The Observation Deck

As I am collecting signatures I'm running into people who are afraid to sign. More than one person told me that "the Clinic is scanning those petitions and there will be retribution.". Employees of Lakewood Hospital are being told to not speak publically. Business owners in Lakewood are being harassed by Build Lakewood. A Supporter of Save Lakewood Hospital was "visited" by the police.

If closure of the Hospital is such a great deal why the need for threats, fear and intimidation?


What kind of Lakewood has Mike Summers created?

As I said in another thread, "Welcome to Pottersville".

Bill Call wrote:
If closure of the Hospital is such a great deal why the need for threats, fear and intimidation?


What kind of Lakewood has Mike Summers created?

Bill

Not to destroy a great narrative, but. Wouldn't the Clinic start by trying to threaten me? Wouldn't they have simply pulled their advertising dollars and told me to get with the program and shut up? Never happened. I have gotten threats, and all sorts of skulduggery, and a ton of tricks that were the equal to the deep thought a 13 year old, but the Cleveland Clinic has only asked that we keep their ad from running next to a forum page of attacks. I said, I will pass it along, but promise nothing.

Now do large corporations keep track of the employees. Yes they do.

What kind of Lakewood City Hall has Mayor Summers created, faux names all over social media, attacks on citizens, trying to shut down legal businesses?

They are destroying the "cool" Lakewood has built over decades, in an effort to build pyramids and monuments to themselves.

.

I believe we should be more afraid of Armond Buddish and the County. I believe a possible tampering with votes might occur. It also appears that maybe Armond has spoken with the County Judges about some of the cases. SLH had better have spotters, especially Downtown at the BOE!

Lori Allen _ wrote:I believe we should be more afraid of Armond Buddish and the County. I believe a possible tampering with votes might occur. It also appears that maybe Armond has spoken with the County Judges about some of the cases. SLH had better have spotters, especially Downtown at the BOE!

No, I don't think so.
Budish doesn't care......THAT is the problem.

In my opinion, Budish has many reasons to be very interested.

See http://old.armondbudish.com/endorsements/

Budish, endorsed by:

Marcy Kaptur, endorsed Mike Summers

Ed Fitzgerald, endorsed Mike Summers

Sherrod Brown, endorsed Mike Summers in a roundabout way, was featured on OneLakewood.com several times for working on projects with Mike Summers

Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council. This was the union that told me that they would not support me for Ward 3 Council because I wanted the hospital saved. Their representative told me that they had men waiting in the wings for the word to come in and start hospital demolition

Nickie Antonio, who endorsed Skindell before standing up at a council meeting advocating for the hospital closure.

Now, onto campaign contributions and in-kind contributions. See http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/DisplayFil ... 7f40dd92be and other campaign finance reports at http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/camp ... ports.aspx

Thompson Hine LLP - donated over $4,500 to Budish. Also in-kinded over $400.00 in food for a campaign event.

Cleveland Building Trades Council - donated a total of over $1,200 in food for various Budish campaign events. Budish also gave them $100 as a hole sponsorship for a golf outing.

Lucinda Einhouse - donated $50.00 to Budish.

Chris Sinagara - donated $125.00 to Budish and was on the mayor's active living task force.

William Seelbach, son of LHF member Carolyn Seelbach, gave $1,000 to Budish.

Tom Bullock & Nickie Antonio, recieved a $50.00 contribution from Budish's campaign committee.

Lakewood Democratic Club, recieved a $70.00 contribution from Budish's campaign committee.

City of Lakewood, received $80.00 as a fee to be in the Lakewood Community Festival. The City of Lakewood is also listed as an income source for Budish's campaign following some kind of deposit to the city.
Cuyahoga County Democratic Party endorsed Mike Summers and donated over $10,000 to Budish.

Ron Degrandis, whom I believe is the brother of Fred DeGrangis, the former CEO of CCF, gave $250.00 to Budish's campaign.

Beth Mooney, whom I believe is on CCF's Board of Directors, gave $2,000 to Budish.

Let's not forget that Budish personally asked Fred Degrandis, former CEO of CCF to be the managing director for the Global Center of Health Innovation here in Cleveland.

See http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... ation.html

Now, onto campaign contributions to Judge O'Donnell. Bear in mind that Mr. O'Donnell nearly shares a property line with Mike Summers.

Jay Carson contributed $250.00 to O'Donnell.

Leo Spellacy, whom I believe is the brother of the former Lakewood Law Director, gave $250.00 to O'Donnell.

Murman & Associates, a Lakewood law firm owned by the husband of a recent appointee to the Lakewood Public Library Board of Directors donated $250.00 to O'Donnell.

Thompson Hine donated $1,500 to O'Donnell for Supreme Court.

Cleveland Buiding Trades Council donated $564 to O'Donnell for Supeme Court.

Henry Hilow, the person on Lake across from the Meridian that hung the huge Summers banner on his house donated $100 to O'Donnell for Supreme Court.

Joseph Gibbons, a former LHA member, donated a total of $300 to O'Donnell for Supreme Court.

I believe this is a clear conflict of interest that any first-year law student should have been able to spot. I feel that in the interest of fairness and justice, that Judge O'Donnell should have recused himself from the case.

