Is there a public right to receive a complete duplication of every city record?

[dl meckes]

I'm no lawyer, but I think we are co-plaintiffs, Stan, along with some other Lakewoodites that I am proud to stand with. The Mayor is a former classmate as are some of the other players in this case. We are also having a reunion this year.

Funny, but it was because of reunion web work that I reserved some domain names for Mike Summers. I even hosted his campaign site a while back. Of course that later became impossible and inappropriate.

I still wish the city had joined the suit.

[Lori Allen _]

Unfortunately, the city would really have nothing to gain from joining the suit. At the very least, I believe what "they" might "get" from not joining the suit probably outweighs the benefits of joining the suit.

In regards to records, I believe had Mr. Butler apparently not redacted redactions, I believe they would see that this was all set in stone years ago.

Trust me folks, I believe that we will find this deal was planned out in advance, and possibly illegal.

[Meg Ostrowski]

David, you are a good man, join with me, let's together walk forward, put it all behind us and make the records public, so that this entire city can heal, and move forward. You know this has gotten way too ugly, nasty, and illegal. No one wants anyone to go to jail, we just want the documents.

Good men make mistakes, great men make things right.

I hope Mr. Anderson and the other good people on Council and at City Hall take appropriate steps to encourage the release of public records requested. Many are still looking for answers that may exist there. The delay is only exacerbating the divide caused by the handling of the hospital deal.

It’s time for good people to step up, become great leaders and begin the healing process.

[Jim O'Bryan]

David, you are a good man, join with me, let's together walk forward, put it all behind us and make the records public, so that this entire city can heal, and move forward. You know this has gotten way too ugly, nasty, and illegal. No one wants anyone to go to jail, we just want the documents.

Good men make mistakes, great men make things right.

I hope Mr. Anderson and the other good people on Council and at City Hall take appropriate steps to encourage the release of public records requested. Many are still looking for answers that may exist there. The delay is only exacerbating the divide caused by the handling of the hospital deal.

It’s time for good people to step up, become great leaders and begin the healing process.

Meg

I love your attitude. I wish it would work.

We are 10 years, and 4 courts past "great men make things right." part of this post.

What has amazed me from day 1 of this lie, for most residents that would be after 8 years of secret meetings before it was made public.

Why not just tell the truth?

One can only believe that after two years of lawsuits, four courts demanding the City turn over the documents, and City Hall refusing, it has to be pretty bad stuff in there.

I would say it has to be worse than anything that has been spoken of, which is pretty bad.

Why would a city spend millions of tax payer's dollars to lie to them, and hang them up in court looking for records that could also affirm City Hall's was truthful?

To recap what has been said as possibilities, Fraud, collusion, pay offs, lies, misuse of public office, misuse or government equipment, ignoring fiduciary duties to community, money laundering, intimidation which when done for political means become terrorism, improper hiring, improper land deals, improper bidding, improper destruction of public records, perjury, and possible election violations.

It is over these topics City Hall refuses to turn over the records the courts have ordered?

They can spend tax payers money for ever to keep their asses out of the courts, after all they have already siphoned off all of the $$$$$ into private foundations.

This city could be healed, and made whole is 25 hours. Produce the PUBLICLY OWNED DOCUMENTS THE COURTS ORDERED THEM TO TURN OVER.

"Great men make things right" is correct, Essi, Markling, Kindt, Meckes, Dever are those great people you pray for.

Let's never forget, City Hall pays their legal bills with our money. The others are paying out of their pockets, their losses.

Now you tell me who is greater? You tell me the name of Lakewood's heroes?

.

[T Peppard]

"Great men make things right" is correct, Essi, Markling, Kindt, Meckes, Dever are those great people you pray for.

My sentiments exactly. For anyone who truly understands what is happening in our city, these are the true heroes of Lakewood.

[Mark Kindt]

I want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank Jim O'Bryan and the entire Observer team for their continuing leadership on public issues in our local civic dialogue. The Lakewood Observer and the Observation Deck have been crucial platforms for the distribution of information about the activities of our city leadership.

I appreciate the honor of being classed with Mr. Essi, Mr. Markling and Mr. Dever, but these people and others are on the front-line of the fight and have contributed immense time and effort to bring accountability to the City.

I have been lucky to review and ponder some of the information that they have uncovered. I will modestly decline any reference to "hero". But I will leave this post with a famous and inspiring quote:

"The unremitting use of small opportunities is apt to prove decisive." --Alfred Thayer Mahan

[Mark Kindt]

I have attached today's filing by the City of Lakewood in Mr. Essi's public records case.

