The Observation Deck

In recent weeks the trolls aplenty are out in force.

"Why are you trying to still save the hospital?"

"Skindell wasted tax dollars"

"We voted on it, leave it alone."

And other equally ignorant comments. I say ignorant, because they come from a base of blind support for a City Hall that has become a stranger to honest governing. A base that supports a City Hall that not only lies to the residents, but schemes behind closed doors to loot the city of some of its biggest and strongest assets for themselves and close friends.

No one here on the Deck that I know of is trying to bring the hospital back, that ship has sailed.

Over $178 million in assets gone, with a wave of the Mayor's fingers. $$$$$ back to the City probably none, certainly less than $7 million.

Think about it, these people, the naysayers those that seek to disrupt conversation, belittle some of the most accomplished legal minds here in the city, are fighting for dishonest, corrupt and secretive government?

One has to wonder why?

While the City wasted $90,000 fighting Skindell, and were found guilty by the courts of Sunshine Law violations a plenty. They gave away over $178 million in publicly owned assets. Again, City Hall bullshitting and covering up the facts. Won? Hardly, while Skindell did not win, he was not found guilty of anything but trying to seek the truth. Meanwhile the City of Lakewood continues the coverup, hiding documents forcing residents to seek rulings from the courts again and again on what every court has ruled public documents than need and belong in the light of day.

In what universe do residents fight on behalf of their government to lie? To Coverup? To get other public officials to go out and lie? To encourage other elected officials to perjure themselves? To hire people to go after and harass and try to intimidate law abiding citizens? What sort of Bizzaro World* is this city coming to?

This past week, a person that spends her days moderating conversation on the community board arrives at the LO Facebook page to heckle, and attacks the LO, as being a real community conversation. The very person that edits and bans others with the single reason, they do not agree with the Mayor or her beliefs in those that back her "community board."

This City has not just squandered their intellectual capital, but are quickly squandering our brand as one of the truly progressive forward thinking communities in the county.

One should ask, why? Who wins?

What I do know, what a growing group of residents know, and what is underlined by Mr. Kindt, is if we work together we can bring back honest transparent accountable government, level the playing field and make it better for all. That to me seems like a great goal for all to get behind.

Crazy.

.

Mr. O'Bryan sums this up nicely.

The City of Lakewood is ready for some serious municipal reform.

Despite the press releases and PR noise machines, the courts are already sending this message.

The City of Lakewood has been taken to task by three different courts on misuse/waste of authority, open meetings violations, and violations of citizen access to public records.

Volunteer public interest lawyers have spend thousands of hours of effort since 2015, to get the City of Lakewood back on the ranch.

Several of these cases are still on-going.

We need to be persistent in our efforts to set the house in order.

Lakewood reached a tipping point. The economic through-put of the hospital will not return to our economy. We've taken a careless hatchet to our revenue and tax base.

Tough choices await us.

One solution is at the ballot box.

One solution, in the meantime, is for citizens to insist on higher standards of performance by our local elected officials and our public employees.

Both roads are open.

1. Bring the hospital back (there, ruined it for you).
2. Pay $175M cash, in full, in year 2018 (there, redeemed it for you).
Magic wand: payees include CCF, legal counsel and consultants, complicit city officers and insiders.

Choose: 1, or 2.

cmager wrote:1. Bring the hospital back (there, ruined it for you).
2. Pay $175M cash, in full, in year 2018 (there, redeemed it for you).
Magic wand: payees include CCF, legal counsel and consultants, complicit city officers and insiders.

Choose: 1, or 2.

CM

I fear the ship has sailed. Even talk of bringing it back gets people into the wrong mindset.

To get people into the right mindset, we need to see the documents, then move on to whatever.



I mean look at the documents above. By the time Essi got it, there was no reason to blank out the entire conversation.

A slap in the face of the process, the courts, and every person in the community.

Every judge has deemed this documents public, and suitable for the public to see. The city fought it, the courts said we will read them and see if they are suitable for the public to see them. The city is fighting that? We are not talking about sensitive material, we are talking about a sale of an asset, and the re-purposing of the property. There are only two reasons to fight it at this point, illegal behavior, or bad behavior/stupid behavior.

No matter they had their run, they got their way, now let's move back to an open and honest government.

.