The Lakewood Observer is the gift of Lakewood businesses and Lakewood residents to our fellow residents and businesses. The core group that started this paper has over 200 years of residency, education, and life experience in and around Lakewood. Our volunteer staff of over 100 has over 1,000 years of active participation in Lakewood; its schools, politics, civic business and social events. Simply put, the Observers live and breathe Lakewood. Together, we have created the Lakewood Observer to be the best way to learn about, know and enjoy life in Lakewood.

The Lakewood Observer is Lakewood's only newspaper. We get minimal coverage by The Plain Dealer; the Lakewood Sun Post, The Cleveland Free Times and The Scene, in the form of sound bites from outsiders. The Lakewood Observer is based in downtown Lakewood and 99% of the people associated with the paper live and/or work in Lakewood. The Lakewood Observer is not competing with these great papers; far from it. We are trying to go deeper into the stories covered by these papers while highlighting some of the things they have overlooked.

What also makes us different is our goal/mission; to help this city know itself better than any city has before. The way in which we will accomplish this goal is to engage all residents and businesses in the project. Tell us the stories we need to hear, so that we may write them and get them out, or better still, write the story yourself and send it in. We will also be looking at some of the tough social/urban issues and ways to work with them or around them. We will search our on-line Observation Deck (forum) for story ideas and thoughts that need to be explored, energize the discussion, cover it in the paper, then take it back to the roundtable for further discussion, and action. Many Observers are active in politics, schools business, entertainment, and just plain active in Lakewood.

Finally, we hope that the Lakewood Observer becomes the city's "Small Town Newspaper," a single source for news, schedules activities, and announcements. If you know of an event, drop us a line: we would be happy to cover it, From Kiwanis meetings to weddings, from school events to anniversaries, from business openings to political races, you will find it, or space for it here at the Observer.

This is Lakewood’s gift to Lakewood. Please enjoy it, and join us.

Jim O'Bryan
Ken Warren
DL Meckes
Steve Davis
Steve Calhoun
And hundreds of Lakewood volunteers