Glass City Jungle

I didn’t forget…This week in the Sojourner’s Truth there is the last My View column written by our former Mayor Jack Ford. He doesn’t say if he is not elected if he’ll return to the column, but it’s understandable that he would have to stop writing now that he has become a formal candidate [...]

Given the “victory” as is outlined in this article by the Blade’s Jim Provance, Proposed Ohio strip club law now a ‘touchy’ subject:
Much to the chagrin of the law’s backers, the ballot board sided with the strip club group in mentioning high up in the ballot summary that the state law would preempt conflicting local [...]

Larry Sykes grabbed the headline in this morning’s Blade article, Sykes won’t seek re-election to TPS board, it was assumed by many that since Mr. Sykes had not made a statement nor were there any reports of him pulling petitions or seeking signatures that he was not going to run but now any doubt has [...]

WSPD had the exclusive information as released on air by Michael Miller of the Toledo Free Press, more details will be in the upcoming Toledo Free Press edition from what I understand.
The basic details are the recall effort ended up being around 2,000 signatures short and the decision was made to burn [...]

Those of you who read the breaking news the day that Michael Ashford was voted in to replace Rob Ludeman know it was reported that Chris Redfern was here that day and that the current chair of the Lucas County Democratic Party as well as the former chair of the Lucas County Democratic Party were [...]

This in via email from the Lucas County Commissioners:
DEMOLITION TO BEGIN AT LUCAS COUNTY ARENA SITE
The Board of Lucas County Commissioners and its downtown Toledo partners will kick-off physical demolition at the Lucas County arena site at a news conference on Thursday, August 23, 2007 beginning at 10:30 a.m. at the corner of Jefferson Ave. [...]

This in via email from the office of Toledo City Councilman Frank Szollosi:
SZOLLOSI CALLS FOR TOLEDO/LUCAS COUNTY TO OFFER IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE TO 9 NW COUNTIES DECLARED DISASTER AREAS FROM FLOODING
Intergovernmental Relations Chairman Frank Szollosi called on city and county leaders to make immediate assistance available to fellow citizens in Northwest Ohio put in harm’s way [...]

I love art, I visit the our Toledo Museum of Art on a regular basis and while I don’t have the economic ability to buy any expensive pieces of art, I do have a few reproductions in my home. My favorite piece of all time is The Storm by Pierre-Auguste Cot, a reproduction of [...]

I already expected things at Byrnedale to not be rosy from a numbers standpoint after having read this earlier Toledo Blade article that stated:
The new Byrnedale is designed to hold 551 students in grades six through eight, but it had 639 students in just grades seven and eight during 2006-07.
When I arrived this morning with [...]

Make sure to stop by and check out all of the fantastic bloggers who participated in this week’s Carnival of Ohio Politics. Jill did an amazing job in putting together the summary for what I believe is the biggest carnival thus far.

I’ve just been informed that by a vote of 7 to 4 the new President of Toledo City Council is Michael Ashford….
Updated – Mark Sobczak was the only Democrat did not vote for Ashford – Chris Redfern reportedly met with all 8 Democrats in Council this morning.
Updated 2 – 4:51 – WTVG now has the [...]

On August 19th, the headline for a story on WTVG was “Recall Carty” comes close to goal and it was being reported by WTVG that supporters of the Recall Carty effort were expecting to meet their goal. In this morning’s Blade, Tom Troy’s article, Time may be running out for ‘Recall Carty’ petition brings [...]

After reading the article on the funding issues related to Public Defender’s Office and realizing that part of the issue is the cut in state funding, I became curious as to what other parts of the State of Ohio were doing to address this issue.
First I visited Franklin County where specific information is [...]

This in via email from the Chris Myers for School Board campaign:
Myers Submits Signed Petitions and Issues Challenge to Opponents
Toledo, Ohio. Chris Myers, candidate for Toledo Public Schools Board of Education, submits his signed petitions today and offers remarks about improving our school system.
Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Place: Lucas County [...]

