Glass City Jungle

Last week, George Sarantou sent a letter to the Editor of the Sojourner’s Truth and provided it to us here on the blog in response to some comments made in an earlier column by the Former Mayor. I say semi-responded because in Jack Ford’s latest My View he does not address what [...]

Recently the Mayor’s office announced that they were proposing that the Toledo Public School system pick up the $600,000 that the City pays to provide School Crossing Guards. As with most things in Toledo not only did this not start out as it was intended, but there is controversy surrounding it. Originally the [...]

As reported in this week’s La Prensa:
Toledo: The Hispanic/Latino Alliance of Greater Toledo met last week at The Twelve Inc., one of its founding members.
Members also include: southend-based founding organizations Adelante, Inc., Aurora González Community & Family Resource Center, FLOC, Northwest Ohio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Sofia Quintero Art & Cultural Center, and [...]

The final article in this five part series is in this week’s La Prensa written by Ramón Pérez. It focuses on GOTV and is as the earlier four articles were a highly recommended article for anyone interested in trying to make a difference, Latino or otherwise.

I heard a little bit about this in talking with one of my favorite people, Leesa Brown, at Roots Camp this past Saturday and I have just received this link to a Press Release via email from the Ohio Treasurer’s Office. At the end of the release there is a link to [...]

This is a post you are going to want to read if you are interested in the budget of the City of Toledo and where some of our money goes. Head on over to her blog, Thurbers Thoughts, and read this post. There’s more to the story that will come later, but [...]

Same great show but at a different time – now on Mondays and Thursday from 6 to 8 a.m. on WXUT, you can listen live at 88.3 fm, or thru the stream or if you are like me and you don’t roll your behind out of bed that early you can listen to the podcast [...]

If you talk to my 12 year old she feels as if life is very unfair right now since her former school system, Springfield Schools, along with most of the other local school systems first delayed then closed. I realize as an adult that Toledo Public Schools is a much larger system and that [...]

I haven’t seen the press release yet, but I heard on Tom Watkin’s Toledo Today that Marcy Kaptur put out a press release on the topic of EITC and it stated that 16 million dollars could have been received by Lucas County taxpayers.
This was a campaign issue during the Lucas County Commissioner race, and was [...]

When you start out reading today’s Toledo Blade it states in the third paragraph:
Construction of a new ship repair building has been put on hold by what is being described as an administrative foul-up that cost the project a $4 million federal grant arranged through U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo), and by Mayor Carty [...]

I read this over on Fox 36 when I was reading a news update on another story:
Toledo residents are encouraged to call 419-936-2020 and talk with City Department leaders with questions, concerns or suggestions they may have about the City of Toledo.
Department Directors, Commissioners and Manager swill be on hand all day to answer calls [...]

I heard this mentioned this morning on Toledo Today but didn’t get a chance to really get into the details of this until now. Cindy at As Ohio Goes thinks it’s a good idea, I agree with Eric from Progress Ohio in the comments at As Ohio Goes, that I don’t think this is [...]

This was one of the most popular sessions at Roots Camp, done by Cindy over at As Ohio Goes, and she is doing more than just talking, she has as promised created a group called:
Ohio Dems Grassroots Sounding Board
Visit her here and sign up…I just did and I hope many of you will as [...]

It appears that Java Gerken is in the majority according to this Toledo Blade article:
…for the eighth consecutive year, Labs are the county’s top breed…
Timely reminder for people to get their tags renewed before the deadline passes on Wednesday, after which it will cost you an additional $20.00. Also as a personal aside, [...]

Before John Irish was on air on Toledo Today on WTOD (1560 am); Ben Konop called in about his press conference at 10:30 a.m. which readers of the blog have had access to the Press Release when it was sent out. Ben also talked about how he was sticking to his campaign promise [...]

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow morning, on 1560 on your am dial, Tom Watkins will be having John Irish, the chair of the Lucas County Democratic Party on as a guest on Toledo Today. (The show runs from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m.) If you want to call in to the show, 1 [...]

This link via email from Karen Shanahan who is a candidate for the District 2 City Council Seat in Toledo Ohio:
K-16 education — a promise to our students and a promise to our future. The email also included links to two previous blog postings and some additional information:

Some blogs you will want to visit writing about Rootscamp:
Jill, over at Writes Like She Talks starts the summary…
Ohio Daily Blog by Jeff Coryell, where he has some notes and some photos. As usual, I don’t photograph well but, there is actually a picture of Miguel in one of them.
Naturally you should [...]

It was awesome to discover the Toledo Free Press awaiting me at my house when we returned home from Columbus. This week’s edition online and in print has quite a few great articles. The Blog it! isn’t up on line yet, so as a temporary measure it can be found here. Karl [...]

The first thing I learned this morning is that Miguel and I have to get out more often, we were so busy talking and enjoying being together that I didn’t even realize we missed the turn we needed to make to get to Columbus. We hit Lima and I realized, “oh shit” we are [...]

In about 6 hours off to Columbus I go to attend Roots Camp, how will the presentation I’m supposed to do go? That we will discover later but, I hope to learn some interesting information to be able to share with you when I return.
Which won’t be till Sunday, hopefully in enough [...]

This Press Release from Ben Konop just in via email:
Commissioner Konop Set to Unveil Ethics Reform Package for County Government
New measures designed to bolster accountability, transparency and ethical standards in public service
(Toledo, OH) In the wake of the numerous governmental ethics scandals that have occurred recently [...]

If you enjoy reading Connie Schultz’s columns, her return today will remind you of why you missed her. If you’ve never read her work? No better time than today to head over. Yes, I am very biased when it comes to my admiration for her and I will never forget being able [...]

I should declare it the theme for the day…But there is more on the Best of Toledo, the theme of Toledo City Paper this week.
I think this is interesting to note:
Toledo, we have to talk. Seems you have some decidedly mixed feelings about Mayor Finkbeiner. You voted him in as both the Toledoan You Love [...]

Continuing with what appears to be top categories for Toledo and Ohio comes this Toledo Blade article:
Law enforcement agencies across Ohio obtained 9,804 items in 2005, valued at $7.9 million, the fifth highest among the states in terms of dollar amount.
Who benefited in the Toledo area? According to the list:
Bowling Green Police Department
Swanton Police [...]

On the heels of yesterday finding out that Toledo was ranked in the 100 best communities to raise young people comes the news that Toledo is ranked 30th-worst among the nation’s largest 100 cities for home foreclosures.
According to the Toledo Blade we at least were not the worst City in Ohio, not much consolation but [...]

The organization, “America’s Promise” just released it’s 100 best communities for young people and Toledo, Ohio made the list. If you would like more information on the criteria, it can be found on their website where it gives you a break down, some of which:
The criteria involve:
Community support of children and youth
Resources children [...]

The individual who most people have visited this blog in the past week from search engines besides people looking for me or this blog have been looking for information on Pastor Michael Pitts. I have to admit this was surprising but a large number of area residents have been googling the net using the [...]

I’ve been following the trial of Michael and Sharen Gravelle which the media has dubbed “the caged kid trial”, since the children were removed from the home. The Gravelles were charged with 16 counts of felony child endangering and eight misdemeanor child endangering charges, they were recently convicted of four felony counts of child [...]

I have mixed emotions on this one, it’s obvious that it was made clear several years ago that there was going to have to be an increase for water and sewage charges. Could it have been done in a better manner to avoid creating the large increase that is being discussednow? You betcha! [...]