Glass City Jungle

Things are normally slow on the weekends so I’m taking advantage of that to try to do some behind the scenes work on the blog. What was supposed to be an easy upgrade to a higher version of mySQL (the database that runs the blog) has become complicated (there’s a surprise) so I’m basically [...]

For those of you who want to discuss something among yourselves today that’s not been covered recently on the blog, here’s your chance to raise it in the comments and see if fellow readers want to join in.
As always the rules are simple, if more than one topic is broached, make sure your comment is [...]

When it rains it pours from a tech standpoint. The “not found” error appears to have been resolved but the blog is experiencing some server issues. My hosting company is aware of it and are working to discover what the cause is since it’s sporadic. If you post a comment and receive [...]

All members were present – Appointments were done first:
Downtown Parking Authority
Kenneth P. Wood -requires a residency waiver – reappointment
Michael Brinker – reappointment
George Yakumithis – reappointment
Stephen Herwat replacing John Sherburne
Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority
Brian Bucher –requires a residency waiver reappointment
All members present voted yes to confirm.
Resolution – Recognize Toledo Ticket Co. 100th anniversary – Webb and Sarantou [...]

Short story is neither proposed charter change that would have allowed voters to decide how they felt about rules concerning pensions and employment is going to be before voters. There was a very lengthy discussion on this at the July 19 Toledo City Council Committee of the Whole, a brief summary of the discussion [...]

I love Wordpress as a blogging format but once in a while something goes wrong. If you have visited the past week or so and the template for the blog loaded but there was no content and a “Not Found” message – I haven’t quit blogging, there’s something wrong with the behind the scenes [...]

The Ohio Controlling Board (link) approved funding for 180 projects listed on their agenda for July 19. Six of the funding approval requests list Toledo, one lists Lucas County. Since some of you like more details about these projects than is shared in some of the releases sent out by elected officials, below [...]

The FTP server is back up, it’s new and improved – so before Council meets on Tuesday, July 20 some of the items discussed at Agenda Review:
Amend TMC to repeal Sec. 505.14 (vicious dogs) and enact new Ch. 1706 to address local dog issues
The administration made no recommendation on the changes to the TMC [...]

There are moments when I feel as Joe Hallett expresses in his column a few days ago where he asks the question – Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians focused on what matters?. It’s one that has been asked here, more than once and the challenge is to not become so entrenched into what [...]

Unfortunately the City Council FTP server has been down for several days, this is how I am able to listen and to transcribe audio from Toledo City Council Committee meetings, Agenda Review and Council meetings as well as view the Friday packets that are sent to members of Council each week and legislation.
There’s [...]

The following guest post was written by Dr. Edmund B. Lingan to share with readers of the Jungle. I welcome him to the blogosphere and hope you support what he is trying to accomplish:
I would like to introduce my new blog, Midwest Theatre Review midwesttheatre.wordpress.com. I am a professor in [...]

McNamara, Waniewski, Webb, Ashford, Brown, Collins, Ludeman, Martinez present – Sarantou, Steel, Copeland and Craig absent – Copeland arrived shortly after the meeting began.
Resolution – Street Lighting – Ogontz Avenue
Resolution – Street Lighting – A portion of Royer Road
Resolution – Street Lighting -A portion of Belmont Ave. – All three were given SEP
Resolution- [...]

I haven’t listened to the audio from yesterday’s Toledo City Council committee meeting yet, I’ve updated this again and re-published to move it up the page since I have now completed listening and writing notes from the earlier joint Economic Development & Neighborhoods Committee meeting. I know this is long, it’s over 4,500 words [...]

Those in attendance when the meeting began Ashford, Craig, Webb, McNamara, Waniewski, Ludeman present
Collins was in attendance but is not a committee member
Copeland, Sarantou were not present when the meeting began
Sarantou and Steel (who is not on the committee but attended) arrived after it began.
I’ll cut to the chase for those of you not interested [...]

