LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

This is a storage area for FACTS that have been found during the two year fight with City Hall for Public Documents. These are being posted for reference and historical purposes only. We encourage any conversations about these documents n "Lakewood General Discussion." Here you will find the Highlight the lie, with the document proven the lie.

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Brian Essi
Posts: 2421
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 11:46 am

LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Brian Essi » Fri Sep 01, 2017 9:14 am

“BARE” with me Folks—this is a long one, but it is very important for reform of our city government.

Today’s "Public Records Unveiling" is the first in a series secret meetings the 2015 City Council held to give away taxpayer money and assets in backdoor dealings with CCF and LHA.

Until now, City Council Defendants Bullock, Marx, O’Leary, Nowlin, Anderson, Juris, and Madigan (through their Attorney –Butler) have concealed and misrepresented secret meetings and agreements that violated Open Meetings Laws.

The proof comes from Butler’s own writing to these elected officials who swore an oath to do exactly the opposite of what they did.

The records below evidence a fraudulent cover up of a “communications strategy” among City Council members, LHA and CCF with the goal of diverting taxpayer money and assets for private use.

Note the 12/3/15 entry on PR consultant Korey’s invoice (below) that shows she was coordinating the City Council “messaging” with the CCF’s PR lady Heather Phillips and LHA’s PR guy Galen Schuerlein of Malamed Communications (Malamed is also Armand Buddish’s PR team). Records I’ll show later, show City Hall engaged in the scheme as early as July 2015.

Listen to the November 30, 205 COW recording where Korey was not mentioned at all let alone as being permitted to join the illicit secret meeting. What was discussed with her in secret does not qualify for executive session. Was she hiding in a closet at City Hall that night?

http://www.onelakewood.com/wp-content/u ... -30-15.mp3

Some Background: On the morning of November 30, 2015, LHA trustees (Including Summers, Madigan and Bullock) met and approved the roll out of the Master Agreement having learned Council members were “all in” on the roll out. That night, the 2015 City Council, led by ringleader Butler, met secretly with PR professional Eileen Korey to discuss and agree upon a “communication strategy.” (See Ms. Korey’s entry of November 30, 2015 on her invoice below: “Meeting McEwen, Council members” 2.0 hours.) Hmmm

December 1, 2015, the following morning, Bruce Geiselman of Cleveland.com called Butler saying he heard Council “made a decision that the hospital was closing.” Hmmm Where did Geiselman hear that? (See Butler’s email to Council below) Butler told Geiselman that “no decisions had been made.” Cover Up?

But decisions were made the night before in a secret executive session with Ms. Korey as previously documented here on the Deck by O’Leary’s and Anderson’s own writings. See those below from my prior LAID BARE posts.

And the morning after (December 1, 2015) those decisions were made by Council in secret, Butler wrote Council: “lots of folks know that negotiations reached a certain point the week before last.” That would be the week just after O’Leary and Anderson had been elected. Hmmm

Butler also wrote: “We cannot rely on everyone, unfortunately, to use the same discretion we use.”

So, Butler coached our Council members to keep secret the secret decisions they made and the agreed upon “communications strategy” they hatched the night before to “roll out the transition plan.” (Remember, those are O’Leary’s words, not mine when he complained of LHA leaking like a “sieve”). Butler is clearly concerned about leaks of something that should have been public all along.

Every member of the 2015 Council members and Butler had a duty to speak out and all were active participants in whole series of secret emails and meetings in violations of Open Meetings Laws. To date, they have all remained silent and proactively denied their culpability in Skindell v. Madigan in the trial Court in December 2015, in the Cuyahoga Court of Appeals throughout 2016 and into 2017; and they continue their silence and fraud through today in the Ohio Supreme Court.

The “cancer” at City Hall is malignant…

Evidence of Cindy Marx and Ringleader Butler secretly executing the the ongoing "communications strategy" to role out the Master Agreement is here:

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Ellen Korey Invoices to City Hall:

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Evidence of O'Leary's participation in coordinated "communications strategy" with LHA/CCF that is not going well:

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Evidence of Anderson's participation in the ongoing "communications strategy" to role out the Master Agreement

http://www.cision.com/us/2013/02/what-i ... -strategy/

Evidence of what was discussed in the secret meeting on November 30, 2015:

Image

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More to follow...


