Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

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Brian Essi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Brian Essi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:35 pm

todd vainisi wrote:Folks, I'm on page 120 of this deposition. I'm not a lawyer or in any way versed in the law, but I've got to say, this deposition, so far, reinforces what I've believed all along about Mayor Summers. That he was thrust into the drivers seat of a car crash already in progress and his choices were to steer the vehicle into a ditch on the side of the road, plow into the car in front of him, or veer into oncoming traffic. I have so far seen none of the so called malicious or greedy intent that has been thrown around.

The whole premise that Lakewood Hospital could be owned by Lakewood but run by CCF seems foolish and disastrous, to me, in retrospect. Of course CCF will value Lakewood Hospital the least, it doesn't control it. Of course the experienced team from CCF got a deal done in the 90s that was only to their benefit and included nothing that could force them into anything.

I've been very interested in getting to the bottom of this decanting plan, and that first 120 pages of deposition goes into it in quite a bit of detail. SLH has led me to believe that CCF moved these services out of the hospital in order to make the hospital less viable. The mayor's testimony suggests something totally different - that these services were money losers. Even the early removal of the cardiac unit - Lakewood was only doing 70 surgeries a year. Is that where you want your heart surgery done - in a hospital where a surgery like that only happens 6 times a month - or someplace where they do them almost every day?

The mayor even seems to validate my very first reaction to the hospital closing - my thought, which I was taught by SLH was totally erroneous, was that nobody wants to go there and that doctors don't want to refer their patients there either, they would prefer a shiny new hospital or at least a bigger one. The mayor points out that LH was short 5,000 patients a year and that the only way to get those patients back is if doctors send patients there. Are these lies?

I'm going to read this whole thing. I'm somewhat shocked at how different my takeaways have been from what's being said here. Maybe some of you can help clarify some of those points. Maybe the next 150 pages of deposition will change my mind. Maybe the bidding process will be the sticking point that shows how badly the mayor did for us or his selfish/evil intent to grab LHA's trustee millions. So far, I'm feeling rather tricked by SLH.


Todd,

I respect all of your posts and I am glad to see you are so open minded. You write that you held a belief that favored closure, you write that SLH evidence got you to see it differently, and now you've read 1/3 of Summers' sworn testimony and you write that you "feel" tricked, you properly write "the mayor's testimony suggests," but you're still open to reading and hearing more. I agree that making a final judgement listening to only one witness and prior to hearing all of the evidence would not be open minded.

Needless to say that given the hard evidence that I have accumulated over the past 10 months, I came to a completely different conclusion about the first 100 pages of the transcript.

I would ask that anyone to comment on the implications of just two of Summers' answers (I think they are from page 95-97):

12 Atty. Dever: Did you ask Subsidium to come up with some values
13 for the hospital?
14 Summers: No. No, we did not.

[Actually Subsidum had done a comparative analysis of recent hospital sales that showed the hospital was worth $70M see atached (without the $50 portfolio, so $120M)]
15 Atty. Dever: Did you ask Subsidium to come up with a strategy of
16 possibly selling the entire hospital?
17 Summers: No.

My comment: Summers, Madigan, Bullock never tried to sell the hospital. Why? If they sold it for ½ of Subsidium’s valuation, then wouldn’t there still be someone operating a hospital in Lakewood and wouldn't Lakewood also have $60M to invest in other “transformative delivery” of healthcare or something else? Maybe to buy some land elsewhere in Lakewood and build a nice outpatient facility to serve those needs?

One councilmember told me "this stopped being about healthcare a long time ago."

The evidence suggest that the non compete was something Summers wanted, i.e. he did not want healthcare delivered from the building and location we knew as Lakewood Hospital.

Doesn't this testimony and evidence suggest that this was never about healthcare?

If this was never about healthcare then why has Summers testified that is what this has about?

