Cash out your IRA, Bulldoze your house

[Marguerite Harkness]

"Whoa! You don't MEAN that!" you say.

That's what the Mayor and Cleveland Clinic are telling (make that, "ordering") us to do with our Lakewood Hospital. Spend the $54 million in long-term investments (on the Hospital's Balance Sheet 12/31/2014) to raze the hospital (worth more than twice that) and let Cleveland Clinic build a puny, not-equipped little "Wellness Center" in its place. Clinic calls that an "investment" of $34 million. That's our own money, folks!

Then the Lakewood Hospital Foundation will have no more hospital to support with its $33 million investments - so it will "reinvent" itself, with Cleveland Clinic board members (say again??), change its mission, and give the money to surrounding communities for soccer fields, park benches, fancy new buildings for histerical societies, or whatever people ask for.

Note that half the board members of Lakewood Hospital Association, and half the board members of Lakewood Hospital Foundation, are not Lakewood residents; and some of them are Cleveland Clinic executives. What gives them the right to order us to destroy our hospital?

[Lori Allen _]

Marguerite,

Indeed you are correct that about half of both the LHA & LHF trustees do not live in Lakewood. I have listed below the most current list of the members of these two organizations and what cities they live in, according to public records:

LHA:
Thomas Gable - Rocky River
Mary Ellen Brzytwa - Lakewood
David L Bronson - Moreland Hills
Michael J Meehan - Westlake
Steven C Glass - unknown at this time
Michael Harrington - unknown at this time
James R Bekney - Westlake
Curtis M Brosky - Lakewood
Thomas Bullock - Lakewood
Thomas J Coury - Westlake
Carl A Culley Jr - Lakewood
Jon M Fancher - Rocky River
Richard B Freeman - Rocky River
Joseph P Gibbons - Lakewood
William R Gorton - Westlake
Kenneth Haber - Lakewood
John D Litten - Lakewood
Mary L Madigan - Lakewood
Kathleen T McGorray - Lakewood
Rebecca Patton - Lakewood
Gary R Pritts - Brooklyn
Dennis J Roche - Lakewood
Michael P. Summers - Lakewood
Mousab Tabbaa - Westlake

LHF:
Kristen Broadbent - Fairview Park
Emily Speer - Avon
Polly Stringer - Rocky River
Ken Haber - Lakewood
Charles Geiger - Lakewood
Robert L. Potts - Lakewood
Dorothy Bahm - Cleveland
Thomas Baker - Lakewood
Michael A Carlin - Fairview Park
Warren P Coleman - Lakewood
Mary A Crampton - Lakewood
Deborah H Dalton - Westlake
Robert J Elwood - Rocky River
Lawrence E Faulhaber - Rocky River
James P Foran - Lakewood
James W Harris - Lakewood
Margaret B Kuechle - Rocky River
William B. LaPlace - Fairview Park
Kathleen A McGrath - Westlake
Carolyn P Seelbach - Lakewood
Douglas Spiker - Rocky River
James R Crandell - Avon Lake
Jill C Gilmore - Lakewood
Bonnie Hagerman - Rocky River
Mary R Sauer - Rocky River
Cheryl F Sullivan - Lakewood
John C Kappus - Rocky River
Robert C Weber - Pepper Pike

Note that Jay Foran is on the LHF board and is also chairman of the Active Living Task Force.

Mary Louise Madigan, Mayor Michael P. Summers, and Thomas Bullock are on the LHA.

Madigan and Summers are both running for re-election this year.

John Litten is also on the list to run for Ward 3 Council. If you want your hospital saved, I suggest that you not vote for these three individuals.

[m buckley]

Lori, Great work. It's good to know who to hold accountable. Thanks.