This in via email from the office of Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop:
Commissioner Konop To Accept Final Report of 21st Century Government Committee
Cost Savings, Improved Regional Cooperation Focus of Recommendations to Konop
After working throughout the summer to modernize and challenge the status quo of government, the 21st Century Government Committee will present its [...]

Interesting story and video from NBC24 that if you haven’t seen it yet? I recommend heading over and reading the article about Jim Blue and the Cleveland Underwater Explorers finding the Wreck of the General Anthony Wayne. Those of you who are history buffs, especially of our Lake Erie history will enjoy it.

There has been a great deal of speculation as to would the Toledo Public School Board discuss a levy for the November ballot and if so would the Board vote for or against it. It appears very unlikely that the Board will even vote on the issue of a levy which means no levy [...]

This in via email from the Karen Shanahan for Toledo City Council District 2, another video created for her campaign by Dan Adams, this one is titled: Accentuate the Positive

This in via email from Q3 Development Partners, LLC:

Local Businessmen Challenge Sylvania Recreation District’s Refusal to Accept $1.6 Million Investment
Group led by Jim Jackson wants to create jobs, relieve tax burden on Sylvania Residents
(Toledo, OH) After months of stalling and inaction on the part of the Sylvania Area Joint Recreation District, a local investment group [...]

If you are like me, after you read the article in the Blade, State buying land to deter urban crawl, you probably had more questions about this program and about who the Black Swamp Conservancy group is.
Some interesting information about the Agricultural Easement Purchase Program can be found on their website, which is [...]

Recommended article by Joshua Boak, especially for those of you who are residents of District 2 since you do have quite a few candidates to decide between in the September primary. The article, District 2 contest offers voters range of choices is a brief introduction for those who may not yet be ready to [...]

This in via email from the office of City Councilman Joe McNamara:
Leader Fedor and Councilman McNamara urge action on predatory land contracting practices
State Senate Democratic Leader Teresa Fedor and Councilman Joe McNamara will hold a press conference on Sunday August 19th at 2:00 p.m. at 2901 Tremainsville Rd (Westhaven’s Offices) to urge City [...]

The cover story for this week’s edition of the Toledo Free Press is Kick it! your football preview with lots of great articles that are recommended. Including one by Glass City Jungle’s favorite Sports blogger, Matt Sussman. Karl Rundgren shares some of the “excitement” that goes on behind the camera as well as [...]

This week’s Conklin & Company on WTVG, Lee Conklin was not there, Bill Hormann was filling in and the first guest was new Lucas County Democratic Party Chair Ron Rothenbuhler. Most of the questions surrounded the issue of how can unity be accomplished. Ron Rothenbuhler stated there were some elements to the [...]

This Saturday essay written by Johnathon S. Ross on Tax-financed health care caught my attention for many reasons. My husband’s recent small raise now no longer exists due to an increase in what his portion of our medical insurance costs, in fact he now makes less money from a take home standpoint than two [...]

Let’s pretend that I was a loyal member of the Democratic Party, yes, I know we all know I’m more of an independent at times but I am a registered Democrat. I can for the sake of argument, imagine what the goal should be if, unity was a real and true goal. [...]

After reading the Blade article about the dike break/leakage at Grassy Island that happened over five days ago and is just being reported now even in my illness addled brain, some questions came to mind, so off I set searching for documents from the Buffalo Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I [...]

This in yesterday via email from the Chris Myers for Toledo Public School Board Campaign:
Myers Recommends Standard Measuring of TPS Student “Withdrawals” vs. “Drop Outs”
Toledo, Ohio. Chris Myers, candidate for Toledo Public Schools Board of Education, presents information regarding the TPS current way of measuring student “withdraw” vs. “drop out” and recommends district-wide standardization.

This in via email this morning from the office of City Councilman Joe McNamara:
Council Members Encourage City Employees To Work As Election Officials
As a cost-saving measure in the 2007 budget, City of Toledo officials instituted a furlough program where city employees are asked to take three days off without pay annually. Now Councilmen Joe [...]

The Blade has the basic facts on what happened in court yesterday in the case of Donnell Summers who was accused of being involved in the riot on October 15th but has fought the charges because he stated he was innocent. Since the riot of 2005 there have been several fundraising events in the [...]