SubsidimRecentHospitalSales.doc
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Dan Alaimo
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Dan Alaimo » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:19 pm

When it was announced, it struck me immediately that the no-compete, or restrictive covenant, was more for the benefit of those who wanted to develop the parcel than the Clinic. If there is a hospital of any kind, there can be no significant development.


“Never let a good crisis go to waste." - Winston Churchill (Quote later appropriated by Rahm Emanuel)
todd vainisi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby todd vainisi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:25 pm

I agree that making a final judgement listening to only one witness and prior to hearing all of the evidence would not be open minded.


You're 100% right Brian. I am just listening to the mayor tell it like he wants. But he is under oath, correct? Here's the level of the common persons ignorance (that's me) - who is being sued here? I've always been unclear about that part.

Right after I wrote this, I read pages 121-125. It reads like a scene from a movie. Maybe the mayor's team planned for it to sound this way. It really spells out where the power was in the relationship. Lakewood had 0. CCF had all of it. Underlying everything is this notion that CCF could bleed that foundation money dry by making things as unprofitable as they wanted. That had to color all the mayor's decisions.


Lori Allen _
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Lori Allen _ » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:37 pm

The Mayor and the Council had all the power. All they had to do was file a law suit against CCF for breach of contract. End of story. Madeline Caine threatened CCF with a law suit a few years ago and they backed off.


Brian Essi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Brian Essi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:45 pm

Lori Allen _ wrote:The Mayor and the Council had all the power. All they had to do was file a law suit against CCF for breach of contract. End of story. Madeline Caine threatened CCF with a law suit a few years ago and they backed off.


Bingo!


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todd vainisi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby todd vainisi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:52 pm

The Mayor and the Council had all the power. All they had to do was file a law suit against CCF for breach of contract. End of story.


What? End of story? There is a lawsuit filed right now, is there not? It's not been the end of story at all. The hospital is still closed. The foundation is supposedly still losing money to cover whatever costs are left (this is an assumption of mine). Again, underlying everything is this part of the agreement in which that city money gets used to cover operating losses and CCF's bail out strategy that the mayor mentions in the first few minutes of testimony - the ambiguous quality of care clause.

Madeline Caine threatened CCF with a law suit a few years ago and they backed off.


How many years ago? What, like 15 years ago or something? Isn't this the mayor that tried to jam that new development down our throats?


Lori Allen _
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Lori Allen _ » Fri Mar 18, 2016 3:03 pm

If Summers and Council would have said no to the hospital deal and then filed a law suit against CCF for breach of contract, there never would have been a deal. We would still have our hospital. What I meant by end of story is that the blame for this entire and seemly corrupt deal lies on the shoulders of Summers and Council, and nobody else. In other words, they are the culprits. No need to look for anyone else to blame.


todd vainisi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby todd vainisi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 3:09 pm

I just haven't yet seen the part where Summers had much of a choice. I'm not going to comment further until I get to the end of the deposition. I can immediately remember many problem with the bidding/evaluation of assets process. Maybe that will seem crooked.

I don't have the faith that you do in the ability of the city to have stopped CCF by suing them. Anecdotally, it seems to me that happy endings only come through court orders in cheesy 80s movie about breakdancing.

I mean what would the city be suing for? Damages? Loss of assets? Could they really sue to "keep the hospital open and also not make us responsible for our partner's operating losses which they are sure to incur whether or not they should have"? That seems like a pretty tricky law suit. But again, I'm not a lawyer. The city's lawyer didn't seem to think it would be very easy. I know we've thrown poop all over him and that stance he took as well, but, at the very least I would assume he knows more than me, a computer programmer. I would think its more likely that the hospital would end up closed, after our money was run dry, and we would be suing for dollars to recover damages from the loss of the asset. So maybe we get 50 million from CCF. We still already lost the foundation 50 and don't have a hospital or a newly redeveloped couple of blocks.


Michael Deneen
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Michael Deneen » Fri Mar 18, 2016 3:46 pm

todd vainisi wrote:I just haven't yet seen the part where Summers had much of a choice.


