Assemblyman Ramos To Hospital Bidders: Go Public

Assemblyman Ruben Ramos Jr. expressed harsh criticism on the Zimmer administration regarding the hospital sale on Thursday. He also asked other bidders who had expressed interest in buying the Hoboken University Medical Center, to go public with their bid.

In his statement, Ramos wrote: "In order to properly evaluate the City’s options, more information about Holdco’s bid as well as the other bidder’s proposals is required. For this reason, the Mayor needs to release all of the other responses to the RFP for the sale of the hospital and to reach out to the other bidders to gauge their interest in managing the hospital through this debacle."

He also advised the bidders to go public. One company, P3 located in Connecticut, has waived its non-disclosure agreement already and its president, Geoff Teed, has made it clear to the city council as well as the local media that his company is still willing to buy the hospital.

Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority Chairwoman Toni Tomarazzo said that Teed's proposal did not have the funding to pay for the hospital and defease the city's $52 million bond obligation on HUMC.

Tomarrazo has said at multiple occassions that of the six bids that were received, HUMC Holdco LLC provided the best bid with all the financing in place.

The bids have not been made public by the Hospital Authority.

"I’m encouraging all the bidders to submit their proposals to the Hoboken City Council and let it review the proposals that the Hospital Authority and Mayor Zimmer refuse to share with the public," Ramos wrote. "Let the public formulate their own opinion and decide what the alternatives are."