We than have John Russo, who is the administrative and presiding judge at the county. He received:

$575 from Murman & Associates
$50 from Anthony LaCerva (friend and neighbor of Mike Summers)
$100 from Cleveland Building Trades Council
$250 from Leo Spellacy
$250 from Mousab Tabbaa (LHA member)
$50 from Celeste Smith (Summers supporter)
$100 from Mary Spellacy

See http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/DisplayFil ... 2a3aec633f


Finally, while it doesn't relate to Mike Summers or the hospital, it is interesting to note that Budish appointed a heavy campaign contributor to be the county's Inspector General, who is in charge of enforcing all ethics policies for county employees. What does this say about Budish and his views of conflicts of interest and cronyism?

See http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga-count ... e_sa.html

This we can all combine with MLM's sudden rise to fame from a Family Services worker to Director of Communications for the entire county. Since I believe this position is part of Budish's cabinet, I would think he would have to agree to allow her to take this position.

Seeing all of this, it appears to me that county officials have a lot to lose, or gain if the deal doesn't go a certain way.

Does anyone else believe that the hospital issue needs to be handled in a court outside of Cuyahoga County?

This seems a little over the top. I have family that work at Lakewood Hospital and they have no idea what you are talking about. So by signing the petition are you suggesting that the Cleveland Clinic will somehow look me up and deny me care? Seriously?

Patrick Wadden wrote:This seems a little over the top. I have family that work at Lakewood Hospital and they have no idea what you are talking about. So by signing the petition are you suggesting that the Cleveland Clinic will somehow look me up and deny me care? Seriously?

I never said that people would be denied care. I said that some Clinic employees are afraid to sign because they have been told that "you are either for us or against us". A doctor at the Clinic mentioned the scan and punish policy of the Clinic. Another employee of the Clinic was told to take down their Save Lakewood Hospital sign. Another employee was told to remove a face book post about the difficulty of finding a position at the Clinic. There are other examples.

Of course the Mayor has done a good job of making it seem that the real bullies are the people who want community health care. Apparently the words, "I disagree" are hurtful but real threats and intimidation and abuse of police power are no big deal.

I also know for a fact that part of the Clinics campaign against Lakewood Hospital was to make it difficult for Doctors and specialists to work at Lakewood Hospital. Is that intimidation? Surgeries cancelled, scheduling difficulties etc. Since the Clinic needs their referrals they are not being denied Hospital rights elsewhere.

I understand why its so important for the Clinic to have the $140 million per year health care business in Lakewood all to itself. I will never understand why it was so important to Mayor Summers to give it away.

Over the top? I disagree.

Which Lakewood business owners have been harassed by BL? What kind of retribution could the CC inflict on a non-employee of the Clinic that signs the petition?

Jim O'Bryan wrote: What kind of Lakewood City Hall has Mayor Summers created, faux names all over social media, attacks on citizens, trying to shut down legal businesses?

That's the real issue. All of the vitriol for a bad real estate deal?

Patrick Wadden wrote:Which Lakewood business owners have been harassed by BL? What kind of retribution could the CC inflict on a non-employee of the Clinic that signs the petition?

Panera for one. I won't name the others because they are not big corporations. I'm sure my answer is unsatisfying.

I don't think you realize the level of hate from the Mayors office. What kind of administration encourages the filing of false police reports just to shut up a political opponent? What else are they capable of?

Bill Call wrote:Panera for one. I won't name the others because they are not big corporations. I'm sure my answer is unsatisfying.

Bill, Please private message me the names of the businesses. If I don't already frequent these places I will start tomorrow. If you want to share names of the people that would be great as well. I won't do anything with the names, just want to know who.

The reason I decided to join the conversation on the deck back in the summer was because of the ridiculous talk about boycotting Lakewood businesses.

What, exactly, is the harassment being done to the businesses? I truly am curious as it makes no sense to harass a business, but I may be missing something obvious here.

I have a few questions with the hospital winding down, and the new family health center to take its place, what are the signatures going to do once the place is vacant in a little less then 3 weeks. what happens to the lawsuit


As of now its still business as usual . Taking care of patients, and giving the best care possible. but the march ballot everyone is talking about seems to late?

Jim had mentioned, : he Hopes these guys made a good decision and hit it out of the park " I agree i dont want our leaders to fail, i hope it turns out to be a good thing in the future. Just like our president Obama. My views have changed over the years however, I don't want him to fail as a leader, if he fails then the citizens fail.

Being an employee of Lakewood hospital this transitions and the last 15 months of rumors, meetings, and working in an environment of doom and gloom has been very hard. I will be sad to see the hospital go as we have known it. Maybe the city can incorporate the architecture of the bricks with some of the new development in the years to come.

I was listening to the news yesterday, i guess this steel plant in Ohio is laying off a few hundred workers. Thats horrible, with everything that has happened every single one of the employees kept their job, yes it may be somewhere else, and who knows, once the Family healthy center Roles out, I may still see all you fine folks,

Dan,
I have three friends that work at Lakewood Hospital and they all received E-mails at the end of last week telling them whether or not they had a job, and if so, where they were being assigned to. It sounds like maybe you didn't get one? If not, check with Human Resources. Good Luck!