The Observation Deck

No surprise that the city appears to be pursuing a contract with Carnegie Management to develop the hospital site.

The owner of Carnegie was a contributor to Summers' campaign even though he lives in Avon and supposedly the development plans were not in place ( ).

Not even considering those aspects of this deal, how comfortable are you with the fact that former County Executive and PO 14 in the county corruption probe, Ed Fitzgerald, was "hired" by Carnegie just as they were attempting to win the contract. Coincidence?

Fitzgerald totally screwed the Dems in the last big election. His bizarre behavior, no drivers license for 10 years and being found in flagrantre delicto with a woman not his wife in a car, caused a cascade of negative publicity and losses for the statewide Dem races.

The guy just can't seem to keep a job, either, in case anyone hasn't noticed.

He is qualified, how?

His association with this development is troubling for so many reasons.

Fitzy might be too dumb to get a drivers' license, but he was smart enough to con the voters of Lakewood.
As Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute".
History will not judge him well.

Amazing how this all plays out. This needs to be brought to the attention of Marcy Kaptur and Sherrod Brown.

It’s time to publicly push for a Department of Justice investigation.

Nadhal

I mentioned awhile ago, here on the Deck, about the owner of Carnegie Development being a contributor to Summer's campaign. I believe that any "deal" involving Summers and FitzGerald is probably both immoral and illegal.

An ex county employee. It appears that our county government is also corrupt and involved in the Lakewood scams.

Brown and Kaptur support the incumbent. They have been completely useless.

DL,

I agree they have been useless up to this point. In fact, at last years holiday party I spoke with Kapturs Chief of Staff regarding Lakewood Hospitals closure:

“Do you really think this administration would purposely close Lakewood Hospital?”

*Note that this was the common sentiment amongst Kapturs staff.

In the past year through lawsuits and research, I think others on the deck have made the case that “yes they purposely closed Lakewood Hospital”.

With this new evidence, I think a case for public corruption can be made.

Nadhal

I spoke with a rep. from Brown's office at a picnic at Lakewood Park and he was surprised that there was any opposition to the plan. I briefly explained what we had found at the time.

One of the first things that happen in a situation like this is the marginalization of anyone who dissents.

Seeing as Kaptur is good friends with Mr. Summers, I would not expect her to help any of her constituents.

Didn't Ms. Kaptur invite Mr. Summers to go with her to Washington D.C. to hear one of O'Bama's speeches?

I believe that she, like Mr. Summers, are swamp creatures.

This is getting even more interesting. I quote from "Hospital site developer emerges", the Plain Dealer, Oct 4, 2017:

"On the public-finance side Carnegie is asking Lakewood to throw in the site and pay for demolition and abatement of hazardous material at the old hospital. The city is still analyzing the site cleanup needs, Sylvester said, but it could cost $7 million to $10 million to raze the old hospital and prepare the land for development."

The Crains Business article told us that the mayor was proposing to transfer the real estate to Carnegie for free or $1.

Now, we know that there is also a potential cash transfer of between $7M to $10M.

I describe this as "potential" since it is unlikely that the city will conduct the demolition and the abatement of the site itself and will instead contract with the developer to do so as part of whatever final deal emerges.

It raises the question of what needs to be abated -- asbestos, soil, groundwater? --All three?

Mark Felt told Bob Woodward to "follow the money." Let's try and keep our eyes peeled for how these demolition funds are handled.

From just reading the newspapers, we see that the city administration is proposing a multi-million dollar direct subsidy to the recommended developer of the hospital site.

The property is being carried on the City's books at $3.7M. (If independently appraised, that book value is likely to be higher.)

The developer is also going to enjoy the benefit of between $7M to $10M in site preparation value.

The proposed deal already seems to carry a tidy front-end profit on the estimated investment amounts.

My guess is that the developer has been offered between $10M and $15M in front-end value from taxpayers.

Let me get my calculator----- So the City pays TO the developer $15 million who will occupy a once thriving and life saving medical institution====and===we get

a high end pet food store? Now that's shrewd bargaining there folks.