The Observation Deck

The Committee of the Whole is meeting tonight, Tuesday, Sept. 8th at 7 PM in the Council Conference Room. The agenda is the usual:

General conversation about the Letter of Intent submitted to Council by the Lakewood Hospital Association (LHA), the Lakewood Hospital Foundation (LHF), and Cleveland Clinic (referred 1/20/15), including the potential purchase of property and/or sale of real or personal property by competitive bid if disclosure of the information would result in a competitive advantage to the person whose personal, private interest is adverse to the general public interest and pending litigation.

And, a City Council meeting, to be held in Council Chambers, is also scheduled for tonight, Tuesday, Sept. 8th at 7:30 PM.

Among the topics are:

Communication from Councilmembers Bullock, Madigan and O’Leary regarding Resolution authorizing the Director of Law to enter into negotiations with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Lakewood Hospital Association and Lakewood Hospital Foundation regarding Lakewood Hospital and future healthcare delivery in Lakewood. (Pg.14)

7. RESOLUTION NO. 8817-15 – A RESOLUTION authorizing the Director of Law to enter into negotiations with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Lakewood Hospital Association and Lakewood Hospital Foundation regarding Lakewood Hospital and future healthcare delivery in Lakewood. (Pg.15)

It's curious that Bullock, Madigan, and O'Leary all have "communications", hmmm.

It seems, despite the unanimous vote to place the charter amendment on the ballot (not like they had any choice), they are hell bent on thwarting the voice of Lakewood's citizens. Who do these people work for again?

Fascist State.

I told you a year ago, this will get ugly.

They know the vast majority of Lakewoodites want...

1) To Save the Hospital
2) or get a much better deal
3) Honesty and Transparency
4) New Leadership
5) Make it impossible for anyone that follows them.
6) This is the burning of Rome, Gary Rice always speaks of.

NOW Is the time to take power away from all of them until after the election.

They cannot be trusted to do positive honest work for us.

Thugs

.

NUTS!

Somebody please cut through the spin for me: What exactly is he going to negotiate? I thought the Mayor had already made the "best" deal.

To confirm one of the things Jim said: From what I understand from those on the ground, i.e. campaigners going door to door and other soft measures such as Facebook likes, Lakewood voters are overwhelmingly opposed to the current plan to close the hospital.

Dan Alaimo wrote:Somebody please cut through the spin for me: What exactly is he going to negotiate? I thought the Mayor had already made the "best" deal.

As of today's date, there is no "deal." Lakewood Hospital Association, a private, non-profit that operates the hospital per the lease with the City of Lakewood, studied the future of the hospital through its consultant Subsidium over the course of several years.

As required by the lease agreement between the City of Lakewood and the Lakewood Hospital Agreement, the current mayor and two council members are to be on the LHA 23-member governing board. The mayor and council appoint 7 members, but it is subject to approval by LHA and CCF. CCF appoints 3 members and the immediate past president of the hospital's medical staff is also a member. The remaining 9 trustees are selected by a committee of the entire LHA governing board.

Therefore, as required by the lease terms, Mayor Summers, and Councilpersons Madigan and Bullock were on the LHA governing board that made the recommendations in the Letter of Intent (LOI), which was a non-binding proposal from LHA, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Lakewood Hospital Foundation to Lakewood City Council in January 2015.

The LOI was only a proposal. City Council studied the issues surrounding the LOI for the last 8 months and engaged professionals to assist them, and held numerous public meetings. As a result of their due diligence process, they have recently decided to have their legal representation, the law director and the law firm of Thompson Hine, to begin negotiating on the City's behalf.

The Mayor cannot independently enter into contracts on behalf of the City. It is City Council's legal responsibility to pass ordinances and resolutions, and these include granting the executive branch / the administration contracting authority.

Therefore, the statement "Mayor had already made the "best" deal" is completely unfounded, but that notion has been perpetuated out in the community.

Jennifer Pae wrote:Therefore, the statement "Mayor had already made the "best" deal" is completely unfounded...

Jenn

I would agree.

However the perception of the Community is no deal has been done.

You would think by now, City Hall would be looking at simple easy explanations for their
actions like you did here, instead of what is perceived as more cloak and daggers.

Thanks for the clarification, you understand why people jump to conclusions.

.

Jennifer Pae wrote: As a result of their due diligence process, they have recently decided to have their legal representation, the law director and the law firm of Thompson Hine, to begin negotiating on the City's behalf.

The Mayor cannot independently enter into contracts on behalf of the City. It is City Council's legal responsibility to pass ordinances and resolutions, and these include granting the executive branch / the administration contracting authority.

Jenn,

There go the Mayor's crisis management folks again---sending you out with classic "disinformation"--mixing true information with false information to leave a false impression and to confuse and befuddle the public.

Can you circle back and get authority to answer one simple question with a straight answer:

Will the resolution tonight have the City Council grant the executive branch the administrative contracting authority? Yes or No?

Here are a few things that need unspun from your "spinning" post above:

1. The Letter of Intent was an AGREEMENT negotiated by the Mayor as the LEADER of Step 2 whose members Summers CHOSE. An agreement is not a PROPOSAL. Sorry, the LOI is stuck on the Mayor like taffy--you can't separate him from his own deal.

