LHF Now Three Arches Foundation

[Bill Call]

Noting that the City of Lakewood is already in breach of the Master Agreement with regard to timing for the creation of the New Foundation.

https://youtu.be/2TnkJ8_BmSI


In a weak moment I thought I would apply for a position on the task force. I didn't do it because there was zero chance I would be appointed. Of course, I hate meetings. It has been my experience that every hour of meeting results in 1 minutes worth of work.

I have some sympathy for the members of the task force. Just how do you spend $30 million on health and wellness?

Buy everyone in Lakewood new sneakers?
Pay everyone's deductible?
Subsidize the Cleveland Clinic buy paying the Clinic to treat the uninsured?
Provide bus service to Avon so the people of Lakewood can see their doctor?
Pay the Cleveland Clinic's facility fee charged to the people of Lakewood for using the taxpayer financed health center?
Pay for gym membership?

Of course Councilman Sean Juris stated that the LHF would be converted to a regional institution so we can expand our horizons to bike trails in Brunswick, hospital beds in Avon and new imaging equipment at the Cleveland Clinics Columbia Road facility.

So many choices.

Of course if we have $30 million in the new foundation and $40 million in the Lakewood Hospital Foundation that's $70 million in foundation money just waiting to be distributed. Seems like a lot of money to me.

Seems like it would take
weeks of worth meetings
just to plan
on how not
to disappoint
so many people
who were promised
so many things

[Stan Austin]

I think I hear chortling from backstage

[bentleymike]

Noting that the City of Lakewood is already in breach of the Master Agreement with regard to timing for the creation of the New Foundation.

A few more questions:

When does the Foundation Planning Task Force plan to issue its final recommendations. How will those recommendations be presented and to whom?

Has the Foundation Planning Task Force been waiting for the Lakewood Hospital Foundation to re-organize itself as the Three Arches Foundation?

How will the Foundation Planning Task Force insure that the grant-making process at the New Foundation is neutral, fair and equitable to all applicants?

Mark,

We have set a timeline to have a final product in May or June. That will allow an application to be in on time to the Secretary of State in order to receive the first set of disbursements from LHA & CCF

We have not been waiting on Three Arches to be reorganized. Ideally, a year ago or so, we would have gotten more insight from them. That's when we were in our "learning" phase. This is still great timing from the aspect of we haven't set bylaws, yet. We will begin that process in the next month, in order to be on time with our schedule.

As for a report of any sort, that would probably come around the time of the final product. There is great detail yet to be determined. I still encourage all citizens to go to meetings, which are open to the public.

The schedule for the next couple of months of full task force meetings looks like this:

Feb 8th at the Women's Pavilion at Lakewood Park at 6:30pm

March 15th at the Women's Pavilion at Lakewood Park at 6:00pm

[Mark Kindt]

Mr. Bentley, thank you for your update and meeting schedule.

When the Foundation Planning Task Forces issues its final report, I encourage the FPTF to plan for a public comment period of at least 30 days, so that interested members of the public have time to review the final report and provide the FPTF with their written comments. This is not uncommon in my world, where government agencies provide comment periods prior to initiating formal action.

Wishing you and the FPTF all the very best in your efforts.

[Mark Kindt]

Noting that the City of Lakewood is already in breach of the Master Agreement with regard to timing for the creation of the New Foundation.

A few more questions:

When does the Foundation Planning Task Force plan to issue its final recommendations. How will those recommendations be presented and to whom?

Has the Foundation Planning Task Force been waiting for the Lakewood Hospital Foundation to re-organize itself as the Three Arches Foundation?

How will the Foundation Planning Task Force insure that the grant-making process at the New Foundation is neutral, fair and equitable to all applicants?

Mark,

We have set a timeline to have a final product in May or June. That will allow an application to be in on time to the Secretary of State in order to receive the first set of disbursements from LHA & CCF

We have not been waiting on Three Arches to be reorganized. Ideally, a year ago or so, we would have gotten more insight from them. That's when we were in our "learning" phase. This is still great timing from the aspect of we haven't set bylaws, yet. We will begin that process in the next month, in order to be on time with our schedule.

As for a report of any sort, that would probably come around the time of the final product. There is great detail yet to be determined. I still encourage all citizens to go to meetings, which are open to the public.