As mentioned, he could have easily sued the Clinic. Mayor Madeline Cain threatened to sue the Clinic every time they tried to weasel out of some part of their contract. They've been trying to pull this stuff since Day One....and they ALWAYS backed down when threatened with legal action.

Even if I bought your logic, it doesn't explain why he simply wasn't honest with the citizens. He could have turned to the public and said "What should we do?". Instead, he sided with the Clinic against his own city, he helped to divide this city, he sold the clinic's kool-aid, and he will likely go down in history as the man who helped the Clinic destroy this city.

After all of the nonsense from City Hall (remember the fake newspaper?), Summers deserves ZERO benefit of any doubt.


Dan Alaimo
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Dan Alaimo » Fri Mar 18, 2016 3:51 pm

todd vainisi wrote:I just haven't yet seen the part where Summers had much of a choice.


One word: Metro.

When I read it, I'll be curious how he explains that one.


“Never let a good crisis go to waste." - Winston Churchill (Quote later appropriated by Rahm Emanuel)
todd vainisi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby todd vainisi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 4:55 pm

Code: Select all

A You know, looking at these two options, in July of 2014, that’s where we had two crappy proposals.
Q Okay. Now, let’s talk about why the Metro proposal was--
A That’s a clinical word, by the way.
Q Using that clinical term — you learn something new every day — what was crappy about MetroHealth’s proposal?
A Well, initially, it was very exciting.
Q Okay.  Why is that?  What was exciting?
A Well, Metro is a good company. They — I think in terms of their culture, it would be a welcome addition to our community. There was a market base of their customers already here. They had proven that they could do well with Medicaid reimbursement level customers, and Medicare, as well. They had a lower cost platform.
Q So they could fit the market.
A They could address the market. And they — and committed to providing inpatient health care for ten years. But no more than that. And in fairness to Metro, and the Clinic, and St. Vincent’s, and University Hospitals, all of them consistently said, our vision is very cloudy ten years out. We’re not betting on anything at that point. So the ten years, I think we’d grown to understand, was a problem, it was disappointing, because it wasn’t any better than what we already had in terms of the 2026 lease.
The problem with the Metro proposal was in the context of their execution capacity. They didn’t have any money. You know, somewhere in here, it asks the question of, how are you going to finance the capital improvements necessary to make the hospital clinically viable for the next ten years. Their response in here is, well, we’re going to shake about 45 million out of the Clinic on their way out of town.
Q Well, what about, as far as —
MR. CAHILL: Mayor, for the record, "in here" is which exhibit?
A This is Exhibit 38.
You know, we grew to understand, you know, Metro has a very thin management staff. They had no experience whatsoever in taking over another hospital.
We grew to understand it was a very high execution risk of their being able to pull this off. One, they didn’t have the money. Two, they wanted all the assets, return control of all the real estate over to the county, so Lakewood would lose control of all the houses, the physical property on Belle, the medical office building, the garage, 850 Columbia Road, they wanted the Hospital Foundation assets, 33 million dollars. All those chips would get pushed into the center, and they would become the property of Cuyahoga County.
Q All right.
A At that point in time, the City of Lakewood, as a community, would lose total control over those assets, and get nothing in return. There was no compensation, there was no offer to buy. There was about -- we’ll take it for free, you give us everything, and we’ll run a very modest inpatient model that would provide scaled down services for ten years.


That seems a very, very reasonable as to why the Metro proposal wasn't that great.

It would be interesting to just have someone go through each section of this deposition and refute the mayor's answers with solid evidence or other information. That would be a really long refutation, I know.


Brian Essi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Brian Essi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 5:02 pm

This is what JOB would refer to us being "played" by Summers---only in this case, he's "playing" the judge in front of a court reporter:

Summers' yarn on July 3, 2014

1. So he's mad at his manager "partner" for stealing stealing property and money belonging to Lakewood.
2. He gets in his care with his letter and finds Donley in his office.
3. Donley tells him the agreement does not prohibit CCF from stealing because CCF has a business strategy.

