The Observation Deck

Sunlight makes it easier to find where you want to go! For this year's Sunshine Week, I have a couple of thoughts about what public records and open government mean to our community's future. Two examples…

One, what will happen to a significant block of publicly owned real estate in the middle of Lakewood?

This question matters to everyone in our community. Yet a lot of deliberation has taken place in obscurity.

What city officials call a “citizen-led advisory panel” has effectively led the process to date. Who is on this panel? There is a list of six members (43 pages into a PDF). But elected officials have made reference to “seven people,” and to an “eight-man” panel. The first signature on a letter reporting the panel’s recommendation is not that of an official panel member.

Even if references to seven or eight members were simple errors, that reinforces the impression of an oddly low-profile group. As noted, the only official report of its membership does not seem easy to find online. (See if you agree.)

Its meetings, so far as I can find, are not publicly documented at all. So far as I can tell, the online city calendar did not list meetings for this panel in 2017, and the agenda/minutes directory does not include meeting minutes, or topics of discussion, or even a list of attendees.

Why is none of this information published? Does this impair the public’s ability to evaluate conflicts of interest? Shouldn’t some record be published, and readily accessible? Even when city council goes into executive session, the public is supposed to have a general idea of who met to discuss what.

Thank you for reading! I'll post another example in the next day or so.

mjkuhns wrote:Sunlight makes it easier to find where you want to go! For this year's Sunshine Week, I have a couple of thoughts about what public records and open government mean to our community's future.

Matt

During the last election we had three candidates run on "Honesty, Transparency, Accountability."

Over the last two years every member of council, and many members of the administration, members of Build Lakewood, Lakewood Hospital Foundation, now Three Arches, the New Wellness Foundation, Lakewood Board of Education, Beck Center, LakewoodAlive and many others have all stated, "We need to bring this community together," "What can be done to heal the divide in this community" and the simplest and perhaps the only answer is release the documents and stop the lying.

Be honest, transparent and accountable. Something one would hope everyone in this city believes a government should be.

I often here things completely untrue spreading like wildfire across the community. Sixty percent(?) of the time it is because the facts are not available. And if the facts are not available to the person starting the rumor, they are not available to the people trying to stop them. And another wildfire ensues.So let's look at the other thirty percent. People saying things they have not done the proper homework or background on. These fires can also be quickly extinguished with access to the proper documents and facts. Of course ten percent of the time it is premeditated, and used to just cause havoc, or disguise the facts.

If the three candidates that ran on Honesty, Transparency, and Accountability meant it, they should call for a release of ALL THE DOCUMENTS. Not just the hospital, but it is time for City Hall to step into the 21st Century and keep all documents on file publicly. I am not saying emails, but the nuts and bolts of how the city works and runs. A nice goal would be to reduce the need for public records requests by 25% as a starting point. This would free up people at city hall, and elsewhere that are not only trying to do more with less, but have become overwhelmed and have become bitter by constant turn to files instead of work at hand.

Mayor Summers, you claim health care is changing, we can debate it. What we cannot debate is record keeping has changed. What took rooms and rooms to keep track of now can be stored on a 5TB hard drive costing $129.00. Or even better, cloud servers like the Observer uses for pennies MB, backed up every 15 minutes in two locations. Every bit of it searchable and easy to access for 14+ years.

In a corrupt, secretive illegal enterprise information and access to information is your enemy. In a free and open society access to information is your friend.

Let's make this the first step in correcting, healing, and patching the divide that has come about from years of litigation and distrust all in an effort to understand what the city is doing.

.
r

mjkuhns wrote:Sunlight makes it easier to find where you want to go! For this year's Sunshine Week, I have a couple of thoughts about what public records and open government mean to our community's future. Two examples…

One, what will happen to a significant block of publicly owned real estate in the middle of Lakewood?

This question matters to everyone in our community. Yet a lot of deliberation has taken place in obscurity.

What city officials call a “citizen-led advisory panel” has effectively led the process to date. Who is on this panel? There is a list of six members (43 pages into a PDF). But elected officials have made reference to “seven people,” and to an “eight-man” panel. The first signature on a letter reporting the panel’s recommendation is not that of an official panel member.

Even if references to seven or eight members were simple errors, that reinforces the impression of an oddly low-profile group. As noted, the only official report of its membership does not seem easy to find online. (See if you agree.)

Its meetings, so far as I can find, are not publicly documented at all. So far as I can tell, the online city calendar did not list meetings for this panel in 2017, and the agenda/minutes directory does not include meeting minutes, or topics of discussion, or even a list of attendees.

Why is none of this information published? Does this impair the public’s ability to evaluate conflicts of interest? Shouldn’t some record be published, and readily accessible? Even when city council goes into executive session, the public is supposed to have a general idea of who met to discuss what.

Thank you for reading! I'll post another example in the next day or so.

This post should be required reading for every Lakewood Resident.

It highlights what has gone terribly wrong in Lakewood.

No conspiracy, no rumors, just plain old FACTS and objective analysis.

Thank you, Matt, for this sobering take on the state of our city government.

A second example of how the principles of Sunshine Week matter specifically to our community's future:

What kind of representation will Lakewood have in state government?

Within the next two months, voters will choose a candidate almost guaranteed to become Lakewood’s next state representative.

