The Observation Deck

Ken and I are out of the city today building the Lakewood brand with a group of national leaders in software and open source journalism and my phone has been ringing off the hook qith rumors of a coup d'etat at City Council!

I understand that this meeting was called to overthrow Bob Seelie as City Council President.

Does anyone know why this meeting was called on such short notice?

Will Bob Seelie be there to defend himself?

What are the charges?

Does this have anything to do with one street demanding repaving without understanding the problems involved with the sewers that lie beneath the street?

I would encourage the entire city to show up at City Council to offer their opnion ans see what is going on.

I would hope in the year of the early politcal run for mayor and council that this is not some political prank


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Bob Seelie is out of town and will not be there to address any issues brought by council members Butler, Demro, Dever, and Fitzgerald.

The meeting is at 5:30 pm tonight and I encourage all citizens who can be there to go to the meeting.

If I understood the problem correctly, it was the report from the Committee of the Whole that Mr. Seelie gave which represented his view, but not the majority view as it is required to do. This doesn't follow Roberts Rules of order and the Council wants him to be fair.


As far as I understand it - it has nothing to do with Roads.

Kinda reminds me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned...

I walked by a newstand and noticed this past week's edition of the Lakewood Solar System had a big headline stating something to the effect that other council members were trying to oust Councilman Seelie as Council President, but I did not get a chance to read the article.

Doug

Lynn Farris wrote:If I understood the problem correctly, it was the report from the Committee of the Whole that Mr. Seelie gave which represented his view, but not the majority view as it is required to do. This doesn't follow Roberts Rules of order and the Council wants him to be fair.


As far as I understand it - it has nothing to do with Roads.

Lynn

Know you are out of town, so the update is - sanity prevailed. Not before the Plain Dealer and Chanel 5 got enough footage to make the city appear pitiful. Two steps forward two back.

I have been getting bombarded with calls and visits from people that live on Woodford. Oddly enough many of the same names come into play with that street demands for repaving, part of the Committee of the Whole, discussion I bellieve.

It does not matter, but it has now turned into a political issue. Now that Lakewood has become the city of never ending political campaigning. Just enough time to hang the art in the office then start campaigning again. What does matter is it is done fairly or legally. You do not call a meeting to overthrow anyone without them being there! How is that fair and honest? If it has been us I am willing to be we would want a cahnce to tell our story.

Having failed in the Coup, they then scrambled to try and strip Council President of something, anything, lashing out. One was to remove him from head of Committee of the Whole. Now as a person on the Charter Committee, I know that you realize it is against the City Charter. You would have thought Council would know that! Then desperately they began to try to strip him of others seats. It was like they had already figured out who would sit where.

Tonight the sanity belonged to the women! Council woman Mary Louise Madigan asked for legal council, then Law Director Brian Corrigan was chastised for the wrong legal reading. Which is in the books and plainly written. The Public has right to be notified*. Residents and voters get to know about a item on the docket before it is voted on. Well Councilman Fitzgerald fought on the side that the public does not need to know what council is voting on. I was very proud of Nickie Antonio, who did bring up, "would it not be fair and honest to wait for Council President Seelie to be present for judgment on his own execution."

As the boys ran off the stage, like a band would at the end of a show. The audience erupted in a call of petitions to remove all members of council. This group was at least 20 in numbers. In the end, all agreed to wait until Monday.

So, we get bad TV, bad print, residents in an uproar, near violation of the City Charter, residents screaming for the overthrow of council, for what?

This is the problem with a coup, it gets too messy to control. Good decent people get pulled into the mess, and it really helps but a few, if any.

* As they see themselves as a competitor, I try not to talk about the Sun Post. But this noticed was put in the Sun Papers and not posted to either any forum in Lakewood!! With the Sun producing less than 4,000 papers, serving less that 10% of the city, I would love to see the rules of notice change. More time, more outlets, more chances for residents and voters to be informed.

I know for a fact that everyone running this fall for office will be talking of openness, fairness, and being honest and fair with the residents and voters. It would be terrible if this incident was used to prove how little interest they really have in engaging the voters.

