Update: According to reader Susan Raboy (see comments) there will be no hearing today (Thursday, February 20). We will update with a new top post as soon as more information is available.
Shortly after this morning’s hearing began, the Eagle’s Mary Frost reports, representatives of the two union plaintiffs in the action against SUNY’s aattempt to close Long Island College Hospital, the New York State Nurses Association and local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents service workers at LICH, asked Justice Johnny Lee Baynes to adjourn the proceedings because “the Mayor’s office would be discussing possible plans for LICH with the community on Tuesday.” We have no word so far of any such discussions, but will update as soon as we do. Update: We are advised by Judy Stanton, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, that the BHA has not been contacted by the Mayor’s office concerning any such plans.
Ms. Frost’s article quotes Jim Walden, of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP, the attorney representing the Brooklyn Heights Association, the Cobble Hill Association, and other civic groups opposing the closure of LICH, as saying his clients were ready to go forward with the contempt proceedings. Nevertheless, Justice Baynes adjourned the hearing until this Thursday, February 20.
Responding to reports that Mayor de Blasio was backing down from his insistence that LICH be preserved as a full service hospital (see photo above, by your correspondent for BHB, of then candidate de Blasio at a “Save LICH” rally last June), Ms. Frost called the Mayor’s office. A representative of his told Ms. Frost, “This is not true.”
