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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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VILLAGE OF RIDGEWOODMAYOR & COUNCIL
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2011COMMENCING AT 7:00 P.M.
..............................IN THE MATTER OF : TRANSCRIPT OFPROPOSED VALLEY HOSPITAL : PROCEEDINGSEXPANSION PUBLIC HEARING :..............................
B E F O R E:
VILLAGE OF RIDGEWOOD MAYOR & COUNCILTHERE BEING PRESENT:
KEITH D. KILLION, MAYOR
THOMAS M. RICHE, DEPUTY MAYOR
PAUL ARONSOHN, COUNCILMAN
BERNADETTE WALSH, COUNCILWOMAN
LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS
P.O. BOX 505SADDLE BROOK, NJ 07663
201-641-1812201-843-0515 [email protected]
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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A L S O P R E S E N T:
DR. KENNETH GABBERT, VILLAGE MANAGER
HEATHER MAILANDER, VILLAGE CLERK
A P P E A R A N C E S:
PRICE MEESE SHULMAN & D'ARMINIO, P.C.BY: MATTHEW ROGERS, ESQ.50 Tice BoulevardWoodcliff Lake, New Jersey 07677Counsel for the Mayor & Council
LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS
P.O. BOX 505SADDLE BROOK, NJ 07663
201-641-1812201-843-0515 [email protected]
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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I N D E X
S P E A K E R S: PAGE
JOSEPH STAIGAR , P.E. 8
JOHN J. LAMB, ESQ. 89
ROBIN GOLDFISCHER, ESQ. 93
GENE CORNELL 98623 Belmont Road
JANET TUOMEY 10059 John Street
CATHY BENSON 105570 Fairway Road
ZIGI PUTNINS 108572 Fairway Road
LISA KENDER 111334 Fairway Road
DAVID LIPSON 114302 Heights Road
TOM KOSSOFF 11746 Heermance Place
LAWRENCE KELTY 120438 Colonial Road
LEE WARREN 122140 Washington Place
GWEN HAUTK 127217 Fairmount Road
EXHIBITS
NUMBER DESCRIPTION IDENT./EVID.
(NO EXHIBITS MARKED)
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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MAYOR KILLION: Call to order,
statement of compliance. Adequate notice of this
meeting has been provided by a posting on the
bulletin board, Village Hall, by mail to The
Ridgewood News, The Record, and by submission to all
persons entitled to the same as provided by law of
the schedule including the time and date of this
meeting.
Will you please all rise and join me in
the flag salute?
The flag is located right there
(indicating).
(Whereupon, all rise for a recitation
of the Pledge of Allegiance.)
MAYOR KILLION: Heather, could I have a
roll call, please?
MS. MAILANDER: Councilman Aronsohn?
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Here.
MS. MAILANDER: Councilman Riche?
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Here.
MS. MAILANDER: Councilwoman Walsh?
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Here.
MS. MAILANDER: Councilman Wellinghorst
is absent.
MAYOR KILLION: Right, Councilman
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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Wellinghorst is out of town on business tonight.
He's going to watch the meeting live on his computer.
MS. MAILANDER: Okay. We're going to
have a brief overview. The meeting starts at 7:00.
It will end promptly at 10:00. We have public
comment which is three minutes, please -- at one
time, one bite at the apple, as my predecessor used
to say, so you can only speak once.
There is a sign-up sheet -- for those
who came late, there's a sign-up sheet for those who
wish to speak. The Clerk will call your name.
Please turn off all cell phones or at
least silence them. Please refrain from clapping,
applause, boos or yelling out. You certainly may
display signs under the First Amendment, but do not
hang them on the wall or destroy the walls.
Before we start, I have a brief
statement to read.
I would like to advise the public that
through its attorney, the Council received last
Friday a letter from Charles Collins, Counsel for
Valley Hospital, making reference to an article that
appeared in The Record on Tuesday, September 13th.
In his letter, Mr. Collins intimidated
that there is a preconception that the Council has
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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predetermined its position regarding the proposed
amendments in the Master Plan, as it pertains to the
Hospital Zone. Nothing could be farther from the
truth.
The Council has taken great pains to
make sure the process utilized in its review of the
testimony and exhibits before the Planning Board is
fair and open. And its decision to open the meetings
for comments from the public provide any party with
the opportunity to make its position and reasoning
known to the Council.
Throughout the long and contemptuous
process taken up by this matter since 2006, the
elected officials of the Village have refrained from
committing an official opinion as members of the
Council on this issue. We will continue to proceed
in this manner until we conclude our process and will
not be influenced by alleged perceptions, whether it
be written or press, discussed at a meeting or
communicated in writing, written correspondence.
Also I'd like to say that it's
fundamental in the American system of democracy that
as a candidate for elected office you are able to
express your views on issues you may need to address,
if elected, to advise the voters of your reasoning
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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and opinion on specific matter and then, if elected,
participate in legislation or decision process on the
same issue discussed during campaign.
I have been advised that there are
court decisions, both state and federal, backing this
up.
Is the traffic expert here?
MS. MAILANDER: I don't believe he is
here yet, no.
MR. LAMB: He just got here.
MS. MAILANDER: Oh, did he? Okay.
Good.
MR. LAMB: No? Sorry.
MAYOR KILLION: Right now we're going
to hear a summary of traffic issues presented by
Joseph Staigar P.E., P.P., of Staigar Engineering
Limited.
Mr. Staigar.
MR. LAMB: He's not here.
MAYOR KILLION: He's not here.
Somebody told me he was here.
MR. LAMB: I thought he was here.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay. Until he gets
here, right now we're going to entertain comment from
attorneys on both sides.
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: He's here.
MAYOR KILLION: Sorry, attorneys, he
showed up.
MS. MAILANDER: That's a good thing.
MAYOR KILLION: Yes.
Come on right up.
I would also like to apologize, we're
so far back it's --
MR. ROGERS: Joe, the podium.
MAYOR KILLION: The podium. I'm sorry.
The podium. Yes.
We're so far back, but as people were
watching last time, there was a lot of feedback.
So, it was planned that we move us back
from the speakers. It's not that we're trying to
hide.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Not yet, at
least.
MAYOR KILLION: Not yet, yes. Thank
you, Councilman Aronsohn.
MR. STAIGAR: Do you want me here?
MAYOR KILLION: Sir, would you please
address the Council?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
MAYOR KILLION: For the record your
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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name?
MR. STAIGAR: My name is Joseph
Staigar.
Just bear with me one second.
MAYOR KILLION: Sure.
MR. STAIGAR: Okay.
Yes, I was the traffic consultant for
the Planning Board in the proceedings of the -- for
the Hospital.
MAYOR KILLION: Mr. Staigar, could you
give this Council a brief summary of --
MR. STAIGAR: Who I am, and what do I
do?
MAYOR KILLION: And also, basically,
what you told the Planning Board.
MR. STAIGAR: Sure.
I am a professional engineer licensed
in the State of New Jersey. And I've been practicing
as a traffic engineer throughout the State of New
Jersey as well as throughout the northeast.
Traffic engineers, in addition to
designing roads and highways, we analyze traffic
systems. We project how much traffic future
development will generate, what will happen when that
additional traffic is superimposed on roadway
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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networks and analyze what may need to be done to
mitigate any impacts. And that's essentially what
was involved with that.
Over the course of many months, I
reviewed and performed my own -- reviewed a number of
documents, traffic analyses that were prepared by
Bertin Engineering, who were the traffic consultants
for -- for the Hospital, but also made my own
independent analyses, made my own traffic counts,
field measurements and my own capacity analyses as
well.
To capsulate what transpired and what
were the results of the many months of review, I did
prepare a -- a May 3rd, 2010 letter to the Planning
Board, which provided a summary of what the findings
were. And, maybe, if I can just run through those,
that may help the Board, and I'm sure the Council, of
what my results were.
The one thing that we did find that
there was some discrepancy and some concern of how
trip generation, how much traffic the proposal or the
so-called expansion of the Hospital would
incorporate.
The Hospital's contention was we're
ten-pounds in a five-pound bag and all we really want
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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to do is expand to be what a typical hospital is of
today. And a lot of that made sense to me. Their
expansion was related to having single rooms, private
rooms, so to speak. The equipment that's needed, the
diagnostic equipment that's needed at the Hospital is
immense to what it was in the past years.
So, certainly, there is a -- a need for
more floor area then -- then -- of today's hospital
then of yesterdays, only from that basis.
Their contention was that we were not
going to increase traffic at all, all we're doing is
trying to take that hospital and -- and take the same
amount of services for the people and -- and put it
in a -- in a bigger -- bigger floor area.
What I did was, we studied -- we sat at
the driveways of the existing hospital and counted
cars in and out, to determine what were the traffic
characteristics of the existing hospital. And we
did, indeed, find that the amount of traffic that's
generated today by Valley Hospital is very much
higher in intensity than it is for the typical
hospital elsewhere. We had trip generation rates of
how much traffic a hospital should generate. And we
found that Valley Hospital did generate far more
traffic than what the typical hospital was, which
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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kind of gave credence or believability credible -- to
be credible that the Hospital is jam packed in a
smaller floor area than what they need.
We went further and found deficiencies
in the traffic flow in the area.
And we keyed in particularly at the
intersection of Linwood Avenue and Van Dien Avenue,
that intersection backs up extensively in a northerly
direction, the queuing.
That northerly queuing interferes with
the Hospital driveways. It's gridlocked at times.
And what we saw was walking down the street from the
school, Benjamin Franklin School, is a high volume of
school children from that middle school. And many
times that they cross the site driveway, they're
walking in between cars.
There are crossing guards at each and
every one of those driveways, but because of the
gridlock they're walking, so -- through stacked cars.
So, we had concerns, safety concerns,
particularly for the school children going to and
from the school.
The end result of finally what we
agreed with the Hospital was to make improvements to
the Van Dien and Linwood Avenue intersection by
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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adding additional lanes, particularly left turn lane
in the southbound Van Dien Avenue approach and a
right turn lane for the westbound Linwood Avenue.
That's the traffic if the Hospital is sitting on one
of the corners, the traffic flow would be the right
turn from Linwood onto Van Dien across the Hospital
frontage and then the left turn southbound onto
Linwood Avenue would be the reverse flow of that
right turn. That's the majority of traffic flow.
And those are the volumes -- those are
the heaviest volumes in the area. The Hospital is
probably the major, if not the most -- well, probably
the most significant trip generator through that
intersection and to the area.
So, that's reflected by the -- those
two turning movements.
So, by improving that intersection, by
adding lanes, it improves the existing conditions
extensively. That queuing that you see in a
northerly direction from the intersection of Linwood
and Van Dien would be virtually eliminated, the
extensive queuing so that it would not back up into
the driveways. There would be improvements to the
intersection signalization as well, to make it run
more efficiently.
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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So, the compound effect of increased
lanes as well as improved efficiency to the traffic
signal system, would improve the capacity of that
intersection extensively, as I said, to virtually
eliminate -- I'm not going to say it's going to
absolutely clean it up and make it so it's no
backups, but certainly not to -- no where near the
extent that it backs up now across the Hospital
driveways and up towards the middle school.
That was one of the major improvements
that they were going to be made. And my
recommendation was that those major improvements be
done at the very early stages of construction. One
of the first things that should be done before the
main campus is -- is -- is constructed, so that that
traffic can flow, can be improved and that safety can
be enhanced as well.
So that should be -- that -- my
recommendation was those improvements should be made
at the very early stages of the construction
commencement.
We also looked at the intersection of
North Van Dien Avenue and Red Birch Court/East Glen
Avenue. It's got two names to it. It's unsignalized
at that intersection.
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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I think the police department as well
as -- yes, the police department primarily found that
they weren't quite sure what to do at that
intersection. And the answer might be to signalize
it, but I'm not sure that the signal warrants are met
at that intersection. But, again, that -- that
should be studied further in concert with the police
department.
We looked at a couple of things there,
a four-way stop as well, at that intersection. But,
again, that was something that it's a possibility,
but it may not be a appropriate for that
intersection. I'm not quite sure what needs to be
done as that intersection, if it operates at level --
we call Level of Service F, now, "F" as in "Frank".
Signalization may be an answer, but it doesn't seem
like the absolute answer. And it's an existing
condition. But, again, I think that needs further
study.
Signal operation -- number three,
another improvement would be signal operation
coordination of the Linwood Avenue intersections with
Van Dien and North Pleasant Avenue. And what we
found was another difficult spot was the Linwood
Avenue driveway of the Hospital with John Street,
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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that intersection. Also Linwood Avenue -- Linwood
Avenue operated fairly well at that unsignalized
intersection. It was the Hospital driveway that
backed up extensively. And if these two signals at
Van Dien and at Mount Pleasant (sic) were
coordinated, the timing was coordinated -- North
Pleasant Avenue, the timing was coordinated, that
could reduce artifical gaps in traffic to allow
better maneuvers out of the Hospital driveway.
We're still not -- I'm still not
entirely convinced that that coordination of signals
will significantly reduce the queueing and backups
that we'll see in the Hospital driveway at Linwood
Avenue and that a police officer or traffic control
at that site driveway -- particularly during the
shift change, the afternoon shift change between 2:30
and 3:30 p.m. that implementation of police traffic
control can be decided post-construction, and when
the Hospital, the new hospital is in full operation,
and could be at the discretion of the police
department, whether they feel they need that or not.
Internal improvements would be a no
left turn at the Kurth Cottage driveway immediately
after motorists enter the driveway, because there's
such a short stack as you enter off of Van Dien
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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Street and if you try to make an immediate left, you
may be blocked by vehicles trying to exit out of that
driveway.
So someone sitting there and trying to
make that immediate left into the parking lot may
cause a backup onto Van Dien.
John Street would be a right turn exit
only for eastbound traffic, continue on the eastbound
traffic on Linwood Avenue.