The schedule for the next couple of months of full task force meetings looks like this:

Feb 8th at the Women's Pavilion at Lakewood Park at 6:30pm

March 15th at the Women's Pavilion at Lakewood Park at 6:00pm

Has the Foundation Planning Task Force selected legal counsel for the drafting of the bylaws? Or, do you know which law firms or individuals are likely to be involved in this drafting? Or, is the FPTF doing this on its own?

[Mark Kindt]

Will the Foundation Planning Task Force be making written recommendations to Lakewood City Council prior to the writing of the bylaws?

[Bill Call]

Will the Foundation Planning Task Force be making written recommendations to Lakewood City Council prior to the writing of the bylaws?

As I recall the City of Lakewood has surrendered ALL of its interests in the assets of both the New Foundation and the three Arches Foundation. Our elected representatives have agreed to give up ALL of their rights to the $70 million. The Foundations boards will be accountable only to themselves. Any statements about "community involvement" are just window dressing.

Lakewood residents can attend their meetings, write letters, make recommendations and complain all they want. The decisions will be made in the offices of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

I strongly suspect that City assets under the control of the 2 foundations will be used to pay for the Clinics charity care and Cleveland Clinic investments from Avon to Medina, from Mentor to Florida and from Florida to 33 Grosvenor Place.

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/lp/cc-ph ... index.html

Lakewood, a very generous City.

[james fitzgibbons]

I thought I heard somewhere Charity Begins At Home.

[Bill Call]

Is the contact information correct?

I emailed some questions and left a voicemail message but I did not get a response.

[Bill Call]

The stated parameters allow this "foundation" to take the remaining assets which were Lakewood produced over decades and disperse them to any regional area for any specious purpose. It's the last and final dispersal of these assets.

The Cleveland Clinic has stated that the assets of the Lakewood Hospital Foundation are reported as assets of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

Have the assets of the newly named Foundation been transferred out of the CCF?

By now the assets of the new Foundation should be about $40 million. Last year the City of Lakewood had a beneficial interest in that $40 million.

Does that beneficial interest still exist?

What did the City receive for its beneficial interest?

What is a neighboring community?

Sean Juris told me that neighboring community meant Northeast Ohio.

Is that the case?

If the assets of the old LHF are to be distributed to Westlake will Westlake be distributing some of its assets to Lakewood?

Here is the response I received:


Mr. Call –



Thank you for your interest in Three Arches Foundation. To learn more about the Foundation, please visit the website at www.threearchesfoundation.org or view the Form 990 available on www.GuideStar.org. An article also has been submitted to the Lakewood Observer to inform the community of the Foundation’s official transition.



Thank you.



Jill Arslanian,

Media Relations

On behalf of Three Arches Foundation

[Jim O'Bryan]

The stated parameters allow this "foundation" to take the remaining assets which were Lakewood produced over decades and disperse them to any regional area for any specious purpose. It's the last and final dispersal of these assets.

The Cleveland Clinic has stated that the assets of the Lakewood Hospital Foundation are reported as assets of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

Have the assets of the newly named Foundation been transferred out of the CCF?

By now the assets of the new Foundation should be about $40 million. Last year the City of Lakewood had a beneficial interest in that $40 million.

Does that beneficial interest still exist?

What did the City receive for its beneficial interest?

What is a neighboring community?

Sean Juris told me that neighboring community meant Northeast Ohio.

Is that the case?

If the assets of the old LHF are to be distributed to Westlake will Westlake be distributing some of its assets to Lakewood?

Here is the response I received:


Mr. Call –



Thank you for your interest in Three Arches Foundation. To learn more about the Foundation, please visit the website at http://www.threearchesfoundation.org or view the Form 990 available on http://www.GuideStar.org. An article also has been submitted to the Lakewood Observer to inform the community of the Foundation’s official transition.



Thank you.



Jill Arslanian,

Media Relations

On behalf of Three Arches Foundation

A link to the story they submitted: http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2018/02/06/three-arches-foundation-continues-philanthropic-legacy-of-former-lakewood-hospital

[Brian Essi]

The beginning usually determines the end.

Three Arches has added Jay Carson as a "fiduciary" to oversee charitable money.

Recall that Carson was the Deputy Treasurer for the PAC known as "Voters Engaged to Oppose 64" that morphed into "Lakewood Voters For Progress".

$35K.jpeg (161.38 KiB) Viewed 3804 times

$15K.jpeg (120.78 KiB) Viewed 3804 times

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The PAC took $100K from another Lakewood charity to spread lies in a campaign to destroy that charity.

