Law Director Kevin M. Butler - Show Us The CCF Release!

[marklingm]

On August 30, 2015, at 4:44 a.m., Law Director Kevin Butler alleges on the Build Lakewood Facebook Page that:

Donna Kolis, Richard Cole: MetroHealth received a full release from the Cleveland Clinic to propose an inpatient facility in Lakewood. In June 2015, in response to invitations from both Mayor Summers and city council members, MetroHealth indicated in writing it was not interested in making a proposal.

See, also, the "Essi to Team Summers/Build Lakewood - Get Us A CCF Release!" thread at http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13820.

[marklingm]

Question 1: If Team Summers and Build Lakewood are actually looking at a Cleveland Clinic Foundation unconditional release stating that the CCF will walkway from the Lakewood Hospital TODAY without ever raising a tortious interference lawsuit against ANYONE, why wouldn't they have produced it by now?

Question 2: When will Kevin Butler produce this release for all of us to see?

[Bridget Conant]

I don't think they ever had one. All Metro was given was a verbal go ahead from the Mayor. Read here:

http://www.cleveland.com/lakewood/index.ssf/2015/05/metrohealth_declines_to_discus.html

Nothing indicates that CCF ever released them, it was only Summers "assuring" Metro it was OK to talk. As Boutros notes:

Boutros, in his May 20 letter to Summers, said MetroHealth was "uncomfortable re-engaging in any discussion about the proposal that MetroHealth and our partner, Premier Physicians, submitted in May 2014, and augmented with an in-person presentation in September 2014."Boutros also wrote he would be uncomfortable undertaking new conversations with the city of Lakewood because of reports that the city and Cleveland Clinic have an agreement regarding the future of Lakewood Hospital.

"We do not want in any way to interfere with that agreement," Boutros wrote. "This is both a legal concern (tortious interference with any legally binding agreement) and an unwillingness to act with anything less than transparency and cooperation with all the parties involved in the future of Lakewood Hospital."

I like the "transparency" comment. I think Boutros was annoyed and that was a little dig.