(Editor’s note: This letter was approved prior to The Republic new policy of one letter per writer every 30 days and was exempted from the change.)
From: Ken Fudge
Columbus
Our county-owned hospital looks like a real-estate development corporation buying and selling real-estate and involved in city politics to ensure it has no competition.
It also looks like it is now using taxpayer funds from the city to aid in this monopolistic endeavor. Like it needs it. The annual revenue of the CRH juggernaut was $412 million last year.
Its CEO, Jim Bickel commanded a salary of nearly $650,000 in 2013 the last time it was public. It made him the 16th highest-paid public employee in this state.
The mayor looks like a puppet of Bickel and CRH’s board and it looks like he is committing our tax dollars to CRH’s monopolistic efforts. This would be no surprise.
Lienhoop appears to often uses his power and our money to reward his political supporters and donors in order to be re-elected this year.
Lienhoop’s relationship with the hospital is rife for this type of political patronage.
Half of the hospital’s board of trustees contributed large sums of money to Lienhoop’s campaign for mayor, including a $1,000 donation from Sherry Stark, the chair of the board of trustees.
The CFO and the VP of Health System Operations of the hospital also made large donations to Lienhoop’s campaign.
Bickel and another hospital executive serve on the Fair Oaks Board which is stacked with political appointments including Lienhoop’s campaign manager and donor.
Jim Lienhoop and his cousin and campaign donor Carl Lienhoop will serve on the hospital’s land use board for the 800 acres it just purchased on the westside.
I bet this cozy relationship of Lienhoop and his supporters results in the hospital benefitting financially at the expense of the taxpayers.
Lienhoop and Bickel say buying the failed mall is in keeping with the vision of J. I. Miller. I disagree.
Miller saw to it that our city benefited from beautiful buildings designed by world-renowned architects. The dated shopping mall is easily Columbus’ ugliest building and can only be improved by bringing in bulldozers.
Lienhoop and Bickel claim they will be transparent and collaborative. I completely disagree.
At the first Fair Oaks Board meeting, Lienhoop refused to commit to advertising their meetings on the city’s website like other public meetings. He also said the meetings will not be live-streamed and recorded on the city’s website like other public meetings. The meetings might as well be behind closed doors.
After two citizens asked questions at the first meeting, Bickel got upset and said to Lienhoop that the meetings should not allow public comment. After that Lienhoop would not allow any public comment on the agenda items prior to the board’s votes.
This is not transparency and collaboration. This stinks of political patronage for the benefit of those who got Lienhoop elected and who will help him get re-elected this year.
But you won’t read about that. The Republic appears to only regurgitate what Lienhoop and Bickel project.
This good old boy system needs to go. The citizens of Columbus deserve better.
