The Observation Deck

The Lakewood Democratic Club will meet this Thursday, with an update on local government. Mayor Summers intends to discuss planned and in-progress development, and infrastructure investments.

He will also look ahead at state and federal policies which impact Lakewood, including: state and federal budget plans, the future of the Clean Water Act, other sustainability issues, and regional initiative options.

Thursday, June 29; doors open at 7 and the formal program begins at 7:30.
Woman's Club Pavilion, Lakewood Park
Meetings are free to attend as a guest!

For more info:
E-mail: lkwdohdemclub@gmail.com
Facebook: The Lakewood Democratic Club
Twitter: @LkwdDemClub

Matt, Communications Co-chair

So, will anyone at this meeting challenge Summers about the MULTIPLE brewing scandals?

Will anyone question the blatantly corrupt Hospital giveaway to Summers donors and Fitzy?
Will anyone question the Mayor's racist coverup of the police incident at Madison Library?
Or will it just be a love-fest packed with his City Hall supplicants?

The Lakewood Democratic Club is guilty of lending legitimacy to this corrupt regime.....it endorsed Summer over an ACTUAL Democrat for mayor, and it schemed to purge Hospital supporters.

If it wants to win back the trust of rank-and-file progressives, it can start by holding Summers accountable TONIGHT.

Michael Deneen wrote:So, will anyone at this meeting challenge Summers about the MULTIPLE brewing scandals?
Will anyone question the blatantly corrupt Hospital giveaway to Summers donors and Fitzy?
Will anyone question the Mayor's racist coverup of the police incident at Madison Library?
Or will it just be a love-fest packed with his City Hall supplicants?

The Lakewood Democratic Club is guilty of lending legitimacy to this corrupt regime.....it endorsed Summer over an ACTUAL Democrat for mayor, and it schemed to purge Hospital supporters.

If it wants to win back the trust of rank-and-file progressives, it can start by holding Summers accountable TONIGHT.

Summers is a DINO, bigly. Ask him what is his motivation to privatize and profitize public assets for (possibly) personal gain.

Michael Deneen wrote:So, will anyone at this meeting challenge Summers about the MULTIPLE brewing scandals?
Will anyone question the blatantly corrupt Hospital giveaway to Summers donors and Fitzy?
Will anyone question the Mayor's racist coverup of the police incident at Madison Library?
Or will it just be a love-fest packed with his City Hall supplicants?

The Lakewood Democratic Club is guilty of lending legitimacy to this corrupt regime.....it endorsed Summer over an ACTUAL Democrat for mayor, and it schemed to purge Hospital supporters.

If it wants to win back the trust of rank-and-file progressives, it can start by holding Summers accountable TONIGHT.

Summers is a DINO, bigly. Ask him what is his motivation to privatize and profitize public assets for (possibly) personal gain.

Summers loudly proclaimed there was "no gain" to him so how could he have been acting unethically?

Now we see that the guy who appointed him mayor has had a hand in this from the beginning and is now collecting his reward.

It's only a matter of time before we see ALL the players benefit from this robbery.

Be it money, a titled job, a cushy board appointment, they all will be rewarded for their part. They think let a little time pass, people have short memories.

And here's Fitzy back in the picture hoping we forgot all about him and love him again. I mean, he's a good Lakewood guy, right?

I have a question in mind for him. Why don't some of you others come? (I know Bill has a pretty good excuse.)

Parking will probably be a challenge unless it's raining.

These would be my questions for Mr. Summers:

- Why are records requests over a year old now still only trickling out of City Hall at a snail's pace? Why was the most recent "records dump" largely duplicate pages of the same material? I suspect it was an effort to generate more pages of material to look good.

- Why did one of the "finalists" for hospital site redevelopment hire Fitz! as a consultant when Fitz! was actually behind the "decanting" plan, especially when the finalist that hired Fitz! was a Summers campaign donor? Very fishy indeed.

- Why does it appear that numerous city employees were doing work for BuildLakewood using city computers on city time?

- Why is Ms. Pae permitted to monitor the faux "Lakewood Community" FB page, from what it appears, on city time?

- Why did Liberty Development receive the deal to build the McKinley Place site, when the owner of Liberty is a Lakewood resident and Summers campaign donor?

