Bravo! Attorneys Chris DeVito and Steve Dever Helped Vulnerable and Proved Butler et al. Wrong For 3 Years!

[Brian Essi]

Lakewood residents--especially our undeserved--will be forever indebted to the service that Attorneys Christopher Devito and Steven Dever rendered in representing taxpayers and vulnerable citizens against dishonest city leadership.

After a 3 year long legal battle, the Cuyahoga Appellate Court ruled that the taxpayers had standing---Devito & Dever were right--Butler, Summers & O'Leary, et al were wrong---City Hall pressed a false narrative for three years.

Although the taxpayer lawsuit has been dismissed by the Cuyahoga Appellate Court as moot due to the (close) vote in November 2016, the story does not end there.

Had the lower Court ruled properly in a timely manner that the taxpayers had standing, that would likely have changed the political outcome of the close vote.

Devito & Dever are Lakewood heroes -- they spent their own money and tons of their talent and professional hours---fighting to help the most vulnerable citizens among us.

BRAVO!

[Bill Call]

Had the lower Court ruled properly in a timely manner that the taxpayers had standing, that would likely have changed the political outcome of the close vote.

Devito & Dever are Lakewood heroes -- they spent their own money and tons of their talent and professional hours---fighting to help the most vulnerable citizens among us.

BRAVO!

I agree. They fought on the right side.

The only mistake they made (if it was one) was to allow Judge O'Donnell to try the case. As I recall there was an option to move the case outside of Cuyahoga County but Devito & Dever declined.

The courts made the right decision to not challenge the vote. The courts made the wrong decision in not allowing the issue to be tried before the vote. Mayor Summers used the time to misinform and mislead the public with statements that the "Hospital is not closing", a vote for issue 64 (the first one) would force the hospital to close, there were no other offers, the City does not own the Hospital, the City has no rights to the assets of the Hospital, the Hospital is losing money and more. The lies were very effective.

Some things still don't make sense to me:

Many politicians signed on to a plan to transfer $170 million in assets to the Cleveland Clinic and move 1,500 high paying medical jobs to Lorain County. What happened to the concern about urban sprawl? What happened to the concern about the depopulation of Cuyahoga County? What happened to the duty of Council to take care that the assets of the City were not misappropriated?

Media outlets like the plan Dealer expressed no interest in the issue and actively suppressed information. Local broadcast outlets were a little more willing to report on the issue but they backed off when pressured by the Clinic. What happened to the free press? Where were they?

The Foundations. Well, what needs to be said? Tens of millions of City dollars are transferred to a regional Foundation that is completely independent of City control or influence. Where was that public debate? The City surrenders its beneficial interest in the Lakewood Hospital Foundation for..... absolutely nothing.

Special awards:

The Plain Dealer gets a special award for its hypocrisy. I lost count of the number of articles the PD published about violations of Ohio open records laws. The PD did not do even ONE article about the City of Lakewood's repeated violations of that law. In the one response I did get the editors expressed a general interest and then went on to ignore the issue and plead ignorance. "Send it to our reporters". Then what? Nothing.

An honorary mention goes to all those public officials and Board members who privately said the City got a lousy deal and who publically said nothing.

[Michael Deneen]

I fully agree....history will judge DeVito and Dever very positively.

As the months and years roll by, it will become more and more apparent that the city was scammed by Summers, the Clinic, and the Gang of Insiders.
It's very similar to how public opinion has evolved regarding the Iraq War.
Within two more years you won't be able to find anyone who will publicly admit that they supported closing the hospital.

[Brian Essi]

I agree. They fought on the right side.

???The only mistake they made (if it was one) was to allow Judge O'Donnell to try the case. As I recall there was an option to move the case outside of Cuyahoga County but Devito & Dever declined.???

The courts made the right decision to not challenge the vote. The courts made the wrong decision in not allowing the issue to be tried before the vote. Mayor Summers used the time to misinform and mislead the public with statements that the "Hospital is not closing", a vote for issue 64 (the first one) would force the hospital to close, there were no other offers, the City does not own the Hospital, the City has no rights to the assets of the Hospital, the Hospital is losing money and more. The lies were very effective.

Some things still don't make sense to me:

Many politicians signed on to a plan to transfer $170 million in assets to the Cleveland Clinic and move 1,500 high paying medical jobs to Lorain County. What happened to the concern about urban sprawl? What happened to the concern about the depopulation of Cuyahoga County? What happened to the duty of Council to take care that the assets of the City were not misappropriated?

Media outlets like the plan Dealer expressed no interest in the issue and actively suppressed information. Local broadcast outlets were a little more willing to report on the issue but they backed off when pressured by the Clinic. What happened to the free press? Where were they?

The Foundations. Well, what needs to be said? Tens of millions of City dollars are transferred to a regional Foundation that is completely independent of City control or influence. Where was that public debate? The City surrenders its beneficial interest in the Lakewood Hospital Foundation for..... absolutely nothing.

Special awards:

The Plain Dealer gets a special award for its hypocrisy. I lost count of the number of articles the PD published about violations of Ohio open records laws. The PD did not do even ONE article about the City of Lakewood's repeated violations of that law. In the one response I did get the editors expressed a general interest and then went on to ignore the issue and plead ignorance. "Send it to our reporters". Then what? Nothing.

An honorary mention goes to all those public officials and Board members who privately said the City got a lousy deal and who publically said nothing.[/quote]

Mr. Call,

I agree with everything you have written above except the part I've noted in RED and ???? marks above.

I wasn't at the Court, but I was told that at the beginning of the case, Judge O"Donnell informed all parties that he was a Lakewood resident and asked all parties if they had any objections to him continuing on the case. Neither party objected. It is unclear to me that if the plaintiffs had objected, that would be grounds for O'Donnell recusing himself, but it seems likely he may have used that to get rid of a "hot potato." In any event, even if he did recuse himself, it would have been reassigned to another judge in Cuyahoga County--a role of the dice as to which of the other 29 judges they would have drawn--I don't think that there was ever an offer (or grounds) to have the case removed outside Cuyahoga county jurisdiction---Perhaps I am misinformed. DeVito had no idea at that time that Judge O'Donnell would take so long to rule--nobody did--Also, Dever was not an attorney on the case until months later.

[Dan Alaimo]

I'm still sorting my thoughts out on this, but after following all that Mark, Brian and Jim have written, it is increasingly clear to me that this deal was rigged from the beginning, and quite possibly rigged legally, although barely legally. It was rigged back in the early years of the decade when government did not challenge the "decanting", and was sealed when they rejected/ignored the Metro offer. When they said there were no other options, they were right although they had created that scenario. As Jim said repeatedly, we were played. We never had a chance.

My feeling is officials involved should answer for this. The legal process may not work for us, but there are other remedies. O'Leary came along too late to have much culpability. It's hard to imagine Bullock as the mastermind behind it. So the recall target should be Summers.

[Bill Call]

I agree with everything you have written above except the part I've noted in red and ???? marks above.

Everybody is a critic!

My comments were not a criticism of DeVito, Dever.

I wonder it the Judge in this case deliberately delayed the case so he could avoid making a decision. You can't separate politics and the law.

[Marguerite Harkness]

I'd like to express publicly my very grateful thanks to Chris DeVito and Steve Dever for taking on the deceitful City of Lakewood and the greedy behemoth Cleveland Clinic, working to retain our publicly-owned hospital, and/or appropriate compensation for the theft and closure of our hospital and property. The THOUSANDS of hours they put into this enormous and dedicated effort, can never be recovered or adequately (!) compensated.