The Observation Deck

Councilman O’Malley, you have made some posts here on the Observer about Lakewood Hospital and the development of the Hospital site. Thank you for taking part. I have some questions.

Is it true that the Hospital site will be donated to the developer?

Carnegie Development plans for a 940 space parking garage. That is about 50% bigger than the old parking garage which had a footprint of about 1 acre. What will the footprint be of the new parking garage?

According to the Master Agreement the City is obligated to pay $2.5 million to fund a parking lot for the Cleveland Clinic. What additional City funds will be needed to provide the 325 parking spots needed by the Clinic?

From the Master Agreement:

(a) The Clinic contemplates constructing a parking structure on the FHC Site
that will accommodate approximately 120 parking spots. The parties agree that the Wind-Down
Costs (as defined in Section 3.3(b)) shall include $2.5 million to fund the construction of such
structure and the work contemplated by the Parking Lot Lease.

2.2 Parking. On-site, adjacent and proximate parking is critical to the success of the FHC. The Clinic contemplates the FHC will need the support of 325 parking spaces,…

I have attached an email provided in a response to a public records request. As you can see, nothing was provided. Whenever a Lakewood taxpayer requests information about the Hospital deal the response is generally what you see below.

Is that acceptable to you?
Will you support the full release of all the requested documents?
Will you support calls to have the redacted portions of the emails publically released?
Will you support an independent investigation into the loss of the Hospital?

Many people wish to move on. I am one of those people. However, until we have a complete and honest investigation into the conduct of the Hospital Board and City officials I will not move on.

Is what you see below an acceptable response to a public records request?

Bill Call wrote:
According to the Master Agreement the City is obligated to pay $2.5 million to fund a parking lot for the Cleveland Clinic. What additional City funds will be needed to provide the 325 parking spots needed by the Clinic?

From the Master Agreement:

(a) The Clinic contemplates constructing a parking structure on the FHC Site
that will accommodate approximately 120 parking spots. The parties agree that the Wind-Down
Costs (as defined in Section 3.3(b)) shall include $2.5 million to fund the construction of such
structure and the work contemplated by the Parking Lot Lease.

2.2 Parking. On-site, adjacent and proximate parking is critical to the success of the FHC. The Clinic contemplates the FHC will need the support of 325 parking spaces,…

I would also appreciate some clarification on whether or not the City of Lakewood has a current or pending obligation to spend $2.5 million on parking at or near the former hospital site.

I'm still trying to understand just how much money the City of Lakewood is preparing to spend on the overall former hospital site redevelopment.

In addition to Mr. Call's question, I am also curious as to whether the former hospital site has been appraised for its fair market value and what that FMV might be.

Input on these topics is greatly appreciated.

My focus here is not on the past, but on the future.

Mark Kindt wrote:

Bill Call wrote:
According to the Master Agreement the City is obligated to pay $2.5 million to fund a parking lot for the Cleveland Clinic. What additional City funds will be needed to provide the 325 parking spots needed by the Clinic?

From the Master Agreement:

(a) The Clinic contemplates constructing a parking structure on the FHC Site
that will accommodate approximately 120 parking spots. The parties agree that the Wind-Down
Costs (as defined in Section 3.3(b)) shall include $2.5 million to fund the construction of such
structure and the work contemplated by the Parking Lot Lease.

2.2 Parking. On-site, adjacent and proximate parking is critical to the success of the FHC. The Clinic contemplates the FHC will need the support of 325 parking spaces,…

I would also appreciate some clarification on whether or not the City of Lakewood has a current or pending obligation to spend $2.5 million on parking at or near the former hospital site.

I'm still trying to understand just how much money the City of Lakewood is preparing to spend on the overall former hospital site redevelopment.

In addition to Mr. Call's question, I am also curious as to whether the former hospital site has been appraised for its fair market value and what that FMV might be.

Input on these topics is greatly appreciated.

My focus here is not on the past, but on the future.

Two more questions:

1. Why does the City's market study for the redevelopment of the former hospital site include the City of Brooklyn (OH) as part of the Lakewood sub-market?

2. Does the inclusion of Brooklyn in the Lakewood sub-market distort the outcome of the analysis in the market study? If not, then why not?

Something I've noticed is that when one of these council people pokes their head up, they are met with a fuselage of questions, many of which I know they aren't going to answer for one reason or another.

Why not pick one or two questions that they can answer, (and many people here have a handle on the politics involved), and then really hold their feet to the fire on it.

I don't disagree with the questions. They are all good ones to put out in the open, but I can see why the elected officials will choose to go back into hiding rather than answer them here.

They are all good ones to put out in the open, but I can see why the elected officials will choose to go back into hiding rather than answer them here.

Oh, silly me! I thought answering constituent’s questions was part of their JOB!

No elected official has any obligation to participate on the Observation Deck or on Facebook (or even Twitter).

However, that said, regular participation on the Deck would eventually smooth-out and work to everyone's advantage here, particularly to the benefit of an officeholder.

The Foundation Planning Task Force missed a golden opportunity to regularly communicate with the Observation Deck readership and this missed opportunity was to their disadvantage and to ours.

Citizens only have so much time to participate in public meetings, attend council sessions, or review public documents. (Having to watch video-tapes of such sessions is even worse.)

It becomes especially discouraging when we learn that comments on public issues are routinely deleted on other social media venues or when public documents are withheld from public view for months (or years).

All we are looking for is a basic level of communication, openness, and transparency.

Disagreement is a fundamental aspect of democracy; and, the general friction of agreement versus disagreement is what makes the system go. Ask Jefferson. Ask Hamilton. Ask their readers.

Folks, that's how we got here. Vocal debate on the issues of the day.