Improve traffic and pedestrian safety
along the frontage roads of the Hospital to include
improved signage, crosswalks, other traffic control
and calming devices. Reevaluate and improve the
wayfarer sign. Now the wayfarer, W-a-y-f-a-r-e-r, is
the blue signs. You see the blue signs were the "H"
on it, you know, so that you know that the Hospital
is straight or make a left or make a right.
We want to make sure that people that
are trying to get to the Hospital are not circulating
around -- around the neighborhoods and making K-turns
in people's driveways and such.
So that should be improved, not only
within the Borough of Ridgewood, I think it should be
a concern and effort with abutting municipalities as
well.
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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Parking management plan, this is going
to be a very large project. There's going to be a
lot of construction workers. There's going to be the
need for storage for construction equipment. There
is -- there was a parking management plan whereby the
staff of the Hospital would not park on-site, that
the parking for the remaining parking space would be
for visitors and doctors and then may be certain
personnel. But the majority of -- of staff people
would be parked off-site, undetermined locations at
this point, but they would you be shuttled back and
forth. As that's how the loss of parking during the
construction phase would be -- would be handled.
I think the Borough needs to see a
phased parking management plan as the construction --
well, before the construction starts, as well as
during the construction process.
And then -- and then a -- what was kind
of lacking in the traffic report was a -- a -- a
parking management plan as well.
I observed the way that the parking is
accommodated now. There's allocation for doctors,
for staff and for visitors. And there seems to be
certain areas of the parking lot that are over-parked
because people double parking and parking where they
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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shouldn't be parking. And there's other areas of the
existing parking that there's empty spaces.
So, a post-construction parking
management plan needs to be prepared and implemented.
And that plan, it's not -- we're not going to come up
with absolute final answer on day one. It's going to
have to be a plan, a work in progress, because the
Hospital is going to have to adjust the parking
allocations, where the doctors park, where the staff
parks, where the -- where the visitors park as well,
to find -- to find, eventually, a balance of how to
allocate that parking. Parking is very tight on the
existing site. There is a -- the proposal is to
expand it in the order of five or 10 percent, which
should be about the minimum amount that would be
needed for expansion.
So that parking management plan would
identify if there's any need for additional parking
as well.
And I think a key aspect was the
parking garages, particularly the one at Linwood
Avenue, closest to Linwood Avenue, was originally
designed to be -- have levels that were not
interconnected and I did not like that because it
bought an overburden of traffic to one location,
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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exiting particularly exiting at Linwood Avenue, but
if they were interconnected with one another, then I
think people would certainly find a balance between,
"well, you know, the last time I used Linwood Avenue.
I was waiting in line with 20 other people, let me go
try Van Dien, and that may be a lot easier".
So, to have an interconnection of the
parking decks would be more efficient and reduce
congestion, queuing and driver frustration.
And, lastly, the easterly side of the
Hospital is going to be the location where the truck
traffic would be, deliveries would occur. And we
have quite a few residents -- residential properties
with their rear yards that butt up against the
Hospital and to provide a sound and a visual barrier
to separate that -- those deliveries and that truck
activity, particularly, from those residents, to
protect those residents as well.
Those are the -- there was -- it was 12
points, and those are my 12 points.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay. Thank you, very
much.
MR. STAIGAR: You're welcome.
MAYOR KILLION: We're now going to open
it up to questions or comments by the Council
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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Members.
With the Council's permission, I'll
lead off on this one.
I have a few questions. In my past
life I was a police officer in this town for
30 years, so I find reading these notes very
interesting or the -- not the notes, but the Planning
Board testimony. And I do have some practical
knowledge of the situation.
I'm going to start off on the Planning
Board meeting of May 6th, 2008, page 85, line 11, you
stated that you did your own spot checks on peak
times.
How many of these spot checks did you
do? And what were the times?
MR. STAIGAR: Oh, I -- I did them on a
-- only once, meaning that if I -- I went out several
times, but I only did the morning and the afternoon
counts once at -- at the key intersection. The key
intersections were the intersection of Linwood and
Van Dien, and then also the -- the driveways of the
-- of the Hospital.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: So, when I say that, I
know that the peak -- there's several peak hours.
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There's -- you have a lot of interaction going on.
You have the Hospital, itself. The Hospital
generates its peak activity when the shift changes.
MAYOR KILLION: Yes.
MR. STAIGAR: That's 7:00, 8:00.
You also have the school also
generating its peak activity almost simultaneously
with that morning shift. And then you have the
normal commuters that are -- that are on the road as
well.
So you really have three activities
going on that generate traffic. So, that -- that
time frame was pretty -- fairly condensed, between
six and 9 a.m., let's say, when all three are
occurring at the same time.
The afternoon is a little bit offset
from one another, because you have the school letting
out between 2:30 and 3:30. You have the shift change
also occurring at the same time, as well, of the
Hospital. But then you have the normal commuters,
the people that live in the area, coming home, say
after 4:00.
So, I keyed in on that seven to nine
time period for those intersections. And then -- but
also took a look at the 2:30 to 3:30, and then the
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4:30 to 5:30 to get the typical rush hour as well as
the start and stop of the school and the Hospital.
Bertin Engineering, the purpose of what
I did was not to -- to absolutely determine my own
traffic volumes, but to -- to gauge whether Bertin
Engineering Associates, whether their traffic counts,
were accurate and credible. So, that was the purpose
of what I did.
And that's why I only did spot counts.
When I say "spot counts", I stayed out there may be
for a half hour on those time periods.
MAYOR KILLION: On page 95, line 23 you
stated:
"During peak hours you have extensive
delays in some of your intersections".
Again, what intersections, just that
one?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes, I -- I -- that may
have been taken out of some context, but it was
typically the intersection of Van Dien and Linwood
Avenue.
And during the afternoon time period,
when the Hospital lets out and the school lets out,
that queuing was in the northerly direction of Van
Dien, in the order of about 27 or 30 cars at times.
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So that was -- that was the worse queuing that I saw.
On Linwood Avenue, I think things were
relatively light. But the key -- the big, key
problem I saw was the queuing on Van Dien Avenue in a
northerly direction because then that queued up or
gridlocked the two driveways, the main driveway and
the Kurth Cottage driveway of the Hospital, such that
there was cars gridlocked in the driveways.
And here you have many scores of school
children walking down Van Dien Avenue on the Hospital
side, walking in between stacked cars. And the
traffic -- crossing guards, although they were there
trying to control it, they had a very difficult time
to control that. It's all because of the backup from
Linwood Avenue gridlocking the driveways of the
Hospital.
MAYOR KILLION: What do you mean by
"extensive"? I mean, can you put a number on it or
just it backs up ten minutes, five minutes?
MR. STAIGAR: Well, a good -- well,
yeah, it -- I would say -- I'd say at times over the
course of about 20 minutes.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: And -- and it's very,
very characteristic, particularly for schools, when
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those kids are let out of those doors, that's when
the parents -- they get in the car and they parents
take them out. And it lasts for about 15, 20 minutes
and then it's like a ghost town. But that -- it's
very high intensity for that time period.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
The Village Planning Board is the
October 27, 2008, page 10, line 6, you stated that
you have not seen it backed up to John Street.
Was this check only done during peak
hours or did you or any other consultant extend the
hours to, let's say, 6:00.
MR. STAIGAR: Uhmmm.
MAYOR KILLION: When there's peak
traffic for commuters coming home.
Did you just stick to the 3:00 or the
3:15 or did you go into, in your spot checks, 6:00 at
night, and see if it backs up.
MR. STAIGAR: That one, I can't exactly
recall --
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: -- when I saw that.
But if it did back up to John Street, I
don't think it would be totally unusual. I just did
not see that.
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MAYOR KILLION: Right. And, you know,
my personal observations in these years that I have
seen it, but you're saying, that it is possible that
it would back up to John Street.
MR. STAIGAR: Absolutely. But that
backup probably is not caused or to a significant
degree caused by the Hospital, because the Hospital
at that time probably only a few visitors --
MAYOR KILLION: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: -- a few visitors, but
it's visitors. It's the normal commuter traffic
that's now generating that problem.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay. Also on page 10,
line 20, in the analyses there was no account for
pedestrian traffic.
This was the original report when you
testified?
MR. STAIGAR: Yeah, that was the --
yeah, that was the Bertin Engineering --
MAYOR KILLION: That was done later on
and we'll get to that, correct?
MR. STAIGAR: Correct. I'm sorry, say
that again?
MAYOR KILLION: The pedestrian count
was done subsequently, and it was submitted?
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MR. STAIGAR: No, we didn't do -- I
shouldn't say that. I don't think a pedestrian count
was -- you know, a count of pedestrian traffic was
taken, because it varies depending upon the weather
conditions and -- and so forth.
MAYOR KILLION: So, you wouldn't think
that was important, a pedestrian count?
MR. STAIGAR: No, I don't think a
pedestrian count is as specifically important as --
as eliminating the queue. And I'd have to go back
and take a look. I know one of the concerns was how
much -- how much -- how many pedestrians were
crossing the intersection of Linwood and Van Dien,
because that's going to affect traffic flow.
But that's something that's not going
to change, how ever many pedestrians are crossing
today will cross later because they're mainly a
function of the school children coming home or going
to school.
And what I took a look at was I knew
that the major concern was the backup at the
intersection was really related to the fact that
there's only one lane in the southbound direction, a
heavy left turn volume, a fairly heavy north volume.
And those left turns are blocking the through and
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right turns.
So, if we get the left turns out of the
-- out of the way then the through movements and the
right turns can be processed throughout that
intersection.
So really the function -- not
pedestrian traffic, so much, a function of the left
turns to accommodate that use.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay. On line -- we'll
get it by the end of all this.
The same night page 13, line 22, the
report, which I'm assuming you are referring to or it
refers to the Valley Engineering Report, that the
intersection works out very well. You countered on
page 13/26 you go and watch what goes on. It doesn't
work well at all.
MR. STAIGAR: Right.
MAYOR KILLION: Explain the
discrepancies that you found.
MR. STAIGAR: Yeah. There are --
there's soft -- computer software that we can analyze
intersections. And I think what the engineer found
was that at the intersection, and particularly the
driveways -- do you know whether that -- that
referred to the signalized intersection of Van Dien
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and Linwood or the -- or the site - or the Hospital
driveways, specifically?
MAYOR KILLION: I can look it up.
MR. STAIGAR: Okay. No, not necessary.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: The intersection.
MR. STAIGAR: I -- I do recall that, I
-- and the issue there was that the analysis that --
and the software that was used by Bertin Engineering
isolates intersections.
So, when you have a backup from Linwood
Avenue across the Hospital driveways, it's not --
it's not -- that is not included when you analyze
what goes in and out and passed the driveways because
-- because it isolates it.
So -- but you have to look at it as a
whole network. And that was my contention, you
analyze this as a whole network, because what's
happening is traffic is backing up into Linwood
Avenue that's stopping someone from making a left
turn or a right turn at each one of those driveways,
causing the gridlock.
So, whereas they found the levels of
service to be "C" and "D," which is pretty much free
flow conditions.
When I went out there, I didn't see
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that at all. So, I said, you know, one thing you got
to do is you got to calibrate the model to reflect
existing conditions, if you're going to project what
happens in the future or account for that -- that
gridlock condition.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
Page 15, line 20, "the Hospital's only
going to increase the beds by three".
And then you go on to say: "The
employee staff may go down by the literature I
read and should not generate traffic".
What literature did you read?
MR. STAIGAR: Oh, well, there was some
-- there was a series of documents that were provided
for the Planning Board, the "Renewal" --
MAYOR KILLION: Yes.
MR. STAIGAR: -- by the Hospital.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: That goes back to it.
MAYOR KILLION: And you relied on that?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes, for that one aspect.
MAYOR KILLION: Sure. And,
theoretically, that could happen, correct?
MR. STAIGAR: It -- it could happen,
yes.
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MAYOR KILLION: Sure.
MR. STAIGAR: And I don't know, I'm not
a hospital operator --
MAYOR KILLION: I read that.
MR. STAIGAR: Well -- but, I did
compare it using my tools, what's actually happening
at the Hospital and what should be.
If the Hospital wasn't there, how would
I project how much traffic it was generating? And
what I found it's generating a far more amount of
traffic than a typical hospital.
So, their contention that, as I pointed
out, we've got five pounds in a two pound bag here,
and the Hospital really needs to expand.
And so from all that literature that I
read, that less staff, more diagnostic equipment,
single private rooms as opposed to double rooms, all
kind of made sense to me. And may be, yes, you know
that fits in hand-in-hand with my trip generation
projections.
MAYOR KILLION: Right. I understand
what you're saying, it's just, they're getting
bigger, but employing the same amount of people, more
or less.
MR. STAIGAR: That's what they kept on
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saying. And I was very skeptical it kind of goes
against the grain of what we all know about. If
something gets bigger, it just gets more intense.
MAYOR KILLION: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: But in this case I found
some credibility when I compared to it my tools of my
trade.
MAYOR KILLION: Let me see, page 16,
line 1, missing piece -- you state: "The missing
piece of the puzzle is the floor area," which I take
it you just explained everything's based on square
footage and that's where the confusion was.
MR. STAIGAR: Well, if you can --no,
you can compare it on a number of -- the ITE, the
Institute of Transportation Engineers is our Bible in
determining trip generation rates or projections.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: And hospitals have it
based on three parameters, the number of beds, the
square feet, and the number of employees.
That's why when Bertin Engineering
said, well, look at -- it you look at only beds,
we're only adding three beds, so we're only adding
five trips.
But, however, you look at the square
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feet, you're adding hundreds of trips. So, that was
the disconnect.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: And that's -- and that's
-- and that's why I wanted a little -- to find a
little bit more credibility and tie that -- that
square feet in. And when I do apply the square feet
as the -- as the parameter to determine how much
traffic I find that Valley generates far more traffic
than it really should be generating.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
If Council will just bear with me, I
have one more page to go.
