The Observation Deck

I also know the following:

1. That if I post intelligent, but critical comments on City policies on community webpages, they will likely be deleted.

2. That if I write thoughtful, but critical articles about City policies, the local newspaper will be banned from City Hall.

3. That if I send a public records request to the City on its controversial policies, that request will be denied, delayed, stonewalled and forced into expensive litigation.

I'm sure each of us can compose a kind of list like this. Other have experienced much worse abuse.

As far as I know, no City employee has called me a "pompous punk-ass lawyer". (yet)

We need to push for widespread municipal reform now.

The Mary Hagan email about Eric Sandy is for me a kind of "final straw". For some of you that final straw is the banning of a beloved pet.

I do not know Ms. Hagan. I have met Mr. Sandy a couple of times.

Mr. Sandy is an intelligent, interesting and thoughtful young man. He is exactly the kind of person that you would want to have living in Lakewood and reporting about Lakewood. He is a professional journalist.

I think Ms. Hagan's pejorative and wildly inappropriate remarks about Mr. Sandy's character speak volumes about how some of our elected and appointed official view the citizens and taxpayers.

Long-time residents, doctors, lawyers, accountants, journalists, editors and other talented and committed Lakewood citizens are just dismissed as a sort of nuisance when they offer intelligent guidance to their public officials on issues of public policy. Many citizens, like Mr. Essi, Mr. Markling, Mr. O'Bryan, and others, were treated with direct and intentional abuse for expressing their opinions.

Many of us now recognize how we were systematically lied to about the liquidation of Lakewood Hospital.

The Mary Hagan email, when added to everything else that I have written about here on the Deck and in the Lakewood Observer, has clearly convinced me that the city administration is wildly out of control.