East Cleveland. Detective Kyle Cunningham died of cancer. He dies with bills owed for medical treatment because Mayor Gary Norton mismanaged the city so poorly he didnt pay employee medical bills. Cunningham was taking up collections from employees to help him try to pay for medication that cost $2900 a month that might have extended his life. All the employees over there are suffering from not having their medical bills covered even though Nortons been taking the money from their checks. Hes been illegally using it to meet payroll. Some have bills of over $80,000 thats being attached to them personally. Others are going without treatment to avoid creating medical bills. Whats so sick is that East Clevelands mayor just bought himself what I thought was a $41,000 Dodge Durango this past July. Ive been told that with all the specials he added the fully-loaded vehicle might have cost as much as $57,000, and the city is broke. Auditor of State David Yost said two weeks ago that East Cleveland is broke. Theres no salt in the shed. Theres one of two working EMS vehicles. Theres two out of 4 working fire trucks. City hall is a 4-day-a-week operation. Norton spent all $8 million of the Cleveland Clinic money to close Huron Hospital on everything but the citys bills and expenses, and no one really knows what he did with the money. Former council president Dr. Joy Jordan and vice president Chantelle C Lewis told me they never approved the deal or approved him spending the money. Yost specifically said he will not agree to allow East Cleveland to borrow $7 million to pay off some bills because Nortons mismanagement added another $3.5 million on top of what was already owed, and he did so in less than a year. So by the end of this month expect East Cleveland to default. Yost said theres no money to make the third payroll. Ive heard that Norton and his bag man chief of staff, Michael Smedley, are preparing for a shut down. But dont worry. Gary just cashed in $10,000 of alleged unused vacation time which equates to be about 3 months. That is on top of the $12,000 he cashed out in September 2012 and another $12,000 in December 2012, and on top of the extra $45,000 a year he kept paying himself as the safety director even after voters said no to his pay raise increase in November 2012. He didnt stop paying himself until sometime in May. Even your council members are getting in on the grab. Council just voted last night to give councilman Brandon King the nearly $99,000 house he wanted for less than $1000. Now, Jerry Strothers, is the time to go to the Ohio Ethics Commission with a complaint. All these greedy-assed political bastards care about are themselves. I pray the FBI recognizes the dire need to speed up its investigation of the worst piece of political garbage to ever surface as a politician, and to criminally-charge Norton sooner rather than later so the city can begin to move on. I cannot emphasis enough how important it is for you not to allow the mainstream media to influence your opinions of some of your elected officials. While Im no longer in office, I couldnt have prevented Kyle Cunningham from contracting cancer, but I damn sure would have made sure the city was run well-enough to get him the medicine he needed if it would have helped save his life. East Clevelanders, I pray for you. From what were seeing in Cleveland, a city with its own troubles, they may not even be able to merge with you to help. Theres a solution to the problem, but the answer is not yet known even though I and others are thinking about it daily. Ill share when it comes. I hope youll be ready. RIP Kyle. Hes one of the cops I never had to discipline. He was from East Cleveland. He had a respect for the people. The citizens lost a good one.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 19:07:18 +0000
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