There are at least two other individuals on the Three Arches Foundation Board who put their political donations to work for the Carson PAC of lies designed to destroy a charity---It is not a good sign to have charity board members who have previously supported dishonest efforts to destroy a charity.

[Mark Kindt]

Mr. Essi -- These documents are completely unbelievable! Thank you for posting.

Keep in mind that when the Lakewood Hospital Association wrote these checks in 2015, there was no binding agreement voted on by council to even close the hospital--that was still months away.

I'd love to see how the political contribution decision was made at LHA. Here we can witness LHA funding a PAC designed to ensure that it (LHA and the hopsital) could not be saved through a citizen ballot! Truly outrageous!

How cynical! Is this the money that was ultimately spend with Mr. Fitzgerald's on his anti-hospital fake newspaper?

Council-member O'Leary testified under oath in court that no agreement had been reached until after December 7, 2015.

Oh, and while we are at it, whose business is involved in redeveloping the former hospital site? Could it be that same Mr. Fitzgerald?

[Bill Call]

Here is a handy site to find non-profit 990's:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprof ... /346519834

Since The Three Arches Foundation will not be answering any questions I thought I would answer them myself.

The leadership:
Chas Geiger Chair
Mary Anne Crampton Vice Chair
Elizabeth Newman Secretary
Rick Smith Treasurer
Kristin BroadbentPresident
Mike Carlin
Jay Carson
Debbie Fedor
Jay Foran
Gina Gavlak
Pam Gill
Ken Haber
James Hekman, MD
Sam Huston
Bill La Place
Jean Polster
Charles Royer
Doug Spiker
Rebecca Starck, MD
Jim Wooley

I had reasons for asking the questions I asked and I am sure the Foundation had reasons for not answering.

Where do they live, who chose them? That’s important because where they live will have some influence on where and how they spend the money. One of the problems with the Lakewood Hospital Board was that it was dominated by people who did not give a damn about Lakewood.

It would be nice to know who chose the team but I suspect the group chose themselves.

There is no mention on their web site about term limits, rules of conduct or rules about conflicts of interest. That means there are none.

Net assets of the Foundation were $35,713,452 As of November 15, 2017.

In 2015 grants given represented 25% of revenue. In 2010 grants given were 31% of revenue. It was the policy of the LHF to distribute a maximum of 5% of the trailing average of the market value of the investments. The Three Arches Foundation has not disclosed its distribution policy.

The assets of the Lakewood Hospital Foundation were included on the balance sheet of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. The Three Arches Foundation has not disclosed:

1. whether or not its assets are reported as part of the Clinics financial statements
2. how much control the Cleveland Clinic has over the distribution of the assets Three Arches Foundation
3. if the Cleveland Clinic can merge the assets of the Three Arches Foundation with the Cleveland Clinic at some future date. (if I was a skeptic I would add, “When no one is looking”.)

The Three Arches Foundation was originally designed to serve “Lakewood and surrounding communities”. The Foundation has not disclosed what surrounding communities are to be served. The Foundation has not defined what is meant by surrounding communities.

The new geographic area has now been expanded to include all of Northeast Ohio.

Does that mean Ashtabula to Sandusky or is the definition so broad as to be meaningless?

If the Foundation is to serve all of Northeast Ohio why mention Lakewood at all? I suspect it is a clever bit of propaganda to imply that Lakewood will be getting something special from the Foundation. The reality is that while Lakewood contributed ALL of the money the people of Lakewood will be getting in line with everyone else.

According to the Plain Dealer the Three Arches Foundation will be “investing in philanthropic initiatives that provide programs and services focused on improving health and well-being of Lakewood and surround communities”. Note the specific mention of Lakewood and remember why it is there.

The Lakewood Patch reported that “main focus areas for the next several years will be Access to Care and Behavioral Health”. Notice the subtle change in focus to access to care. Will the Foundations funds now be used to pay for charity care that the Clinic once provided? Will the Foundation subsidize organizations like North Coast Health? My guess is yes.

For more than 60 years the City of Lakewood had a beneficial interest in the assets of the Lakewood Hospital Foundation. The Master agreement specifically mentioned that that beneficial interest was NOT INCLUDED in the transfer of the City’s assets to the Cleveland Clinic.

It seems that the City’s beneficial interest was transferred in a yet to be disclosed negotiation. Did the City receive anything for its interest in the $35 million? My guess is no.