The Observation Deck

Tonight (Monday) April 27th, at 6:00 P.M., the Lakewood City Council's Committee of The Whole will be meeting at City Hall to discuss finances related to the hospital. Those that are scheduled to attend and address council are Ken Haber (LHF President and LHA Trustee), Tom Gable (LHA Chairman), and other LHA Trustees. This is supposed to be a completely open meeting, but I would not be surprised if someone made a motion to go into executive session for a probably fabricated reason.

There is also going to be a meeting of City Council's Rules & Ordinances Committee tonight at 5:30 P.M., which consists of Sam O'Leary and Ryan Nowlin to discuss amending 143, the City's Records Commission. Below is copied and pasted from the City Charter the functions of this "City Records Commission":

The functions of the City Records Commission shall be to review all applications for records disposal or transfer and all schedules of record retention and destruction and all records disposal lists submitted by any office, court, commission, board, department or agency of the City. Such records may be disposed of by order of the Commission pursuant to the procedure hereinafter outlined. (Ord. 100-78. Passed 12-4-78.)

See http://www.conwaygreene.com/lakewood.htm and go to section 143 for complete details about this "City Records Commission".

Is anyone else suspicious of what will transpire here?

Lori Allen _ wrote:
Is anyone else suspicious of what will transpire here?

Nothing nefarious.

I attended both meetings.

The records retention meeting was about the need for Lakewood's record retention policy to conform to changes in Ohio law. The General Assembly made minor changes to the record retention requirements and those changes were not reflected in the City's record retention policies. Meetings like this are a routine, boring, and a common part of City Councils duties. The changes were recommended by a Lakewood resident who has some knowledge of the issue.

The Council meeting that followed had some interesting discussions about the future of health care in Lakewood.

The members of the Hospital Board who spoke defended their stewardship. I got the sense that were not giving the letter of intent a glowing endorsement. They indicated City Council could formulate their own proposal. Council seemed a bit conflicted but that's only natural. It's a complicated issue.

I asked a few questions at the end. I'm not much of a public speaker so I forgot to thank members of Council for their public service. It's not an easy job.

I also meant and should have thanked the Hospital Board members that were present for their public service. My wife and sister in law had surgery at Lakewood Hospital and got excellent care. That's not only a reflection of the competence and professionalism of the medical staff but of the efforts of the Hospital Board.

They took exception to talk of the "failure" of the Board. They feel they made a prudent decision given the reluctance of the Clinic to invest in the Hospital and the Clinics clear intent to NOT renew the lease. At the end of the lease period the Clinic intended to leave behind and empty outdate facility without any customers.

I guess the Boards biggest mistake was coming late to the realization that their business partner, the Cleveland Clinic, is a scorpion and that a scorpion never betrays its nature.

Bill Call wrote:I guess the Boards biggest mistake was coming late to the realization that their business partner, the Cleveland Clinic, is a scorpion and that a scorpion never betrays its nature.

Bill

The Board's biggest mistake is letting it happen.

The Clinic has told everyone their plan. Every mayor knew their plan, most council
people knew their plan. I ran in State Rep Nickie Antonio yesterday who said she
knew the plan when she was on council. Mayor George voted against the Lear Road
exit because he knew the plan.

And then we have the little fact, that the Clinic is not suing to get out of a contract, but
answering a RFP put out by the Mayor.

I am always amazed, the deal is very bad and screwy, but the Clinic has been honest to a
fault, our elected officials continue to lie, mislead, and try to confuse while they push a
hideous deal through.

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