The Observation Deck

There Are Moral Consequences To Economic Development

If you look at the City of Lakewood Budget for 2019, you will see that economic development leads the City's agenda.

Remember the West End Project

The West End Project would have displaced several thousand Lakewood citizens from their homes. It was the repugnant amoral aspect of these actual displacements that led to the defeat of that Project. Fundamentally, the question boiled down to why should these residents be forced to move because of false determinations of "blight" by the city administration to provide out-of-state corporations new retail space.

Now We Have One Lakewood Place

The proposed One Lakewood Place project suffers from a very similar amoral defect and a pretty galling one at that. The displacement this time is the loss of an award-winning heritage public hospital and the healthcare services the local residents that were served by that hospital received. This is a massive displacement of healthcare, healthcare resources and about $70,000,000 in intentionally abandoned charity care services over the next 10 years.

To achieve weak economic development goals, the city administration and the civic leadership, just like the failed West End Project, have abandoned 100 years of hospital-based care to the community with a massive displacement for those of our residents who need it most.

To the Democrats that are leading this effort, remember who you represent. Developers and out-of-state corporations that will benefit from One Lakewood Place are not your constituents.

Yes, let us erect upscale town homes at the expense and on the backs of the working class.

This could be a template as to how we view the upcoming Municipal elections.

I think it's pretty clear the Summers administration does not give a flying f*ck about it's constituents!

How much more evidence does one need?

If Demolishing Lakewood Hospital Was Such A Great Idea, Why Did Our Elected and Appointed Officials Have To Lie About It?

I will end this where I started two years ago.

"Civic Accountability - Honesty In Local Government I"

http://lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23643

A Footnote: Clueless or Brain Dead?

Working from public documents, we know:

1. Lakewood Hospital is being demolished and the property will be transferred to a selected developer for $1.00.

2. Lakewood Hospital previously provided approximately $6,900,000 annually in charity care to the local community.

3. Last year the city administration spent $50,000 on a healthcare data study.

4. Among the details of the recommendations in that healthcare data study is the following:

"Create engagement within the neighborhood by making 'Checking On A Neighbor Visit' to fellow neighbors to help connect people and encourage healthy living."

Here we can see it all. The transformation of an invaluable acute care hospital into a sort of "pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps" model of care for Summers' "the healthiest city in America".

If this was not a tragedy, it would simply be ludicrous.

You see why I continue to advocate for serious municipal reform?

Please Share This Table With Others

Mark

I know you are kind of late to the Lakewood Observer, but one of the many running theme here, was a certain group of people that cared more about commercial economic development, more than anything, outside of their own lives. They were giddy to put 1,500 residents of the street for a "multi-use strip mall" now called the Westend Debacle.

When asked about the 1,500 people living in the apartments at the end of Detroit and what they would do. There answers were chilling, to paraphrase, "Who cares they can move elsewhere. We need to shop! and Did you know one is a Cheesecake Factory?" Playing a soulless game fo sim city with other people lives, homes, and livings. Not one ounce of regret, for what they were thinking. When pushed they would also say, "It will help keep our taxes low."

When it was pointed out they were acting like the Donner Party. They merely doubled down, lied more, and came up with worse and worse ideas.

One of the many interesting themes running through Lakewood.

I'm sorry but when you mentioned morals I though I should warn you, a complete dead-end with Civic leaders.

.

Minimum Public Transparency

The $50,000 consulting report conducted for the City in Spring of 2018 is titled:

"Lakewood Connected Health Community 90 Day Assessment"

It was issued June 1, 2018.

To my knowledge, this report has never been publicly released.

Another Data Point Establishes Slight Need For New Apartments In Lakewood

Highest Vacancy Rates For Apartments Nationally in 2018

4th Highest -- Northeast Ohio -- 6%

3rd Highest -- St. Louis -- 6.1%

2nd Highest -- Houston -- 6.4%

1st Highest -- San Antonio -- 6.8%

Our ranking is based on our MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area).

(Source: Marcus & Millichap, as cited by Crain's Cleveland Business, Vol. 40, No. 6, p. 1.)

"Viva Las Vegas"

You know, you can visit Las Vega, Nevada and within a few days you can risk your money, your property, your business and your inheritance -- and lose it all.

You know, you can live in Lakewood, Ohio and within a few years you can watch as trusted others risk public money, public property, public business and a public civic inheritance -- and lose it all.

Mayor Summers, Mayor Fitzgerald, numerous elected and public officials, along with other local civic leaders have accomplished exactly this. We've lost it all. Thanks to them.

They squandered an award-winning acute-care hospital and all of the benefits that flowed from that hospital in order to gamble on building their rather dubious, if not delusional, idea of a new "artificial" downtown with former Mayor Fitzgerald's developer client.

Mr. O'Bryan is correct: They gave away the valuable brown cow for a handful of magic beans.

Mark Kindt wrote:... other local civic leaders ...

That's a relative term!

Mark Kindt wrote:"Viva Las Vegas"

You know, you can visit Las Vega, Nevada and within a few days you can risk your money, your property, your business and your inheritance -- and lose it all.

You know, you can live in Lakewood, Ohio and within a few years you can watch as trusted others risk public money, public property, public business and a public civic inheritance -- and lose it all.

Mayor Summers, Mayor Fitzgerald, numerous elected and public officials, along with other local civic leaders have accomplished exactly this. We've lost it all. Thanks to them.

They squandered an award-winning acute-care hospital and all of the benefits that flowed from that hospital in order to gamble on building their rather dubious, if not delusional, idea of a new "artificial" downtown with former Mayor Fitzgerald's developer client.

Mr. O'Bryan is correct: They gave away the valuable brown cow for a handful of magic beans.

To address Mr. Grossetti's point with a finer granularity:

Along with other local civic "leaders".....consisting of:

All of the trustees of the Lakewood Hospital Association;

All of the board members of the Lakewood Hospital Foundation;

All of the members of the BuildLakewood political action committee,

All of the public relations flacks who pitched "healthcare is changing", "new model of healthcare", and "healthiest city in America."

Need I remind you both projects were of the Democrats, by the Democrats and for the Democrats. Lakewood Democrats should secure a copy of a fellow Democrat's, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, economic plans for her district. On the second thought, it won't be necessary, she plagiarized Lakewood economic development plans. Someone said, "A fool is someone who does the same thing twice and expects different results"

Richard Baker wrote:Need I remind you both projects were of the Democrats, by the Democrats and for the Democrats. Lakewood Democrats should secure a copy of a fellow Democrat's, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, economic plans for her district. On the second thought, it won't be necessary, she plagiarized Lakewood economic development plans. Someone said, "A fool is someone who does the same thing twice and expects different results"

Believe me Mr. Baker when I say that this fact has not been lost on me.

I continue to write on these topics because I am disheartened by the fact that we have all been systematically lied-to by those we should have been able to trust.

As a third-generation Democrat, I am particularly galled by the fact that my local Democratic elected and public officials have created this debacle.

Local Democratic Party talk about healthcare in Lakewood has been a true travesty.

And, of course, the Democratic Party leadership in Cuyahoga County is once again under the supervision of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.