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Volume XX • Number 50 • December 12-18, 2013 •
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Board presses Montefiore to alter plans By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER Community Board 8’s land use committee resolved on Monday to oppose Montefiore Medical Center’s existing plan to build an 11-story, 93,000-square-foot medical facility on Riverdale Avenue near West 238th Street. Primary reasons for the committee’s stand were unanimous community objections to the project’s size and the anticipation of more street congestion, fewer parking spots and undue competition with established local medical practices. The committee resolved “that Montefiore be prohibited from receiving any Federal, State or local funding, including UJA contract funding for research grants or any funding not directly related to its care-giving operations, until such time as Montefiore Hospital responds to community concerns strongly stated at the Community Board 8 Land Use meetings by substantially rethinking the entire proposed project.” The resolution may be amended by the full community board.
Although the proposed construction is an as-of-right development that doesn’t require board approval in that it complies with existing zoning and other regulations, the committee recommended that the full board request a Department of Health investigation into the construction plan, involving a different kind of oversight. State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz wrote a letter on December 9 to Department of Health commissioner Dr. Nirav R. Shah requesting that he require Montefiore and WESTMED to file a certificate of need application for the plan before any construction can begin. The certificate is legally called for, the letter explains, because capital construction costs for a facility that provides therapeutic radiology services, ambulatory surgery and dialysis stations will exceed the monetary threshold that triggers either a full or administrative review. Furthermore, Department of Health review should also be mandated by the applicant’s status as a hospital regulated under Article 28 of the Public Health Law.
“Before such a facility is approved, it is crucial for the Department to examine if this facility is actually needed in Riverdale,” the letter concludes. “That is why we request that a CON application process be commenced and finalized before construction of such project is permitted to commence.” The committee’s resolution came toward the end of a jam-packed two-hour meeting that began with a presentation by Jeffrey A. Moerdler, the attorney representing Simone Healthcare Development Group. Simone was hired by Montefiore to develop the property, a lot that combines 3741 and 3735 Riverdale Avenue with a contiguous parcel at 3644 Oxford Avenue. WESTMED Medical Group was hired to operate the center, planned as a provider of multi-specialist care, radiology services and outpatient surgery—along with onsite parking. Moerdler outlined concessions made by his client in the wake of last month’s land use meeting, where Continued on Page 9
Protest over swastika burned into grass at Seton Park
By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER A Seton Park ball field was defiled last week when a vandal burned two swastikas into the turf. Three RKA students were there enjoying a baseball workout after school when they made the shocking discovery. They decided they’d better call home to find out what should be done. One mom called 311 and was told to call 911. Before long, the police and a parks maintenance crew arrived to obliterate the ugly marks and mend the turf. Community response was also swift on the final night of Hanukkah. Religious leaders galvanized an interfaith assemblage. They emailed congregants, who gathered with their neighbors in the park at dusk to light a big menorah—out in left field, right beside the patched-up spot. “The action that you guys took led to this event,” the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale’s Rabbi Ari Hart told the three young heroes who stopped their workout to report the problem. “We’re all standing against hate together. I know it was a really scary thing to see that, but maybe there’s a positive, which is what we’re doing here right now.” John Mueser, senior warden at Christ Church Riverdale, offered prayers for a life of peace, quiet and wisdom. “Our hope is that the light of our Advent wreath will be joined with the light of the Hanukkah menorah and the light that we all hold to eliminate the darkness.” “We’re here in solidarity with everybody,” said Sheikh Moussa Drammeh of Masjid Al-Iman—a Parkchester mosque that hosts an Orthodox Jewish congregation in need of a space to worship. “We’re not looking at race or religion. We’re looking at fellow New Yorkers
being attacked with a hateful symbol,” Drammeh said. “The hateful people are very, very small. They are very insignificant. But
our presence defeats that. So we’re here with you, and we will always be by your side when such things happen. And we pray that this will be the last time that
we discover such a sign. “We’re saying no to hateful acts,” Drammeh continued. “In our religion, Continued on Page 9
Rabbi Ari Hart lights the menorah on the last night of Chanukah as an interfaith crowd gathered in Seton Park in protest of the swastika which was burned into the grass of the park the day before.