BG – Mayor Wants it Both Ways: Health Services Good, Those Who Advocate for Them Bad

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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Dan Alaimo
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BG – Mayor Wants it Both Ways: Health Services Good, Those Who Advocate for Them Bad

Postby Dan Alaimo » Wed Oct 26, 2016 1:33 am

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By Brian Essi
(Moderator's note: Lakewood Attorney Brian Essi is meticulously researching the back-room deals that resulted in the closing of Lakewood Hospital. He has written extensively about it for the Lakewood Observer where this article first appeared. He concludes that this is an example of "bad government." Citizens will have their chance to vote on the ordinance which authorized the deal in a referendum on the November ballot. An "against" vote is to nullify the ordinance that passed last December. A "for" vote supports it.
To clarify: The byline at the top of this article defaults to the person who entered the copy. In this case, Brian Essi is the author of the article, while Dan Alaimo entered the story, provided some editing as well as the summary information at the top. - D.A.)


Key points:
• At a press conference, Mayor Summers endorsed the core principles of Save Lakewood Hospital.
• He also attacked the group as politically motivated and for attacking the City’s emergency services.
• But that group is not attacking Lakewood’s emergency service system. It wants to make it better.

Key quotes:
• “We did lose a valuable service (the hospital) that served this community for 100 years.” – Mayor Michael Summers
• “They (the group against Issue 64) believe that the community is better served by a local inpatient care. I don’t dispute that.” – Mayor Summers
• “I am deeply disturbed by the allegations and untruths spread by people in our community who are politically motivated and who are trying to scare others by attacking our emergency service system here in Lakewood.” – Mayor Summers



How can you endorse concepts while attacking those who also hold them?

At a recent press conference in front of Lakewood fire trucks and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Fire Chief Scott Gilman, Mayor Michael Summers said:

1. “When life is on the line, let’s make sure we know the truth.”
2. “We did lose a valuable service (the hospital) that served this community for 100 years.”
3. “They (the group against Issue 64) believe that the community is better served by a local inpatient care. I don’t dispute that.”

So there you have it from Summers’ own lips — he does not dispute that what Save Lakewood Hospital is working for would better serve the community.

Lives are on the line and a hospital would better serve our community and save lives. Summers said it.

Chief Gilman said at the press conference: “It takes longer to get to the hospital” now that the hospital is closed.

So why did Summers hold his press conference when there is no question that lives are at stake?

Summers said at the press conference: “I am deeply disturbed by the allegations and untruths spread by people in our community who are politically motivated and who are trying to scare others by attacking our emergency service system here in Lakewood.”

But Summers failed to be specific about any alleged “untruths” or even the “people” allegedly spreading them. Perhaps that’s because nobody is attacking our emergency service system in Lakewood. By Summers’ own words, it can’t be the group against Issue 64 group or Save Lakewood Hospital, because Summers admits that they are proposing something that “better serves our Community” and saves the “lives that are on the line.”

So Summers held a press conference to set up a straw man that he could knock down, namely fictional people who attack Lakewood’s emergency service system, while endorsing their core beliefs.

So it is Summers spreading politically motivated lies trying to scare people when “Life is on the Line.”

How sad.

And certainly, very bad government.


“Never let a good crisis go to waste." - Winston Churchill (Quote later appropriated by Rahm Emanuel)

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