Sorry, if anybody wants to go home and
watch the Giants game, you'll have to watch the
replays.
Page 3 of 3, line 1, you referred to
adding another signal at the driveway of Linwood
Avenue. My question -- and again, just from my
experience, how would another signal alleviate
traffic? Wouldn't it just add to the problem?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes --
MAYOR KILLION: Three signals within a
block, stop and start of the vehicles going with the
signals and all, when you have that many signals in
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that short of a distance, people pulling up,
stopping, waiting for a light, putting their foot on
the gas, going and coming to another one.
Could you explain your logic behind it?
MR. STAIGAR: Well, I think I
discounted that.
And rather than -- we use that, all --
what was happening was the Linwood Avenue driveway
for the Hospital was backing up with a long, long
delay. Somebody would be waiting in the order of two
minutes in order to get out during the peak times.
That leads to frustration, that leads to potential
safety issues.
I have looked at the traffic signal. I
think that was one of the questions that were asked
of me. And I agree with you, traffic signals are not
the answer for every problem.
Although we did take a look at it, but
you're right, that traffic signal between the one at
North Pleasant and the one at Van Dien, would cause
problems. So, I came back with the other options.
One of the options were was that John Street be a
right turn exit only. You eliminated the left turn
into John Street. You picture yourself trying to get
out of your driveway and someone making a left turn
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in front of you, either way, particularly on John
Street, they're going to have the right-of-way before
you can even come out.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: So, we limited -- we did
that. And we were looking at coordinating the two
signals at North Pleasant and at Van Dien so that
they created artificial gaps in traffic. If you shut
off and shut on simultaneously, you would do that.
And my other reason was let's interconnect the
parking decks because at that time when I made that
comment, the parking decks were isolated.
MAYOR KILLION: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: So that all of the staff
traffic would have to go out to Linwood and on the
level that had the most parking spaces, but if they
were interconnected then someone had it coming down
--down the deck or up the deck, to go out -- also go
out to Van Dien, it would balance itself out.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: So, I think those three
measures were better than the traffic signal.
MAYOR KILLION: On page 54, line 23,
and it goes on quite a while, I think this is a
conversation between you and then Fire Chief Bombace.
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Beginning with that page, I see that
there was a great amount of discussion on changing
the walking patterns of the students from BF, routing
them to the opposite side of Van Dien heading south.
You went on to state that the problem
is to try to control pre-teens or young teenagers and
keeping them on that side of the road. You went on
to say great solution in an idealistic world.
But referring to page 10/24 -- I'm
sorry, further on in the report you did agree with
the Valley engineer and said something to the effect
it should be a simple thing to do, referring to
changing kids for walking across the street. I
believe that's on page 11/11. I just want to know
what changed your mind. I mean we all -- we know
kids. And it's very hard to get them, especially,
when they exit on that side of the street, to go up
the street, to go all the way across.
And you seem to state that, but then at
the end on a follow-up letter with your questions,
you then agreed and you said it shouldn't be a
problem.
MR. STAIGAR: Well, if we eliminate the
stacking at the two driveways that are there now, you
go out there and they're gridlocked. And as I said
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the problem is, it's not the teens crossing the
driveway, but the cars sitting in the driveway, the
crossing guard trying to control that traffic but
then also trying to control the kids crossing in
between the cars.
MAYOR KILLION: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: If we eliminated the
gridlock, so that cars are now properly lined up, you
know behind the stop bar, leaving a crosswalk open
that the guard can now control people coming in and
people coming out, keeping the students waiting and
so forth, it will be a lot easier. But you can't do
it when you got gridlock and you've got cars sitting
in that driveway and in front of the driveway.
MAYOR KILLION: But do you think it's
realistic that you can change students to walk on the
other side of the street in that area.
MR. STAIGAR: No. That was -- that was
the debate we were having. What we really wanted
them to do was at dismissal time cross at Meadowbrook
and walk on the westerly side of -- that seemed like
an easy solution. But trying to control kids who
live on the easterly side of Linwood Avenue might be
a hard time to do.
I don't know, I know we talked about
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it. We debated it for a while what -- you know,
there is a legal right and I don't think you can stop
any citizen from walking on any particular side of
the street. So that was really going to be what
enforcement do you really have.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
Just a couple more, January 26th, 2009,
page 7/1. You received a response to review letter
sent January 19th.
What was that letter? Was that a
follow-up letter to questions that the Planning Board
had from previous? I think that was it.
MR. STAIGAR: It could have been, yes.
MAYOR KILLION: Yes.
Basically, in that report we're talking
about the latter report 8-24, page 8-24:
"Pedestrian counts were taken by Bertin
Engineering as well".
So, now we have pedestrian counts, do
you know -- what were the pedestrian counts during
peak hours along with the school driveway and Steilen
Avenue as stated in the report. There are no numbers
in there that could I see.
Do you know those numbers offhand?
MR. STAIGAR: Not off of the top of my
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head, no. I'd have to review my whole file.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: I'm sorry.
Could you gave me those dates again of
-- when I --
MAYOR KILLION: You can refer to it as
the January 26th Planning Board meeting of 2009.
MR. STAIGAR: Okay.
MAYOR KILLION: It would be under page
8 - line 24, "pedestrian counts were taken --
MR. STAIGAR: Okay.
MAYOR KILLION: -- along with Steilen
also".
I know there's not much pedestrian
traffic on Steilen. I saw that in the report.
MR. STAIGAR: Okay.
MAYOR KILLION: Could you send us a
letter of those or we may reserve the right to call
you back if we have other questions.
MR. STAIGAR: Absolutely.
MAYOR KILLION: But could you send the
Council --
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
MAYOR KILLION: -- a letter of those
pedestrian counts. I couldn't quite find them.
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That's all the questions I have.
We'll move on to Councilman Aronsohn.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: If I can figure
this out.
MAYOR KILLION: I thought you were the
communications rep.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: You would think.
Does it work? All right.
Thank you for coming tonight, Mr.
Staigar. Thank you for your presentation and all the
work you've done on this.
I want to build on some of the
questions the Mayor has asked you and sort of just --
I want some clarification. I'm trying to put this
all together.
This issue sort of -- the traffic
situation as it exists right now, my understanding
from your presentation that it's your view that right
now the situation is not good.
MR. STAIGAR: No, correct.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: And so,
irrespective, of any development -- further
development at the Valley Hospital, your suggestion,
your recommendation would be to make some changes,
some of those that you outlined already?
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MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: And the reason I
ask that is because some of the discussion we had
last week including, I think, a statement made by our
planner was that the Valley Hospital project, if it
was to go forward, would actually improve the traffic
situation in the area.
And just to clarify, it's not that the
Valley proposal of the construction would improve the
situation, it's that it -- it would be necessary to
make some improvements to mitigate some of the
problems that we might have. But we would need those
mitigations regardless, in your opinion?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes, you have an already
existing condition of backups and safety concerns.
If Valley Hospital is true to their
word, and we're not going to increase traffic to any
significant degree, that's not the purpose of what
we're doing. We're going to be way ahead of the
game, because the improvements will improve existing
conditions as they exist today to a very significant
degree.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: And --
MR. STAIGAR: If Valley Hospital is
lying to us and their traffic increases to a -- to a
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proportionately with the size of the square feet,
then we're back to what we got today.
So, either way, I think we're going to
be whole. We're going to be better, if they -- if
things are true to their word, but even if they
aren't, well, the worse that we're going be, is what
we have today.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: But we would also
be better if, let's say, putting aside the Valley
Hospital project proposal, if we just made the
enhancements that you outlined, regardless of any
construction going on today.
MR. STAIGAR: Absolutely, yes.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: So, there's no
casual relationship really, it's just we need to make
some changes at these intersections.
MR. STAIGAR: Correct, yes.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: When you did your
analysis, and I apologize if you did cover this, I
sort of have blurry eyes reading through some of
these transcripts.
The construction phase versus the
post-construction phase, do you anticipate an
increase in traffic or traffic related problem during
the construction phase?
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MR. STAIGAR: No. And the reason being
is that you're not going have the staff -- see, the
big problem that I see is the staff change. And the
shift change. Those cars, essentially, are going be
out of this area, because they're going to put
parking on off-site, satellite location. And you'll
have buses that will go back and forth.
So, if the bus can hold 40 people and
take the place of 40 cars, that is certainly going to
be better than having those 40 cars coming to and
from the site.
So that removal of staff vehicles will
certainly offset any construction equipment and
workers that may be coming in for that work.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: And when you did
your analysis, I know the Mayor has asked you about,
you know, the spot check that you did and everything,
did you -- were the numbers of inpatients,
outpatients, employees, were they factored into your
analysis? Like you had X amount of people coming in
and out of the Hospital on a given day.
MR. STAIGAR: No.
The only thing we did we stand at the
driveways and we count cars.
And whether that car was a visitor, an
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outpatient or a doctor we don't know or really care.
We know that the Hospital is just generating that
amount of traffic and turns in those directions.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: So, is it your
view that if the Valley proposal went forward without
any of the traffic enhancements, we'd have a problem
on our hands, because we have a problem on our hands
anyway.
MR. STAIGAR: Correct, yes.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: If it went
forward and if, as you said, they are true to their
word and there's no increase in number of patients or
staff, whatever you've got. And in terms of
enhancement that you put forth, everything should
sort of equal out, right?
MR. STAIGAR: It will be better. Well,
if there is no increase in additional traffic --
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: -- generated by the
Hospital and the improvements are made, we're way
ahead of the game.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN0: What percentage
increase in traffic would concern you? Like if you
heard there was going to be maybe a 5 percent
increase in traffic because there was going to be
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more patients or there was going be more -- what
number do you think would sort of concern you?
MR. STAIGAR: You know what, normally
as a rule of thumb we use the magic, a hundred -- an
additional hundred trips.
The Hospital during the p.m. peak hour
is generating 920 during its p.m. peak hour. So, if
it were 10 percent or more, that would be a concern
point.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: And before I ask
another question, could I ask for clarification of
math just on something.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Our Counsel,
because there was an issue, I think somebody raised
it, I don't remember if it was a member of the public
or somebody raised it last week and Mr. Staigar sort
of touched upon it, you know, if that Valley is true
to its word. And they talked about going from 450 to
454 beds.
This current draft ordinance, it speaks
of the intent of -- you know, of this Ordinance is to
keep them at 454, but how binding is that intent, is
that language?
I mean what if they said, you know
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what, we decided we only want 200 single beds and we
want to, you know, double -- have the rest double
rooms. And so, in other words, major expansion.
Is that possible to put the language in
it?
MR. ROGERS: Well, I think the way the
Ordinance is written A lot of it's going to have to
do --
FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: We can't hear
you.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Your speaker.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Is that better?
MAYOR KILLION: No.
Now it is.
MR. ROGERS: I apologize.
MAYOR KILLION: How's that.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: That was some
answer.
MR. ROGERS: The Ordinance sets the
parameters, but if the Ordinance was to go through,
there would be a site plan application.
And the site plan application along
with the ensuing documents, one of which is known as
a Developers' Agreement, would contain the parameters
of just where they could go and how far they could go
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with the number of beds and the use and things such
as that.
So, if there were restrictions that
were to be determined by the Planning Board through
that site plan process, and there are requests for
exact restrictions with regard to the number of
patients that could stay overnight in beds or be
admitted, that would probably be reflected in the
Planning Board Resolution of approval and,
thereafter, in the Developers' Agreement.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: So, that's
something that would come down the road.
In other words, that's not something --
so, this Council, you know, you laid out the options
last week, but there's no way for us to guarantee the
454 beds only.
MR. ROGERS: What we -- what we do or
what our purpose is, is to adopt or not adopt or take
a position with regard to an ordinance that is being
provided as a recommended amendment of the Master
Plan. We don't get into the technical aspects or the
specific aspects of the development that deal with
the restrictions and the enforcement of the desired,
that purpose we leave to the Planning Board or the
Zoning Board if they have the application, but that
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purpose we leave to the development boards because
they're the ones that are more aware of many of the
issues that come down when a plan is brought before
it and developed and approved, you know, such as
restrictions, you know, requirements that must occur
during construction period or limitations on the
number of parking spaces that could be used off-site,
things such as that, they're a lot more familiar with
it. So, we don't get into the nuts and bolts.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Okay. I
appreciate that.
MR. ROGERS: So, it would be for us to
mandate that through what wording we would put into
an ordinance if we were to adopt one that would
permit or along with the amendment.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: I appreciate
that, Matt.
And the reason I asked it, obviously,
you know because Mr. Staigar's testimony, his
recommendations are contingent on no increase. And
we've already heard that an additional 100 visits
during peak time and I don't know how it translates
into additional patients, that in itself could sort
of change his mind, his view of this proposal.
So, I think that's a point that needs
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to be addressed at some point.
My last issue, question, concerns your
statement that Valley is generating far more traffic
than a comparable hospital does and, therefore, it
should expand.
Can you elaborate on that?
MR. STAIGAR: Well, I didn't say it
should expand. I just said it gave some credibility
to their statement that we need to expand to
accommodate the needs of today's hospital with the
amount of activity that we have at the current
hospital. And that's the whole purpose of what we're
trying to accomplish. That was the main message that
the Hospital conveyed to me through their literature
and through whatever testimony there was.
And the only way that I can gauge my
acceptance of that statement is through my trip
generation rates.
And what I found is that it generates
far more traffic than it should be, leaving me to
believe that, yes, it may be more condensed than what
a typical hospital is and, therefore, needs to have
that same activity in a larger area.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Right. So as a
traffic consultant and traffic expert, is it your
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view that Valley Hospital, at the present time, is
too large for the neighborhood in which it resides.
MR. STAIGAR: It is too large for? I'm
sorry I didn't hear that?
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Is it too large
for the neighborhood?
MR. STAIGAR: Oh, I shouldn't -- I --
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: From a traffic
perspective.
MR. STAIGAR: From a traffic
perspective, under the current roadway conditions it
is.
