Dispelling a Rumor

[Lori Allen _]

Brian,

It is a good thing we have a day of sunshine so that the alleged crooks At City Hall can dry their laundered items!

[Brian Essi]

Yes, Council has used executive sessions in recent months to discuss issues regarding Lakewood Hospital – potential sale or purchase of property and pending litigation. (For my part, I have voted against going into executive session to discuss hospital matters only once.) These sessions are not recorded and, again, we are not permitted to vote on anything. We have, however, used these to meet with lawyers from Thompson Hine which is the firm we hired to prepare for and initiate a negotiation process with the Cleveland Clinic.

There is some debate in the community as to whether the use of executive sessions to discuss potential Lakewood Hospital real estate transactions and litigation meet the legal criteria. I, and others, have consistently asked the City’s law department as well as the law firm of Thompson Hine to give an opinion as to whether our use of executive sessions in this setting is proper. We have been repeatedly assured that these do meet the standard. I am not a lawyer and would not be able to make sense of a binder of case law on this issue if I had to. Therefore, I must act on the legal advice solicited and provided.

I pledge to check in on this thread regularly and will try answer any questions and comments that I can.

Yours in Service,
David W. Anderson
216-789-6463
David.Anderson@Lakewoodoh.net

Mr. Anderson,

I have taken the liberty of combining two of your posts above from last September.

Will you honor you pledge by answering the following questions:

1. Will you make the legal opinions you refer to above public?

2. Who besides you asked for the opinions and which individual attorneys gave you the opinions that this was all "proper" as you state above?

3. Will you produce all emails provided to you and Council from Mr. Butler and Thompson Hine lawyers referring to the preparation for, initiation of, and consummation of a negotiation process and the Master Agreement with the Cleveland Clinic?

I thank you in advance for your prompt response.

Brian Essi
Lakewood Resident

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes” – Mark Twain

While characterizing it as a lie as opposed to a rumor may be a stretch, I think the quote above is applicable to my note below.

I received a text message as well as a couple of emails from residents over the past few days concerned that Council recently has or may hold a secret session to vote for Lakewood Hospital’s closure. The text message was in response to a reader comment linked to a Bruce Geiselman’s Lakewood Hospital related article posted on Cleveland.com. The emails were from concerned citizens who appeared to have heard the rumor from different sources.

Before I joined Council just over four years ago I had a basic understanding of the requirements that must be met for elected officials to hold sessions/hearings and to call for votes. So, I appreciate that some residents, informed and engaged as they may be, might not be completely aware of all that is involved. I certainly know I wasn’t until 2011.

Per Lakewood’s Second Amended Charter and Ohio Revised Code:
1. Public notice must be issued in order for Council to meet. This applies for a Council session as well as a committee hearing.
2. Council cannot vote while in executive session.
3. While in executive session, Council can only discuss publically noticed topics.
4. Council cannot vote on ordinances or resolutions without a publically noticed meeting (date, time, location, ordinances and resolutions to be considered).
5. Ordinances are required to have three public readings. Passage of an ordinance before three readings requires the rules to be suspended which can only take place via a recorded and public vote of a super majority of Council members present during a properly noticed public session.

My intent was to disprove the rumor as well as to assure residents that there are checks and balances written into our Second Amended Charter and supported by Ohio law to prevent any concocted scenarios related to the rumor.

There have been no votes. There will be no secret votes.

I pledge to check in on this thread regularly and will try answer any questions and comments that I can.

Yours in Service,
David W. Anderson
216-789-6463
David.Anderson@Lakewoodoh.net

Mr. Anderson,

On August 16, 2017, I received 8,400 pages of what Butler claims is the entire Thompson Hine file---There are many redactions but I don't see the legal opinions you referred to above.

Will you honor your pledge of September, 2015 by answering the following questions:

1. Will you make the legal opinions you refer to above public?

3. Will you produce all emails (un-redacted) provided to you and Council from Mr. Butler and Thompson Hine lawyers referring to the preparation for, initiation of, and consummation of a negotiation process and the Master Agreement with the Cleveland Clinic?

