MOVING OUT
Mercer County halts first dose vaccinations at MCCC, confirms clinic’s imminent closure, new site not picked yet
TRENTON >> First-dose COVID-19 vaccinations have suddenly ceased at Mercer County Community College effective this week, and the inoculation site in West Windsor will soon be shuttered, The Trentonian has learned.
After Mercer County received more than $70 million in federal stimulus money, County Executive Brian Hughes’ administration decided to wind down its countyhosted vaccination site in the suburbs as it considers new options in the future.
“This is not a question of being pennywise,” county spokeswoman Julie Willmot said Tuesday via email. “We are willing to spend whatever we need to spend to get people vaccinated, whether it’s at the college site or any other.”
Mercer County will establish a new vaccination site not far from MCCC, according to Willmot, who said the college clinic needs to wind down because of academic constraints.
“It is simply because the clinic at Mercer County Community College uses student nurses to administer the vaccine, and as the school year ends, the student nurses will be on summer break,” she said. “We are transitioning to the skating rink at Mercer County Park, which is actually a bit closer to the eastern side of the county.
There will be some overlap as we make the transition, but there is nothing more to it than that.”
A slate of Republican candidates running for Mercer County commissioner released a statement blasting the Democratic kingmaker over this issue.
“It is shocking that after the county receiving $71 million in COVID Relief Funds they have decided to leave half of Mercer County with no vaccination site, leaving the towns to fend for themselves,” Richard Balgowan, Michael Chianese and Andrew Kotula said last Saturday. “They closed the college site with no plan whatsoever.”
Municipalities initially wanted to host their own vaccination sites, officials said, but the county took the lead and opened sites at the CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton and Mercer County Community College in West Windsor.
Robbinsville Mayor Dave Fried said his township will make due once the second site closes. But he knows it will be a hardship for some neighboring townships.
“This is gonna fall on the towns at the worst possible time now that the state is opening up to everyone and the towns are scrambling to staff this,” he said.
Mark Matzen, the chairman of the MCCC Board of Trustees, claimed it was always the plan to shutter the MCCC vaccination site in May — which is contradicted by internal correspondence obtained by The Trentonian — calling it a labor issue.
“We just don’t have people to man the site,” he said. “If we had volunteers, [we] would continue to do it,” said Matzen, who was appointed to the board by Hughes, one of his close friends.
Matzen acknowledged helping arrange for MCCC to host a county vaccination site pro bono for the last few months.
He said the partnership allowed student nurses to obtain “clinical hours for their degrees” and an “opportunity to experience a public health program firsthand.”
“Service to our community is not only taught at MCCC, but lived,” he said.
Funding recently became an issue for the college, with MCCC officials presenting Hughes’ chief of staff Kelly Ganges with a proposal to extend the vaccination clinic through mid-August.
Mercer County is receiving more than $71 million in federal aid through the American Rescue Plan Act, so MCCC officials felt it wasn’t a big ask to demand some funding — either reimbursement or money to keep the site open.
“We offered in writing to hold [a] four-day a week clinic till mid August. Mark submitted the offer to Kelly,” MCCC President Jianping Wang wrote in an April 9 email.
The Trentonian was unable to obtain a copy of the proposal but has learned that the proposal was in the $20,000 range.
Matzen said MCCC supplied the county with a “budget” but claimed he didn’t “remember” how much the school asked for to keep the site operational.
Matzen called the gym that hosts the clinic a big “revenue generator” that’s used more in the summer.
He later said the college had logistical issues that would have required MCCC to move the vaccination clinic from the gym to the cafeteria, and that’s why the Hughes administration explored new options, he said.
Matzen sent The Trentonian a statement last week defending Hughes in an unrelated matter.
Wang said the site will continue providing doses to residents until May 8.
She said she was on a conference call and couldn’t discuss the issue further and didn’t respond to a follow-up text message.
The administration is looking at alternative sites, officials said: the skating rink at Mercer County Park or Princeton University.
East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov — also the chairwoman of the Mercer County Democratic Committee — was said to be “furious” over the decision to discontinue using MCCC because of how it could impact East Windsor.
East Windsor doesn’t have a full-time health officer and it would be a hardship for them to wind up vax operations so late in the game.
In a statement, Mironov said she was “hopeful” that the Hughes administration will find a solution.
“And [I] would be highly disappointed as mayor, if these efforts do not result in activation of a vaccination site very quickly,” she said. “It is imperative that the County have up and running a county sponsored regional vaccination site to serve our central eastern part of the County — especially to accommodate the greatly expanded eligibility starting April 19.”
Ewing Mayor Bert Steinman said about 15 percent of Ewing residents have been vaccinated so far, with at least 500 of them getting inoculated at the CURE Arena.
He did not “disagree with you that it’s a** backwards” for the county to wind down a vax site when the state just extended eligibility to residents.
“I guess they have their way of thinking,” he said. “I hope this is a temporary thing for right now.”
Samuel Frisby, the chairman of the Mercer County Board of Commissioners, learned about the site closure Tuesday.
If it’s a matter of money, Frisby said the commissioners are willing to make it work with MCCC since the site’s already established and familiar to residents.
“If it is an issue of finances … tell us what you need and we will make sure we provide it. If that is what Mark is saying, then let’s figure out how to get them some funding,” he said.
Hamilton Mayor Jeff Martin said his township is not impacted by Mercer County’s decision to transition away from the MCCC vaccination site.
“Anybody who has received their first does at the county college will still report there for their second dose,” Martin said.
Meanwhile, “Our health department is in the process of scheduling our own clinics. For Hamilton residents there’s not going to be any impact for how many doses are available to them.”
Mercer County is not distributing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at this time because of health concerns raised by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, but the county is still supplying municipalities with Moderna’s two-dose jab.
Almost 50 percent of Mercer County adults have been vaccinated from COVID-19 as of Tuesday, according to state data.
Hughes, a Democratic powerbroker, did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
He previously said he is “tired” of talking to The Trentonian and the newspaper exposed his long history of driving gaffes.