With the improvements that we -- we --
we recommended, as I pointed out in those 12 points,
it will fit a lot better. I'm certainly going to put
a -- there are probably going to be issues that will
go on, but it will operate adequately, I believe.
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Thank you, very
much.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you, Councilman.
Councilwoman?
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: You want to go to
me or do you want to go to Tom?
MAYOR KILLION: Whichever.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Go to Tom.
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DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Okay.
Mr Staigar -- am I on? Am I on?
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Am I on now?
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No. We can't hear
you.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: No?
Dillon, am I on now?
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Yes.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: I'm on now.
Mr. Staigar, good to see you again.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes, you look like one
familiar face.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: That may not be a
good thing or a bad thing, I can't tell.
Let me go back to the pedestrian -- the
discussion related to pedestrian traffic.
You stated that pedestrian traffic
wasn't important when analyzing your traffic data and
you also stated that pedestrian traffic was basically
related to students from BF.
Is that correct?
MR. STAIGAR: That's correct, yes.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: And in reaching
your decision on the importance of pedestrian
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traffic, did you take into account other pedestrian
traffic like Valley Hospital employees that may walk
to work or may walk from near by bus stops to the
hospital, in forming that decision that pedestrian
traffic wasn't important to your study?
MR. STAIGAR: Well, I -- I -- if I did
say that, I have to take it back. It's -- pedestrian
traffic is important because it affects traffic
movements. And -- and that was one of the -- one of
the points I made in -- in the fact that the computer
analyses that Bertin Engineering did, didn't reflect
existing conditions and what I saw out there because
certainly when one of the crossing guards walked in
the middle of the street and stops traffic in all
directions or in certain directions it's taking away
green time or ability for the cars to process through
that. That's affected by the pedestrian traffic.
But I have to say that from my -- from
my recollection that well over 90 percent of the --
of the pedestrian traffic that I did see were of
school children age and not adults. Very -- very --
I did not -- I don't recall seeing any significant
number of adults walking, particularly during those
hours.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Okay. Thank you.
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I know you spent an awful lot of time
talking about the way intersections are rated. With
pains, a lot of the discussion about how that is
done.
You referred earlier to the
intersection of Glen and Van Dien and then referred,
you said that that intersection as is rated as an F
intersection. And I remember how you arrived at
that.
I think you also said that Van Dien and
Linwood is also currently graded as an F
intersection?
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: And if I remember
the testimony, I don't have it written down like the
Mayor does, but my recollection is that you said --
your testimony was that that intersection with
improvements would probably revert to a C or a D?
MR. STAIGAR: Correct, yes.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Is that correct?
MR. STAIGAR: Revert back to a C of a
D.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Right.
I also remember that you had testimony
that I guess in the ITE there is a certain amount of
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growth that is projected for intersections, just your
normal traffic growth in the area and so forth.
And my recollection is that it's
somewhere in the one to 2 percent per year; is that
correct?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Based on those
projections, if that intersection at Van Dien and
Linwood is corrected and it becomes a C or a D
intersection, at what point does that intersection
become and "F" intersection based upon projected
growth?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes, I -- that's a trial
and error analysis that I would have to do to
determine, well, yes, in the year 2025 we then go
from that -- from that "C", "D" to an "F".
I'd have to increase the traffic
volumes, you know, and find out what -- eventually
how -- how much do I have to increase it in order to
kick off that level of service "F".
That's something I can provide you. I
don't think -- no one's made that analysis. And the
reason being, it's something I think that the Village
needs to know, but in terms of land development it's
what is the traffic growth when the project that
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you're analyzing kick in?
So if they're using a year of 2015 as
their horizon year when they're going to be on line,
the new hospital is going to be built.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: Then that -- that's the
limit as far as we have to go. Eventually the
Village should know, well, all right, that's fine at
that year, what happens, you know, in ten years from
there and when does that intersection go back to
where it was?
We try to limit the amount of time
because we all know that transportation systems are
going to evolve and change, and density may not be
what it is based on that one or two percent. It may
-- it may level off. It may -- it may change.
So we don't -- we don't make those
projections further than five to ten years.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: So for the benefit
of this Council, is it a simple -- is it as simple as
a mathematical calculation?
In other words, if I had an
intersection that's a "B" intersection now, is there
a specific percentage of growth that takes a "B" to a
"C"? Is it 10 percent? Is it 20 percent? Is it --
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MR. STAIGAR: No.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: -- is it that
simple?
And just to finish my question, if I
may, if there is -- for argument's sake a two percent
growth per year, so in five years you'd have 10
percent growth. Does that take an intersection to
the next level based upon the 10 percent growth or is
it more than that?
MR. STAIGAR: The -- I'd have to -- I'd
have to take those volumes that we have, increase
them by 10 percent, put them in a computer analysis
and determine what the levels of service are.
If it brings me from a "D" to an "E"
then I know I got to bump it up some more, run it,
and basically have an "E" minus and then do it again.
Run it. And then I get the "F".
So as I said that -- there is a trial
and error. It is a simple mathematic to bump up the
numbers, the volume numbers. But then I need to take
those and throw them into the computer to find out
what the -- what the -- what the Level of Service is.
And that's a trial and error. And it
takes a few iterations, I'm sure.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: And, again,
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without trying to put words in your mouth, because
I'm not trying to do that to you, based upon what you
know about that intersection and based upon some
limitations in terms of how it can be improved
probably a one shot deal of improvement to that
intersection. You can't do much beyond that.
Does that intersection have the
potential don't the road of becoming another "F"
intersection?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes. Absolutely.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: That's all I have
right now.
Thanks.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you, Deputy
Mayor.
Councilwoman?
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Yes. Let me make
sure my microphone is working?
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Don't blow into
it.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: I'm not going to
blow into it.
Can everybody hear me?
Hi, Mr. Staigar, how are you doing.
I'm glad they asked a bunch of the questions that I
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LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.S.R., R.P.R., L.L.C.201-641-1812
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was going to ask so it kind of brings a little bit of
my questions together.
I wanted to start out with a couple of
facts because if you read through the testimony as
the process went on a couple of the facts changed or
there was some more clarification.
So one of the facts is that currently
Valley has 1730 parking spaces, correct?
MR. STAIGAR: I -- I -- it's in that
range. I know that number is somewhere in there.
It's probably correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: May have been
1733. I think it was 1730 was what was mentioned
several times in here.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: And then the
proposed is now 2,000.
But in your analysis they weren't up to
2,000. So there is a little bit of change there,
that is -- that it is 2,000.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes, that's the first
time I'm hearing the number of 2,000.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So the number that
came to us the finally were 2,000. So we're going
from 1730 to 2,000.
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The other thing that I just wanted to
confirm were the shifts -- so the shifts were seven
to 9:00 a.m. that was the --
MR. STAIGAR: No. The shifts are seven
to three, 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m. to 11.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Seven to three?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes, 7 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
first -- that's the main shift.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: That's the main
shift.
MR. STAIGAR: That's when the majority
of the staff comes in.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: And they leave at three.
The second shift, I guess both -- the
second shift also in terms of volume, is that three
to 11:00 --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: -- shift.
And then you have the midnight shift,
I'll call it, which is the minimum amount of staff
from 11 --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Eleven to seven.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: And then in your
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testimony you stated that there's about a half hour
shift overlap?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
Normally you see those -- the -- the
one shift, people starting to come in before the
previous shift starts to leave. That's when you have
your peak on peak in terms of parking demand
generated by the staff --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: -- because it's a half
hour in there that -- that there is an overlap of
people coming in where people haven't left yet.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay. So then
we'll say from the first shift the overlap will be
from 2:30 --
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Then the next
shift will be from 10:30 p.m.
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: And then the next
shift would be six --
MR. STAIGAR: Yes, 6:00.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: -- 6:30 in the
morning. Okay.
So, currently, they have 1730 and --
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and everybody has asked questions about the gridlock
coming out of Valley onto Van Dien, not so much for
them coming out on Linwood, but they're pretty much
all letting out on to Van Dien.
There are two -- there are two exits on
Van Dien right now. And then they have their --
their Linwood Avenue, but that's typically not used
for staff, correct? Or is that --
MR. STAIGAR: Currently, I think you
are correct. But that would change with the -- with
the proposal.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: Linwood would there --
there'd be more volume on Linwood.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So there would be
more volume coming in the Linwood Avenue?
MR. STAIGAR: In and out.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: In and out. But
--
MR. STAIGAR: But the parking --
parking deck could be tied into the Linwood Avenue
driveway.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Right. So you'd
have more traffic coming down, coming west on Linwood
in. And then it would come out and, again, go west
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on Linwood?
MR. STAIGAR: Or right. But, yes,
probably you'd see more people going to and from the
east.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay. So, correct
me if I'm wrong then, so in the proposed construction
you'd have those coming down Linwood Avenue coming
west, turning into the --
MR. STAIGAR: Right.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: -- the parking lot.
Then they'd be leaving that same
entrance/exit and go west. And then where do you
propose that they would go would, maybe turning north
onto Van Dien?
MR. STAIGAR: No. Because they would
most likely have exited out the Van Dien driveway if
they're going to travel Van Dien.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay. So you
don't anticipate that there be anybody coming back
out Linwood. You would imagine they would only be
coming out Van Dien to exit.
MR. STAIGAR: Going to the parking.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Go north.
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
But if they were going to go south then
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they would go -- they would go either driveway, that
kind of gives you the same distance.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: But they'd only be
able to make right-hand turns --
MR. STAIGAR: Oh, no.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: -- regardless.
MR. STAIGAR: No, the right turn --
right hand turn was only for John Street.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: The right hand
turn only is only for John Street.
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So if you came out
the Linwood Avenue exit as proposed, you would be
able to make a left --
MR. STAIGAR: Correct. And from my
recollection the latest plans of a year ago or so
that you could make lefts or rights.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So you'd be
cutting across just before you're going to have two
new lanes of traffic?
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
Deputy Mayor Riche had asked you a
question and, again, just to cover some of the
information that was in the testimony, the increase
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-- the standard increase or the typical increase in
traffic annually you had as two-and-a-quarter to
two-and-a-half percent?
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: That's what's in
here.
And you talk about the different
intersections, Van Dien and Linwood, you talked about
the Meadowbrook, but you don't give a rating on
Meadowbrook. You give Van Dien and Linwood,
currently as an "F". You don't give one for
Meadowbrook. And then you give Glen and Van Dien and
Red Birch an "F" as well.
Was there reason why there was no
grading at the Meadowbrook?
MR. STAIGAR: The Bertin Engineering
did not take traffic counts, and that was one of my
comments that they should also analyze the count and
analyze that intersection.
And prior to my coming here, I saw that
one of my -- one of my last review letters, I'm not a
hundred percent sure whether they eventually did that
or not. That's something I'll -- I'll look into too,
whether that was analyzed also.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
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MR. STAIGAR: That was the intersection
of Meadowbrook and Van Dien.
But that was one of my recommendations
in my comment letter is that that intersection should
be included in the scope of the study for the
intersection to be analyzed.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay. So not
knowing Meadowbrook right now, but if were you to --
and, again, this goes to your experience as a traffic
expert, are there instances where you have several
intersections with an "F" rating and then them all
coming down to a "D" or a "C".
Like how do you -- what's the
cumulative effect when you try to better
intersections if you have an "F" we'll just say we
don't have Meadowbrook right now, we'll give
Meadowbrook a "D".
So if you have an "F", a "D" and "F",
when you fix one intersection does it automatically
fix the others? Or is it more difficult to fix the
other intersections like...
MR. STAIGAR: Yes. The -- in this
network, itself, I don't recall and I have to take a
look at my notes, I don't recall there was any
congestion all the way from -- from Linwood all the
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way to Meadowbrook. I don't think I saw that, that
lengthy, although it may have happened.
When you do have backup from one
intersection to another intersection it does affect
that.
So Level of Service F at Linwood
effected the driveways Kurth Cottage and the main
hospital driveways that they technically and in
reality were Level of Service F.
And the Bertin Engineering analyzed
them, and isolated those intersections, they operated
at "C"s and "D"s. So that's what my -- my comment
was, that's not happening boys because when I go out
there it's gridlock. It's Level of Service F.
And the levels of service, Mr. Riche,
you've heard this, relate to the delays.
So you -- you put in the geometry and
the turning movements and the volumes into the
computer model and it gives you an average delay, how
long does it take for me to make a left-hand turn
from Linwood onto -- onto Van Dien. If it's more
than 60 to 80 seconds it's Level of Service F.
So when I -- when they analyzed the
intersections of the hospital and they calculated
only 20 seconds per delay, they said, okay, it's
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operating at a Level of Service C.
When I went out there in the field and
I watched how long it did take someone to exit out of
the driveways. It was well over 60 seconds and Level
of Service F.
I did not see any major congestion at
Meadowbrook. I don't think that's an intersection
that is of -- of concern in terms of -- of -- of
capacity. However, I still would have liked to take
a look at what those volumes were and how they
interacted with the other intersections and to see
what that Level of Service was, only to complete the
circuit because that's a key intersection. And that
wasn't analyzed. And that's why I made those
comments of let's go out there and let's button it up
and find out what's going on at that intersection.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay. You know
you talk about the cycles of traffic and I -- I agree
with you in that my own observations of sitting at
the light at Van Dien, it takes about six or seven
cycles to get through, I think, you know, I sat there
counting the seconds between the lights. And I think
it was like 23 or 24 seconds. So it took about six
or seven cycles to get through.
So the proposed plan would then be to
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have two lanes going south on Van Dien. And then
there would be two lanes traveling west.
MR. STAIGAR: Right.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So essentially
you'd have --
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: -- you know, the
turn would be two lanes into one. And then two lanes
into whichever way you're going in the other
directions.
MR. STAIGAR: Well, let me -- well, it
would have to be -- center line would have to be
shifted so that you had a separate left turn lane to
make the left turn on to --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: -- on to Linwood.
