Long Island College Hospital backers ask judge to toss scores

Attorney says rating system rewarding proposals that kept facility open was ignored

Long Island College Hospital
Long Island College Hospital

Community groups are asking a judge to throw out the scores submitted by several panel members tasked with choosing a winning bidder for SUNY’s Long Island College Hospital.

The advocates for LICH say the panel members in question did not follow the rules stipulated in the Request for Proposal process. As a result, they charge, bids that would keep a medical facility on the current site were awarded lower scores than they should have been.

The RFP rules originally stated that bids would qualify for a higher score if they provided for a full-service hospital with 100 inpatient beds, reports the Brooklyn Eagle. Proposals that did not include medical facilities were “subject to receiving a lower technical score.” Lawyers for SUNY said panelists were not mandated to award a certain number of points for hospital projects.

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An attorney for the advocates, Jim Walden, Asked Supreme Court Justice Johnny Lee Baynes on Tuesday to consider as a litmus test a panelist identified as “Judge 9.” That panelist gave no points to the only four bids that met the hospital threshold, Walden said — yet awarded the full 70 points to a proposal that did not.

Community groups, unions and New York City public advocate Letitia James chose the panelists for a second RFP process in March. The goal of that panel was to keep the LICH operating as a hospital. [Brooklyn Eagle] — Tom DiChristopher