Sad night for sure.


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Yes, that was the reason for this evening's meeting.

That, however, did not happen.

Council wants to be fully independent and some members felt that Mr. Seelie was not independent enough of the administrative body of govenment.

Council complained of a lack of cooperation between the administrative and legislative parts of government, so they thought dumping Seelie would be a fine idea and would foster more independence and cooperation.

And while they were at it, they decided that no public comment would be heard during the meeting. That was moved on by Mr. Demro, champion of citizen comments during meetings and mayoral candidate.

This is the first time I have ever been to a council meeting where voters and citizens were not allowed to speak.

While they were at it, they named Mr. Butler as the head of the Committee of the Whole, although it was difficult to follow the meeting and the motions, since it didn't seem as though Mr. Dever could keep things straight.

The meeting was quickly adjourned and Butler, Demro, Dever and Fitzgerald ran out of the auditorium as if their pants were on fire.

But not before the Law Director's qualifications were dismissed and the council clerk's job was threatened.

Council members Antonio and Madigan stayed to allow citizens to speak.

It was a stunning event. I have never witnessed anything like it.

That was the first Lakewood Council meeting I've been to. Worth the price of admission. To all you longtime observers of Lakewood politics, please provide me with some context...how does this one rate on the rediculous-ness scale (0-10, ten being most rediculous).
By his absence, Mayor George pulled ahead in the campaign for my vote.

Chris Trapp wrote:That was the first Lakewood Council meeting I've been to. Worth the price of admission. To all you longtime observers of Lakewood politics, please provide me with some context...how does this one rate on the rediculous-ness scale (0-10, ten being most rediculous).
By his absence, Mayor George pulled ahead in the campaign for my vote.

Chris

I do not want offend anyone with this comment. I know people that open Christmas presents on the 24th. I have never understood it. That last 12 hours is the icing on the cake of surprise.

This was people trying desperately to open their presents 8 months early.

Offers Lakewood great hope huh?

Anyone know how much it cost the city for this bad publicity.

How much in dollars did that meeting cost?


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I choose to break my silence on the observer over the gross injustice that was perpetrated on the people of Lakewood today. The true colors of the council have shown through.

I strive to remain objective about each politician's view in this city but attacking a person who is not present is cowardice. During the entire budget process for the past 5 years, the council knew the current budget crisis would come, but did nothing about it. Mr. Seelie is but one of seven and the blame is shared equally among each member of council. A no vote on the budget in an election year is hardly telling of a man's character when feeble or no attempt to correct projected budget shortfalls were made in prior years.

I attend many council and committee meetings and find that I agree and disagree with points made by each and every member of council. Others have used various tactics that could be construed as self promoting. Still others have done the "right" things for the "wrong" reasons. The one thing that makes this entire process bearable are those council members that are humble peacemakers that treat each other and the public with civility. Tonight that was lost.

Tonight's meeting served no purpose other that to make Lakewood appear foolish. This display will not create an environment to find a logical and controlled solution to the budget crisis, but will add a bully pulpit to further deteriorate communication between the branches of government.

Steve

Excellent points.

I would like to thank Councilman Michael Dever for having the nerve to think this one through one more time with an open mind.



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A Coup d'etat?

Really?

Is anyone singing "L' Internationale" yet?

Will they shout "Debout! Aux barricades, citoyen!"?

Who is playing the part of Jean Valjean of "Les Miserables"?

And who will play the part of Madame DeFarge from "A Tale of two Cities"?

In this case, is there indeed, a second city?

Where?

Would there be knitting needles present? Surely they would not produce a guillotine?

Would they?

As I seem to recall the Good Book saying, "By their works, shall ye know them..."

Jim- Your read on this meeting, and the implicit attack on Kevin Butler, is exactly the kind of reporting that you criticize your fellow media outlets of. For the first time I will have to say that you did not get the whole story. That is the problem with this political mess. Nobody in that audience has sat through every meeting for a year to witness the antics of the missing link, Bob Seelie.

