Mayor: Hospital Deal on 'Life Support'

If Wednesday night's $5 million bond ordinance to settle a bankruptcy agreement doesn't go through, the sale of the Hoboken University Medical Center to private bidder HUMC Holdco LLC. will fall through, Mayor Dawn Zimmer said before the council meeting.

The unions are not accepting a bankruptcy settlement that is scheduled to be heard in U.S. bankruptcy on Thursday, Zimmer said. Holdco is offering $5 million toward a settlement, but creditors want roughly $15 million.

"If there's no bond," she said, "the deal is dead."

With Wednesday night's bond ordinance, the city is trying to breathe new life into a deal that is not dead, Zimmer said, "but on life support."

With the city's $5 million the bankruptcy settlement would be $10 million. The total debt is roughly $35 million.

If the ordinance is voted down, Zimmer said, she will go down to Trenton on Friday to ask for "emergency shut down" of the Hospital.

"We're out of cash," Zimmer said, "we have to close down."

If the hospital shuts down, the roughly 150-year-old institution will close and more than 1,100 people will lose their jobs.

The council minority has previously expressed unwillingness to vote in favor of the bond. Before the meeting that was scheduled to start at 7 p.m., it seemed like the mayor did not have the six votes she needs to pass the bond ordinance.

The council was scheduled to go into closed meeting on Wednesday and be briefed by the mayor and Hoboken Hospital Authority Chairwoman Toni Tomarazzo.