"If ain't in black and white, it ain't right"

[m buckley]

Yes, Council has used executive sessions in recent months to discuss issues regarding Lakewood Hospital – potential sale or purchase of property and pending litigation. (For my part, I have voted against going into executive session to discuss hospital matters only once.) These sessions are not recorded and, again, we are not permitted to vote on anything. We have, however, used these to meet with lawyers from Thompson Hine which is the firm we hired to prepare for and initiate a negotiation process with the Cleveland Clinic.

There is some debate in the community as to whether the use of executive sessions to discuss potential Lakewood Hospital real estate transactions and litigation meet the legal criteria. I, and others, have consistently asked the City’s law department as well as the law firm of Thompson Hine to give an opinion as to whether our use of executive sessions in this setting is proper. We have been repeatedly assured that these do meet the standard. I am not a lawyer and would not be able to make sense of a binder of case law on this issue if I had to. Therefore, I must act on the legal advice solicited and provided.

I pledge to check in on this thread regularly and will try answer any questions and comments that I can.

Yours in Service,
David W. Anderson
216-789-6463
David.Anderson@Lakewoodoh.net

Mr. Anderson,

I have taken the liberty of combining two of your posts above from last September.

Will you honor you pledge by answering the following questions:

1. Will you make the legal opinions you refer to above public?

2. Who besides you asked for the opinions and which individual attorneys gave you the opinions that this was all "proper" as you state above?

3. Will you produce all emails provided to you and Council from Mr. Butler and Thompson Hine lawyers referring to the preparation for, initiation of, and consummation of a negotiation process and the Master Agreement with the Cleveland Clinic?

I thank you in advance for your prompt response.

Brian Essi
Lakewood Resident

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes” – Mark Twain

While characterizing it as a lie as opposed to a rumor may be a stretch, I think the quote above is applicable to my note below.

I received a text message as well as a couple of emails from residents over the past few days concerned that Council recently has or may hold a secret session to vote for Lakewood Hospital’s closure. The text message was in response to a reader comment linked to a Bruce Geiselman’s Lakewood Hospital related article posted on Cleveland.com. The emails were from concerned citizens who appeared to have heard the rumor from different sources.

Before I joined Council just over four years ago I had a basic understanding of the requirements that must be met for elected officials to hold sessions/hearings and to call for votes. So, I appreciate that some residents, informed and engaged as they may be, might not be completely aware of all that is involved. I certainly know I wasn’t until 2011.

Per Lakewood’s Second Amended Charter and Ohio Revised Code:
1. Public notice must be issued in order for Council to meet. This applies for a Council session as well as a committee hearing.
2. Council cannot vote while in executive session.
3. While in executive session, Council can only discuss publically noticed topics.
4. Council cannot vote on ordinances or resolutions without a publically noticed meeting (date, time, location, ordinances and resolutions to be considered).
5. Ordinances are required to have three public readings. Passage of an ordinance before three readings requires the rules to be suspended which can only take place via a recorded and public vote of a super majority of Council members present during a properly noticed public session.

My intent was to disprove the rumor as well as to assure residents that there are checks and balances written into our Second Amended Charter and supported by Ohio law to prevent any concocted scenarios related to the rumor.

There have been no votes. There will be no secret votes.

I pledge to check in on this thread regularly and will try answer any questions and comments that I can.

Yours in Service,
David W. Anderson
216-789-6463
David.Anderson@Lakewoodoh.net

Mr. Anderson,

On August 16, 2017, I received 8,400 pages of what Butler claims is the entire Thompson Hine file---There are many redactions but I don't see the legal opinions you referred to above.

Will you honor your pledge of September, 2015 by answering the following questions:

1. Will you make the legal opinions you refer to above public?

3. Will you produce all emails (un-redacted) provided to you and Council from Mr. Butler and Thompson Hine lawyers referring to the preparation for, initiation of, and consummation of a negotiation process and the Master Agreement with the Cleveland Clinic?

"If ain't in black and white, it ain't right"

Mr. Essi,
Did councilperson Anderson respond to your questions?

