Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Cheers and boos to Toledo City Council - UPDATED

I discussed the City Council votes on numerous issues on Eye on Toledo last night (listen here), and today's Blade also has a recap. So here are the cheers and boos:

CHEERS to Michael Ashford for voting no on the $7.8 million Southwyck buyout plan.

"We are on the hook for $7.8 million, and he (Larry Dillin) wants the city to help him with a $17 million plan. We can't afford that," Mr. Ashford said. "He wants a commitment for 2008 and 2009 [capital improvements for the $4 million], which we don't even know yet."

He also questioned why the city of Toledo is the "middleman" buying private property, doing asbestos cleanup, and then selling it to a private developer.

That's a great question, Mike, and it's one I bet didn't get answered. But I - and I'm sure many others - appreciate your take on this one. NBC24 has a good explanation of the requirements the city agreed to - and a copy of the letter of agreement on the deal from Larry Dillin.

BOOS to the rest of council, especially the Republicans, who seem to think this is what constitutes economic development while they perpetuate other policies and taxation that make this city 'not business friendly.'

CHEERS again to Michael Ashford for voting against spending $35,000 to hire a company to survey 800 Toledoans about their budget priorities, especially considering the fact that both the University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University have the ability to do the same thing for considerably less.

BOOS to the 10 council members who voted in favor of the new convenience store licensing law (background here, here, here and here.) According to an email from one of my WSPD listeners, Councilman Joe McNamara called the proposed legislation 'Draconian' and was going to meet with Councilman Rob Ludeman (the sponsor of the legislation) Monday to see about making some changes. Changes were made - some good, some not - and McNamara urged passage of the law which reflected 'minor tweaking.'

Some of the 'tweaking' was not 'minor' and I'll be discussing this tonight on Eye on Toledo at 6 p.m.

CHEERS to Betty Shultz and Joe Birmingham for voting against this.

5 comments:

Timothy W Higgins said...

Maggie,

Personally, I'm still waiting to hear where the 7.8 million is going to come from. Is there a hidden surplus in the city budget that we haven't been told about, or has the city simply reached a place so deeply in the red that spending more just doesn't matter any more.

Maggie said...

Well, Tim - good question!

$1.5 million from the brownfields revolving loan fund for the Dillards store.

Another $1.5 million for the brownfields revolving loan fund for the Montgomery Ward store.

(both these would be repaid without interest for a period of time, although the second one would have interest after 9 months or so)

$4 million from the Capital Improvements Fund between 2008 and 2009. The rest already committed from the CIP for the Reynolds Rd. improvements...

Robin said...

Hmmm... I have a feeling that they will find something else to attach a "fee" to.

Hooda Thunkit (Dave Zawodny) said...

Let's face it, Council, for the most part it completely out of touch with the desires and concerns of their constituents and apparently clueless when it comes to she shell game a.k.a. the fudge-it and city finances.

Thank God for Michael Ashford's lucent decisions, with some occasional help from Shhultz and Birmingham.

Chad Quigley said...

Indeed! What ya'll said is so accurate. The sad thing is, we are now waist deep muck and it will take decades to undo the damage these elected "Leaders" (hack) are doing. I feel for the people that live in the area, I really do. Heck, I live near a lot of stuff that should be "re-done", but I know and they know, there are bigger issues at the moment.

The whole thing just sorta feels "Ram Rodded" don'tcha think?

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