2. It is the Definitive Agreement (DA) that creates the City's rights to the 10 appointees on LHA, not the Lease---Butler claims CCF has no obligations under the Lease so tracking his logic, the Lease can't obligate CCF as the sole member of LHA to grant the City those 10 picks. Indeed, it is the DA that makes CCF the sole member of LHA and creates CCF's duties to serve the City of Lakewood. So the claim that the City has no rights to enforce the Definitive Agreement is but one of several instances in which Butler is dead wrong in his recent website post that the City has no rights in relation to CCF--No worries the rest of his bogus claims will be addressed in another thread.

Please Note: I am told that Butler's posting may violate elections laws by him using his public office in a political campaign. Butler cites no facts or legal authority to support his post on the City's website which is addressed to "Citizens of Lakewood"--several of these citizens are party litigants represented by opposing counsel in pending litigation where he represents an adverse party--we may get to that in future threads too--get your crisis management team working on that issue ASAP.

3. So Butler will be granted the authority to negotiate with CCF when Butler's potentially malfeasant post on oneLakewood.com exposes that he does not even understand the basics of negotiating 101. Why would you choose a negotiator who:
1. believes we have no rights in relation to CCF?
2. has told CCF that he believes we will have not partner without them?
3. thinks that CCF might actually want to leave Lakewood?

Maybe that is why Jenn completely failed to address Dan's question about what Butler will be negotiating?

Dan,

Her answer is: "a bad deal"--they just don't want to tell you that just yet--they'll come out with that later with Thompson Hine saying they did their best.

With tonight's Resolution you go from -

Cleveland Clinic, Lakewood Hospital Association, Lakewood Hospital Foundation and City Council & Mayor at the negotiation table to...

CC, LHA, LHF & Attorney Butler....at the negotiating table.

What is left out? The Lakewood RESIDENTS via The ELECTED OFFICIALS who are supposed to represent the citizen's. The mouth of the voter's will; not be at the negotiation table.

Our Elected Officials appear to be backing away from the issue and putting the negotiations in the hands of an appointed Law Director who is not obligated to the residents but to the City that employs him. It appears that City Council and the Mayor are distancing themselves from this important issue. Dare I say abdicating their responsibility to Atty. Butler.

Pitiful.

I believe that Summers is trying to distance himself from his what appears to be a corrupt deal with CCF. I assume due to the upcoming election. If anyone has attended Council Meetings for the last three years like I have, you would understand that at these meeting Butler pretty much does the mayor's speaking for him. I sometimes wonder if Butler is running this city more than Summers is. FWIW

Nothing is at it seems.

The Mayor worked for three years behind the scenes to facilitate the closure of the Hospital to make way for a medical office building and recreation center.

Adverse public reaction caused him first to deny that he was ever interested in a recreation center and then later to insist that he was always interested in a recreation center.

While the Mayor makes the pretense of being a disinterested bystander his support for the closure of the Hospital was vital. Now he wants people to believe that he had no idea what was going on upstairs, he was just the piano player.

What to make of this last minute effort to give the law director the authority to negotiate with the Cleveland Clinic?

Kevin Butler is a fine lawyer but he is not a business broker. And anyway what is he negotiating? The LOI is expired. If the City and LHA are exploring other options for the Hospital shouldn't they obtain a release from the Clinic, hire a broker and get the best deal the for City?

Of course!

And City officials know that. They also know that there is a Mayoral race, a ballot issue and an ongoing lawsuit seeking damages from the Clinic.

What do they hope to accomplish at this late date? Why not wait until after the election?

I suspect that the deal has already been made. That Council is intent on rubber stamping what has already been negotiated. The intent is to tie the hands of the new Mayor and destroy as much as possible while they still can.

At this point I think they fear the discovery process more than anything else.

This stopped being about health care a long time ago.

Bill Call wrote:
This stopped being about health care a long time ago.

I'm wondering if it ever was.

Peter Grossetti wrote:

Bill Call wrote:
This stopped being about health care a long time ago.

I'm wondering if it ever was.

It has always been about money and real estate--and taking both away from healthcare.

Hence, take $26 million taken from the hospital investments to tear down buildings to sell cleared land to developers.

Brian Essi wrote:

Peter Grossetti wrote:

Bill Call wrote:
This stopped being about health care a long time ago.

I'm wondering if it ever was.

It has always been about money and real estate--and taking both away from healthcare.

Hence, take $26 million taken from the hospital investments to tear down buildings to sell cleared land to developers.

I understand everything you are saying so that is not part of my following question...

Who do you think (or know) gains from "cleared land to developers?" This is the part of the entire equation I haven't understood or figured out since day 1. What developer do you think is in mind? How do they relate to the equation? I can't figure it out.

Corey

I've kept a half an eye on all this and one thing that strikes me is Jenn's repeated assertion that "the LOI is only a proposal."

I've been negotiating deals for my small business for decades. My understanding of the process is that first, one party or the other makes a "proposal." "Whaddaya say we do this." Then, if the other party is interested, a negotiation occurs. The negotiation may or may not result in an LOI (which I sometimes refer to as a "term sheet," same thing) that establish the business terms. From there, final contract negotiations take place. Lawyers get more involved at this stage.

But an LOI is not merely a proposal. Never. The assertion that "the LOI is only a proposal" seems like a lot of backpedaling to me....