I received the mug shots of the suspected robbers of El Tango Taqueria from the Lakewood PD. I should be receiving the police report within a few days. I’ll make that available, as well as a couple of other things.
I don’t know where councilperson Antonio was today, but she wasn’t where Lakewood voters figured she might be when they voted for her — at city council. Her absence was excused by her colleagues without discussion. The meeting only lasted about one hour. There were around 11 citizens in attendance.
Brian Powers was sworn in to fill the vacant at-large seat. His wife and kids were around to witness the swearing-in ceremony, and then promptly split when it was over. He was unanimously approved. The mayor strongly approved the selection and claimed that he did not lobby on the candidate’s behalf, as other administrations had done in the past.
Routine new business was introduced regarding the process of soliciting and advertising for bids for various improvements to the city. It was mostly procedural stuff.
Two people spoke during the public comment period. The first speaker appears to a regular of sorts. Bible Guy, as I will call him, spoke in a pleasant monotone about the Lakewood dog park lawsuit with Rocky River. He mixed in some bible verses and read from a prepared speech. The other guy who addressed council had some questions about the impact of the foreclosure epidemic on Lakewood. The mayor said he was going to roll out a taskforce to address some of the issues.
I’ve been to plenty of city council meetings, but this was my first visit to Lakewood’s city council. The meeting started promptly at 7:30 PM and lasted about an hour. There were about 20 citizens in attendance. I was a bit surprised by the relatively youthful appearance of the council reps, mayor, etc. I figured there would be more gray hairs.
The docket was light. You can check it out yourself. The last item discussed was a late addition and did not appear on the docket. Something about giving the finance department money to help find efficiencies in the budget. I couldn’t figure out what the finance lady was explaining.
Two citizens spoke at the end. One guy expressed concern about something related to housing stock. It was a prepared speech, and a bit rambling. The other guy that spoke brought a bible to the podium. He rambled about consulting the bible when making decisions.
It the future, I hope to delve a bit more into the issues and perhaps write some stories that add color to the situation.
All things considered, it appears January 1st, 2008 was relatively quiet in Lakewood. There were probably a dozen of typical loud noise complaints, and fights, but seemingly nothing much more notable than that.
I’m not sure what criteria the police use when deciding whether or not to include a narrative in the media log report. They wrote 25 police incident reports on Jan. 1. Some are categorized “Jail.” It’s not clear what they could be, maybe just a procedural document when they take in prisoners for whatever reason. Some items caught my eye. Fraud stolen credit card. Stolen copper pipes. DUI. Disturbance. Theft by deception. I’ll request the police reports and post them here. It’s my understanding the police reports take several days to make it through internal review.
The Lakewood PD indicated that the media log binder is available 24-hours a day. I ought to be able to update the police blotter with good frequency.