And then I believe that the Hospital
was given some right-of-way on the westbound Linwood
Avenue to accommodate a right turn in.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Yes. Yes, I agree
with you. Yup.
So one of the other concerns that you
had, we'll go back to pedestrian, pedestrian traffic,
was that when you start to widen roads to ease the
congestion of the automobiles, you then create and I
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don't -- I don't know if this is the term to use, you
create more of a hazard for the pedestrians because
you're increasing the amount of time that they're in
the roadway.
So you would now be increasing it on
Van Dien. And you would be increasing it on Linwood.
So could you tell us a little bit more
about, you know, those calculation -- like I know
that there was some testimony, our engineer had asked
you some questions about safety islands and whatnot,
but you had stated that you'd still have more time in
the roadway. So, you know, assuming that there's
primarily school children crossing, you're now going
to have two instances where we're widening the road
on increasing the amount of time that they're in the
roadway.
MR. STAIGAR: Yeah.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So if yo could
just maybe explain that a little bit.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes. And that's -- and
that's a balancing. You have to find out how to --
how to -- how to figure out, it will increase another
12 feet. Another lane is 12 feet of distance.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: These are - these are
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middle -- middle school kids and -- and typically
crossing about three to four feet per second.
So there's an additional three to four
seconds that they'll in the so-called -- in the road.
With these improvements, however, my
recommendation was also to bring these intersections
up to the latest current standards for pedestrian
safety as well. Have the countdown signals, the
pedestrian heads, where you push the button -- and
what happens is when you do push the buttons then
enough time is allotted for that pedestrian to cross
the street.
So by making those pedestrian
improvements, push buttons as well as the heads with
the -- with the second count down that you have, that
pedestrian knows that he has sufficient time to cross
or not to cross.
There are -- during the peak periods
crossing guards are always at that intersection as
well to ensure the children safety as well. We're
also concerned about the off-peak time period, but
those -- those improvements, proper signage, traffic
control measures, crosswalk enhancements.
Now, there could be what we call a
tabled crosswalk where it's only elevated an inch but
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--
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Yes.
MR. STAIGAR: But reflective painting,
raised -- we call you it Permaflex painting as well,
to enhance that -- that crossing safety as well.
So all those would be implemented. My
recommendation is that all of that would be
implemented into the -- into a signal as well.
That'll offset that additional 12 feet
that that pedestrian needs to cross.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
So now let's talk about the crossing
guards because there's a lot of testimony about
crossing guards, in that the crossing guards, for
lack of a better term, runs the intersection. And
that it's up to the crossing guard to decide when to
cross the kids and how long to stay in the
intersection.
So we've got the crossing guard at Van
Dien and Linwood. We have the crossing guard at
Meadowbrook. I believe Valley Hospital has their own
individual at their -- one at their Van Dien
entrances, I've driven by.
MR. STAIGAR: I saw them at both --
both Van Dien driveways.
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COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Both Van Dien
driveways.
MR. STAIGAR: And also at the Linwood
driveway.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: And also at the
Linwood driveway. Okay.
And then we have a crossing guard at
the corner of East Glen and Van Dien.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So we've got --
we've got crossing guards, so I wanted to -- so I
wanted to try to get an idea of if you've got, let's
just say, it's -- it's in the -- in the morning so it
would be the morning shift time, you've got
individuals coming down from 17 and they're being
stopped at Glen and Van Dien. Then they're making a
left. Then they're being stopped again at
Meadowbrook. You know, is there -- is there any
information that you can give us in terms, again,
when you start analyzing or observing stop, go, stop,
go traffic, does that affect any of your calculations
in terms of rating the intersections?
MR. STAIGAR: No, I -- I -- I think
there's enough separation between those driveways
that they don't -- or those intersections that they
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did not affect traffic flow.
The driveway crossing guards stop
traffic from -- I guess they stop traffic from -- I'm
not quite -- you know what, I can't remember. I --
they stop traffic from exiting --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: From exiting.
MR. STAIGAR: And I'm trying to
recollect whether they stop traffic from entering.
I'm sure they had to because if they stop traffic
from exiting and wave these kids on and all of the
sudden someone comes along and wants to make a left,
well, they need to stop that left turning movement as
well.
But, primarily, they would be stopping
the -- the -- the driveway exiting, which doesn't
effect the traffic flow on the -- on the main -- main
street.
Linwood Avenue, the same way, they're
not stopping traffic on -- on Linwood Avenue, at the
Linwood Avenue driveway. It's only the two
intersections. And then the three intersections of
Linwood, Van Dien -- well Van Dien with Linwood,
Meadowbrook and then with Glen and Birch.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: But they're far enough
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apart that they don't -- they're not going to stop
traffic long enough to cause a backup all the way
from one into the other.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
And, again, I think the Mayor had asked
questions about the volume of children that cross the
intersection. And in the testimony it was -- it was
about a hundred.
MR. STAIGAR: I -- I -- yes, I don't
know why that -- that's what -- the one thing that
slipped out of my -- my thought process. And I'll
check back into that as well. That's probably about
-- about right, a hundred per hour.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So the majority of
the kids -- we'll make the assumption the majority of
school children are coming from BF?
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Benjamin Franklin
Middle School has about 700 children, I believe about
200 are bused because there are children that live on
the other side of the highway. There are children
that live -- that came from the Hawes District, some
from Somerville.
So we've got about 500 kids left that
exit the school, let's just -- you know, you're
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making a guess at a hundred and if you look at the
cars queuing up at pick up, I can't even believe that
there'd be a hundred cars queuing up so I guess I'm a
little skeptical at the hundred number because there
are at least another four to 500 kids exiting the
school and where that --
MR. STAIGAR: But that's -- I wouldn't
believe that that that's the total that are walking
two and from the school, that might be the total that
went through the intersection at Linwood and --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Per hour.
MR. STAIGAR: Right. At Linwood and
Van Dien per hour.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Per hour. So
we'll then assume that kids have either
extracurricular activities and they're letting out at
different -- different times.
MR. STAIGAR: Different times and also
going different directions also.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: A child that walks down
Van Dien southbound, but then made a right-hand turn
and walked down Linwood --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: -- would have crossed.
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COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Right.
MR. STAIGAR: Additionally you have a
lot of crossing at Meadowbrook there's other -- other
children going to the north and to, you know, where
Birch and Glen is --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: -- so they -- they -- the
hundred is probably not too far off because if the
difference is 500 that you're talking about, a
hundred of them going down Van Dien --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: You think that's a
pretty accurate number.
MR. STAIGAR: And crossing -- yeah.
Crossing Linwood, kind of makes sense.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
So now we're talking about everybody
exiting and leaving the school. We talked about them
coming to the school assuming they -- they walk to
school as well as they walk home. And then there's a
mixture of parents pick up and drove off.
Benjamin Franklin Middle School
underwent some renovations and they added a track
they -- they increased the recreational facility.
They changed the recreational facility. So now they
have a track that is considered to be the high school
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track.
So come this spring it will be the
first season that it's open. We're going to have a
different traffic pattern. We're presumably going to
have children coming from the high school, walking
from the high school through that intersection now.
So the hundred -- let's just say the
hundred is an accurate number. Now, we're going to
have I don't know how many kids are on the track
team, but we're now going to have the high school
track team making their way down Van Dien through
that intersection.
And I'm going to assume that the high
school lets out a little earlier so that the traffic
pattern is going to start earlier.
So it sounds like it's going to hit
your peak shift change. So --
MR. STAIGAR: Probably, yes.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So could you,
perhaps, discuss how that's going to maybe change
that traffic at that intersection because we're
already at an "F" we were hoping that this new plan
was going to bring us up to a "C" or a "D".
But if we're going to add a volume of
pedestrian now coming from a different location or
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coming in the opposite location, how do you feel
that's going affect it?
MR. STAIGAR: Well --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: And, again --
MR. STAIGAR: Well, if it's in the
order of more than a hundred children that are going
to be coming from the high school the track in an
hour then, yeah, it may have an impact on that
intersection at that point in time.
A lot of it's going to be how -- how
the -- how the crossing guard processes those kids.
If they queue up the kids so that there's 10 or 20 of
them as opposed to stopping traffic every time one
shows up, then that is going to affect the flow of
vehicular traffic as well.
So it's really how the crossing guards
themselves or herself processes -- processes the
kids.
Again -- but then taking a look at it
from the -- stepping back and taking a look at that,
that's a condition that you have currently.
So if a hundred more track kids show up
under existing conditions, what you have today is
going to get worse.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Correct.
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MR. STAIGAR: But if you improve the
intersection by -- by increasing the capacity of the
intersection so that when the traffic has the green
light, when the kids are waiting and you can process
those vehicles -- more vehicles than you can today,
again the result would be less queuing.
So either way that affect of the
additional pedestrians is going to have a detrimental
effect. But whether it has a detrimental effect on a
-- to an nth degree on existing conditions, it'd be
much worse than if it had a -- a -- a detrimental
effect of also the nth degree under the proposed
improvement.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
So now we'll go back to traffic
patterns again. Currently, you can leave John Street
and make a left or a right.
And now you're going to -- we're
proposing that you're going to be making a right turn
only?
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So we're going to
be making a right turn only, did you analyze and how
that would impact the properties now that are going
to be getting, perhaps, traffic -- a different
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traffic pattern to the North Pleasant light?
Now, we've got a different aspect.
We've widened the road so everybody could make a
left, but now they're going to hit a bottleneck at
North Pleasant.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes. And I note -- I was
looking for the traffic report, but the volume of
traffic that's currently making that left was rather
small, very small. And --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: From John?
MR. STAIGAR: From John Street, right.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: And actually the John
Street volumes were very light to begin with so -- so
by changing those traffic patterns the -- the -- you
know, not -- and -- and the fact that not one
intersection would bear the brunt of displaced
traffic would have a net effect that it would not be
significant and if I may... yeah, the -- okay.
Yeah, here we go.
I just I -- I picked one -- one figure
coming out of John Street there were in the -- in the
morning there were two lefts and one -- and in the
p.m. one left, whereas there were 20 rights and 12
rights in the a.m. and p.m.
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So the predominant flow is --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Is only the right.
MR. STAIGAR: Is the Right turn out
only.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So it wouldn't
really have an affect.
MR. STAIGAR: Correct.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Just bear with me
one second I just want to go through this (pause).
I just wanted to ask a couple of other
questions going back to your summary at the beginning
that there was a discrepancy or a concern that you
had about the trip generation with the expansion. So
as Councilman Aronsohn had mentioned, you're relying
on good faith that what the Hospital was saying is
what they're going to do.
MR. STAIGAR: Well, not a hundred
percent, but I think we are taking that and
questioning it and see if it makes sense.
And I think what this whole process is
let's have some safeguards and some controls so that
this thing doesn't get blown out of -- out of -- out
of proportion that -- that we do keep a lid on how
much activity this Hospital is generating.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay. And -- and
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the reason I ask is that when you read the testimony
there's at least, I think, 20 times where you use the
word "skeptical". You use the word, you just don't
see it. You remained, through most of it, very
concerned that the proposal can actually be done as
planned with the statistics that you were given.
Have you worked on any other projects
where you had similar statistics, you know we're
relying only on Valley, you do this every day. So
have there been other instances where you can, you
know, share with us where things have matched
statistics or... you know I know that's a tough
question to ask but --
MR. STAIGAR: It's really not.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: You used the words
you know I could go through and say all the different
statements: "I just don't see it"; "it fails to
isolate"; "it goes against the grain"; "it's lip
service". I mean these are all statements that you
made throughout.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes. And I --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: So --
MR. STAIGAR: And then at the --
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: And then at the
end you say it could be if everything, you know,
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falls into place.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes. In -- in -- in all
the years that I've done what I'm doing, and not only
from a traffic perspective, but from a business
perspective, you need a return on your investment.
And if -- and if someone's making a multimillion
dollar decision to do something, how do you get that
return in back if -- and the only way you can do it
is if you increase your money, input of the money
that you're making. And this is simple -- simple
basic development understanding.
And, normally, when I have always seen
developers or development occur, it increases
intensity. That's the only way you can make back
from the investments that you -- that you've made.
So that's why that whole -- my whole
first half of -- of my review was that it just
doesn't make any sense to me that you're going to
invest multimillion dollars but -- but not increase
activity, not increase your -- your input of your --
of the money coming -- you're going to get back. And
so I went back and I read the literature. The
literature makes sense to me, but it's all it is is
literature.
And the only tool that I have to say,
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well, maybe they are right in what they're saying
because I'm finding when I do my own investigation,
I'm finding that the Hospital generates more traffic
than it really -- it really should be. So it gave
some credibility to that.
But then the other aspect was that even
if we -- even if, as I said, they're lying to us and
they're going to increase the amount of traffic
proportionate with the amount of square feet that
they're expanding, si if I take those numbers, if
they're -- if they're generating a thousand cars now
with 500 square feet and -- a day, that was -- no, I
shouldn't say that, an hour. They're generating 920
cars an hour during the peak hour, they go out all
three driveways, in and out all three driveways.
That's in and out. And they -- and they're actually
going to almost double that number because I heard --
I don't know what the ultimate square footage was,
but it was somewhere in the order of about 900,000.
They'll go from five something to 900,000 I think the
number was. And I.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: It was 998.
MR. STAIGAR: Is that right?
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Yes, that is
right.
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MR. STAIGAR: So close to it. And if I
increase the traffic by that amount too and I ran it
through that Linwood and -- and Van Dien
intersection, it got us to where we are today.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
MR. STAIGAR: So that was the only --
it's -- the relief that I felt was that the
responsibility of any developer is you're going to
degrade something, bring it back to what we have
today. You can make it better than we have today,
but your minimum is to bring it back to what we have
today. And if that's what they can do, then all of
it -- if in the worse case scenario all of the
projections are indeed wrong, that they're trying to
pull the wool over our eyes, and they're actually
going to almost double the amount of traffic, well,
we -- we're back to where we are today.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: We're back to
today.
