland Security to raise $250 million using the federal EB 5 foreign investment program. Under the proposal, 500 foreign investors will each put up $500,000, and as a result, if all conditions are met, will get permanent U.S. residency in return.

Last month, Mr. Schumer wrote a letter to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in support of this proposal "to raise $250 million of foreign investment to construct a much-needed groundbreaking cancer treatment facility in New York City that will create an estimated 2,800 jobs and save countless American lives."

Shady charity working out of Brooklyn crap office funded by congress

From the Daily News:

Brooklyn Rep. Ed Towns tried to steer $5.3 million in taxpayer money to a nonprofit that employs one of his staffers, the Daily News has learned.

The group, Trinity Community Development and Empowerment Group Inc., lists a vacant building as its address and a total of $329 in revenue on its 2008 tax filing.

Towns' sponsored $500,000 for the group, and joined with Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn) to get Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Queens) to sponsor another $4.8 million for Trinity.

Late Thursday, Meeks and Towns withdrew both requests after the Daily News raised questions about conflict of interest caused by Towns' staffer. Clarke did not return calls.

Two hours before pulling the plug, Towns' spokeswoman, Jenny Rosenberg, praised the group, saying: "Mr. Towns thinks this is a good organization and he wants to support people and organizations who are doing good things in the community."

Towns' staffer, Christopher Lundy, is listed as a congressional aide making just under $37,000 in 2009, records compiled by the government watchdog site legistorm.org, show.

Lundy was listed as working 20 hours a week for the non-profit, Trinity's 2008 tax filing shows.

Rosenberg claimed Towns withdrew his support for the congressional funding "once he learned of the possible conflict."

Rosenberg told The News Lundy claimed he received approval from the House Ethics Committee to hold both positions. She declined to elaborate.

Who actually read the health bill?

From WPIX:

NEW YORK (WPIX) - The health care reform act is considered landmark legislation that will impact all Americans. But a vast majority profess being ignorant when it comes to understanding the bill. Though the House of Representatives voted 219 to 212 to pass the bill, we were curious to learn how many of the Congressional members from the Tri-State area, actually read the voluminous bill -- all 2,407 pages.

In all, we reached the offices of 31 representatives, and left messages for 10, 8 promised to get back to us, 1 asked us to send an e-mail request, and we succeeded in getting responses or quasi responses from 11.

Congressman Charles Rangel admitted he hadn't read every page, but read enough of it to vote intelligently. "Truth is," he said, I was on the committee that helped write the bill."

To find out more on how your local representative voted on Sunday, check out the PIX Blog for the full, exclusive story by WPIX reporter Marvin Scott.

From Gothamist:

Health-care facilities in NYC spent $3.5 billion providing uncompensated care in 2008 to the uninsured, and according to Weiner that will end once an estimated 625,000 of the city's 1.1 million uninsured get coverage. He asserts that 142,922 city residents who currently suffer from pre-existing conditions will now be able to get "affordable" insurance, and 204,000 businesses with 25 or fewer employees and average wages of $50,000 or less will qualify for tax credits to buy health insurance. The bill will also do something about the thousands of health care-related bankruptcies in NYC.

Bullshit. We'll still be paying for health care for illegals who are draining the system.

Please don't interfere with honest graft

From the NY Times:

As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Representative Edolphus Towns has not been shy about criticizing the excesses of the financial services industry, from executive bonuses to Wall Street profits, as well as the spotty track record of some bond-rating agencies.

But his refusal to subpoena records involving Countrywide Financial, a company blamed for lending practices that contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis, has made Mr. Towns himself the target of criticism.

For months, Mr. Towns, a Brooklyn Democrat, has rebuffed Republican efforts to subpoena documents concerning Countrywide’s V.I.P. program, which gave special treatment to high-profile customers, including federal mortgage regulators and at least two United States senators. The standoff took on a more personal tone last month, when a published report said that two loans issued through the program were given to Mr. Towns.