There's a huge hole in expose of hospital takeovers

A senior living residence in Saddle River on Sunday played host to more than a dozen great jazz musicians and singers performing at a benefit for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, including vocalist Dianne Reeves, above, and Cuban-born pianist Chucho Valdes, below. The drummer backing Reeves is Steve Williams.

Introduced as the "greatest living jazz pianist," Valdes' pounded the keys at Sunrise Senior Living, where chairman emeritus of Blue Note Records, Bruce Lundvall, now lives as he struggles with Parkinson's disease. Lundvall organized the jazz festival.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record already has published many thousands of words in its three-part expose on for-profit hospital ownership, but not the ones local property tax payers want to see (A-1 today and Sunday).

In Hackensack and Englewood, two huge, non-profit medical centers pay little or no taxes to their communities, drastically shifting the burden onto homeowners and businesses.

Hackensack University Medical Center alone owns more than $180 million in tax-exempt property, and returns nothing to the city in lieu of taxes.

Unfortunately, there is no sign either Hackensack or Englewood will lose their non-profit hospitals soon.

But amid all the negatives The Record's local-news editors list in the shift to for-profit hospitals, one big positive development was overlooked:

Those other hospitals began paying property taxes for the first time, and that could mean lower bills for residents, landlords and merchants.

Who edited this?

On Sunday, the first part of the series reported, "... After several pending sales are completed, one in six of the state's 72 hospitals will be run by health care entrepreneurs and investors.... (A-1)"

Why are readers asked to do the math? Does the paper mean 12 hospitals?

Singer Norah Jones.

Guitarists Ed Laub, left, and Bucky Pizzarelli.

Pianist Bill Charlap performed with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington.

Not much worth reading

I didn't see much worth reading in the rest of the paper today or Sunday.

More than a quarter of today's front page -- on a golf tournament in Paramus -- is a huge waste of space, testament to how little news the Woodland Park newsroom generated on a sleepy Sunday.

Dogs figure prominently in two stories on today's Local front (L-1).

How appetizing is it to go to a farmers' market for fresh produce and buy fruit or vegetables with dog hairs on them?

That was a possibility in Hawthorne, where a half-dozen therapy dogs were available for hugging two weeks after a woman at the market was killed by the deranged driver of a pick-up truck (L-1).

Apples and oranges

What does the 2008 fatal police shooting of an Hispanic man in Denville after a high-speed chase have to do with Ferguson, Mo., where an unarmed teen was killed by police this month?

Absolutely nothing, but that didn't stop the befuddled Road Warrior from writing an entire column on police stops of drivers (Sunday's L-1).

The best story in Sunday's paper is the obituary of Frank "Candy Man" Ix III of Cresskill, a cheerful retiree who attended every morning Mass at a convent in Tenafly (L-1).

Tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano performed with his group and his wife, singer Judi Silvano.

Miguelli sang his own songs.

Holders of VIP tickets were served tapas, as well as beer and wine at two open bars.