MR. STAIGAR: Yes. And -- and -- and
so I -- but that's why I said I -- I -- I found some
credibility in the literature I read and I compared
it to my tools and it kind of made sense to me.
But even if it wasn't, we'd have that
to rely upon.
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COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Okay.
Those are the only questions that I
have.
MAYOR KILLION: Any follow-up?
(NO RESPONSE.)
MAYOR KILLION: I have one, couldn't it
be we're talking about why the expansion, couldn't it
be simply Valley wants a more efficient operation and
a more healthy operation?
MR. STAIGAR: Correct. I -- I --
MAYOR KILLION: Does it need to be --
does it need to be money motivated?
MR. STAIGAR: I don't know. I can't
answer that because that's --
MAYOR KILLION: Right, but that could
be a reason, a more efficient --
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
MAYOR KILLION, -- more healthy
environment?
MR. STAIGAR: Right. I agree.
CHAIRMAN ANHALT: Any other questions?
(NO RESPONSE.)
MAYOR KILLION: Okay. Before we move
forward, it's been requested a one minute stretch by
the Council and the audience. Don't leave the room.
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Stand up. It's like a seventh inning stretch. The
seats are a little uncomfortable as you can tell.
(Whereupon, a brief recess is taken.)
MAYOR KILLION: Would everybody please
sit down, we're going to start the meeting up again.
We reserve the right to call you back
--
MR. STAIGAR: Yes.
MAYOR KILLION: -- if that's okay, to
follow up on the questions?
Thank you very much for your summary
and answering the questions.
MR. STAIGAR: My pleasure. My pleasure
to be here.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Thank you.
MS. MAILANDER: Let me just do a roll
call.
MAYOR KILLION: Roll call.
MS. MAILANDER: Councilman Aronsohn?
COUNCILMAN ARONSOHN: Here.
MS. MAILANDER: Councilman Riche?
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Here.
MS. MAILANDER: Councilwoman Walsh?
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: Here.
MS. MAILANDER: Councilman Wellinghorst
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is absent.
And Mayor Killion?
MAYOR KILLION: I'm here.
MS. MAILANDER: Okay.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay. We're now going
to have comments from the public. All who wish to
speak must sign up prior to the beginning of the
meeting and will speak in order of sign-in. There's
a three minute time limit per person. Each person
may speak only once per meeting.
If you came in late and you still wish
to speak, you can see the clerk to sign up. But,
again, we're going to go to 10 o'clock.
MS. MAILANDER: Mayor, could I just ask
are you going to let the attorneys speak first?
MAYOR KILLION: Just a second. I'll
take care of it.
MS. MAILANDER: Okay.
MAYOR KILLION: I'm not finished my
statement. Thank you.
We're now going to hear from the
attorneys on both sides.
Didn't we go through this last time? I
shouldn't have paused.
MS. MAILANDER: That's right.
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J. Lamb - Public Comment
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MAYOR KILLION: Again, we allowed a
little extra time on the first meeting, we're going
to stick to the three minute rule. Last time Mr.
Collins spoke, so it's only fair to --
MS. GOLDFISCHER: Absolutely.
MAYOR KILLION: -- to have opposing
counsel speak.
MR. LAMB: I'm happy to do that,
thanks.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you very much.
Everybody tries to help me up here and
I appreciate it.
MS. MAILANDER: Sorry.
MAYOR KILLION: You don't have to be
sorry.
MR. LAMB: Good evening, Mayor, and
Members of the Council. My name is John J. Lamb from
the law firm of Beattie Padavano. I represent the
Concerned Residents of Ridgewood, a non-profit
corporation.
I'm going to go through in three
minutes a very quick, but important outline.
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Excuse me, can you
move the microphone a little bit closer to you?
MAYOR KILLION: Yes.
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J. Lamb - Public Comment
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MR. LAMB: What we heard here today,
which I can really describe as the perfect storm,
we've got Level of Service F at very busy
intersections. You've got a parking management plan
that doesn't work at the current time. You have,
basically, parking that is insufficient or marginally
sufficient. And you have a school that seems to have
increased capacity.
And in these circumstances, in this
perfect storm, what you have is a proposal to add,
whatever that number is, 600,000 to 800,000 square
feet. That is a substantial increase.
One of the things to discuss is why
don't the numbers work? The average trips generated
for this Hospital need to be more.
What I did this afternoon, I just got
my new ITE booklet, the 8th Edition. And I opened it
up and looked at the definition of hospital. And the
definition of hospital has a specific inclusion for
clinics, which is defined as outpatient services.
So, essentially, that ITE manual does not include
something that's called a clinic or an outpatient
service.
Could that not be the explanation for
why there's so much activity here, because this
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J. Lamb - Public Comment
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facility has two components. It has the traditional
hospital, but it also has the outpatient services.
And if you read the 30 plus Planning
Board hearings, you see that's the wave of the
future. That's what's happening. That's being
increased. So we have an outpatient service
component that is substantial.
The other thing is, you've heard Mr.
Staigar say three ways to handle this measurement:
Number of beds; number of employees; area, the size
of the building.
Their expert only went on number of
beds, said we can go up to a million-two, a million
300,000 square feet, since I only added three beds
that's six trips.
Does anybody really think -- and as Mr.
Staigar admitted as one of his last answers to the
questions, that a hospital is going to spend $750
million and not have an increase in business to
generate that?
That -- that defies belief.
One of the things when you do these
methodologies, you take the most conservative one.
And what -- the Bible, as Mr. Staigar said, the ITE
manual is the Bible. And the Bible says that this is
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J. Lamb - Public Comment
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going to add 75 percent more trips because the size
is increased. That's what the Bible says. That's
what that book, a green book that I can show you,
that's what that says.
However, something very simple. Valley
and the experts are looking at it saying, ignore the
Bible. We're not going to increase that. We're not
going to increase the numbers. If you look at Mr.
Staigar's comments in his May 26, 2009 report --
(Bell Rings.)
MR. LAMB: -- 51 single pages, single
spaced pages, he specifically says that that is a
problem.
I'm just going to go very quickly.
There's a problem admitted with the parking
management plan. It's a problem right now.
One of the other things is that Traffic
Impact Study only covers Phase One. That's a
critical factor. It only covers Phase One. It does
not cover Phase Two.
And that seems to be understated. And
the 51 page report, there's only one line that says,
this only covers Phase One. It doesn't cover Phase
Two.
But, yet, the Master Plan Amendment and
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R. Goldfischer - Public Comment
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the proposed Zoning Ordinance cover all the phases,
cover that 1.2 million --
MAYOR KILLION: I'm going to ask you to
wrap it up please?
MR. LAMB: Yes. Thank you.
There's an acknowledgement that none of
the intersections were studied. There were problems
with spacing. There's always the discussion of let's
get shuttles from other areas, but yet we don't know
where those other areas are. We don't know where the
traffic pattern is proposed. We don't know the
routes of the other areas.
We ask you not to jeopardize Ridgewood
because of a false assumption or polemic assumption
that there'll never be an increase in employees or
business at this facility.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you.
MR. LAMB: Thank you.
MAYOR KILLION: I think that was closer
to four minutes, so you have four minutes also.
MS. GOLDFISHER: Thank you.
Good evening, my name is Robin
Goldfisher. And I'm the Vice President and General
Counsel for the Valley Health System.
I'm here this evening representing
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R. Goldfischer - Public Comment
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Valley in Chuck Collins' absence.
At the last meeting there were several
questions about Valley's plans for the future and
whether they're called expansion or a renewal. We
call our plans for the future "Renewal" because they
do just that. They allow Valley to renew the
Hospital while fulfilling our mission to serve our
community.
Valley's past success has been its
ability to meet the healthcare needs of the community
it serves, but those needs are ever changing.
Healthcare is different today than it
was in the past. And it will be different in the
future than it is today. New technology and new ways
of delivering patient care drive the need to evolve.
And, yes, to provide greater square footage to
accommodate larger diagnostic equipment and treatment
rooms for life changing technology like our soon to
be installed Gamma Knife or the single patient rooms
that provide better clinical outcomes and accommodate
new ways of delivering care.
If Valley is to continue its
longstanding tradition of delivering high quality
patient care, it must be able to evolve to meet those
challenges.
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R. Goldfischer - Public Comment
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At the last meeting several Council
Members asked why Valley went before the Planning
Board for a Master Plan Amendment. Although Chuck
Collins addressed this question, I believe it's worth
revisiting.
Valley appeared before the Planning
Board at the suggestion of the Village's Board of
Adjustment.
At the conclusion of Valley's request
for a 7,000 square foot addition to its emergency
department in 2002, members of the Board of
Adjustment asked Valley to develop a long term
facility plan and to take that plan to the Planning
Board.
In fact, this suggestion had been made
several times over the years, indicating that the
Planning Board would be a more appropriate venue to
review the needs of the Hospital and balance those
needs with the needs of the surrounding neighborhood
and the larger community which Valley serves.
Several Council Members also questioned
Valley being referred to as a "regional" hospital.
The American Hospital Association broadly defines all
hospitals that are non-federal, as community
hospitals. By definition, this would include:
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R. Goldfischer - Public Comment
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Englewood Hospital; Hackensack University Medical
Center; Holy Name Hospital; and, yes, Valley.
Valley is also considered a regional hospital as well
when you consider the nature of the services we
provide, and by its definition is inherently
beneficial.
For example, cardiac surgery, radiation
oncology, our neonatal intensive care and pediatric
intensive care units are all regional hospital
services. These services are best provided at fewer
hospitals that can attract and retain physician
experts and staff with sufficient volume to ensure
their expertise in a given field. This is why Valley
is considered a regional hospital.
Questions were asked at the last
meeting about the Greenfield option that the Hospital
consider deciding to renew our campus. The
Greenfield option would require approximately 30
acres of land because we've planned not only to build
a new hospital, but to consolidate all of our other
outpatient and administrative services on one campus.
Theoretically, this is a good idea.
Practically speaking, however, it was not achievable
and unaffordable.
So, now I want to address the real
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R. Goldfischer - Public Comment
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concern that might have been behind this question,
which is: If Valley needed 30 acres, why is the mere
16 acres that it now inhabits sufficiently sized for
"Renewal"?
The campus that we currently inhabit is
sufficiently sized because it is maintained
predominantly for inpatient services. And Valley
maintains upwards of ten other locations for certain
outpatient and administrative services, which we
continue to develop.
(Bell Rings.)
MS. GOLDFISCHER: Finally, one of the
speakers of the last meeting stated that only a small
percentage of Ridgewood residents uses Valley often.
I'd like to offer another perspective.
I asked our planning staff to do some
research and found that in a given year Valley has
more than 19,000 patient contacts with Ridgewood
residents alone. That equates to each household in
the Village of Ridgewood using the Hospital almost
two-and-a-half times a year. This can hardly be
considered a small number.
I'll conclude by thanking the members
of the Village Council for their continued effort to
move this process forward. Valley's mission is to
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G. Cornell - Public Comment
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serve the community with the best possible care and
service, but to do so we need to be allowed to evolve
to meet the healthcare needs of residents of
Ridgewood and the greater communities we serve.
Healthcare is not commercial development. Our goal
isn't to increase our patient load. We're investing
in the continuing health of our community. And, to
do, so we need to be able to renew.
Thank you.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you.
Well, we finally got that down, it was
the Board of Adjustment that started all this, so
we'll speak to those guys.
We're now going to hear comments, and
comments only, from the public. The clerk will read
your name off, would you please come up and identify
yourself.
MS. MAILANDER: Eugene Cornell?
MR. CORNELL: Gene Cornell, 623 Belmont
Road, President of Ridgewood Residents for Valley.
I'm not going to belabor, I'm only
really here to just add points and things that need
to get into the record.
One point I want to make is in recent
reporting comments were made to the effect that RRV
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G. Cornell - Public Comment
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is primarily an organization of doctors and staff of
Valley. We did some analysis, our 625 named members
include 24 doctors, who are affiliated with Valley
and ten employees who work for Valley. So the
respective percentages are 4 percent and under 2
percent of the 625 total membership.
A couple of other points, quickly, you
know, the word expansion can be looked at multiple
ways.
Again, the goal is not to expand the
population or usage, but just the square footage, so
it can accommodate necessary equipment.
I think the point is actually clarified
by the speaker tonight because he said basically
Valley is getting the traffic that you'd expect in a
much bigger facility. And that's really kind of like
with a condensed hospital. It doesn't have the space
it needs to really work well.
And you saw that when Rashid Dr.
Vaddoura spoke last week, where you have to actually
move two beds out to get one bed out to the hallway
that -- where you really are treating the patient
that needs to be treated.
So, it's not to increase the usage in
terms of people coming and going. It's just
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J. Tuomey - Public Comment
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increasing the efficiency and the type of care that
we provide, that Valley provides.
And, lastly, I just wanted to talk
about the equation of Valley and Paramus Park because
I really did not agree with the equation. You know,
you talk about beneficial use last week and that's
because Valley Hospital saves lives. I don't think
Paramus Park considers saving lives. I think it's
actually just waste a lot of time and energy, very
often. And I don't see the two --
MAYOR KILLION: And my credit card.
MR. CORNELL: And that's right. Thank
you.
And then one other point I -- the
attorney for The Concerned Residents, pretty much
outpatient care is now outside of the main campus,
Luckow, I estimate there were 600,000 trips moved off
to Luckow. So I don't think those comments about
the, you know, outpatient going on at the same
facility is actually correct.
Thank you for your time.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you.
MS. MAILANDER: Janet Tuomey?
MS. TUOMEY: Good evening. My name is
Janet Tuomey, T-u-o-m-e-y, 59 John Street, Ridgewood,
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New Jersey.