Summers July, 3, 2014:

23 Q Tell me about, now, when you sent this letter, do
24 you hand deliver this to Dr. Donley?
25 A I did.
122
1 Q And where did you find him?
2 A In his office in downtown Cleveland.
3 Q Over on Euclid Avenue there?
4 A Yeah.
5 Q Okay. And tell us about your conversation with
6 Dr. Donley about -- I mean, you wrote this in anger. Were
7 you still angry when you went to see him?
8 A Well, what I learned was that the Cleveland Clinic
9 was no longer -- this was not -- this decision was not
10 unique to Lakewood, the rehab shift, that they were
11 getting out of the rehab business in a Clinic-wide way,
12 that they anticipated ultimately it would be outsourced to
13 two service providers, one on the east side and one on the
14 west side, and that it was not reflective of their view of
15 Lakewood Hospital, but again, the broad context of how
16 they were going to deliver services in the future about
17 this particular segment.
18 Q Well, did you tell him, or did you indicate or
19 express that it was not the Clinic's service to move away,
20 that they didn't have the authority to do that?
21 A They actually did, in this case.
22 Q Okay. Is that what Donley told you?
23 A Yeah. This piece, you know, this was not specified
24 in the Lease.

And Summers back on page 100 talking about the July 3, 2014 letter to Donley:

And I did not, at that point, really spend much time thinking about the specifics of the complex agreement,


And at pages 37, 38 and 133-134 Summers says he relied on CCF Attorney Meehan

So by after nearly 3 and 1/2 year of LHA and 2 full years of hard work in "figuring all of this out" Summers claims in July, 2014 he had not spent a lot of time thinking about the "complex agreement"?

Let's see. The lease does NOT give CCF that authority. The city is the landlord and owns the hospital and everything in it. LHA is the tenant and Summers, Madigan, Bullock and 7 other Lakewood appointee are on that board. CCF is the manager. LHA Trustee and CCF have fiduciary duties of loyalty and fidelity to Lakewood and its residents. CCF is caught taking a capital asset and service line from LHA without permission and approval. Now in January 20, 2016 Summers say that in July, 2014 he did not understand this "complex agreement" and he relied on Donely and CCF atty. Meehan for advice and interpretation of it to the end that CCF can take property and money from Lakewood.

Summers has an MBA and is a superhero business guy with years running grandpa's business.

So by January 20, 2016--5+ years of service on LHA, and Summers would have us believe that he still does not understand the agreement?

W. Wilson Caldwell "That horse won't ride."

Horse pucky!


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Brian Essi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Brian Essi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 5:29 pm

todd vainisi wrote:

Code: Select all

A You know, looking at these two options, in July of 2014, that’s where we had two crappy proposals.
Q Okay. Now, let’s talk about why the Metro proposal was--
A That’s a clinical word, by the way.
Q Using that clinical term — you learn something new every day — what was crappy about MetroHealth’s proposal?
A Well, initially, it was very exciting.
Q Okay.  Why is that?  What was exciting?
A Well, Metro is a good company. They — I think in terms of their culture, it would be a welcome addition to our community. There was a market base of their customers already here. They had proven that they could do well with Medicaid reimbursement level customers, and Medicare, as well. They had a lower cost platform.
Q So they could fit the market.
A They could address the market. And they — and committed to providing inpatient health care for ten years. But no more than that. And in fairness to Metro, and the Clinic, and St. Vincent’s, and University Hospitals, all of them consistently said, our vision is very cloudy ten years out. We’re not betting on anything at that point. So the ten years, I think we’d grown to understand, was a problem, it was disappointing, because it wasn’t any better than what we already had in terms of the 2026 lease.
The problem with the Metro proposal was in the context of their execution capacity. They didn’t have any money. You know, somewhere in here, it asks the question of, how are you going to finance the capital improvements necessary to make the hospital clinically viable for the next ten years. Their response in here is, well, we’re going to shake about 45 million out of the Clinic on their way out of town.
Q Well, what about, as far as —
MR. CAHILL: Mayor, for the record, "in here" is which exhibit?
A This is Exhibit 38.
You know, we grew to understand, you know, Metro has a very thin management staff. They had no experience whatsoever in taking over another hospital.
We grew to understand it was a very high execution risk of their being able to pull this off. One, they didn’t have the money. Two, they wanted all the assets, return control of all the real estate over to the county, so Lakewood would lose control of all the houses, the physical property on Belle, the medical office building, the garage, 850 Columbia Road, they wanted the Hospital Foundation assets, 33 million dollars. All those chips would get pushed into the center, and they would become the property of Cuyahoga County.
Q All right.
A At that point in time, the City of Lakewood, as a community, would lose total control over those assets, and get nothing in return. There was no compensation, there was no offer to buy. There was about -- we’ll take it for free, you give us everything, and we’ll run a very modest inpatient model that would provide scaled down services for ten years.


That seems a very, very reasonable as to why the Metro proposal wasn't that great.

It would be interesting to just have someone go through each section of this deposition and refute the mayor's answers with solid evidence or other information. That would be a really long refutation, I know.


Todd,

There were two Metro proposals, Summers testimony and numerous videos recordings of Summers prove that he misrepresents both proposals--there has been much written on the Deck and in the LO that proves the disinformation and active concealment that Summers engages in on Metro.

Metro expressly did not insist on transfer of the assets to the County.

In the second proposal, Metro committed to $100M in capital investments over ten years--that's twice what CCF committed to for the balance of the 1996 Lease till 2026 and 3 X what CCF has committed to in the Master Agreement.

Metro proposed 900 jobs---that's 6X what CCF projects at the new transfer station.

Also, as a transparent county hospital, Metro has access to: Port Authority Bonds, county Bond and revenue bonds. In addition, Metro is involved with Signet--a private financing company that is financing its construction suburban Family Health Centers.

Rest assured that Metro would not have needed $24M/ year in admin, but would have drooled at stepping into CCF's shoes.

As for the estimated $45M that Metro said CCF was responsible for, that was a low number, but not a condition of Metro's offers.

Also, keep in mind that the Metro offers were not responded to or negotiated--they were "openers" Atty. Dever nails Summers on this--proof as to why Metro felt used and pulled out---I have have heard direct evidence of this from Metro myself.

So there is more Summers horse pucky flying here.


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james fitzgibbons
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby james fitzgibbons » Fri Mar 18, 2016 6:24 pm

Okay Todd, you are making yourself look silly! Too bad you are not introspective. Respectfully speaking.


Brian Essi
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Re: Mayor Summers' Deposition In Its Entirety

Postby Brian Essi » Fri Mar 18, 2016 6:58 pm

james fitzgibbons wrote:Okay Todd, you are making yourself look silly! Too bad you are not introspective. Respectfully speaking.


James,

I respectfully disagree.

I see Todd as being open minded and testing the data/evidence with his previous observations, understandings and queries.

JOB started this thread to ferret out the BS.

I believe that Summers is a conman-I respect anyone who may disagree me or agree with me based on logic and facts.

While some things can be simplified and are undeniable, there remains a sea of information. misinformation, disinformation and much information still concealed beneath the sea in the darkness.

This post is about one deposition that lasted only 4 hours and is a small bucket of the entire sea. The deposition is a small window into Summers' mind and thinking. It is imperfect and incomplete, but it is fair game to test and probe this limited subset of the sea.

Maybe I'm wrong, while Todd may have some preconceived views on the mayor, I see him as a potential juror that a reasonable lawyer on either side might not waste a preemptory challenge on and be seated on the jury.


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