1) None of the four of us knew that Bob was not going to be in town until today. Because as usual, Bob nevers gives us notice of anything important and cancels meetings without notice or reason. There are email trails that show Nickie Antonio's objections to this practice.

2) Bob admits in the Sun Post article that we tried to do this a year ago. We had three votes then and would've had a majority today had threats not been made toward members of City Council. I was the only member of Council to vote against Bob for President of Council in 2006, my votes are consistent and have nothing to do with the race for Mayor, but it is cute for you to portray it that way. So much for being objective.

3) DL Meckes, along with Stan "the mouthpiece" Austin, are both George contributors and supporters, your read is bias and interestingly enough matches that of the Administration. READERS BEWARE.

4) This process is internal. We as the members of Council have broad authority to choose our leader. Frankly, I would not as a citizen walk up to the School Board, Library Board, Hospital Board, etc. and pretend that I know who is best fit to run their boards. Should I object every time you try to appoint someone to the Observer Board that I think is not fit? This is the only case in which I think public comment was irrelevant. We need to do what we think is best for Lakewood and in this case there is a cog in the machine that is causing it to jam. This is not a public policy issue, its a leadership issue.

5) Steve, your observation, while more well informed than others, continues to miss the mark. Denis Dunn, Madigan, and I have been calling for strategic planning for two years, its on the record. Many of us have tried to give George the benefit of the doubt , but now we are at the end of the line. Its over, you might want to advise many of your colleagues at City Hall to start saving for unemployment because 2.5 million dollars is almost 10% of the operating budget. That deficit climbs in future years. The picture is bleak, don't be fooled by those who seek to only have the good in the paper, because often times it does more damage than bringing the bad to light so it can be fixed.

Finally, to Chris, we are the future of Lakewood and the fact that the our absentee Mayor was not there speaks volumes to his lack of leadership. If he cared so much about Bob Seelie, where was he? Oh wait, he never comes to Council committee meetings, nor does he attend important budget hearings. So if you like heavily reduced services and City with rapidly increasing crime, Tom is your guy. Don't forget what we attempted to do tonight when you get mugged trying to take your trash to the curb b/c we no longer have backyard pickup.

Keep opining guys and gals, let's see where that gets us.

PS- Jim, coups involve the military, this was just democracy in action. Wait until Monday and you'll see who is outnumbered.

Ryan Patrick Demro wrote:

"Frankly, I would not as a citizen walk up to the School Board, Library Board, Hospital Board, etc. and pretend that I know who is best fit to run their boards."

Really? I would.

Particularly as those boards named above are responsible for public accountability.

Ryan Patrick Demro also wrote:

"3) DL Meckes, along with Stan "the mouthpiece" Austin, are both George contributors and supporters"

So am I, as a matter of fact. This is America. You have your supporters and Tom has his. You will have your opportunity between now and election day for people to get to know you better.

I for one, appreciate the opportunity to read more about you through the views that you have just expressed tonight.

As you are in a position of responsible power, could you explain to me and the citizens of our city, the need to call a fellow citizen by a name? (ex-Stan "the mouthpiece")

As a private citizen, you are certainly able to express your opinion, but I think, as a public official, that you have stepped over the line by your remark- especially when your prose was not prefaced by "in my opinion".

Ryan,

The fact that the city was going to hit the wall this year was well known back in the last year Caine negotiated the union contracts and gave the unions a 12% increase over three years, which, by the way, was approved by council. Also this year council approved another raise for union employees with the knowledge that the city would have a $2 million dollar deficit in 2008. Also when most cities are eliminating minimum staffing levels for a fire department that sucks up overtime like it's going out of style, council approves of a contract that will cost between 500,000 to $1 million in overtime. Maybe the tough decisions needed to be made this year during the budget process when we could have cut $1 million instead of having to cut $2 million next year. My councilman knows what I'm talking about but nothing was done except make a $400,000 corporate welfare fund and a rainy day fund that should have been created in the 90's when the city actually was able to save some money.

Tough decisions needed to be made this year and were not. Now tougher ones are needed next year that will hurt employees and residents because of inaction since the year 2000. It's everyones fault and without working together nothing will be solved.