You will have to excuse my absence here for the past couple months, but based on the way the Observer has handled the Lakewood Hospital debacle in press has seen this project invited by elected officials and residents to help them start Observer Projects in their neighborhoods.
The first this year is the Ohio City | Tremont Observer, The past two months have seen a bunch of Observers from all of the other projects descend on the community working with residents, elected official, police, fire and non-profts and CDC in the area to put together a strong base of support for this latest Observer Project.
I have to tell you how refreshing it is to have elected official eager to have residents speak their minds so that they can better understand how they can all work together. To be honest I have become somewhat jaded with Lakewood politicans that only give minor lip service to the people that elected them, and generally see their constituents with disdain. In every other city the Observer is in, the community is dedicated to open discussion and transparency of elected public officials and what they do.
It was actually Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimpermann that started this first nearly a year ago, right after we broke the story. "Jim we need a way to get the community into the conversation, we need them to understand what is going on." was the way the lunch started.
Today, 16 pages of pictures, views, ideas and news are hitting the streets of Ohio City and Tremont, because they saw it here in Lakewood, and wanted it.
This marks or 15th project, 10 currently in print. There are two possibly three more coming this summer.
Thank you to everyone that has taken part in this project. It is indeed history making and helping to define not just Lakewood, but what Lakewood stands for.
Special tip of the hat to Deb O'Bryan, Betsy Voinovich, John Copic, Steve Davis, Heidi Hilty, Dan Ott, Steve Ott, Jeff Endress, Margaret Brinich, Troy Bratz, Arron Barcus, Erika Durham, Mayor Frank Jackson, the Ohio City CDC, Tremont West CDC, all of the other Observer members that pitched in, and the advertisers that are lining up to be part of the legendary Observer project. The avearge age of this crew is under 30, and excited about producing a paper! RIP Kenneth Warren!
peace/love
Thank you all.
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