The Observation Deck

Candidate Positions Now in the Lakewood Observer

Thank you for your time, attention, interest and participation in this "interactive" Deck thread. Again, thanks!

While I intend to follow ethics-in-government issues a little bit further into 2020; however, I have now reached the conclusion that such crucial legislation cannot pass in Lakewood.

This conclusion is based on the dominance of the city administration's narrow, but unstoppable, economic development agenda.

Kudos to Mr. Mark Kindt for drawing out positions on ethics from these candidates. It sometimes seemed like a painful tooth extraction, but equally necessary.

Dark Money In Lakewood Mayoral Campaign

Again, I want to emphasize the importance of the pending government ethics and campaign finance reform legislation introduced this year by Councilperson Rader.

Last week many of us received a very nice mailer on behalf of Candidate O'Leary.

What was so interesting about this nice mailer was the return address: Akron Cleveland Association of REALTORS (R).

So here each of us got to witness the REALTORS(R) Association or its political action committee dumping money into the 2019 Lakewood mayoral race. This is classic "dark" money.

Why?

Why would the REALTORS(R) prefer one Democratic candidate over another?

We must enact meaningful reform legislation now!