David Anderson has no legitimate answers
Lori Allen _
Posts: 2550
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 2:37 pm

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Lori Allen _ » Fri Sep 01, 2017 2:02 pm

Mr. Essi,

Thank you very much for the information.

Considering other circumstances, it is highly interesting that LHA's PR firm is the same PR firm used by Mr. Budish. I have said in the past that Mr. Budish may have more to do with Lakewood than is reasonable or proper.

In my opinion, it may be worth deposing Ms. Korey, the PR person. I suspect she may have a wealth of incriminating information against Mister Summers and his gang. Although finding a service address for her may be difficult, as she appears to have left town with no forwarding address.


Mark Kindt
Posts: 2637
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2016 11:06 am

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Mark Kindt » Fri Sep 01, 2017 2:27 pm

As I read these (long-hidden) public documents, I now learn that our city council members had agreed on a media roll-out to the public together with CCF and LHA on the hospital closure, before they had even seen a final term sheet or the actual Master Agreement. What's that tell us?

By the date of these emails, City council appears to have already agreed to close Lakewood Hospital before the deal was even finalized on paper. I encourage each reader to take a very close look at each of these documents.

All of this planning appears to be actual, not contingent on the future enactment of the legislation. It looks like a full consensus was achieved outside of public view on both the closure and the story-line to the public. Clearly, Mr. Anderson fully understood that the public he was hearing from was concerned about Sunshine issues. His own email describes that citizen concern.

If there are emails where council members express reservations about the deal contemporaneous with these posted emails, I would encourage Mr. Essi to post them out of fairness to council.

Based on the long-delayed disclosure of these kinds of documents--delay improper itself--seems like State Senator Skindell could have won his open meetings case against the city.
Last edited by Mark Kindt on Fri Sep 01, 2017 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.


Lori Allen _
Posts: 2550
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 2:37 pm

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Lori Allen _ » Fri Sep 01, 2017 2:32 pm

Speaking of Armond Budish, I am still awaiting an explanation for Ms. Madigan's promotion to Communications Director for the entire county. In my opinion and the opinion of many others, she was not qualified for this job.

Who ultimately controls MetroHealth?, Armond Budish.

Now we learn that his PR firm was also LHA's PR firm.


Brian Essi
Posts: 2421
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 11:46 am

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Brian Essi » Sat Sep 02, 2017 2:25 pm

Mark Kindt wrote:If there are emails where council members express reservations about the deal contemporaneous with these posted emails, I would encourage Mr. Essi to post them out of fairness to council.


I have not yet reviewed all records, but I have yet to see any where any Council member or anyone at City Hall expressed any reservations about the deal contemporaneous with the posted emails.

Butler and Lakewood claim that they have released all records and emails on these and the other subjects requested through my 300+ public records requests.

They claim that they have released over 35,000 pages, including 26,000 pages produced in the past couple of months--21,000 pages of which were released on August 21, 2017.

I have been told that these records are available on the City website or City Facebook. So, anyone is free to search for any reservations expressed by our public officials.


David Anderson has no legitimate answers
Brian Essi
Posts: 2421
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 11:46 am

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Brian Essi » Sat Sep 02, 2017 4:18 pm

Lori Allen _ wrote:In my opinion, it may be worth deposing Ms. Korey, the PR person. I suspect she may have a wealth of incriminating information against Mister Summers and his gang. Although finding a service address for her may be difficult, as she appears to have left town with no forwarding address.


There is no need to depose Ms. Korey--she has already provided enough conclusive evidence of violations and informed O'Leary, Bullock, Butler and Summers of that fact.

Here is one such record produced on June 19, 2017:

From: Eileen Korey <ek@eileenkorey.com>
Sent time: 05/07/2016 05:15:51 PM
To:O'Leary, Sam <Sam.OLeary@lakewoodoh.net>; Bullock, Tom <Tom.Bullock@lakewoodoh.net>; Butler, Kevin <Kevin.Butler@lakewoodoh.net>;
Summers, Mike <Mike.Summers@lakewoodoh.net>
Subject: Please be aware of new case

There is some relevance to any communications strategy developed for a public body like Council.

http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/do ... o-2770.pdf

Eileen
Eileen Korey
216.470.8737
ek@eileenkorey.com
http://www.eileenkorey.com


Here is the Ohio Supreme Court case that Ms. Korey mentions:

