Bad Government 3: Public Records Responses Expose More Potential Ethics Violations And Use Of City Website In Ongoing Cover-Up Of Corrupt Activity.

As of the time of this writing, following documents are listed on the city website under the “Lakewood Wellness” page:

“RFP/Search for New Hospital Operators

-Subsidium Hospital RFP

-Subsidium Preliminary Memorandum: Community Hospital Seeks Community Partner

-Clinic’s Response to RFP

-Subsidium Slides 1 of 2

-Subsidium Slides 2 of 2”

The City of Lakewood's website is perpetuating an ongoing cover-up of a steered sham bid process.

The documents on the website are presented in a manner amounting to intentional disinformation by city leaders to cover up past and ongoing corrupt activity. Here is why:

The “Clinic’s Response to RFP(Request for Proposasl)” (the Clinic’s Proposal) is NOT a response to the RFP and the Preliminary Memorandum (PM) posted directly above it on the website. In fact, the Clinic’s Proposal is a response to a separate insider’s RFP given only to the Clinic to close the hospital --that insider’s RFP is not on the website--it was obtained in the taxpayer lawsuit. Last summer, when Summers reacted to a citizen’s persistent public comment that the Clinic’s Proposal did not meet the requirements of the RFP, Summers unwittingly revealed part of the sham process and admitted he helped develop the Clinic’s Proposal in 2013 before the RFP process began in 2014. On July 20, 2015, Summers said: “The [LHA] trustees first went to their current partner…and after a significant amount of time and effort the Cleveland Clinic proposed an outpatient service delivery system…The Clinic was not asked to deliver an inpatient service.…the RFP at that point was designed to seek someone other than the Clinic.” 

However, the documents on the website, including the 324 pages of Subsidium slides, tell a completely different story—they make no mention of the insider RFP. Also, public records reveal that all of the Subsidium slides were sanitized by the Clinic’s legal counsel and delivered to the city [on behalf of Lakewood Hospital Association (LHA)] and then immediately posted on the city website “as is” in late March 2015. The delivery and posting of these documents happened just days after Mayor Summers, former Council President Mary Madigan and Law Director Kevin Butler exchanged emails that discussed LHA “taking the lead” in a “campaign” to pass the Clinic’s Proposal. So the disinformation “campaign” using the city website started at least in early 2015 and has been ongoing.

Summers led LHA, but perpetuates the fraud that he was only one of 23 trustees.

To make matters worse, on April 4, 2016, Butler responded to a public records request that sought: “All records authorizing Subsidium to issue the Preliminary Memorandum on behalf of the City of Lakewood to any party.”  Butler’s response was: “The city has no responsive records. Subsidium did not issue a document called “Preliminary Memorandum” on behalf of the city. Subsidium represented the Lakewood Hospital Association, not the city, in its work.”

However, the PM which is posted on the city website clearly states: “...the municipality has asked Subsidium to provide this Preliminary Memorandum to potentially interested parties… Through this process the municipality is only interested in proposals to operate the Hospital as an inpatient facility with substantially similar services as those offered today and for a period of no less than twenty (20) years. …. As it deems appropriate in its sole discretion the municipality will [decide who the municipality wants to include in the RFP process]” So according to the terms of the PM, Summers was in control of the RFP process and could determine in his sole discretion to whom he wanted to give a copy of the RFP. The PM, the Subsidium slides and Summers' sworn deposition testimony all make it clear that Summers only allowed bogus “bidding” on what Summers admits he believed was the unsustainable “status quo” in- patient model of staying the course. In his sworn deposition, he stated, “We weren’t selling this hospital”—a clear admission that the RFP process was not an attempt to keep a hospital in Lakewood. The PM and RFP were a sham designed to “whitewash” the Clinic’s Proposal that Summers had participated in forming. Summers continues to use his sham RFP process to claim that nobody was interested in Lakewood Hospital. Summers has consistently distanced himself from LHA and claimed he was only one of 23 trustees.

On December 21, 2015 David Anderson expressed a major reason for his vote for the Master Agreement: “LHA had no interest in reopening the process for a new [bid process] nor in allowing City Council to wrestle the process away from LHA.” Summers clearly misled council and the public as to the RFP process and his control of it. Summers used his leadership role on LHA to prevent members of council from conducting an open, honest and fair process to market the hospital and its assets and from finding the truly best healthcare solutions for Lakewood.

 Summers exceeded his authority by conducting the sham RFP process

Butler’s unequivocal April 4, 2016 response that the PM was not authorized by the city creates a very real issue of Ohio Ethics Commission violations by Summers. Since the city did not authorize the Subsidium RFP process, Summers exceeded his authority by directing Subsidium’s issuance of the PM on behalf of the city. That abuse of his power and corporate authority violate existing Ohio Ethics Commission Opinions directly on the subject.

The cover-up continues.

On April 4, 2016, Summers gave a vague report to city council as to how new “Health and Wellness” money will be handled by a yet to be formed “foundation”—a foundation that the Subsidium slides show was contemplated since 2013. Summers is hiding his plans for his claimed “$32M”—money obtained through the corrupt activity and ongoing cover-up.

Also on April 4, 2016, Council President Sam O’Leary said city council went into executive session to hear from the Summers administration and discuss “the city’s sale strategies relative to” real estate returned to the city under the Master Agreement. However, “discussing sale strategies” for public properties is not a legal reason for executive session.

So city leaders are proactively covering up the past and ongoing process as they secretly plan what to do with the land and money Summers obtained through a sham bid steer process.

This is all really bad government and it is getting worse.

Brian J. Essi is a life-long Lakewood resident and businessperson. This article is one in a series of articles on the city government.