And I'd like to comment before I start
my statement that I was an employee of the emergency
room at Valley Hospital and it was a very agreeable
number of years there, many years ago.
And I have been a 30 year employee of
the Village of Ridgewood, which was also a very
wonderful experience.
And I just wanted to put that down.
I'm going to, you know, move my paragraphs around
because I don't know if I can speak as quickly as you
did or as Mr. Cornell did. So if it doesn't all flow
well, you'll excuse it.
In the summary of planning -- and my
comments are to kind of answer some of the questions
that related last -- last week.
Then -- now I'm going to start, all
right?
MAYOR KILLION: Wait a minute now.
MS. TUOMEY: I have notes --
MAYOR KILLION: All right. You blind
sided me from now on -- and I'll let you go with this
one cause we've worked together before.
MS. TUOMEY: Oh, thank you.
MAYOR KILLION: Anyone else, their
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resume will account for their time, moving forward.
All right.
MS. TUOMEY: In the summary of -- In
the summary of planning and zoning issues presented
by Mr. Brancheau, Ridgewood's Village Planner, he
cited the opposition to Valley's expansion from
citizens who were concerned about setbacks, noise,
lights, traffic and congestion in the area. And with
the quality of life that would disappear.
Mr. Brancheau made a glaring omission
and that was that there was no mention at all of the
health and safety of our children within the
immediate area which includes students at Travell and
Benjamin Franklin Middle School and little ones in
their own neighborhoods near Valley.
This significant omission is
reminiscent of the Planning Board's basic disregard
of our issues as parent after parent and grandparent
brought it up at the meetings. There were many, many
people who spoke on that subject throughout the
meetings that were held.
Now, I'm going to go out of context.
All right, last paragraph, another issue, as we all
know hospitals now do not keep patients, inpatients,
for long periods. They will be utilizing outpatient
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services more and more in the future. That is one
reason for all the technology anticipated in the
future for more outpatient service and testing.
The financial health of institutions
will also depend on outpatient services.
I asked Mr. Staigar, and I just talked
to him a minute ago, he remembered me. He said,
"you're the nurse". I said, "yes, I am".
MAYOR KILLION: I remember you also.
MS. TUOMEY: I asked Mr. Staigar about
the possibility of filling those 2,000 parking
spaces, theoretically this is, twice or even three
times a day with the -- with the right patterning.
And he said, yes. Yes, it's possible.
I asked him that as a question at one
of the last meetings at the end. And he said,
simply, yes, it's possible.
So, instead of 2,000 cars, we could
have four. We could have more than that. We could
have as many as -- as it would fill, if the
patterning of outpatients could be accommodated.
After all this is a business, a good
business, but it's a business, remember that.
All right. Both Mr. Collins and Mr.
Brancheau mentioned at the start of the meetings that
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they started in 2006. In early 2007 --
(Bell Rings.)
MS. TUOMEY: -- I'm brought up -- the
Planning Board started the meetings. What neither
one mentioned is that the enormous scope of the
project was so thoroughly obfuscated that it was not
until almost the summer of 2009 that we found out
that the square footage was going to be up to a
million square feet. And now it's more than that.
MAYOR KILLION: I'm going to have to
ask you to wrap it up please.
MS. TUOMEY: Okay. That's too bad. I
have two great more paragraphs.
MAYOR KILLION: Well, you can come to
the next meeting and get here early, sign up, and
we'll hear the other two paragraphs.
MR. ROGERS: Please, if I may, Mayor?
MAYOR KILLION: Yes.
MR. ROGERS: If I may?
I know the Council is aware of it, but
I just want to make a general comment. The Council
can't accept hearsay testimony about what someone
else said.
If it's in the record from the
transcripts of the Planning Board hearings, that's
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certainly fine. We've been able to review that.
But any comments made by a recent
conversation outside the purview of the Planning
Board transcripts, we can't take hearsay testimony.
So what you told us about what Mr. Staigar said, we
really can't accept that.
MS. TUOMEY: Okay. But you could
accept that's in the record.
MR. ROGERS: Well, if it's in the
record we can certainly consider it, but if it's not
we can't -- -
MS. TUOMEY: It is in the record, Mr.
Rogers.
MR. ROGERS: All right. We'll take
that under advisement. I'm giving a general
instruction with regard to the Council.
MS. TUOMEY: My question to him was in
the record.
MR. ROGERS: Ma'am, I'm giving a
general instruction to the Council.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay. It's in the
record.
MS. TUOMEY: Thank you.
MS. MAILANDER: Cathy Benson?
MAYOR KILLION: Your time starts when
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C. Benson - Public Comment
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you get to the microphone.
MS. BENSON: Ask me my name and my
address.
MAYOR KILLION: No, when you get to the
microphone.
Time.
MS. BENSON: All right.
I would like to thank the Council for
asking --
MS. MAILANDER: Name and address,
please?
MS. BENSON: See.
MAYOR KILLION: I know.
MS. BENSON: Cathy Benson, 572 Fairway
Road.
I would like to thank the Council for
great questions that I did not hear from the Planning
Board, that's number one.
And so it doesn't leave me much to say
about the traffic, except that, number one, you left
out the Travell kids that cross the intersections
also.
I don't know how any come up, but
Travell is up past the Hospital and across the street
in Linwood.
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C. Benson - Public Comment
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Also, you neglected how many cars now
come down my road to avoid the intersections.
Fairway Road, my kids used to play in the street.
And in the mid '90s they didn't play in the street
anymore because of all the frustrated drivers that
started coming down our road to avoid Linwood and Van
Dien intersection.
And, most importantly, in looking at
other hospitals, at the numbers and intensity, nobody
looked at other hospital locations and their road
services to them.
And most all of them, that I know of,
in Bergen County and beyond, have four lane access,
four lane roads that access these hospitals. And
they also have public transportation, which Valley
does not have.
And in these days of sustainability and
stuff, it is better to lower the parking number than
the zoning, and to provide public transportation,
which Valley cannot support because it doesn't have a
four lane access. And it also is in the wrong
location right now for the size of the property --
the size and the intensity of use.
Thank you. Thank you.
MS. MAILANDER: You could keep going.
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You have time.
MS. BENSON: Okay.
And then let's go to Valley's
truthfulness. I'm not going to call them liars or
truthful, but back in the '90s when they did the MRI
and they testified that their parking was sufficient,
they got a parking variance. You can see now that it
wasn't sufficient. Did they lie? I don't know. But
they can't tell us ten years from now what it's going
to be. And we can't. For all we know they get a
certificate of need from the State for 50 more beds
when they successfully close Pascack Valley. And
then what are you going to do, tell them no? The
State says we need 50 more beds in the area and
you're going to have to put them in. There was no
fighting them the last time they added 20 beds.
So, I can say, you know, our ordinances
cannot stop the growth of Valley Hospital from beyond
what we gave them anyway. And we need to do now
something about it.
Thank you.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you.
Next please?
MS. MAILANDER: Zigi Putnins.
THE COURT REPORTER: Sir, can you just
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Z. Putnins - Public Comment
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spell your name please.
MR. PUTNINS: Z-i-g-i, Putnins
P-u-t-n-i-n-s, 572 Fairway Road.
One of the concerns that has been
raised regarding the Hospital's doubling in size is
the increase in the intensity of use on the area.
The proposed H-Zone ordinance Section
E.6, addresses intensity in terms -- and tries to
limit intensity of use.
Although it says the intent of the
following requirements is to limit the intensity of
uses --
THE COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry, sir.
Can you speak up and a little slower?
(Whereupon, Mr. Putnins hands Court
Reporter a copy of his statement).
MAYOR KILLION: That works.
MR. PUTNINS: And although it says the
intent of the following requirements is to limit the
intensity of uses of within the H-Zone district to
approximately the same level of intensity that
existed in 2010, it doesn't actually define
intensity.
The proposed ordinance as described --
described indicators of a site intensity such as:
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Z. Putnins - Public Comment
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Trip generation; number of physicians, staff and
other employees; number of parking spaces; and actual
parking utilization.
In my view, the only indicator that
counts is the first one, trip generation. Vehicles
count, plain and simple. No wiggle room or fudge
factors or fuzzy math.
The number of staff, we really don't
see what goes on behind the walls of Valley. Of
course the number of people working there, the more
cars you need, but I don't really care if I see -- if
there's one person per car or three people in a car,
but I do care if a car comes and goes.
Number of parking spaces, I don't see
how the number of parking spaces affects intensity.
Of course, the more parking spaces means more cars
can come in.
But I don't really care if a spot has
only one car all day or four different cars; but I do
care how many cars come and go.
Parking utilization, I don't see how
parking utilization affects intensity. Underutilized
parking spots can invite more cars, but I don't care
if all the spots are filled or only half the spots
are filled. But I do care how many cars come and go.
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L. Kender - Public Comment
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In the event that the Council passes an
ordinance that tries to regulate intensity at Valley,
I would suggest that vehicle metering systems be put
in place at the entrances to count the number of
cars, trucks, ambulances and other vehicles that come
and go, and a monthly assessment be made.
For any month the number of vehicles
exceeds some predetermined number, Valley should be
incentivize to reduce the number in subsequent
months.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you.
MS. MAILANDER: Lisa Kender?
MS. KENDER: My name is Lisa Kender,
K-e-n-d-e-r. I live at 334 Fairway Road.
My husband and I have been residents
and taxpayers of Ridgewood for 17 years at this
address. I have a child at Travell who will be
attending BF.
I attended many of the Planning Board
hearings during the past five years, and I am a
member of Ridgewood Residents for Valley.
I am here tonight to express my support
of the proposed H-Zone Ordinance.
Many of my neighbors are understandably
concerned about: Construction, traffic, noise, dust,
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L. Kender - Public Comment
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and the overall safety of the children who walk to
Travell, BF and the high school.
My child will attend BF. And I feel
confident that she will be safe and able to learn
during the construction phase of Valley's
modernization.
I don't believe that Valley con -- that
prior Valley construction projects have impeded
learning or resulted in any accidents.
I believe that well thought out
developer's agreements and monitoring technology can
help Valley and its contractors minimize construction
impacts on both the schools and the neighborhood
while keeping everyone safe.
And by the way, please remember that
everyone, includes Valley staff, doctors, patients
and visitors. And the Hospital will continue to
operate during the construction period.
People have expressed concern that as a
regional hospital, Valley attracts patients from
outside Ridgewood. Well, of course it does. I doubt
that the restaurants and businesses of Ridgewood
could survive if we limited their clientele to only
Ridgewood residents.
As for ongoing patient and staff
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traffic on Linwood, we've heard testimony that
traffic should not significantly increase over
today's levels as the Hospital plan would only add
three new beds.
That said, I personally would welcome
the County improvements to the intersection of
Linwood and Van Dien and to the other intersections
as discussed tonight.
Several people have commented that we
don't need Valley to modernize because if we are
really sick we can go to New York City. Yes, it is
wonderful that we have access to specialists in the
City if we have a rare form of a disease or need a
procedure that Valley can't provide. However, if I
am really sick, I would prefer to be treated right
here in my own backyard by doctors from my community
in a single patient room with access to state of the
art diagnostic equipment.
At several points in my life I have had
to drive over an hour for healthcare. It was
expensive, time consuming and very disruptive to my
life. I do not want to have to do that again, unless
it is absolutely necessary.
In many parts of America, communities
are facing a reduction in healthcare services.
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D. Lipson - Public Comment
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Specifically, the closing of hospitals that are not
financially viable and a dearth of doctors.
Valley is well managed, financially
strong and provides first rate healthcare. Valley
attracts excellent doctors who are valued members of
our community, that I do not want to lose.
People want Valley to maintain the
status quo while continuing to provide top notch
healthcare. Unfortunately, that's not possible over
the longer term without modernization of the campus.
We, as a community, are going to have
to put up with some inconveniences to help Valley
modernize. The Planning Board worked really hard to
balance the needs of the Hospital with the concerns
of the community. I like the compromise that they
designed.
(Bell Rings.)
MS. KENDER: And I urge the Village
Council to enact the ordinance.
Thank you.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you. Good
timing.
MS. MAILANDER: David Lipson?
DR. LIPSON: David Lipson, L-i-p-s-o-n,
302 Heights Road.
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D. Lipson - Public Comment
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I've lived in Ridgewood with my family
for 33 years. We've raised two daughters who came
through the Ridgewood public school system. And they
were very well prepared. That's why we came to
Ridgewood. They both wound up in Ivy league schools.
And as some of you in the room
recognize me because I drive a car every year in the
Ridgewood Fourth of July parade. I've had some
illustrious passengers.
I happen to be the Director of the
Department of Plastic Surgery at Valley Hospital and
I have been on-staff ever since we moved into town 33
years ago. In fact my first office was in Ridgewood
for five years, but moved out because they -- it got
too small. We had to find larger quarters. And I'm
now in Fair Lawn.
I have no monetary relationship with
the Hospital. Perhaps in the past I've made some
small charitable contributions, but that's it. I'm
not on their payroll. In fact, all of us physicians
at Valley often give pro bono care in the emergency
room and elsewhere. It's part of our obligation of
being on staff at the Hospital.
During my medical school and residency
training in New York City, I was affiliated at one
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time or another with 17 different hospitals in New
York.
None of them have the professional
level, the care, the compassion and concern for the
community that Valley has shown over the years.
Valley is a very, very special place. And I think
everybody here -- everyone here knows that.
In 1978, when I started practice, I was
on the staff of eight different hospitals including
Valley. Since then, five of those hospitals have
closed for various reasons having to do with
mismanagement, funding, et cetera. By the way, there
are no traffic problems around those five hospitals.
They're all "A" and "B" intersections, I'm sure.
In medicine, one has to keep up with
technology or one will fail. There's no two ways
about it. And Valley, we know the physical plant is
extremely obsolete.
Valley has had a number of previous
renovations while I've been here. And somehow the
neighborhood has survived. And I haven't heard of
any injuries or health hazards to any of the
residents.