It stands for the proposition that the City has asked the Court for permission to argue for denial of the production of public records because they are too voluminous. This completely turns the Ohio public records laws upside down.

If this was the proper standard, then no newspaper would ever be able to report on anything complicated or complex that had a sophisticated documentary trail.

The City is seeking this relief from the Court when it has provided no affidavit or other evidence that it has engaged a third-party electronic discovery consultant to conduct a competent search.

I feel sorry for the judges of the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals for having to put-up with the City's nuisance filings in Mr. Essi's case, the sandbagging by counsel not actually in the case, and the false documents filed in Skindell v. Madigan.

The City Law Department and its legal counsel need to be held to normative standards of performance; public litigation is not about gaming the system to impair the rights of the citizens.

The style of conduct represented by the City in its defense of Skindell v. Madigan and the Essi public records case convinces me that the taxpayers of Lakewood will continue to bear the burden of legal costs associated with the obstruction of Ohio law by its appointed and elected officials.

[Lori Allen _]

Mr. Anderson has been awfully silent lately!

[Mark Kindt]

The City Law Department and its legal counsel need to be held to normative standards of performance; public litigation is not about gaming the system to impair the rights of the citizens.

The style of conduct represented by the City in its defense of Skindell v. Madigan and the Essi public records case convinces me that the taxpayers of Lakewood will continue to bear the burden of legal costs associated with the obstruction of Ohio law by its appointed and elected officials.

Now that both the Taxpayers' Lawsuit and Skindell v. Madigan have been concluded, the City of Lakewood has no remaining tactical or strategic reason to withhold the production of public records any longer.

All requested public records need to be immediately released to those citizens who have filed requests.

[Mark Kindt]

In the attached filing from yesterday, you can see for yourself the continuing strategy being used by the City of Lakewood to prevent its citizens from seeing documents on the largest (and most questionable) public policy decision in living memory.

You can see that the strategy is to drip out a handful of documents to satisfy the existing court order and then request the court to shut-down the rest of the public records requests.

Please judge for yourself.

[Lori Allen _]

I believe this is only being allowed because of the possible involvement of Cuyahoga County in this scandal.

Why else has the judge not slapped Mr. Butler with contempt of court ? Obviously it appears that the judge is just letting this drag on and is not taking it seriously. It appears, once again, Mr. Summers is counting on his friends in the Cuyahoga County Courts to "help" with his illegal acts. Remember who got the Communications Directors job working for Armond? None other than the unqualified Mayor's sidekick, Ms. Madigan.

It is nice to see they kept it all in the family!

[Mark Kindt]

It is my personal opinion that one of the reasons that the Motion was filed was to prevent the release of documents (mostly email) that would reflect communications with Cuyahoga County officials made in connection with the original proposal by Metro Health System to invest $100,000,000 across a potential 10 year lease. Some emails seem to show evidence that city officials communicated with county officials to discourage the proposed involvement of Metro. Mr. Essi deserves all of the actual documents on this process, especially now that the Taxpayers Lawsuit has been dismissed and that avenue of document discovery has ended.

As I have written here previously, the whole LHA/Subsidium proposal process was highly questionable. Further details about that process would also likely be prevented should the Motion be granted.

The City of Lakewood has gone to great expense and effort to impede Mr. Essi and his legal counsel in their attempts to achieve public records access.

I do trust the integrity of our state and federal court systems despite adverse rulings that they may issue. We may not like those ruling. However, we have to live with them.

[Lori Allen _]

Has anyone inquired as to how much the citizens have paid for City Hall to fight Mr. Essi?

What is in these e-mails that City Hall does not want us to see? I suspect the Metrohealth/Cuyahoga County e-mails are being hidden to cover up any possible involvement of officials like Armond Budish for example.

Records should also be requested from Cuyahoga County. For example, e-mails between Armond Budish, Michael P. Summers, all members of Lakewood City Council, employees of Huron Consulting, Subsidium, Thompson Hine LLP and the like may prove very telling. It would be interesting to see if Cuyahoga County stonewalls requests like Lakewood City Hall?

Of course., guess who records requests at Cuyahoga County go through? None other than our ex-Council President Mary Louise Madigan. I am still wondering how she went from being a Child & Family Services worker to Communications Director for the entire county.

Anyone that doesn't suspect Cuyahoga County involvement in Lakewood should seriously re-evaluate their thinking.