I think sometime in the past two or three years, those residents on 12-month leases were told by Silver Oaks' management at the time (the Tell Trust) that they needed to change to month-to-month leases, though there wasn't any reason given.

My Mom is under a lease....she has received no official notification from CAPSTONE yet. I agree -- but only 4-5 residents left are under lease agreement. That was calculated because the current mgmt. knew this was happening. American Greed at its finest.

The Silver Oaks office is responding with a "no comment" to all who inquire about this pitiful situation. Talk about standing behind one's convictions!

Regarding the 60-day notice, it seems very likely that the company just *said* 60 days, while acknowledging it could take months longer than that to get all the seniors out. Probably they are gauging 6 months to be more realistic, but gave an official notice of 60 days just to get the seniors agitated and moving on trying to find new places for themselves. Can you imagine how media coverage of forced evictions, with sheriff's deputies throwing seniors' possessions into the street, would make the City of Kent look? (Answer: pretty bad.) This underhanded deal has already brought shame to our town and it's time for the companies, city, and university to reverse their decision and let the seniors stay, which is what they want.

As far as Capstone goes, I'm fairly certain that having all the seniors out by, say, the New Year of 2012 would be fine with them, as construction wouldn't begin until the spring of 2012, and the company still needs to get the required variances from the Kent Planning Commission to allow the property to be converted from seniors only to student housing.

Kathy the one one that continues to benefit from the Kent /KSU BS relationship is KSU and the over paid president. WAKE up KENT!

The "Kent/KSU BS relationship"? Yeah, and Kent (particularly downtown) was doing so well before they started to really work together. How does Lefton financially benefit from development in Kent? And even for Silver Oaks...how on earth does anyone at KSU directly benefit financially from a private entity marketing itself to KSU students? And no, I am NO Lefton fan by any stretch of the imagination, but seriously, do we really want the "good old days" where the city and university act like the other isn't really there?!?

You tell us, Jon, how Kent State University hopes to benefit from this deal. Perhaps you know more than we do, since the university's official spokespeople aren't talking.

Most importantly, if KSU didn't have any involvement in this mass eviction, why did Silver Oaks residents observe a big, fancy SUV filled with suit-wearing men, one of whom appeared to be none other than Lester Lefton, cruise slowly through the Silver Oaks property in February of 2011? The residents there are very observant and don't miss much, and they know who Lefton is from reading the newspaper daily, as most of them do. Don't you think it would be nice if the university would actually say what they know about this deal, rather than continuing to issue "non-denial denials"? It is obvious that KSU is the most important business in our city, but it needs to understand that there is still right and wrong, no matter how many dollars are to be made (or saved, now that many dorms have been removed from campus).

Sorry, I don't have every detail, but my main point is that the main relationship between Kent and KSU is FAR better than it ever has been. Does anyone really want to go back to the way it was where downtown is dead and the university has a figurative wall around it? Doesn't mean everything that happens from here on in is going to be stuff we like or is good, but we always seem to have this anti-KSU crowd who seem to believe that *everything* KSU does is evil.

How does KSU benefit from Silver Oaks being student housing? Really, how does it benefit? How does it benefit directly from ANY private student housing? If students choose to live off campus, it's not like KSU gets a cut from their rent. In fact, the only entities that stand to directly gain from any increased property values would be the city and school district; not KSU. Do people really think that evil old Lester Lefton and the KSU trustees went to Silver Oaks to conspire to drive all those old folks out in the streets? Really?

And let me again reiterate: I am NO fan of Lester Lefton and think his raises are a disgrace. That said, I don't see the connection here beyond heresay. If someone has some actual hard evidence to back up the claim that KSU was a player in this (beyond "we saw someone matching Lefton's description at Silver Oaks in February!!") by all means, please present it. Let's get past the emotion and skip to the facts please.

Again, we don't know, Jon--it would be great to have these answers directly from KSU. Your constant use of all capital letters suggests that you are awfully angry about something, perhaps your own eviction which you have mentioned several times now. But you are a third the age of some of the seniors of Silver Oaks, so it really isn't comparable.

My "constant use of capital letters?" Really? I've used them on the word "NO" and once on the word "FAR". It's in place of using italics or bold since they are not available in these comment boxes. If you dig a little online, you'll find it is fairly standard chat protocol to use caps for emphasis. Using all caps for an entire sentence is considered shouting; not one word. Please do not try to read emotions into my comments that are not there. I am trying to get the emotion *OUT* (all caps for emphasis!) of this whole debate. Most of what I'm reading is about this "evil" company that is deliberately out to hurt senior citizens and all these charges towards KSU that have nothing beyond heresay.

"Again, we don't know, Jon--it would be great to have these answers directly from KSU."

If we don't know, then that's all we can say instead of wildly speculating and generating even more anger. And does anyone really think KSU is going to say anything beyond what they've already said, which is that they had nothing to do with the sale? What if it's true? I'm just not seeing how Capstone buying this and investing in it benefits KSU directly in any way, especially since it won't even be available to students until Summer 2012.

And speaking as someone who was in college relatively recently, KSU closing dorms isn't the cause of this. The closure of dorms is a result of the changing market for student housing and the cost to renovate dorms. When students look at overall costs and benefits, living in an apartment or house near campus--with your own bathroom, kitchen, and in some cases washer and dryer--is often more favorable in terms of cost and freedom than living in the typical dorm rooms on campus. Even if KSU built a whole bunch of new dorms, chances are they wouldn't be able to compete with most of the apartments near campus.