“If it’s wrong, it’s wrong” is something I’ve written on more than one occasion, it’s how I try to stay fair and eliminate as much personal bias as possible. This does create situations, where to my way of thinking, some things should just be common sense. Several things took place during the past few [...]

I rarely go into the trials and tribulations of my personal life on this blog, for a variety of reasons, including many out there are dealing with your own challenges that make my worst day ever pale in comparison to what you are experiencing. So why even broach the topic? My personal life [...]

All members of council were present, a moment of silence was offered because of the death of Larry Kaczala.
Resolutions were offered…
Resolution – Recognize Heroes In Action
Resolution – Recognize 2010 Cotillion winners – Tessa Scott, Santoria Sawyer, and LaKale’a Wilson
Lease of riverfront property from Norfolk Southern Corp. for salt pile, $44,500 Assessed Services Fund
Passed by all [...]

Tired of all of the negativity about the Glass City? Whether you’ve lived here your entire life, moved here and fell in love or ventured away then came back home, for those of you who feel there’s only one great place to call home — Toledo — this post is for you.
As [...]

I learned earlier today that Justice Judith Lanzinger has created a blog, Justice Judy. It is now listed on the sidebar links of “Local Blogs of NWO” and there was a release put out on June 2, on the Supreme Court website.
Justice Lanzinger’s blog is the first of it’s kind, according to [...]

To make it easy for those of you looking for complete details, the proposed rules and regulations can be found on the blog here. Initially Toledo City Council was to be given until the end of business day today (June 2) to make comments with the rules going into effect in a little more [...]

As has been discussed here, and elsewhere on the net, the rules for social media have not yet been established when it comes to many areas of real life versus online life. In this Columbus Dispatch article by James Nash, (link) concern is being expressed that if someone is a Facebook friend with a [...]

We opted to head to the starting point of the rally which created us not being able to get near the Ottawa Hills administration building at the end. It’s hard to estimate numbers but I believe there was over 500 motorcycles who participated. After the last bike was out of view on Bancroft [...]

A statement in support of Issue 5 sent out by Toledo City Councilman George Sarantou and posted here, (link) on April 22, makes it pretty clear what was promised and when:

At the March 30th, 2010 City Council meeting, I asked Mayor Bell to commit to lowering the new trash fee of $15.00 and I [...]

Same rules as last week, you can start any topic you’d like on this blog post to see if others want to discuss it with you on a topic not covered on the blog this week related to politics either locally or nationally. Last week’s discussion on the economic problems in Greece started by [...]

Notes from the May 18 Agenda Review, this will not be the complete discussion tonight, but it’s the beginning part of what took place. All members of Council were present.
Amend TMC Sec. 963.03(b) to reduce the monthly Refuse Collection Fee to $10.00/$5.00 for seniors
18,800 residents would qualify for the homestead exemption ($5.00)
Collins [...]

I’m off to work in bit which means I won’t be updating any news stories until much later today. Since there are times stories come up on Thursday’s that some of you e-mail about, here’s your chance to share something that happened today or that I haven’t covered yet this week.
The ground rules are [...]

Trisha Birmingham Moore stated she was wrongfully terminated for making “two stupid comments” on Facebook as reported by the Blade (link). Privacy and Facebook has been a raging topic out there. I believe your privacy is only as private as your friends (or those pretending to be friends) grant you. Even [...]

Nine members of Council were present when the meeting began, Ludeman, McNamara, Sarantou, Steel, Waniewski, Brown, Collins, Copeland and Craig most of the discussion for items before Council took place at the May 4 Agenda Review covered

I watched the internet commercial – (link) and I think it’s pretty immature and cheesy. That said, despite some of the media attention on it and the GOP denying they intended any sexual implication, as reported in the Columbus Dispatch,(link) — there’s a blogger twist to this story. Part of the video used [...]

The first part of Agenda Review was a bit out of the ordinary, an agreement was signed between Toledo and Comibatore, India making them one of our sister cities. Some of the history of how the relationship between the two cities connects to the University of Toledo – (link).
First up is legislation [...]