TFP Column: The Best Defense

(Contrary to logic and reason, I have decided to put new material up on this blog, but only in the form of the columns that I have done for the Toledo Free Press.  This is done for the benefit of those with time to waste, who likewise do not spend their time reading the website of this award winning weekly newspaper, and I will go back and add efforts that were published earlier this year.)

This particular effort was published on 6/20/2014.  

One cannot help but wonder if the Blade is adopting a new "best defense is a good offense" playbook in its continuing series on the subject of Glass City blight.  Wracked with well-documented revenue losses and stinging from attacks for outsourcing its production, the timely release of a series Toledo eyesore stories might be seen as the perfect (though rather suspicious) way to deflect attention from its own bad press. 

Taking the side of local YouTube videographer EconCat88, rather than that of the Administration (which it did last time) makes the Blade appear to be on the side of the little guy.  Allying with Councilman Jack Ford (vs supposed Independent Mayor D. Michael Collins) keeps them on the good side of the Democrats who've been in power while all of this blight occurred.  As for indicting a mayor that they've long supported as part of this effort; that's likely to cost them nothing. The mayor was sooner or later going to have to throw the Blade under the bus for their abandonment of downtown, if not for the elimination of union jobs, so the current series could be seen as little more than a preemptive strike. 

Of course the best part of the series is the gift likely to keep on giving for some time. The Blade has presented to City Council a subject not even on the radar screen a month earlier.  Distracting from dismal tax revenue, pot hole problems, and without talking about water and sewer line infrastructure issues that have long since faded from public view; this subject provides new opportunities for meaningless rhetoric, useless legislation, and the potential ability to create another taxpayer-funded study or two that must make it feel like Christmas in June for those is office.

Councilman Ford certainly seems to have discovered his new calling in life, attempting to establish his final legacy by creating another useless city bureaucracy in the form of a 'blight authority' to solve a problem that was just as prevalent when both he and his successor Mayor Finkbeiner were in the Mayor's position (before he attempts to move on to Columbus). After all, there's nothing that can resolve a crisis in short order like another government bureaucrat.

The current Mayor instead would like to deflect a problem that he largely inherited from his predecessors, and instead blame the Toledo Municipal Court and Judge Allen McConnell. Judge McConnell, according to the mayor's recent statement, is dealing with over 500 affidavits filed against blighted properties by the city in just the past year. One cannot help but ask, if the impediment is the Court, why there is no discussion of additional funding and staff for what appears to be an overworked judicial system rather than adding a city bureaucracy. Equally unclear is how the Mayor's proposal of a phone app is going to magically clear the existing judicial backlog.

Wait, this is Toledo (where you'll do better)! Remind me again about how long the 'temporary income tax' has been in place as a way to artificially balance the budget. Tell me again how much were borrowing from the Capital Improvement Budget (far better suited to deal with the issue of blight in the city) and how many years we've been borrowing it.

Better still, tell me why the Blade, already suffering from an image problem on a scale that it never knew existed, hasn't proposed a charity event to raise funds in order to deal with the issue of blight instead of merely reporting on it. Tell me why City Council, having only in the last week rediscovered the issue of blight in the city, hasn't put forth the idea of dealing with the issue on a district level and on a volunteer basis. How about one or more of these elected leaders simply revisiting some of their current budget discussions and making a hard choice as to which is more important to their constituents, swimming pools or blight.

While we're at it, perhaps someone in the editorial department at the Blade might want to do a bit more research on the ownership of 'blighted properties' to make sure that some of those on the list aren't properties owned by … the Blade. While certainly not qualified to preach, I seem to recall a Biblical phrase to the effect of, “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” (Just for the sake of editorial consistency, of course.)

Shame On You Glass City

Not currently being a resident of Lucas County in Northwest Ohio, I probably shouldn't comment on the results of this week's election.  (Such considerations however, have never stopped me before and are unlikely to now.)  It's far too early to know what these choices will mean to much of area, but there are a few things that we probably do know based on the tallies in its largest city ... Toledo.  But before I make a couple of probably inappropriate comments, let me say first and for the record:  Shame on You!

This is not a comment about the choices that you made or didn't make.  (That will come later.)  This is instead a reproach for your continued abominable voter turnout.  D. Michael Collins won the office of Mayor in the Glass City with a 56 percent margin of the 25 percent of registered voters who took the time to perform their civic responsibility.  My congratulations go out to D. Michael for the solid majority of his victory; but for those of you unwilling (or unable) to do the math, I should point out that this means that the city's next leader will take the reins of power with a mandate from 14 percent of the city's electorate.

As for the rest of the city's results, this might well be a special Toledo edition of "Silly Bits".

• With the exception of Sandy Spang, the City Council elections returned enough incumbents, retreads, and familiar names that Toledo may be eligible to receive special recognition from the environmental lobby as a political 'Green City' for its candidate recycling efforts.  Friend and fellow blogger Maggie Thurber thinks this may be an illustration of the "Stuck on Stupid" concept that she coined for so much of what goes on in local government (one that was later co-opted by the lazy lexicographers of the SOS Dictionary here at "Just Blowing Smoke").  I cannot disagree with that discerning assessment, but tend to see it myself as a return to Toledo's "SSDD" philosophy (Same Shit, Different Day), one that has served it so poorly for decades. 
• With D. Michael Collin ascension to the title of Mayor, his City Council position will require that a replacement be appointed by sitting members.  There's a rumor that former Mayor Carty Finkbeiner is seeking that Council position and the chance to join former Mayor and newly elected council member Jack Ford.  For all the hard times that Toledo has fallen on and all those who have abandoned the city for one reason or another (yours truly included, though my departure was not entirely voluntary), certainly there must be someone out there with a pulse that can serve better in this capacity than this former object of municipal embarrassment.  If Carty wants to get more than his retirement pay from the city, let him walk in through the front door of the electoral process by running for office and not try to sneak in through the back door of political favoritism.
• My own efforts in the blogging world and those of many I know, have been relatively silent in their criticism of the Mayor's office during the term of Mike Bell.  You may not have agreed with everything Mike Bell said or did, but it was difficult to argue his selfless and sincere desire for the City's improvement, and the logic of his thought processes.  I suspect that the Collins Administration will not see such peace and quiet remain.  This is nothing against D. Michael Collins personally, as I believe that he's an honest guy who says what he believes.  That being said, I have a suspicion that the direction the city will take is one that some of us with more conservative principles will have something to say on.

I'd like to tell you that I paid attention to the other local races, school board elections, and levies were on the ballot this year, but I was prevented on getting too far by the pay wall recently installed on the website of the daily newspaper.  It was just as well however, as the depressing nature of the results that I was able to gather had me pulling up the covers over my head and seeking the comfort of my bed far earlier that I normally would on an election night.

"When you're a child, you believe that monsters are hiding under your bed. When you grow up, you often discover that same bed to be the only place left to hide from them."
- me 


The good news that one can take in retrospect from the election, for those of us scribbling in the wilderness of politics and looking at the days ahead, is that it seems likely that Toledo will return to being the classic 'target-rich' environment that we've all come to know and love.  I believe that the Glass City's Mayor and City Council are likely to be a lively bunch and one worth keeping an eye on.

But let me end on this the day after the election by saying congratulations to the winners, condolences to the losers, and 'Shame on You' to all of you who refused to give up even the small enough period of your Reality Show schedule, Facebook chatting, and pure laziness to take part in the electoral process.