White Case 2016-Ohio-2770.pdf
(94.69 KiB) Downloaded 1617 times


…R.C. 121.22 prohibits any private prearranged discussion of public business by a majority of the members of a public body regardless of whether the discussion occurs face to face, telephonically, by video conference, or electronically by e-mail, text, tweet, or other form of communication.” White @ Paragraph 15

“{¶16] The fact that the discussion in this case occurred through a series of
e-mail communications does not remove that discussion from the purview of R.C.
121.22.
In Cincinnati Post, Cincinnati’s city manager, John Shirey, scheduled
three series of nonpublic, back to back meetings with members of the Cincinnati
City Council regarding the construction of new stadiums for the Cincinnati
Bengals and Cincinnati Reds. Less than a majority of council members attended
the individual meetings, but a majority of members attended each series of
meetings. The Cincinnati Post brought a mandamus action in this court to compel
the city to prepare and make available to the public minutes summarizing the
discussions at the meetings pursuant to R.C. 121.22.
{¶ 17} In granting the writ, we explained that “[t]he statute that exists to
shed light on deliberations of public bodies cannot be interpreted in a manner
which would result in the public being left in the dark.” Cincinnati Post, 76 Ohio
St.3d at 544, 668 N.E.2d 903. Back to back meetings discussing the same issues
of public business could be liberally construed as parts of the same meeting for
purposes of R.C. 121.22. Therefore, we held that a majority of council members
attended a nonpublic meeting in violation of the statute.
{¶ 18} The distinction between serial in-person communications and serial
electronic communications via e-mail for purposes of R.C. 121.22 is a distinction
without a difference because discussions of public bodies are to be conducted in a
public forum, and thus, we conclude that in this instance, a prearranged discussion
of the public business of a public body by a majority of its members through a
series of private e-mail communications is subject to R.C. 121.22.
”White @ Paragraphs 16-17

Please stay tuned as there are more records that Butler authored that have yet to be unveiled, that establish that Butler knowingly orchestrated and led clear violations of Open Meetings Laws on multiple occasions.

Butler and O'Leary have clear legal and ethical duties to come clean on their roles in this unlawful conduct.


David Anderson has no legitimate answers
cameron karslake
Posts: 645
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2015 8:35 am

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby cameron karslake » Sat Sep 02, 2017 4:22 pm

Butler, McKewen, Marx, Summers et al.

Here, they conspired to GIVE AWAY PUBLIC ASSETS (a hospital, no less!) to private entities and I am PAID THEIR SALARIES to do such a heinous thing??

Unbelievable!

These folks really give government a BAD name.

Maybe, someday, they'll all get the publicity they deserve.


Kate McCarthy
Posts: 481
Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 1:25 pm
Location: Lakewood

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Kate McCarthy » Sat Sep 02, 2017 5:10 pm

Brian Essi wrote:There is no need to depose Ms. Korey--she has already provided enough conclusive evidence of violations and informed O'Leary, Bullock, Butler and Summers of that fact.

Here is one such record produced on June 19, 2017:

From: Eileen Korey <ek@eileenkorey.com>
Sent time: 05/07/2016 05:15:51 PM
To:O'Leary, Sam <Sam.OLeary@lakewoodoh.net>; Bullock, Tom <Tom.Bullock@lakewoodoh.net>; Butler, Kevin <Kevin.Butler@lakewoodoh.net>;
Summers, Mike <Mike.Summers@lakewoodoh.net>
Subject: Please be aware of new case

There is some relevance to any communications strategy developed for a public body like Council.

http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/do ... o-2770.pdf

Eileen
Eileen Korey
216.470.8737
ek@eileenkorey.com
http://www.eileenkorey.com


I wonder if they clued Mr. Anderson in on this or did they willfully let him hang himself out to dry here.

http://lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23556&hilit=off+script

Senator Skindell was belittled by these people at every turn. I really hope people take some time and look at all this with an open mind. And if they didn't disclose this information to the councilpersons not included in this communication, they are really terrible human beings.


Brian Essi
Posts: 2421
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 11:46 am

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Brian Essi » Wed Sep 06, 2017 7:17 am

The beginning usually determines the end:

Madigan suggested "one communication goal for council might be to ensure clarity about hospital-related facts and
that talking points should be based upon recommendations from Thompson Hine.