[Kevin D Young]

Yes, Council has used executive sessions in recent months to discuss issues regarding Lakewood Hospital – potential sale or purchase of property and pending litigation. (For my part, I have voted against going into executive session to discuss hospital matters only once.) These sessions are not recorded and, again, we are not permitted to vote on anything. We have, however, used these to meet with lawyers from Thompson Hine which is the firm we hired to prepare for and initiate a negotiation process with the Cleveland Clinic.

There is some debate in the community as to whether the use of executive sessions to discuss potential Lakewood Hospital real estate transactions and litigation meet the legal criteria. I, and others, have consistently asked the City’s law department as well as the law firm of Thompson Hine to give an opinion as to whether our use of executive sessions in this setting is proper. We have been repeatedly assured that these do meet the standard. I am not a lawyer and would not be able to make sense of a binder of case law on this issue if I had to. Therefore, I must act on the legal advice solicited and provided.

I pledge to check in on this thread regularly and will try answer any questions and comments that I can.

Yours in Service,
David W. Anderson
216-789-6463
David.Anderson@Lakewoodoh.net

Mr. Anderson,

I have taken the liberty of combining two of your posts above from last September.

Will you honor you pledge by answering the following questions:

1. Will you make the legal opinions you refer to above public?

2. Who besides you asked for the opinions and which individual attorneys gave you the opinions that this was all "proper" as you state above?

3. Will you produce all emails provided to you and Council from Mr. Butler and Thompson Hine lawyers referring to the preparation for, initiation of, and consummation of a negotiation process and the Master Agreement with the Cleveland Clinic?

I thank you in advance for your prompt response.

Brian Essi
Lakewood Resident

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes” – Mark Twain

While characterizing it as a lie as opposed to a rumor may be a stretch, I think the quote above is applicable to my note below.

I received a text message as well as a couple of emails from residents over the past few days concerned that Council recently has or may hold a secret session to vote for Lakewood Hospital’s closure. The text message was in response to a reader comment linked to a Bruce Geiselman’s Lakewood Hospital related article posted on Cleveland.com. The emails were from concerned citizens who appeared to have heard the rumor from different sources.

Before I joined Council just over four years ago I had a basic understanding of the requirements that must be met for elected officials to hold sessions/hearings and to call for votes. So, I appreciate that some residents, informed and engaged as they may be, might not be completely aware of all that is involved. I certainly know I wasn’t until 2011.

Per Lakewood’s Second Amended Charter and Ohio Revised Code:
1. Public notice must be issued in order for Council to meet. This applies for a Council session as well as a committee hearing.
2. Council cannot vote while in executive session.
3. While in executive session, Council can only discuss publically noticed topics.
4. Council cannot vote on ordinances or resolutions without a publically noticed meeting (date, time, location, ordinances and resolutions to be considered).
5. Ordinances are required to have three public readings. Passage of an ordinance before three readings requires the rules to be suspended which can only take place via a recorded and public vote of a super majority of Council members present during a properly noticed public session.

My intent was to disprove the rumor as well as to assure residents that there are checks and balances written into our Second Amended Charter and supported by Ohio law to prevent any concocted scenarios related to the rumor.

There have been no votes. There will be no secret votes.

I pledge to check in on this thread regularly and will try answer any questions and comments that I can.

Yours in Service,
David W. Anderson
216-789-6463
David.Anderson@Lakewoodoh.net

Mr. Anderson,

On August 16, 2017, I received 8,400 pages of what Butler claims is the entire Thompson Hine file---There are many redactions but I don't see the legal opinions you referred to above.

Will you honor your pledge of September, 2015 by answering the following questions:

1. Will you make the legal opinions you refer to above public?

3. Will you produce all emails (un-redacted) provided to you and Council from Mr. Butler and Thompson Hine lawyers referring to the preparation for, initiation of, and consummation of a negotiation process and the Master Agreement with the Cleveland Clinic?

"If ain't in black and white, it ain't right"

Mr. Essi,
Did councilperson Anderson respond to your questions?

We are all waiting Mr. Anderson. It is time to come clean.

[cameron karslake]

Hey David,

Thanks for dispelling the rumor that you had integrity.

Looking forward to the day when a councilman represents the people who pay their salary and not the special interests who can buy their vote.

