To the editor:
Politicians often promise to unite people across party lines, but very few can honestly say that they’ve actually done it.
Westwood Mayor John Birkner Jr. can.
Days after John was elected mayor in 2007, Westwood’s Pascack Valley Hospital closed after years of mismanagement. This meant big problems for our region:
Patients requiring acute care for everything from car accidents to heart attacks faced unacceptable and potentially life threatening delays as they had to be transported to Ridgewood or Hackensack for treatment. Local medical offices connected to the hospital began closing down.
Customers dwindled for small businesses from auto repair shops to diners that had served the hospital’s patients and staff. Pascack Valley communities, including Woodcliff Lake, where I was then serving as mayor, faced shrinking tax bases, lost jobs, declining quality of life, and even life and death risks.
Mayor Birkner could have done what politicians normally do when they inherit big, seemingly impossible problems: blame his predecessors, reject responsibility, and change the subject.
But John turned out to be a different kind of leader. He set his sights (and staked his political future) on getting that hospital re-opened.
It was anything but a safe bet. No new hospital had been opened in New Jersey in 40 years, and powerful interests—including John’s fellow Democrat, then Gov. Jon Corzine—opposed the reopening.
But John didn’t play it safe, or mindlessly obey his party leaders—he did what was best for the people who elected him. He assembled a bipartisan coalition that included all 10 of our fellow Pascack Valley mayors—Democrats and Republicans alike—to unanimously push the state to issue the certificate of need to re-open the hospital under new management. He rallied citizen volunteers who routinely packed State Health Planning Board meetings with over 1,000 attendees to deliver a unified demand for our hospital.
After five years and countless setbacks, John stood amid a bipartisan array of statewide and local leaders to cut the ribbon on the new Hackensack University Medical Center at Pascack Valley. That reopened hospital has been an engine of economic revitalization as well as a literal lifeline for countless people throughout our region.
That’s why I urge my neighbors—regardless of party—to join me in voting for John Birkner Jr. for Assembly this year: because for him “putting people ahead of politics” isn’t just a slogan, it’s a genuine accomplishment.
Josephine Higgins, RN
Former mayor of Woodcliff Lake
