Dan Alaimo wrote:I would hope that a takeaway from my Kauffman Park saga is something like the now-cliched advice from the post 9-11 era: "If you see something, say something." It applies equally well to us in the current political environment in Lakewood.
Dan
It is the heartbeat of this project. If you see something wrong, something you question, ask.
If you see something nice, post, beautiful grab a picture.
Back in the early days, it powered us. I am sure Tim Liston remembers the faux meeting set up to define and move the city forward. Seven meetings mediated with CSU people. Each of the first four meetings had Observers at them, and a majority of the room brought in by City Hall to work the charade. After each meeting, Observers would report what went on, and the last three meetings were canceled, as the plot discovered the ruse uncovered.
The biggest mistake I made in what has become The Hospital Debacle, is not going public in September 2014. Instead I trusted Mayor Summers who lied for three months, until it became embarrassing to hear it. My favorite is, "I don't know who is on the LHA Board but I call them and ask."
Yes in the earliest days, of forming the Observer we had learned after watching; Summers, Foran, Crampton, Powers, Strachen, Gibbons, Stern and the sycophants that surround them, getting the truth from City Hall, or Plain Dealer was NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. The best we could hope for is a way to collect rumors, facts, documents and vet them. This is why they need the Observer destroyed, we have every BS thing they tried to pull, and the crap that went with it.
The Lakewood Observer actually Essi, found the Stein Letter in a public document request that stated to paraphrase "We must not let the same thing happen to this that happened with the West End, we must not let the residents vote on this!" Well the only way to stop that is by harassing people saying it, and peer pressure to stop others from reading it. What happened, the thugs called "Build Lakewood" came in with their attacks on the Deck, the "Oh they are negative" on sites they control, while their founding convict eerr member sat being interviewed by the police after being found harassing voters, women, people that dared to open their mouths against the Mayor or the Hospital deal. A partnership that exists to this day, proving they were fully aware what was happening at the time, and now. Of course as happened often with this Mayor, he would make sure his crew was above the law, and would hide the stuff in the paperwork they hide from the courts now.
Here is a wild observation: What are the chances that they very people behind the failed WestEnd Debacle, 15 years later would be part of a secret effort to liquidate our largest, biggest, most important asset and largest employer for some money and land to develop and play with?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, all by accident? Nothing had anything to do with anything else?!
The most desperate to develop with our money, end up with our land, our $$$$$ and a blank slate.
All in the new "DowntowN" area the very same people created 10 years ago which has nothing to do with anything else. (This is how stupid they think Lakewoodites are)
WOW, now that is coincident!!!! Maybe they should try lottery tickets! At least it not the public's money.
Yeah reporting the little stuff, or as we say "The Observations" can make a city a democracy that thrives in the sun and whole again.
City Hall the courts have ordered you to turnover the documents. Stop the lies, stop the BS, do what you were elected to do.
.