So, Council allowed their high priced "mouthpieces" (who never uttered a word in public and were aligned with CCF and Cuy County Insiders) to direct our local representatives as to what to say?

"Communications Strategy" Much Ms. Marx, Bullock etc.?

The only reason these "Minutes" were made public at the time was to spin the "ignore the ethics violations" yarn.

These public records were released just on August 16, 2017:

LKWD PRR292 000048-0000479

From: Smith, Monique [Monique.Smith@lakewoodoh.net]
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 4:06 PM
To: Butler, Kevin; Madigan, Mary; Hagan, Mary
Subject: 051115_MIN_COW_DRAFT
Attachment(s): "051115_MIN_COW_DRAFT.docx"
Kevin, ML and Mary – Would you mind reviewing the attached draft minutes from last
night’s COW and providing feedback? Last night’s COW felt somewhat unique in terms
of how it unfolded, so I want to make sure that I am communicating the important points
about the meeting appropriately.
Also, thanks very much for your help and patience as I continue to learn how to process
minutes, especially during such an important period in council’s history! (Phew!)
Monique
LKWD-PRR292_000048
LKWD


Minutes of the Committee of the Whole
May 11, 2015
Council Conference Room
Present: Council President Madigan and Councilmembers Bullock (6:05), Juris (6:10), Marx, Nowlin, and
O’Leary
Also Present: Thompson Hine legal counsel Robin Minter-Smyers; Mayor Michael Summers, Finance Director
Jennifer Pae, Assistant Law Director Jennifer Mladek, Planning and Development Director Dru Siley;
Temporary Legislative Liaison Monique Smith; Media Reporter Bruce Geiselman of Cleveland.com; and 17
members of the public
Call to Order: 6:02 pm
General conversation about the Letter of Intent (LOI) including the potential purchase of property
and/or sale of real or personal property by competitive bid
President Madigan opened the meeting with a role call to determine which members were present and then
moved to excuse the absence of Councilmember Anderson. The motion was seconded by Nowlin, with all
councilmembers who were present voting yes.
At 6:07 pm, Madigan moved to enter Executive Session. The motion was seconded by Nowlin with all present
members voting yes. Madigan then amended the motion to enter Executive Session, indicating that she wished
to also include Minter-Smyers, Summers, Pae, Mladek, Siley and Smith in Executive Session. This motion was
seconded by O’Leary with all present members voting yes. All other attendees and members of the public
exited the conference room following the vote.
During Executive Session, at 7:39 pm, President Madigan excused herself from the meeting as discussion
turned to topics that may conflict with her role as an employee of Cuyahoga County. She wished to note for the
record that she did not exit previous Executive Sessions because there was no discussion during those meetings
that conflicted with her county employment status. Vice President Nowlin invited Madigan to return to the
meeting at 8:04 pm, after it was confirmed that no further conflicting discussion topics would be covered.
At 8:24 pm., Executive Session was exited and Director Siley left the meeting. Summer commented that one the
more important hospital-related developments of the week was the determination by the Ohio Ethics
Commission that Councilman Nowlin’s law firm was not involved in LHA negotiations as alleged by members
of the public who oppose the LOI.
Madigan raised the topic of public relations and communications related to the hospital. She indicated that
Hennes Paynter was the firm that was used by Lakewood Hospital Association (LHA) when the hospital
proposal was first announced but that their work was not to continue beyond the first three public forums on the
hospital. Madigan commented that further communications might be considered in a series of steps.
She suggested that one communication goal for council might be to ensure clarity about hospital-related facts and
that talking points should be based upon recommendations from Thompson Hine.

At 8:28 pm, Madigan made a motion to adjourn the meeting, which was seconded by Bullock. The motion was
unanimously passed.
LKWD-PRR292_000049
LKWD


David Anderson has no legitimate answers
Lori Allen _
Posts: 2550
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 2:37 pm

Re: LAID BARE: Direct Evidence Exposes Cover Up of Secret City Council Meetings (Part I)

Postby Lori Allen _ » Wed Sep 06, 2017 9:56 am

Ms. Korey sold her home and moved out of Lakewood about three or four months ago and there is no forwarding address information to be found anywhere.

What was Ms. Korey afraid of?

What "secret" information did she know about that was so bad that she felt she had to leave town in a hurry?



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