[Mark Kindt]

Again, in council-member Anderson's defense:

1. The nature and outcome of the spurious Subsidium proposal process was intentionally withheld from him by the ex officio LHA board members, to wit, the $100,000,000 offer from Metro to continue operations at Lakewood Hospital;

2. The fact that Huron Consulting was, in fact, a Cleveland Clinic Foundation vendor was withheld from him and other council members;

3. Deceptive inducements were made to Mr. Anderson and other council-members when threats of LHA bankruptcy were made, to wit, such statements were knowingly deceptive to the extent that they failed to disclose that LHA had rejected a meritorious offer from a major local health care provider to step into the LHA lease;

4. The fact that senior board members of LHA had advised the city administration that the proposed hospital closure transaction had a $120,000,000 value was, in fact, in their words, bogus was likely also withheld from him and other council members.

One "knowledge group" of elected officials intentionally misled other elected officials with respect to certain relevant and material details related to the LHA/Clinic plan to shutter the hospital.

[Mark Kindt]

The Truth Problem:

How can we achieve open, transparent and accountable local government when our elected and appointed officials feel free to make false statements to their peers in government. It's completely unworkable.

You may recall Mr. Anderson's article in the Lakewood Observer where he defended the $120,000,000 transaction benefit value that we all saw in the water bill inserts (and officially documented in the 2014 Annual Report of the City).

He must be chagrined to have learned subsequently that senior LHA board members had already repudiated that number as "bogus" to the inside "knowledge group" as early as February 27, 2015. The ink was barely dry on the Letter of Intent when they disavowed the contents of the January press release.

Mr. O'Bryan is right-on when he talks about the value of citizen trust and how that trust has been squandered over the past three years.

[Brian Essi]

Again, in council-member Anderson's defense:

1. The nature and outcome of the spurious Subsidium proposal process was intentionally withheld from him by the ex officio LHA board members, to wit, the $100,000,000 offer from Metro to continue operations at Lakewood Hospital;

2. The fact that Huron Consulting was, in fact, a Cleveland Clinic Foundation vendor was withheld from him and other council members;

3. Deceptive inducements were made to Mr. Anderson and other council-members when threats of LHA bankruptcy were made, to wit, such statements were knowingly deceptive to the extent that they failed to disclose that LHA had rejected a meritorious offer from a major local health care provider to step into the LHA lease;

4. The fact that senior board members of LHA had advised the city administration that the proposed hospital closure transaction had a $120,000,000 value was, in fact, in their words, bogus was likely also withheld from him and other council members.

One "knowledge group" of elected officials intentionally misled other elected officials with respect to certain relevant and material details related to the LHA/Clinic plan to shutter the hospital.

Mr. Kindt,

Your fair and balanced approach is alway appreciated and well taken.

I do agree that there is strong circumstantial evidence that suggests withholding and misleading by what you describe as the "knowledge group"--who essentially victimized their Council colleagues in the "in the dark group."

Historically, I tend to come to the defense of victims.

However, now that much of the cloak hiding the loins of our public body's secret interactions has been torn off---albeit after a torturous court process, courts orders, etc.---it is my humble opinion, that it is premature to defend the perceived victims or explain away their roles in the resulting victimization of the public's interests.

Especially when the loins revealed belonged to the public and belonged in the public in the first place.

Now is the time for the perceived victims to stand up and speak in order to protect future victims and successors from a similar fate.

Unless, of course, they are not truly victims and acquiesced in the bad behavior.

Mr. Anderson wrote the post above of September 21, 2017--nearly two years ago--to dispel a rumor.

Mr. Anderson wrote many words above and then made these declarations: "There have been no votes. There will be no secret votes."

Given the evidence we now have Mr. Anderson should have made a more precise statement: "There have been no votes. There will be no secret votes...That I am aware of ...I have, however, engaged in secret meetings and secret deliberations on the terms by which the hospital will be closing."

[Mark Kindt]

I do owe Mr. Essi and all the readers of the Deck a modest apology for this "thread drift".

I understand that many documents have emerged that continue to raise serious and troublesome questions about whether or not the open meetings laws were violated by our city council in the run-up to the vote to adopt the Master Agreement.