- Why did Dru Siley abandon the U.S.S. Summers suddenly and go on to suddenly become Vice-President of Liberty Development, sitting right alongside the President of Liberty, a Lakewood resident and Summers campaign donor?

- Why is the mayor's alleged friend Nick still not being held accountable for $89,000 in delinquent property taxes and $60,000 in demolition fees for his now-demolished property at 13351 Madison? Also, why is Nick still going around Lakewood and flipping houses when he is this far in debt?

- Why has the Hilliard Theatre property not transferred to the City of Lakewood yet? It was my understanding that since the taxpayers of Lakewood coughed up $1-2 million to demolish it, the property would transfer to the City of Lakewood (the people).

- Why was the demolition of the Sly Mansion done in such a hurried and sneaky manner?

- Why was Mr. Summers permitting violent, repeat felons to do demolition work in our neighborhoods? Did he know about this? If not, why was a background check not performed?

I think I and everyone else here have almost covered all of the "Summersgate" scandals. I suspect I would be escorted out by armed guards after about 3-4 questions.

Something I was doing in the afternoon got delayed and I couldn't make the meeting.
The Man had a lot to answer for. I'm very curious what he said.

Any attendee willing to report on the event?

I'm surprised Mr. Summers even had the gall to show up at this point. He has pretty much been caught with his pants down.

I wonder what kind of reception he got last night? It will be even more interesting to see his reception at the 4th of July Parade. Perhaps Judge John P. O'Donnell will be an honored guest, and one of his alleged best friends Armond Budish will make his second annual appearance.

Peter Grossetti wrote:

Peter,
I don't know what was said, but I think you nailed it.
Song and dance, then a Q&A: "For safety's sake, don't humiliate him!"

Big meeting, about 75-80 people.

Summers' presentation included "defense" and "offense" as far as issues facing cities.

Two of them were:
Opioid epidemic.
Urban sprawl.

He had a LOT of gall mentioning either of these - let alone, BOTH of them - in any presentation anywhere.

I was the first one to ask a question. I'm SURE hizzoner was "thrilled" to have me question him.

As closely as I can recall my comment:

We have two related issues here. You have just GIVEN our Lakewood Hospital to Cleveland Clinic, instead of them paying $300 million for it - and sent 1400 jobs averaging $59,000 which is WAY more than the $44,000 median FAMILY income you have cited - sent these jobs and the city income tax, to Avon, out of Lakewood, and out of CUYAHOGA COUNTY. Meanwhile, we are the epicenter of the opioid epidemic, and we have 100 empty rooms in our closed hospital. We COULD have our 24-room REAL Emergency Room for opioid and other serious medical issues, AND an attached rehab facility for short-term rehab, medium, long-term, and outpatient.

The room was quiet. No applause, no booing, no under-the-breath comments . . .

People don't get it???

I don't know if the people are so stupid that they BELIEVE all the mayor's lies, or if they just heard this for the first time and don't know what to make of it, or what . . .

Pam gave the next question, commenting that he was causing the urban sprawl that he [pretended to be] was concerned about.

Pam, do you want to elaborate on your comments?


The club is making impeachment signs on Sunday. I felt like asking, "are we impeaching the mayor?"

Oh, one more thing.

Dave Anderson said that they expect to bring the third amended charter to the voters later this year.

I did not speak up, to ask the next question:

So - did you leave the ethics training requirements in there, for all of you to adhere to? Are you ALL going to attend and participate in the training, or are you going to let Kevin "attend" for all of you?

Pam commented to me later -

A BIG danger in the new charter:

The new charter "codifies" a lot of issues - meaning City Council can CHANGE anything they want, just by putting it on 3 readings and then voting -- rather than leaving them as stated requirements in the charter itself - which would be much harder to change, because we the people would have to approve any such charter changes.

Marguerite Harkness wrote:The room was quiet. No applause, no booing, no under-the-breath comments . . .

Just as I thought...Summers packed the room with his bootlicking lackeys, including our spineless council members.
The "Lakewood Democratic Club" is a complete disgrace....when Lakewood's obituary is written, the Dem Club will play a major role in the narrative.

BTW, did anyone ask about the police incident at Madison Library?