The Observation Deck

Jim O'Bryan wrote: When such a commotion broke out, the Lakewood Police were called.
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Fear and loathing, police and politics in Lakewood Ohio.
If they're not knocking at your door at the behest of Linda Beebe. They are showing up at the Democratic Club on a Thursday night. This is out of control.
All this hate and divisiveness you've sown Mr. Summers.
It's your disgrace.

Mike,
Does it really matter? It is not worth arguing about it. Besides, Summer's will go in whatever direction serves him best and gives him the most personal gain. IMO

Some observations on the meeting:
* They took many procedural votes during the meeting and in every case, the voting went the way of the pro-hospital people. At the end, I thought that's the way the endorsement vote would have gone if it had happened.
* The Mayor seemed very pleased with the early part of the meeting as things seemed to be going his way. Although he kept smiling, he seemed less pleased later.
* The most important thing was this was the first win for the SLH group. Hopefully there will be another in a month, and big one in November.
* Future leadership of the City will come out of this group resisting the hospital deal. Kudos to Sen. Skindell for leading the charge during the meeting.

Can someone please explain what actually happened? I find this thread to be confusing and misleading.

I can summarize the meeting. Briefly, for reasons of simplicity:

This meeting was announced as a vote on endorsements for state school board, and for the vote on ordinance 49-15 (which closed Lakewood Hospital).

A number of members opposed holding an endorsement vote last night, however, for reasons including departure from established custom (of holding these votes in September), and some members' reports that they did not receive notice of the vote at least 14 days in advance, as required by the club's bylaws.

The club nonetheless heard speeches for and against. Councilmen David Anderson and Sam O'Leary spoke for the hospital-closing deal. Kevin Young and Tom Monahan of Save Lakewood Hospital spoke against. (I don't think anyone's remarks included much that would be new or surprising to the Observation Deck readership.)

Senator Mike Skindell introduced a motion to table the endorsement vote until September, which passed 39-32. The club will therefore return to endorsements (and potentially vote) on Thursday, September 29.

This is about it for what happened. There were a number of other motions related to communication about voting meetings. (The club also heard state supreme court candidate Cynthia Rice speak, as well as a pitch for volunteers from the Hillary campaign, but I presume most interest relates to Lakewood Hospital argument.)

I can't report exactly on police being called. Around 8:46 a couple of gentlemen entered the room, at least one of whom appeared to be a uniformed officer. One man may have been asked to leave, or simply to return to his seat, though I was not close enough to hear any words that passed. (I also did not notice this individual or anyone else acting in a way that necessitated intervention by peace officers; many people were out of their seats during the meeting, and in fact I think there were a few more people than seats anyway.) No real statement about their presence was made at any point during the meeting.

Matt, many thanks for the writeup. Greatly appreciated.

Lori Allen _ wrote:Mike,
Does it really matter? I

Yes it does, and here is why.

Summers' political affiliation is indicative of City Hall's broader dishonesty.
We're not just talking about "little white lies".....they lie about the very essence of facts.


For example:
*They claim that a lifelong Republican is a Democrat
*They claimed that the new "minute clinic" was "A New Lakewood Hospital" (BL literature at 2015 4th of July parade)
*They claim that a contract is not a contract (even though it was enforced by previous mayors)
*They claimed that Issue 64 would "Doom Lakewood Hospital" (see fake newspaper)
*They even created a fake newspaper to sell their lies

This level of dishonesty makes language meaningless. It's like the "what the definition of is is" quote from Bill Clinton.

Mike is right. You don't vote Republican your entire life then suddenly claim to be a Democrat. He changed his affiliation for political purposes, not because of any ideological change of heart.

Party switching is done for political gain, rarely for any other reason:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_s ... ted_States

Watch the video...

Courtesy of Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus

To quote: "The Lakewood Democratic Club was stopped from endorsing a referendum that would affirm the city's decision to shutdown Lakewood Hospital. Last night was THE FIRST WIN for transparency and the democratic process in our county in a very long time! #PeoplePower"

https://www.facebook.com/CuyCPC/

.

All we hear about the lawsuit is "it's five disgruntled residents."

Now it will be "its 39 disgruntled residents!"

How about this city's administration wake up to the fact that it's a majority of residents who are appalled that our so called leaders allowed a valuable city asset to be squandered, then given away, and it was all done without any notice or input from tax paying citizens who have a clear interest in this issue.

Bridget Conant wrote:Mike is right. You don't vote Republican your entire life

Bridget,

Since we are discussing facts vs myths, can you please show us all proof that Mike Summers voted Republican for his "entire life".

It is really disappointing to have people keep spreading this lie that Summers is a Republican. As I have posted in the past, the board of elections has him voting R 1x in the last 25+ years. Many true R's voted D a few years back for some game Limbaugh recommended, does that make them lifelong D's? Should the D club endorse them instead?

While we are on the topic of the D club, I would recommend their leadership contact the board of elections about "endorsing" issues and candidates. When the R club restarted we were told specifically that social clubs were not to do those sort of endorsements with the new PAC laws. Never mind, I'm sure the D leadership follows all the laws and are all honest and ethical...

While we are on the topic of the D club, I would recommend their leadership contact the board of elections about "endorsing" issues and candidates. When the R club restarted we were told specifically that social clubs were not to do those sort of endorsements with the new PAC laws.

Any comments on this?

Thanks for posting it, Ryan.

I would be interested in more information about this, also, though I would regard it as surprising if the Dem Club were violating a law here. It would seem to require ignorance/indifference on not only the part of its members, but of every candidate who drops in asking the group to endorse. There are a lot of these, and many if not a majority of them are judges. Plus our state representative and state senator are active members.

It is still possible that all of these people are ignoring the law in this way, and that at the same time relevant authorities in their turn are either ignorant of or indifferent toward the matter.

I would certainly approve of someone checking. Absent more detail I'm not sure that alarm bells need be ringing yet, though.

Bridget Conant wrote:

While we are on the topic of the D club, I would recommend their leadership contact the board of elections about "endorsing" issues and candidates. When the R club restarted we were told specifically that social clubs were not to do those sort of endorsements with the new PAC laws.

Any comments on this?

Thanks for posting it, Ryan.

If that is the case, perhaps the Dem Club should think about making whatever changes might be necessary to continue endorsing.
In my brief time attending the meetings, all involved seemed rather happy, if not enthusiastic, about making endorsements.
On the other hand, how they went about it this month was an entirely different matter

To clarify some other things.
Like Matt, and we were sitting at the same table, I didn't even notice the disturbance until the police officer came into the room from the front door and led two people out the back door. The meeting may have been interrupted for a moment.

But it was chaotic in terms of procedure. The endorsement meeting being moved up a month; people not being duly notified; confusion over who was qualified to vote - I had the requisite three meetings on my record, while my neighbor, who had been to every meeting I had attended, did not and was not allowed to vote. There were many other people like that. There was a long discussion at the front of the room before things got started. The pro-hospital side pushed back, led by Sen. Skindell, and the endorsement vote was pushed back to September. That was a big win.

After it was over, I thought the pro-hospital side would have won the endorsement that night, but the vote on the endorsement had come relatively early in the meeting, so I'm not second guessing. No one could have known that the pro-hospital group would win every subsequent procedural vote. Throughout I was hopeful but not overly optimistic.

But we can be sure the City Hall forces recognized it and will pull out all the stops to win next month. We all need to be back for round 2.