I think that Valley's been extremely
careful in all its previous projects. And I would
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T. Kossoff - Public Comment
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expect it to be the same. And by the way, I've never
heard Valley Hospital lie.
Regarding real estate values, there's
been -- during the Planning Board, and I've been to
every meeting, in the Planning Board event real
estate values were brought up as a potential problem.
But, number one, I don't know of any
negative impact on real estate values that has been
demonstrated by any of the speakers at any time
during those previous projects. And I think that if
I were a neighbor of the Hospital and the Hospital
were failing because it was obsolete, I think my real
estate values then would suffer.
Thank you.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you, Doctor.
MS. MAILANDER: Tom Kossoff.
MAYOR KILLION: Tom, three minutes on
the dot. It's not the Council meeting.
MR. KOSSOFF: I've got a little
preface.
MAYOR KILLION: No, three -- three
minutes please, Tom.
MR. KOSSOFF: My name is --
MAYOR KILLION: Come to the Council
meeting on Wednesday, I'll let you talk longer.
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T. Kossoff - Public Comment
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MR. KOSSOFF: Tom Kossoff, 46 Heermance
Place, Ridgewood.
THE COURT REPORTER: Can you spell your
last name?
MR. KOSSOFF: Yes, K-o-s-s, like Sam,
o-f-f like Frank.
THE COURT REPORTER: Thank you.
MR. KOSSOFF: That's a long name, so I
get a little extra.
Firstly, before anything, I mean that
great -- that shift change, that 3 o'clock thing, can
someone look in to the perfect storm of 3 o'clock.
Why?
I just throw that out there because
you're -- you're just creating even more problems by
this 3 o'clock. And if there was any concern for the
neighborhood that we're in, with a school, with
everything going on, someone would have had a bright
idea in how many years Valley's been here. I've only
been here since 1993. Let's change that shift hour.
Anyway, what a bombshell of an evening.
When the traffic engineer tonight said right now
Valley is too large for the neighborhood based on the
traffic. What's stranger is that in Valley logic,
the way to solve this problem now is to expand, and
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then that will solve the problem.
And then the quoted skeptical traffic
engineer, who had worked closely with Valley, said
verbatim, "if Valley Hospital is lying to us". I
can't believe that. I guess that's a warning.
I would not even think Valley would be
lying. And this is the traffic engineer.
I'm a little late to the process, but
what I'm hearing tonight is bizarre. I am still
stunned.
Now, I'll prepare -- proceed with my
written comments.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay. Please.
MR. KOSSOFF: I am not a direct
neighbor of Valley Hospital, nor do I have children
any longer in the school system. However, I do
support the neighbors of Valley Hospital. And I
support all the residents who have children at BF
Middle School and Travell now or in the future who
are against the proposed Valley Hospital
Renewal/Expansion.
My position is I am pro expansion of
Valley Hospital, but I'm not pro expansion of Valley
Hospital in Ridgewood. Those two positions are not
contradictory or illogical.
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T. Kossoff - Public Comment
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Yes, I accept at face value what Valley
Hospital says they need. However, they have choices
to do that same thing within the current zoning that
allows it to some degree. The rest could be built
and developed elsewhere.
This plan, split planning, may not be
as easy for Valley or economical, but they do have a
choice. The parties that don't have a choice are the
people that are here, the homeowners and the school
children who go to BF Middle School and Travell.
The homes can't be moved. And the
school children can't walk to another middle school.
Everyone agrees that for up to seven years, the
neighbors --
(Bell Rings.)
MR. KOSSOFF: -- and school children
will be living with the annoyance of construction.
This is simply not acceptable quality of life.
Valley has a choice. The neighbors and school
children do not, except to say no.
I am sorry I have to agree for safety
sake, location, location, location --
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you, Tom.
MR. KOSSOFF: -- this is too small and
too dense a neighborhood with homes and the
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L. Kelty - Public Comment
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schools --
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you.
MR. KOSSOFF: -- please.
Thank you.
MS. MAILANDER: Lawrence Kelty.
THE COURT REPORTER: Sir, can you spell
your first and last name please?
MR. KELTY: Lawrence, L-a-w-r-e-n-c-e,
Kelty K-e-l-t-y. Address is 438 Colonial Road.
I spoke before the Planning Board
twice. And I wanted to thank you for taking the time
over the summer to read those statements.
I now want to add three points that
have come to light since then. They're the concept
of inherently beneficial, the comment for 454 beds
the Hospital would be right sized. Mr. Collins'
comment significant concessions were made by the
Hospital since the beginning of the process.
The first item is the concept of
inherently beneficial and while I will defer to Mr.
Rogers' legal interpretation, I'd like to propose a
common sense interpretation. And I realize legal and
common sense don't always go together.
MAYOR KILLION: Absolutely.
MR. KELTY: The term was mentioned by
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L. Kelty - Public Comment
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Mr. Brancheau last week, the Planning Board agreed on
it by Ms. Price, and it was the rationale for the
approval by one or more of the Planning Board
members.
I emphatically don't believe this
concept is relevant to this discussion. While I
agree that since hospitals, churches, recycling
centers and even town garbage dumps are inherently
beneficial, but they may not be financially
beneficial, it makes sense to have a law that says we
should reduce some of the requirements they need to
go through to get established.
But once they are established, I don't
believe the concept should be used as a justification
for permitting them to expand beyond the original
size.
I am happy that we have religious
organizations in town. But I don't want the national
cathedral or the Vatican in Van Nests Square.
Inherently beneficial may be grounds
for encouraging the establishment of certain
activities, but should not be used as a justification
for the expansion of those activities.
The second item is Mr. Brancheau's and
Mr. Skorupa's comments about for a 454 bed hospital,
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L. Kelty - Public Comment
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the proposal is right sized. Many hear the part
about right sized. I hear the qualifier, for a 454
bed hospital.
The Hospital Village sourced patients
are only about 10 percent, so that would imply the
Village only needs a 45 bed hospital to meet its
needs. That is the difference between a local
hospital and a regional hospital.
A local hospital can survive based on
the number of people in the immediate area. A
regional hospital has too many beds to survive
locally, so it must draw patients from throughout the
region.
When did the Village Council decide
that we needed a 454 bed hospital? I argue, it
didn't. It created a size constraint, roughly the
500,000 square feet that would fit on a 15 acre site,
and allow the Hospital to configure the inside.
The Hospital chose to overstuff the
number of beds in the facility.
We heard Mr. Collins say last week that
sometimes one bed has to be removed so that the other
bed can be taken out of the room. That sounds like a
decision was made by the Hospital, not the Village
Council, not the Planning Board, to stuff more beds
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L. Warren - Public Comment
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into the space available.
(Bell Rings.)
MAYOR KILLION: Please wrap it up, sir.
MR. KELTY: Lastly, Id like to comment
on Mr. Collins idea that the Hospital has made
significant concessions in the process. Many people
would take exception to that. The Hospital proposal
is at least the same size, if not bigger, since we
started. We have 10 years of construction and noise.
We have a 100 foot building instead of a 60 foot
building. Yes, the Hospital has agreed to make
cosmetic changes, but significant concessions would
be to reduce the floor print, eliminate the
construction noise and prohibit trucks from coming
through the Village. Change shift starting and
ending times to reduce the 3 p.m. congestion at
Linwood and Van Dien.
MAYOR KILLION: Sir, I'm going to have
to ask you to wrap up.
MR. KELTY: Thank you.
MAYOR KILLION: Thank you.
MS. MAILANDER: Lee Warren?
MAYOR KILLION: Don't run, take your
time.
MS. WARREN: No, I got to get home.
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L. Warren - Public Comment
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MAYOR KILLION: I'm sorry.
MS. WARREN: This is cutting into my
sleep time. And you'll find out why I've got bad
news for you.
My name is Lee Warren, 140 Washington
Place. I live across from the George Washington
renewal.
THE COURT REPORTER: Can you spell your
last name please?
MS. WARREN: W-a-r-r-e-n.
The George Washington Middle School
renewal started in July. What people at Valley,
living around Valley need to know is Ridgewood has an
ordinance, I believe it's 20-12 that says
construction may begin on weekdays at 7:30 and must
end by six. On weekends at 9 a.m. and concluding at,
I believe, one or two.
Since July 1st, GW construction has
started between 5:40 and 6:15 every morning. I call
the police. The police come. They stop. The police
drive away. They continue. This is what I hear at
5:40, "beep, beep, beep, beep" from the trucks. They
get around it and say we're not working, it's just
deliveries. Deliveries? This is every single
morning, Monday to Friday.
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L. Warren - Public Comment
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Certain Saturdays in the summer we --
they were working a little bit on Saturdays. I got
to say last Saturday I woke up with a start, heart
attack, it was so quiet I thought for God's sake
something's wrong. I'm alone on the Earth just
wasn't any construction.
When construction comes into an area,
the traffic patterns -- I don't care what your
studies show -- quadruple. No one is going to let
their little baby walk by when there's construction
going on. I know that. I live across from it. It
is unbelievable the amount increase in that. I would
like the traffic people to come over there and study
what was GW and what it is now? It's quadrupled what
it was.
So I need you to keep that in mind, you
know, and to be honest I was in Valley for two weeks,
a week-and-a-half undiagnosed. I had a roommate. I
enjoyed her to the fullest. And without me there,
she might have gotten in trouble because she was an
elderly lady that people ignored. Fabulous life
story.
I say keep the double rooms. I've
always enjoyed my -- my roommates.
Thank you.
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G. Hautk - Public Comment
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MAYOR KILLION: Okay. Thank you.
Go get some sleep.
MS. WARREN: I only have five hours
until they start up again.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
MS. MAILANDER: Gwenn Hautk?
MAYOR KILLION: I -- okay.
MS. MAILANDER: Gwenn Hautk.
MAYOR KILLION: Gwenn?
MS. MAILANDER: Did I pronounce that
right?
MS. HAUTK: Hi, I'm Gwen Hautk, 217
Fairmount Road.
THE COURT REPORTER: Can you spell your
last name please?
MS. HAUTK: G-w-e-n-n H-a-u-t-k.
I just wanted to speak on behalf of
Valley. I believe that the changes proposed for
Valley are a good idea, that will not only improve
the way the Hospital can serve its patients, but they
will help the Hospital, itself, stay healthy and stay
in a competitive hospital environment.
Also, I trust Audrey Meyers, Megan
Fraser, all the doctors and volunteers that I work
with and all the spokespersons for the Hospital, when
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G. Hautk - Public Comment
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they tell me that the Hospital will have better
services and healthier surroundings if they modernize
and expand the way they've outlaid it because they're
the experts. And as much as you had to hire
consultants to make -- from the outside and you put
your brains together, you're doing it on the fly.
And these guys are for years and years experts in the
field. And -- and I believe them. I trust Valley
because Valley has never given me reasons not to
trust them. They've never done anything for reasons
but to provide us excellent medical care. And they
have been excellent neighbors.
They have also partnered with me in
many personal ways and with many people I know in the
community. I volunteer for the auxiliary.
In 1992, when I was pregnant with my
third child, I scrubs the stretchers in post-op
rooms. Later I photographed pictures for the
Hospital magazine.
Recently, I shared the Valley wall.
This year I am in charge of all the holiday
decoration for the entire hospital.
I do volunteer to run the gift shop at
the Hospital, and adult volunteer staff at Kurth
Cottage. Valley could afford to hire professionals
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to manage any of these tasks. In fact, it would be
done more effectively if they did.
But our Hospital is very unique in a
way it invites people to help do almost everything
with them.
I've never seen a hospital with so many
volunteers running around. I think Valley is a state
of the art, acute care, regional, mom and pop
hospital.
The Hospital would never cause harm to
come to any of the school children who they so
carefully have protected for so many -- you know,
through all the expansions in the past, and who they
-- they -- they live next to.
The two campuses are actually givers
and caretakers, whose missions are very much the
same.
Audrey Meyers, and expert hospital
consultants and the doctors who work at Valley say
that this renovation is overdue. It is expensive.
But so are all the machines that are in the Hospital.
The new Gamma Knife machine is $7
million alone.
Construction will undoubtedly be an
inconvenience to the neighbors who have to suffer
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through that. But who amongst us has not suffered
through renovations and construction.
I live in Willard which is currently
under a renovation as well.
But it is even more compelling and
rewarding to realize that these improvements will be
for the greater good.
(Bell Rings.)
MS. HAUTK: -- of so many people who
live in this town and beyond it. And these
renovations will last for another half century at
least.
Thank you.
MAYOR KILLION: And thank you for your
volunteering.
MS. MAILANDER: That's the last name we
have on the list.
MAYOR KILLION: Okay.
Thank you very much for everyone
coming. And it was another good meeting.
We'll see you at the next one. Can I
have a motion please?
DEPUTY MAYOR RICHE: Motion to adjourn.
COUNCILWOMAN WALSH: I'll second it.
MS. MAILANDER: Second.
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All in favor?
(Whereupon, all present Council Members
respond in the affirmative.)
MAYOR KILLION: Good night, everyone.
(Whereupon, this matter will be
continuing at a future date. Time noted 9:32
p.m.)
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C E R T I F I C A T E
I, LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.C.R., R.P.R., a NotaryPublic of the State of New Jersey, Notary ID. #15855,Certified Court Reporter of the State of New Jersey,and a Registered Professional Reporter, herebycertify that the foregoing is a verbatim record ofthe testimony provided under oath before any court,referee, board, commission or other body created bystatute of the State of New Jersey.
I am not related to the partiesinvolved in this action; I have no financialinterest, nor am I related to an agent of or employedby anyone with a financial interest in the outcome ofthis action.
This transcript complies withregulation 13:43-5.9 of the New Jersey AdministrativeCode.
______________________________LAURA A. CARUCCI, C.C.R., R.P.R.License #XI02050, and Notary Publicof New Jersey #15855, NotaryExpiration Date March 1, 2014
Dated: