Bleed Lakewood Afraid To Face The Truth--A Field of Dreams

[Brian Essi]

So a thoughtful citizen, Mark Kindt, made some truthful comments on a "Bleed" Lakewood site---even the webmaster Jeff Rohrs applauded Kindt and his comments. But then Kindt wrote the following LO article:

http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2016/0 ... -part-duex

Bleed Lakewood removed Kindt's comments from their site.

Bleeders now know that their king is not wearing clothes, but they are afraid to face that ugly truth and continue to pretend.

Lakewood is bleeding. But the Big Dreamers Dream On.

[Alex Belisle]

They have Mark Kindt listed as the publisher of the Lakewood Observer. Is this a mistake?

[Peter Grossetti]

They have Mark Kindt listed as the publisher of the Lakewood Observer. Is this a mistake?

The photo of "Mark Kindt" accompanying the article is of Jim O'Bryan.

[Jim O'Bryan]

They have Mark Kindt listed as the publisher of the Lakewood Observer. Is this a mistake?

They wish.

Mark was an attorney for Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission for over a decade.


.

[Jill Jusko]

The articles on the Lakewood Observer website have Kindt listed as the publisher of the Lakewood Observer. That may perhaps be an oversight.

[Jim O'Bryan]

The articles on the Lakewood Observer website have Kindt listed as the publisher of the Lakewood Observer. That may perhaps be an oversight.

Jill

I went to look, as sometimes this does happen with a late revision, that is emailed in, and that piece was rewritten twice, and held for two issues before being published. I did notice the article's art was slugged wrong. Satire collage by Jim O'Bryan with monkeys from Mark Fredrickson, on "Vandals Sacking Rome."

Here is Mark Kindt's article, again I feel because his long background at the DOJ and FTC make it worth the read.

by Mark Kindt

During 2014, Metro Health System presented a proposal to our civic leadership to invest $100,000,000 in Lakewood Hospital over a 10-year period. Our civic leadership made a decision to reject that proposal. How the decision was made to reject a proposal that would have kept Lakewood Hospital open still remains a mystery to many of us. In fact, the proposal from Metro Health System would have been kept a buried secret, hidden from the voters, but for the diligent efforts of local citizens who cared enough about Lakewood Hospital to start digging.

If you drive along Belle Avenue, sadly, you will see that Lakewood Hospital is now closed. Our civic leaders tell us that it is closed for good, never to reopen as a local community hospital. We are left with an empty hospital building.

Perhaps worse, we are left with civic leadership that didn’t have the knowledge, experience or interest to maintain the most valuable asset in our community. Metro Health System would not have proposed a $100,000,000 investment in Lakewood Hospital, if it wasn’t a valuable asset. Each year Lakewood Hospital generated more than $100,000,000 in gross revenues. It was the single largest economic driver in Lakewood in terms of dollars generated and people employed.

Others have eloquently spoken of the value of Lakewood Hospital to tone-deaf ears at City Hall and Council; my observations here are much more mundane. I’m just going to talk about it in terms of cold hard cash. Our civic leadership has no credible plan capable of replacing the economic engine that they have intentionally shut down. Over the balance of its now-canceled leased, Lakewood Hospital would have generated more than a billion dollars of economic impact. This is a conservative estimate that only assumes the continued operation of the hospital through the current lease period and not after 2026.

Did our civic leaders understand that they were shutting down a billion dollars’ worth of economic flow when they rejected the Metro Health System proposal? It seems not. If you were selling your house, you would have it appraised before putting it on the market. If our civic leaders had the operations or assets of Lakewood Hospital appraised by independent professionals, those appraisals have never been made public. If they didn’t have such a valuable asset appraised, then shame on them.

Our civic leadership has no plan to replace the economic engine that they have just shut down. Because, if they had had a plan, they’d understand that they would need to replace an institution capable of generating $100,000,000 on an annual basis. What have they been talking about? Freeing up the former hospital lots and organizing a community fund. If that’s the plan, it’s a plan to paper-over an economic black hole.

What was once the most economically productive real estate in the city is now probably the least productive. In order to recover what was lost, each acre of the former hospital lot would have to generate about $200,000,000 to be equivalent to the lost economic impact of Lakewood Hospital through 2026. That’s being generous, because it excludes the economic benefits of the hospital on into the future.

Now let’s think about the proposed community fund and how much a difference that would make. As I understand it, our civic leaders are planning to create a community fund on the order of $50,000,000. Assuming that is successful, well, it would still take $195,000,000 per acre to achieve the degree of economic impact provided by Lakewood Hospital and now lost.

Are there any plans at City Hall to replace this loss with a new major employer? I hope so, but probably doubtful at best. I’ll put down my calculator now. Our civic masterminds have engineered an economic black hole for us. Thanks.

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[Brian Essi]

Where are all those BLers coming to say it isn't so?

Hmmm

[cameron karslake]

Jim,

Marguarite Harkness, co-chair of Save Lakewood Hospital, did an economic impact assessment of Lakewood Hospital and came up with the figure of at least $285 million dollars per year. Over the last ten years of the lease that would be close to 3 billion dollars impact to Lakewood's economy.

Soon after Ms. Harkness did her math, the Cleveland Clinic also came out with an economic impact study and produced $277 million impact per year, backing up Ms. Harkness's numbers in the process.

It truly is incredible how short-sighted politicians can be. Only looking to their next election, not to the future that doesn't include them.

[Lori Allen _]

Not only did our city leaders not have any plans to bring in a fortune 500 company,but, I have noticed that some of the businesses in the store fronts on Madison and Detroit are steadily closing, or moving out of Lakewood. Just today I noticed Color By Numbers was gone and the antique store on the north east corner of Granger and Detroit had a going out of business sign in the window. A portion of the businesses on the Lakewood side of Berea Road are gone now. Now we can enjoy looking at run down abandoned buildings, garbage, gang writing and overgrown weeds, bushes and grass. Not complaining, but just saying it doesn't have to be this way.

Has Summers tried to encourage businesses to come to Lakewood who could make use of Berea Road and bring jobs to Lakewood? What are the reasons some of our quaint little businesses are moving out or going out of business?

Instead of offering tons of tax abatements to CCF-affiliated developers to build condos, townhomes, and high-rises that usually just sit empty on the market for months and months, perhaps we could be offering incentives (not always tax abatements) to smaller shops and businesses (and no, not bars and vape lounges).

FWIW.

[T Peppard]

Thank you for posting Mark Kindt's article, Brian. What an absolutely brilliant and concise summary of this tragic loss.

One argument I recently came across from a constituent was that city hands were tied because there were so many holes in the 1995 (or 1996) contract between CCF and the city. The constituent had read it over and felt that the clinic had all the control. I did not agree, but I do not have a legal background. My understanding is that we did have power, as a landlord would over his tenant. How would you respond to this claim? Is there direct evidence to convince this constituent otherwise.

[Michael Deneen]

One argument I recently came across from a constituent was that city hands were tied because there were so many holes in the 1995 (or 1996) contract between CCF and the city. The constituent had read it over and felt that the clinic had all the control. I did not agree, but I do not have a legal background. My understanding is that we did have power, as a landlord would over his tenant. How would you respond to this claim? Is there direct evidence to convince this constituent otherwise.

The city had the power to stop this.
The Clinic tried to break the contract under the Cain administration.....but she threatened to sue and they backed down.
It wasn't until Fitzy got into office that they were able to begin the decanting.

There is an irony here......the anti-hospital folks are largely the same people that concocted Issue 47.
When Issue 47 failed, they blamed Cain. They think they would have won if not for Mike Wallace.

Twelve years later, the same crowd throws Cain under the bus AGAIN.....they spread the false notion that the Clinic's departure was due to the lease she signed.

[T Peppard]

Thanks Mike. I agree we had the power, but I was hoping to provide a few direct references from the contract. This constituent is going to send a copy of the contract to me but I thought I would throw the question on the deck before I began analyzing it and composing my own thoughts on all of it. I would really like to convince this friend/constituent otherwise!

[Brian Essi]

Thank you for posting Mark Kindt's article, Brian. What an absolutely brilliant and concise summary of this tragic loss.

One argument I recently came across from a constituent was that city hands were tied because there were so many holes in the 1995 (or 1996) contract between CCF and the city. The constituent had read it over and felt that the clinic had all the control. I did not agree, but I do not have a legal background. My understanding is that we did have power, as a landlord would over his tenant. How would you respond to this claim? Is there direct evidence to convince this constituent otherwise.

Ms Peppard,

I don't have access to my computer due to my trolling. However, there are several posts that point out some of what you may use. Off the top of my head: "Mayor Cain exposes 3 lies used by Summers..." And from April 2015, "Essi's letter to council" come to mind.

You could also suggest to this person simple logic--if the agreement were as they suggest, why did it take 18 years and City Council approval to authorize the theft of assets?

The "lie" that CCF had such control was fabricated by weaklings who were too cowardly to stand up to CCF on behalf of the underserved and Lakewood citizens. Namely, Summers, Madigan, Bullock et al

[T Peppard]

Will check out those posts. Thank you very much for the information, Brian.

If anyone can find a link to the 96 page (!) Definitive Agreement between CCF and LHA from 1996, could you please post the link? I could not find it on our city website.