Is The 50-Year-Committee The Biggest Failure In Lakewood's History

[Jim O'Bryan]

Elizabeth Voinovich

9:19 AM (36 minutes ago)

to me
Two nights ago I was at a recently opened bar, and the conversation turned to "What The Hell Is Going On With The Schools?" It seems that like myself a couple patrons were wondering, how did we build 3 more schools than needed? How the hell did this committee have the residents spend an extra 50 million dollars or more, than needed?

I explained it is easy when you look at the players involved. The same people behind the WestEnd failure, the hospital failure, and Phase 3 failure are still driving the Lakewood bus into the gutter. That in my humble opinion it is a small handful of people desperate to get their hands on the Grant property as they have tried to do many times before.

And while the 50-year-committee seems to have been a failure, it cannot be compared to the $300 million loss that many of the same people orchestrated in the closing of the hospital for, "something far better and profitable than the hospital." Of course like most of this small groups projects, they end in failure costing the city and the residents hundreds of millions of dollars.

One of the people overhearing the entire discussion leaned in saying, "The people on this school committee are the same ones who closed the hospital."

I chuckled and explained what a farce/magic show the school committees are. All designed with a preconceived idea, usually benefiting one or two on the inside, financially or in some other way. That they have used gerrymandering tables, forced hands, and even turnover and flooding meetings to drive it home.

"Well if that is true, we should hold the BOE responsible!" I chuckled and said, sure but they are not running the schools, and for that matter either is the Superintendent. All are cover for the real manipulator, the Treasurer, Kent Zeman. I said ask anyone off the record and they will all say the same thing. Schools are not being run with an eye towards serving students and families, but bottom lines. This is odd because before Mr. Zeman, we had a Treasurer named Rick Berdine who ran the schools with incredible power. So much power the BOE at the time said they would never let it happen again. Then low an behold, an inept board, turned it back over to the Treasurer.

However the system was set up to be run from the top down, not the middle out. A healthy BOE would have control over both the Superintendent and the Treasurer, and take ownership of running the schools. But in Lakewood, that has been turned upside down. We need to elect a healthy, sharp and strong BOE.

So in the coming days, weeks and months we will look at the 50-year-committee debacle, and those that have been running the schools and city into the ground for their own purpose.

Stay tuned.

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