David Anderson wrote:Mr. Call, you wrote, "The latest plan is for a small affordable apartment building at the South end of the Big Hole."
Jim, you wrote, "It is called scrubbing the crime scene."
There is no change in design or overall plan (20:40) other than an additional story being added to the space that was to be occupied by Roundstone - Building A.
Yes, the whole thing sucks. I get it. Believe me, I get it. The fate of Lakewood Hospital was sealed long before the issue got to City Council.
- LHA would have been bankrupt with 4-5 years to go on the lease.
- LHA was solely responsible for operating losses, not the Clinic.
- Revenue producing medical services (services resulting in in-patient beds being occupied at a higher rate) were moved to Fairview and to the Clinic's main campus and were not coming back.
- The Clinic had unilateral veto power over whether to allow new capital improvement projects which is significant when the Lakewood Hospital complex needed $90 million in improvements.
- LHF, always has been and always will be a private foundation, was not interested in investing in the hospital complex.
- Less private pay health care consumers now and projected forward.
- Metro was not a viable option and was never formally reviewed by Metro's Board.
- UH, the original tenant that was established after Lakewood residents voted to get out of the municipal hospital business in 198? and establish the LHA, was not interested at all.
- No other hospital entity wanted to enter this market: not enough doctors and not enough patients for a new entity to share with UH, Clinic and Metro.
David
Let's not rehash facts with fiction.
FACTS
Lakewood Hospital never lost money, after medicare and other payments kicked in. $5 million profit, was the worse it ever got, and was actually climbing based on the hospital serving the needs of the poor, aka those that needed it most, of course this upset many.
The hospital's future at the time of the fleecing, was 100% in the control of the Mayor and Council. It needed $87 million in updates.
LHF had just short of $80 million in a funds raised by Lakewoodites to fix and maintain the hospital. This was the real reason it was closed.
LHF was not a private foundation but a quasi-foundation where the residents and city of Lakewood could actually see the financial happenings, something we lost with the scheme moving it to a fully private institution run by those most vocal in demanding we close the hospital immediately. This was the real reason it was closed.
Things were being moved to Fairview because LHA, the Mayor and Council never once tried to keep them to the contract. Instead they were
released when the pipe dream of Rec Center popped up.
At the time both Metro and the VA were interested with an actual deal on the table from Metro. But they wanted the money Lakewood had collected for the repairs/updates and of course that wouldn't work as the architects of the hospital debacle wanted those funds for themselves. Emails between County Exec and the Mayor, show why Metro deal was killed.
Let's also remember that the city paid over $230,000 to Lakewood Observer attorneys for covering up, lying and destroying public documents, related to the entire scheme. And that the City of Lakewood hired a felon illegally on the city payroll to go after people including our lawyers, that were speaking out simply for asking for truth and asking for PUBLIC documents, the courts had already said we had a right to.
And that you were fully aware of all of it. "Maybe you deserve it." remember?
Finally for those of you that never followed it. The City and Council promised $287 million in new Development. In a recorded interview with LHA President Kenneth Haber, he admitted "100% of that money originated with funds that were already in Lakewood's control."
ZERO outside money. The entire project was merely a game of 3-card Monte, as was pointed out in my story about talking with Ken. How to move $80 million without residents seeing it happen.
For those not into Law this nightmare is easy to figure out, Who got money and who didn't. Because Lakewood broke the contract and wanted out with the Cleveland Clinic, the Clinic was paid $67 million or so. Three Arches always knew where the Queen of Hearts would land in this 3-Card Monte got $60+ million to play with in private. And the residents of Lakewood receive $600,000 a year from OUR ACCOUNT now controlled by the Cleveland Clinic so it is not squandered like the Hospital was.
What ever goes in that hole needs to go a long way to filling in Lakewood's needs. Financially, Healthcare wise, Employment wise, and DowntowN wise. OR the FitzGerald/Summers administration and council were failures to protect Lakewood, over self interest.
$283,000,000 in public assets gone, in the blink of an eye. Of course they want the Holespital filled NOW! It is the blood stain that remains.
To go back to Bill's comment, what is being talked about is not even 10% to what the Mayor and Council promised us when the scheme was started. So smaller, would certainly apply. And honestly in this building environment, one small step means nothing towards overall completion of filling the hole you helped to dig.
Covering the meeting where the Mayor and Council assure Lakewood the hospital was not closing. 15 minutes later Toby Cosgrove assured everyone there it was closing June 16, and City Hall knew it. CCF was being honest, City Hall was not. Our chart on the front page underlines the actual loss, where the Mayor and you assured the city I was lying. Well, look at it today.
Who was lying?
The FBI has a rule, anything started by illicit means, never becomes legit because of the illicit foundation it was built on.
Hence "Scrubbing the scene"
FWIW
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