The Observation Deck is a more civil environment for discussion than most online venues. We can thank Mr. O'Bryan and his team for that. He is, perhaps, our very own Benjamin Franklin.

Bridget Conant wrote:

They are all good ones to put out in the open, but I can see why the elected officials will choose to go back into hiding rather than answer them here.

Oh, silly me! I thought answering constituent’s questions was part of their JOB!

But there are political and practical realities at play here. Any elected official will have to be sensitive to certain statements, and then there is the matter of the time involved to address so many questions.

What I'm saying is, this is a choice between actually getting an answer to a question or two, or asking a dozen and getting no response to any.

There's got to be a better way of getting information from our city government, but I don't think we'll find one during the Summers administration.

Bill Call wrote:Councilman O’Malley, you have made some posts here on the Observer about Lakewood Hospital and the development of the Hospital site. Thank you for taking part. I have some questions.

Is it true that the Hospital site will be donated to the developer?

It is true that the developer HAS ASKED for this. It is also true that the other finalist developer asked for this and more. In December, City Council authorized the administration to begin negotiating a term sheet with Carnegie. Council will ultimately consider the term sheet and the final agreement. So it's still up in the air. Same goes for details on parking.

Regarding the FHC parking - let me get back to you on the latest with that. It has been a while since I sought an update myself.

The short answer to your final question about the record you’ve posted is “yes” since it appears to be a privileged communication between two city officials and the city’s attorney. Yeah it’s redacted. What am I missing? I disagree with your characterization that this is “generally what you see” in released records though I confess to not having reviewed them all.

Mark - as I have stated before, I support an independent appraisal of the former hospital site's value.

Thank you.

Dan O’Malley
Personal cell - 440.552.7234
Daniel.OMalley@lakewoodoh.net

it appears to be a privileged communication between two city officials and the city’s attorney.

That does not make it privileged communication unless it is specifically discussing certain defined topics clearly outlined in public law such as the sale of property, etc. It is a narrow range of topics considered exempt from public view, and wisely so.

I fail to see what would be outside the public purview when the subject is the wording in an upcoming referendum that the public would be voting on.

Ohio Revised Code concerning public records:

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/149.43

Dan OMalley wrote:

Bill Call wrote:Councilman O’Malley, you have made some posts here on the Observer about Lakewood Hospital and the development of the Hospital site. Thank you for taking part. I have some questions.

Is it true that the Hospital site will be donated to the developer?

It is true that the developer HAS ASKED for this. It is also true that the other finalist developer asked for this and more. In December, City Council authorized the administration to begin negotiating a term sheet with Carnegie. Council will ultimately consider the term sheet and the final agreement. So it's still up in the air. Same goes for details on parking.

Regarding the FHC parking - let me get back to you on the latest with that. It has been a while since I sought an update myself.

The short answer to your final question about the record you’ve posted is “yes” since it appears to be a privileged communication between two city officials and the city’s attorney. Yeah it’s redacted. What am I missing? I disagree with your characterization that this is “generally what you see” in released records though I confess to not having reviewed them all.

Mark - as I have stated before, I support an independent appraisal of the former hospital site's value.

Thank you.

Dan O’Malley
Personal cell - 440.552.7234
Daniel.OMalley@lakewoodoh.net

It has been an endless source of surprise to me that the city administration failed to have an independent appraisal made with respect to Lakewood Hospital. It is now closed and the majority of its assets have been disbursed (or by contract will be disbursed) to private parties. POOF! Tens of millions of dollars gone! Valuable annual municipal revenues abandoned at the stroke of a pen! POOF!

I simply do not understand why the city administration did not have an independent appraisal completed on the value of the former Lakewood Hospital real estate that the city owns.

They have been talking about this redevelopment for years (it's mentioned in the CAFR each year).

The city administration conducted lengthy discussions with developers and they don't have an appraisal on the real estate. Really?

Why does it take the intervention of city council to get the city administration to do something at the level of basic ordinary competence? What am I missing?

As long as the city administration keeps "stonewalling" citizens on requests for public documents, it will never regain its lost credibility.

Each council-member should ask themselves why are local attorneys so active and so adamant about local municipal issues that they would donate thousands of hours of legal time to rectify what they perceive as improper government conduct.

Mark,

The facts and materials presented by the healthcare consultants for the Summers administration constitutes fraud. First, evidence was readily available from the Department of Labor and Bureau of Labor Statistics on healthcare hiring in the United States economy. In fact, data is available for this region without the use of consultants.

When healthcare constitutes 17-18% of your nations GDP, the narrative pushed forth by the city is at best comical.

The city willfully ignored pleas from residents on several fronts:
1. An economic impact study didn’t occur because the loss of jobs would have been deeply unpopular.

2. The Lakewood Democratic Party should be ashamed of themselves. For over 50 years, the National Democratic Party pushed heavily for the expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. Key tenets of new deal/great society democratic ideals.

3. The two newest members were elected because of the loss of Lakewood Hospital. When will these members ask for a third party investigation?

4. At this point, there is nothing to lose. Mayor Summers will be forever remembered as the official who sold out Lakewood Hospital so a few insiders could get board seats. It’s profit over people with Tom Bullock and Sam O’Leary.

5. Tom Bullocks new campaign literature is interesting:

“For ten years, I’ve served my community as a councilperson, and I’ve worked collaboratively to get things done for residents. I’m proud of my role in making Lakewood strong. I’m running for state representative to continue this work to strengthen communities across the entire 13th District: Lakewood, Cleveland, Linndale, and our region.”

Tom Bullocks record is not progressive: from pit bulls, basketball, protecting vulnerable seniors to orchestrating the largest job loss in the city’s history, he is not fit for higher office. It’s shameful that anybody endorsed Mr. Bullock.

Nadhal

Right On Nadhal !