

Mike Burkons
- Jan 22
Amicus brief filed by www.citizen.org in opposition to lawsuit filed by Beachwood
This shouldn’t be a surprise but the first (of what I am assuming will end up will being multiple) First Amendment advocacy groups just filed an amicus brief in opposition to the city and police chief’s lawsuit. You can read it by clicking on the link below. Have a good weekend and below are tweets from two Constitutional and First Amendment lawyers and law professors about Beachwood's lawsuit.


Mike Burkons
- Jan 21
"This is one of the dumbest...expenditures of local taxpayer money I've ever seen"
Below is an excellent 15 tweet thread from Subodh Chandra, local civil rights lawyer/leader/advocate, about the moronic and incompetent decision of the City of Beachwood and Beachwood Police Chief Katherine McLaughlin to use public funds to file a lawsuit to find out who has been anonymously criticizing her.

Mike Burkons
- Jan 17
Cleveland.com's podcast features Beachwood's embarrassing lawsuit to unmask critic.
Click on the link below to listen to the 4-minute portion of Cleveland.com's "Today in Ohio" podcast on January 13, 2023 where Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com President & Editor Chris Quinn and Leila Atassi, discuss the lawsuit filed by the Beachwood Police Chief and City of Beachwood's to unmask an anonymous critic.

Reprinted from Plain Dealer article from 1-12-23 written by Cory Shaffer
- Jan 12
Beachwood, police chief file defamation lawsuit to find out who has been anonymously criticizing her
Published: Jan. 12, 2023, 8:00 a.m. Updated: Jan. 12, 2023, 8:18 a.m. CLEVELAND, Ohio — The city of Beachwood and its police chief, Katherine McLaughlin, went to court to unmask the identity of an anonymous online critic.
In a lawsuit filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, the city says that “John Doe” is behind a series of accounts that left comments on the Beachwood Police Department Facebook page and sent an email in September to members of city council that accused

Mike Burkons
- Jan 9
How the $500k pickleball project became $1.5m without additional value
At tomorrow night's Council meeting (January 9, 2023) Council will be asked to vote to place the updated pickleball plan/design out to bid which now has an estimated total project cost of around $1.5m. This is the project to build six new pickleball courts was first pitched to Council on 8-8-22 as a project with an estimated total project cost of around $500k. Seven weeks later, this original $500k plan increased to $1.2m when the decision to build a new community garden, 120