Mark Kindt wrote:I want to make the obvious point that none of the posted documents in this thread relate to council member Marx.
This thread could use a little more contextual information about what Ms. Marx knew or didn't know about planning at LHA to close the hospital or offer others the opportunity to submit proposals via Subsidium.
Mr. Kindt,
Your points are well taken and I did overlook some context.
Here is the context:
1. Cindy Marx has publicly touted her expertise and credentials in healthcare (apparently due to being the receptionist and then office manager for a solo practitioner plastic surgeon.)
2. Upon being elected Council-person at large in November 2013, Marx approached Council President Madigan about Marx being appointed as one of Council's two picks for LHA's Trustee Board. According to Marx, Madigan told her that something was cooking at LHA and that required continuity until it was completed (i.e. Madigan and Bullock needed to finish what we now know was a "greased" deal)
3. Contemporaneous with the Marx/Madigan interaction about Marx becoming a Trustee, Marx was at a CCF dinner in November 2013 where LHA Chair/CCF Trustee Tom Gable told her that LHA/CCF would be coming to Council by March 2014 with a proposal to close the hospital in favor of the CCF FHC. Marx also reported that Madigan sat with the CCF big wigs at the dinner instead of with the "Lakewood people."
Given the above, coupled with Marx's stated interest and desire to become specifically involved in LHA affairs and healthcare issues generally, it is clear that elected official Marx was on notice that monumental changes with Lakewood's largest employer, largest charity and largest healthcare provider were in motion.
In my opinion, that left Marx with only two options in 2013-2014:
1. To interact with Summers, Bullock and Madigan, in which case she knew what was happening and did nothing with that knowledge.
2. If Summers, Bullock and Madigan were stonewalling her in 2013-2014, then Marx had a duty to speak and request some public inquiry and investigation of those public officials' conduct re: the matter.
In either case, she apparently went along with what was happening-- helping keep it secret.
Remaining silent and inactive when she had duties to do otherwise, implicates her in the secret bidding process that might not have occurred with transparency and sunshine on the subject.
By way of example only, one of the major reasons given by Marx and Council in December 2015 for their votes was that time had somehow run out and there was "no other way". If the process was public two years earlier, the outcome would likely have been much different.