My comments here have not been made to lessen or even question that most problematic issue.

State Senator Skindell, his counsel and Mr. Essi have been diligent and persistent on the open meetings issues. I thank them for their leadership!

I have tended to focus on a different, but still problematic, set of issues.

[Stan Austin]

At the risk of seguing into the emergency lane for a moment thread drift can be risky but brother Essis' somewhat, problematic visual metaphors are also equally dicey

[Brian Essi]

At the risk of seguing into the emergency lane for a moment thread drift can be risky but brother Essis' somewhat, problematic visual metaphors are also equally dicey

Dicey Indeed!

You must watch this complete 55 second video of Marx protecting Bullock's...

[m buckley]

Again, in council-member Anderson's defense:

1. The nature and outcome of the spurious Subsidium proposal process was intentionally withheld from him by the ex officio LHA board members, to wit, the $100,000,000 offer from Metro to continue operations at Lakewood Hospital;

2. The fact that Huron Consulting was, in fact, a Cleveland Clinic Foundation vendor was withheld from him and other council members;

3. Deceptive inducements were made to Mr. Anderson and other council-members when threats of LHA bankruptcy were made, to wit, such statements were knowingly deceptive to the extent that they failed to disclose that LHA had rejected a meritorious offer from a major local health care provider to step into the LHA lease;

4. The fact that senior board members of LHA had advised the city administration that the proposed hospital closure transaction had a $120,000,000 value was, in fact, in their words, bogus was likely also withheld from him and other council members.

One "knowledge group" of elected officials intentionally misled other elected officials with respect to certain relevant and material details related to the LHA/Clinic plan to shutter the hospital.

Mr. Kindt,

David Anderson is well aware of the points you raise in his defense and has been aware for some time.
To date he has failed to publicly criticize or denounce the "knowledge group". The lies/the liars.

If we are to accept your narrative, Mr.Anderson was shut out of the process (more than once), deceived, fed bogus information.
And what followed ....besides "reams of paper".
What followed was and remains a cowardly silence. A complicit silence.

Mr. Anderson wants it both ways.
He wants in that backroom but he wants it known he feels victimized by being there.

If Mr. Anderson truly feels used, he can step up and denounce the lack of truth.
He can denounce the lack of transparency. He can name names and tell us specifically who he feels is at fault.

[Mark Kindt]

I sincerely recognize your point and your challenge to Mr. Anderson for greater openness and transparency and I do not disagree with your challenge to that elected official. They all need to step-up to the plate and be honest.

My additional comment would be that the argument I presented (above) is based on a careful review of documents and a reasonable inference of what Mr. Anderson might or might not have known subsequent to the announcement of the Letter of Intent.

It is a reasonable speculation that he and some other council-members were, at least originally, victims of deceptive omissions or misrepresentations from other officials that I have for convenience sake characterized as the "knowledge group".

I do not believe that the ex officio board members (Summers, Madigan, Bullock) of LHA were honest, open or transparent about what they were actually doing at LHA in respect to the hospital closure plan. I have elsewhere on the Deck argued that they violated their fiduciary duty to the city by failing to fully inform the entire city council of their initiative. This has been, in part, vindicated by the opinions of the Ohio Ethics Commission (released subsequent to the Letter of Intent) and the need to request the OEC review in the first place.

Other lawyers and citizens have better knowledge of all of this. I'm just trying to synthesize some inferences and conclusions from all of their diligent work for my own understanding and for my peers who write on The Observation Deck only.

As I observed earlier, it appears that some elected officials felt an obligation to conceal or misrepresent key matters of public policy to their peers in the city administration. Many of these misrepresentations have now been documented by the city's own records and conduct.

[Lori Allen _]

I believe all council members knew exactly what they were getting into. They all appear to be a part of the plan. Any of them could have gone to the proper authorities and reported these allegedly illegal deals.

I believe they all need to be wearing orange jump suits, along with Mr. Summers and Company.

I think that the Lakewood voters should throw these alleged criminals out of office. They have done enough damage to our city already.

[jackie f taylor]

Wonderful observation, and thank you,