We previously reported that the hearing to ddtermine whehter SUNY should be found in contempt of court orders mandating the continuation of hospital services at Long Island College Hospital had been postponed from today (Tuesday, January 21) at least until tomorrow. Now, thanks to Bill Ringler, former chairperson of the Riverside Tenants’ Association, we know that the hearing has been postponed until February 11, in order to allow the plaintiffs–Boerum Hill Association, Brooklyn Heights Association, Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association, Cobble Hill Association, Riverside Tenants’ Association, and Wykoff Gardens Association, Inc.–time to evaluate a new settlement proposal by SUNY, the details of which are confidential. According to a statement released by Jim Walden, Esq., of Gibson Dunn LLP, counsel for the plaintiffs, as a condition of allowing the extension,
we [the plaintiffs] demanded that SUNY extend the protections of the existing standstill agreement, so that medical services will continue at their existing level, and we advised the Court that, if SUNY’s Board of Trustees were to vote to award a contract based on the existing RFP—which was not designed to seek a hospital operator—we would amend our papers to add such approval as another act of contempt.
