The Observation Deck

Here are several quotes from Mayor Summers letter published in the Lakewood Observer this week:

1. “Good health… comes from a commitment by the members of a community (and its public officials) to DREAM BIG.”

2. “[T]he allegation that there is some secret plan to build a recreation center on land currently occupied by the hospital” was an “ugly accusation.”

3. “The idea of a recreation center as part of a health and wellness facility is not a hidden agenda.”

4. “[T]he idea of a recreation center was part of early conversations….among people charged with envisioning a healthier future for the community.”

5. “The Cleveland Clinic sketched out a …. recreation/wellness facility in envisioning the future for the Lakewood Hospital site. This concept and others have been part of an ongoing discussion about the future of health care in our community.”

6. “I have also talked with the Lakewood Board of Education about expanding recreational capacity in our city”.

7. “City Council is not considering a recreation center as part of the hospital proposal.”

8. “ As options and ideas are more fully flushed out, the community will be involved—as it should and must be—in determining how the hospital and surrounding property can best be developed to serve our citizens.

So Summers now admits that he and PEOPLE CHARGED WITH ENVISIONING a healthier future for the community have been and continue to be discussions concerning the RECREATION CENTER planning.

However, City Council, a majority of the Lakewood Board of Education and the public are NOT involved.

He claims these discussions are not secret or hidden, but he does not disclose WHO he is
in on these discussions concerning our future. .

So exactly WHO is the group of BIG DREAMERS CHARGED WITH ENVISIONING a healthier future for the community?

So despite his denials, the planning is a hidden agenda and so are the identities of the planners

Summers admits that the Cleveland Clinic has played and continues to play a major role in the “ENVISIONING” of our future. Who charged the Clinic with dreaming on are behalf?

Does Summers claim LHA are the BIG DREAMERS CHARGED WITH ENVISIONING OUR FUTURE? If so who charged them and when?

Does Summers claim the Jay Foran head of the Active Living Task Force is a BIG DREAMER CHARGED WITH ENVISIONING OUR FUTURE?

Why have an election, Summers is already KING OF LAKEWOOD.

The KING surely tells a lot of WHOPPERS.

The king is a legend in his own mind

He believes he has a beautiful wardrobe.

I've run across some people who seem to think that Lakewood needs a publically financed recreation center. Maybe so but we don't need to destroy 1,000 jobs and a hospital to get one.

We need a hole in the ground, then, because we'll be dumping our money into a pit called a recreation center. EVERY city that has one has had to increase property taxes AND subsidize the operation, despite yearly user fees.

I'd love for THAT to be put on the ballot. It would get voted down in a heartbeat. We may be generous to our schools, but there is no way the voters would raise taxes for a rec center. Especially if it came after losing the hospital income.

It's VOCAL MINORITY pushing this.

Brian Essi wrote:Here are several quotes from Mayor Summers letter published in the Lakewood Observer this week:

1. “Good health… comes from a commitment by the members of a community (and its public officials) to DREAM BIG.”

2. “[T]he allegation that there is some secret plan to build a recreation center on land currently occupied by the hospital” was an “ugly accusation.”

3. “The idea of a recreation center as part of a health and wellness facility is not a hidden agenda.”

4. “[T]he idea of a recreation center was part of early conversations….among people charged with envisioning a healthier future for the community.”

These are all lies, we have the Mayor saying there is no talk of a rec center numerous times.

We have Jay Foran of the Active Living Task Force saying there were no conversation about
a rec center. In fact one of the very first things the Task Force was told, was not to think
about a rec center, and that was it.

It would have made sense had the group empowered to investigate this were told about it,
they were not.

This is getting positively sickening. The level they stoop to is that of a petulant child.

Saying one thing, getting caught then saying, Ohh that, we all knew about that. We knew
about it because it was reported her a year ago. What followed was a year of lies and
cover-ups, the city is getting sick of lack of trust, honesty and transparency.

I was just talking with someone that attended rec meetings, Active Living Meetings,
Council Meetings, and is shocked the mayor said, The Rec Center is an open discussion.

As we get closer and closer to September then November they will try and say anything.

Pssssssst, try the truth.


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Bridget Conant wrote:We need a hole in the ground, then, because we'll be dumping our money into a pit called a recreation center. EVERY city that has one has had to increase property taxes AND subsidize the operation, despite yearly user fees.

I'd love for THAT to be put on the ballot. It would get voted down in a heartbeat. We may be generous to our schools, but there is no way the voters would raise taxes for a rec center. Especially if it came after losing the hospital income.

It's VOCAL MINORITY pushing this.

There is a process in place to get such an initiative on the ballot: popular referendum, a measure that appears on the ballot as a result of a voter petition drive. The Law Department at City Hall was always helpful with advise (not counsel) when I tried a few years back on a different issue. You can also probably get info from Cuy County Board of Elections. http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/

I once had a Chief I served with in the Coast Guard tell me. "Peter, use the system to change the system."

Jim O'Bryan wrote:Pssssssst, try the truth.

Jim,

I can just see Mike Summers doing his best Colonel Nathan Jessup in response to Brian Essi's Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee ...

Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I think I'm entitled to.

Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I want the truth!

Col. Jessep: You can't handle the truth!

... sadly, there are only "A Few Good Men" in City Hall right now ...

From what I gather, "dream big" is code for downsizing and destruction.

And please, let's not fool ourselves about the Clinic. The only "future" they are envisioning is an ideal one for itself ("healthcare" monopoly), not an ideal future for the people of Lakewood.

Summers loves to spin and twist the facts all the while he muddies the waters so no one knows what the heck is going on.

Now that's what I call leadership!

Summers has been caught in a BIG LIE that he's trying to hide by unveiling a BIG DREAM.

All BULLIES eventually play victim---Summers attempts to play the victim by calling my article an "ugly accusation"--just like Madigan's "Mean-Spirited" bunk. But Summers then essentially admits in the same writing that my accusation is true---he admits that they have been and continue to plan the recreation center in secret---this is truly DREAMWORLD stuff.

Thankfully we have many great OBSERVERS to chronicle his pathetic ploys and fan the PIPE-DREAM smoke away to expose the naked LIE.

Brian Essi wrote:Thankfully we have many great OBSERVERS to chronicle his pathetic ploys and fan the PIPE-DREAM smoke away to expose the naked LIE.

Brian

This is what amazes me in all of this. How on earth can they just lie about the lies. For over
6 months everyone connected with the Mayor said, "no rec center, no drawing of a rec center."

Then you produce one, and they say, "oh that was wrong, it was not..."

Two weeks later, "Ohhhhhh that Rec Center, yeah I have been out front pushing it for years."

Do they really think, Lakewoodites are that stupid. That even when caught they continue to
play all Lakewoodits as fools that do not matter?



Lakewoodites, as I have been saying for over a year, "You are getting played."


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Folks seem to forget that Mayor Michael P. Summers declared that his idea to kill the Lakewood Hospital with a recreation center - in part - was not a hidden secret.

Summers admits that he OPENLY planned and tossed around the idea of killing the Lakewood Hospital for a recreation center in the print edition of The Lakewood Observer as follows:

Mayor Michael P. Summers wrote:The idea of a recreation center as part of a health and wellness facility is not a hidden agenda or a done deal: the idea of a recreation center was part of early conversations (and even drawings) among people charged with envisioning a healthier future for the community.

http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2015/07/21/distraction-and-distortion-of-facts-detract-from-good-health