The Observation Deck

Jay P. Foran asks folks to share his view of Jim O'Bryan's above article, so I will:

Jay P. Foran wrote:The Jim O'Bryan article is yellow journalism in its design, manipulative in its ambition and disingenuous at its core. It is time to refute the author's toxicity to our rational community. It is important that our community push back on this bully. Share if you care.

And, if you are not following the thread entitled, "Really? Why Would I care What Compulsive Liars Say?" at http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13826, we now have the following statement from Mayor Mike Summers to his campaign supporters which includes a letter/statement that Kevin M. Butler authored, in his official capacity as "Director of Law, City of Lakewood," on behalf of Team Summers:

Mayor Mike Summers wrote:Dear supporter,

Over recent weeks, we’ve heard and read mistruths about me in the local media and online. I want to make sure you are given correct, factual information. Below is a response made by the city’s law director to an article recently published on the front page of the Lakewood Observer involving my wife Wendy’s service on a local nonprofit board:

Jim O’Bryan’s Observer article “Mayor Summers Receives Advisory Opinions From the Ohio Ethics Commission” (Aug. 18, 2015) is entirely misleading and factually inaccurate.

Here’s the truth:

Mayor Summers wanted to ensure that he avoided any real or even apparent conflicts of interest as discussions around the hospital moved forward. In May 2015, I asked the Ohio Ethics Commission to help the city evaluate any actual or potential ethical conflict between our elected officials and the various boards involved in the Lakewood Hospital situation.

The Commission made no findings of any existing conflicts. The Commission did help us identify a situation that could have given the appearance of a potential conflict in the future. For many years, long predating his term as mayor, Mayor Summers’ wife Wendy had served as a volunteer on the board of the Lakewood Hospital Foundation.

The foundation is completely separate from the hospital or the Lakewood Hospital Association. It raises funds to support the hospital but is completely unconnected to any hospital decision-making. Moreover, Wendy Summers was a board volunteer, with no operational role within the foundation.

Nevertheless, to avoid even the possible appearance of any conflict in the future, Wendy stepped down from the foundation board.

In its story, the Observer neglected to write that the city contacted the Ohio Ethics Commission to make completely certain that there are no ethical conflicts; that the commission advised the city only on potential conflicts; and that to avoid even the perception that there could be a conflict, the Mayor’s wife Wendy stepped down from the volunteer charitable work she had been doing for many years.

You could be forgiven for reading the Observer’s article and not coming away with these core facts, especially if relating these facts doesn’t seem to have been the purpose of the article to begin with.

Kevin M. Butler
Director of Law
City of Lakewood

There are great things happening in Lakewood but we have lots of work ahead of us. I hope that as a community, we can tune out untruthful campaign noise, and stay focused on moving Lakewood forward. Thanks for all the support you’ve given to our city, to the reelection campaign and to Wendy and me.

Sincerely,

Mike Summers

Jay calling Jim a bully? That's rich. "jamminman" himself, the nastiest, meanest, lowest class poster EVER on the Buzz- that was Jay.

He's just annoyed his plans are being thwarted yet again.

Jay is pretty good at compound sentences for a guy who went to Harding

Bridget Conant wrote:Jay calling Jim a bully? That's rich. "jamminman" himself, the nastiest, meanest, lowest class poster EVER on the Buzz- that was Jay.

He's just annoyed his plans are being thwarted yet again.

Actually it s more than that.

They are trying to rehabilitate the psychopath in the middle of their group.

I use the term "psychopath" as I kind of understand when kids play stupid games on the net using
fake names and calling each other names, and screwing around. But when you are doing it at the
age of 40?, 45? 50? 60? When you are working to ruin lives, and put people out of business.
That is clearly anti-social disturbing and criminal behavior.

They, embrace it.

They need to play the bully card before it breaks elsewhere.

You see, we are all being played.

I am not really a psychic, I cannot see the future.

I just got to see the entire plot line last year.

And had a 3-hour lunch with the author.

.