One of the aspirants said, on February 11, 2016, “I dispute the assertion that there was flaws in council’s process” in reference to a proceeding that included:

• promotion of a claim which one or more members of council had been advised, privately, was “bogus"
• no independent appraisal of public property ahead of its sale
• major legislation passed 14 days after its announcement, in a lame-duck session held after two new members’ election but before they were seated

If the aspiring candidate has changed his opinion that this process was without flaws, I welcome notification. Absent that, however, I believe we are obliged to consider his stated judgment very seriously, and consider whether this judgment will advance the public’s interest in an office which must be our watchdog among other things.

Thanks for reading, I'll have a bit to add at least once more during this Sunshine Week.

Please indicate the councilperson.

Tom Bullock.

I really hope people are doing their homework this time.

Michael Skindell: the MOST HONEST & TRANSPARENT politician Lakewood has produced in recent memory.

Michael Summers & Tom Bullock: the LEAST HONEST & TRANSPARENT politicians Lakewood has produced in recent memory.

Let's keep our State Representative seat on the course of honesty and transparency, re-elect Michael Skindell!

PTL, amen.

Bridget Conant wrote:

mjkuhns wrote:Sunlight makes it easier to find where you want to go! For this year's Sunshine Week, I have a couple of thoughts about what public records and open government mean to our community's future. Two examples…

One, what will happen to a significant block of publicly owned real estate in the middle of Lakewood?

This question matters to everyone in our community. Yet a lot of deliberation has taken place in obscurity.

What city officials call a “citizen-led advisory panel” has effectively led the process to date. Who is on this panel? There is a list of six members (43 pages into a PDF). But elected officials have made reference to “seven people,” and to an “eight-man” panel. The first signature on a letter reporting the panel’s recommendation is not that of an official panel member.

Even if references to seven or eight members were simple errors, that reinforces the impression of an oddly low-profile group. As noted, the only official report of its membership does not seem easy to find online. (See if you agree.)

Its meetings, so far as I can find, are not publicly documented at all. So far as I can tell, the online city calendar did not list meetings for this panel in 2017, and the agenda/minutes directory does not include meeting minutes, or topics of discussion, or even a list of attendees.

Why is none of this information published? Does this impair the public’s ability to evaluate conflicts of interest? Shouldn’t some record be published, and readily accessible? Even when city council goes into executive session, the public is supposed to have a general idea of who met to discuss what.

Thank you for reading! I'll post another example in the next day or so.

This post should be required reading for every Lakewood Resident.

It highlights what has gone terribly wrong in Lakewood.

No conspiracy, no rumors, just plain old FACTS and objective analysis.

Thank you, Matt, for this sobering take on the state of our city government.

mjkuhns wrote:A second example of how the principles of Sunshine Week matter specifically to our community's future:

What kind of representation will Lakewood have in state government?

Within the next two months, voters will choose a candidate almost guaranteed to become Lakewood’s next state representative.

One of the aspirants said, on February 11, 2016, “I dispute the assertion that there was flaws in council’s process” in reference to a proceeding that included:

• promotion of a claim which one or more members of council had been advised, privately, was “bogus"
• no independent appraisal of public property ahead of its sale
• major legislation passed 14 days after its announcement, in a lame-duck session held after two new members’ election but before they were seated

If the aspiring candidate has changed his opinion that this process was without flaws, I welcome notification. Absent that, however, I believe we are obliged to consider his stated judgment very seriously, and consider whether this judgment will advance the public’s interest in an office which must be our watchdog among other things.

Thanks for reading, I'll have a bit to add at least once more during this Sunshine Week.

Tom Bullock.
Lets get it started...
If you supported Lakewood Hospital. If you know you were lied to during that orchestrated shell game...
If you're a friend of Charlie's. If you're uncomfortable with all of that. Those people/those dogs...
If you believe in the importance of truth and transparency in government...
If you believe in common decency. That bullies should be stood up to and not rewarded...
Then stand up. Knock Tom Bullock on his political ass.
No more of him, no more of that.

Sunshine Week is winding up. But I would like to call this the beginning, instead of the end, since my theme is that this week's principles matter to our community's future.

I have one more example, using my occasional topic of gerrymandering and congressional redistricting reform. (Sort of a local issue.)

I strongly approve of the Issue 1 reform measure that's going before voters on May 8. I think it will bring an end to partisan gerrymandering. It is not a perfect "set it and forget it" system; it doesn't 100% guarantee fair districts with ironclad rules. But I think its reforms will still be effective, because they will require not only a bipartisan but substantively open-government proceeding.

The recent history of gerrymandering in Ohio is a strong example of why I think transparency and process matter, and will continue to matter. Occasionally lawmakers will ram through bad legislation in the open, but they really prefer to avoid doing so. In 2011 the General Assembly majority ultimately had the votes to approve whatever maps they wanted—but they still carried out the gerrymandering inside a secret "bunker."

This is the practical value of transparency and open government. For all the politicians who may appear shameless, dark corners remain preferred for bad policy. Sunshine or its absence matters. It's popular to say that "sunshine is the best disinfectant," but I submit that it's also a good deterrent.

So again, I'm very pleased to see Sunshine Week ideals in Issue 1, and I hope everyone votes yes in May. But that’s just one reform to one process, in one government body.

Desire and opportunities to abuse secrecy will still exist at all levels. So will the need for people to stand up and speak up for openness and integrity.

Thank you for reading!