The Observation Deck

Richard Baker wrote: Other than the typical Democrat's denial and diversion of accountability, your comment does not say much for the typical Democrat voters, does it?

Corruption knows no party.

Every reform ends up being corrupted because EVERYTHING can be corrupted.

A reasonable argument could be made for the City's decision to close Lakewood Hospital and take the $100 million and the land. No argument could be made for what Mayor Summers did. That's why he never made the argument.

The powers that be made the decision to move 1,500 high paying jobs to Lorain County. Tri-C made the decision to build a really big campus on the borders of Lorain County. I guess they had their reasons but please spare me all the moralizing about urban sprawl and the plight of the inner ring suburb.

Is anybody ever going to name who is moving or is it a state secret? I dislike guessing games.

Matthew

Even though it’s easy to find info on houses up for sale, and the owners, I think it’s a bit much to name names on on discussion boards without the person’s permission.

It’s the polite thing to do.

A reasonable argument could be made for the City's decision to close Lakewood Hospital and take the $100 million and the land. No argument could be made for what Mayor Summers did. That's why he never made the argument.

Spare me more diversions, what $100 million and Mayor Summers could not, repeat close, the hospital. It required seven City Council Member to vote yes, unless I'm uninformed and the city has become an absolute monarch.

Richard Baker wrote: Spare me more diversions, what $100 million and Mayor Summers could not, repeat close, the hospital. It required seven City Council Member to vote yes, unless I'm uninformed and the city has become an absolute monarch.

That's an excellent point. I think it only required five votes but they all voted for the dirty deal. Sam O 'Leary was particularly adept at hiding his intentions.

Bill Call wrote:

Richard Baker wrote: Spare me more diversions, what $100 million and Mayor Summers could not, repeat close, the hospital. It required seven City Council Member to vote yes, unless I'm uninformed and the city has become an absolute monarch.[/quote
That's an excellent point. I think it only required five votes but they all voted for the dirty deal. Sam O 'Leary was particularly adept at hiding his intentions.

Something less than half the city voted against the deal, yet our entire council of representatives voted for it. There's something wrong with this picture.
We have a chance to take a significant step toward correcting the situation in November. Let's do it.

Richard Baker wrote: what $100 million .

Here are the financial statements for 2014, 2015.

They reflect the efforts of the administrations to reduce revenue, increase costs and dispose of assets:

The Hospital had about $118 million in cash and investments in 2014, include its beneficial interests in the Lakewood Hospital Foundation. The deal signed with the Cleveland Clinic required the City to turn over "all assets" to the Cleveland Clinic. The City is still hiding documents showing the list of the assets turned over to the Clinic. The land and building on Columbia road was appraised at $15 million.

Take a look at administrative fees. Before the decision was made to close those Hospital those fees were about $10 million. In 2015 those fees increase to over $25 million. The City continues to hide documents related to the administrative fees charged the Hospital. When I asked an LHA board member about those fees he stated that the fees charged by the Clinic were none of his business.

How can a city hide public money? All assess and debts are required to be reported in the city's annual audit at least when I was involved in government. If you want to go to jail, miss appropriate or hide public assets, unless Ohio is an exception due to it's judicial corruption. I don't believe there was that much in cash and investments, the clinic had to be using funny money. You simply don't hide ninety million dollars in cash. Ten million in administrative fees, the vultures in accounting and attorney firms must of had a field day. What kind of idiots did the Democrats vote for City Council during this period? What are the names of the City Council members that voted yea for this diabolical? Seems everyone is blaming the mayor but not the people who had the authority but apparently screwed the City's citizens. That bring up the question did personally benefit from their yea vote or were they just plain stupid?

Why all the foundations, city following the foot steps of the Clinton's? I do know for a fact that not ever thing a previous council has passed is not written in stone and can be changed. The city council needs to close the foundations, that little more than those that want to be important and dwindle away public assets, and put the remaining assets into the city treasury.

You can always take the City of Lakewood to federal court that the Supreme Court just ruled. Why because they are less corrupt than the vested interest of the state court judges.

The alternative, vote for seven independent councilmen and a mayor with service business experience and let them bring back honesty, productivity, accountability and fiscal responsibility to the city residents. The first agenda is to remove all the appointed heads of the city departments and replace them with people that will serve the citizens of the city. Who, you ask would fell these jobs, you don’t have to look far, they are one of the 20 percent employees working for the city that do 80 percent of the work while the other 80 percent bitch and do 20 percent of the work. The last applicant you need is college graduate with a liberal indoctrination instead of an education.