Fine!

It's just after 7 a.m. and I've just finished shoveling last night's layer of snow from my walks and driveway. A fresh layer of salt is down and my property is safe for travel. After all, "You, sir..." must take care of your property. "You, sir..." must have your walks shoveled within 24 hours or the city can fine you.
However, as I shoveled the last of the snow away from the end of my driveway, I noted that on the street, the fresh snow has covered the packed snow and ice from the last snowfall because my street has yet to see a city truck this winter.
Then, of course, there's the prediction of one to three inches of snow tomorrow night, which I anticipate will fall on top of the snow from last night on my street.
So I have to wonder if I can fine the city for not taking care of their property? I'm not asking for much in the fine - maybe just my share of the 3/4 percent.

It's about time

I listened as Tom Schlacter announced the Take Back Toledo PAC on WSPD. In case you missed it, you can listen to it on podcast here. Off the jump, it seems to be an interesting movement, but the jury on this blog is still out as to how good it is.
Their first effort is going to be a recall movement against Mayor Carty Finkbeiner. Good start. As long as it's just that. A good start. Being that this is a young blog, I haven't addressed my opinion about the mayor a lot, but I do think the mayor is one of the big things that is holding this city back. Time and space is prohibitive of going deep into that now. I have other fish to fry in this blog. You'll read more as this effort goes, but Schlacter is right in what he said on WSPD yesterday, the mayor has a little over a year to go in his term, and he does damage to this city every day he's in office -- another year of his administration will just leave a bigger mess to clean. They have my support in this effort.
Now, having said that about the mayor, I have a couple of concerns. First, I don't want this to be simply a get rid of Carty effort. Certainly Carty is a part of the mess, but there are so many others in this mix that their efforts cannot stop at the 22nd floor. Schlacter outlined some broad strokes of a plan beyond a change at the 22nd floor. I hope he and his people follow through on this.
Second, I noticed an article on their webpage titled "A Pantload of Negativity." Anyone who has listened to WSPD knows that the word pantload is a favorite word of Brian Wilson when talking about the mayor. WSPD and Brian Wilson in particular, have a bit of tunnel vision where the mayor is concerned and I think that they spend a fair amount of time just baiting the mayor for the purpose of getting rating boosting sound bites. Certainly, they are a sympathetic medium for an effort such as this, so I see why the announcement was made on WSPD, but my concern is how much involvement WSPD has at the top of this movement. As a business in Toledo, WSPD and Clear Channel can have a place at the table if they want, but I want to see someone besides them running the show.
Those are my concerns. Toledo is a great town, it has a lot of potential, but currently, we have roads that drive like bombed out airstrips, the school system is on academic watch and the police have a one to three day response time to any call that doesn't involve shooting at the time. The city leaders over the past years have allowed this city to slide, and a movement like this is certainly a breath of fresh air. I have a few suggestions as the project continues and I'll be listing them in future entires, and I'll be watching closely as the Take Back Toledo effort continues.

Outside Agencies

Why is it that the mayor can't seem to trust the city to do the city's business? The latest incarnation of his lack of faith in the city is that he wanted to spend $60,000 to hire an outside marketing firm to promote a rolling holiday trash schedule. Thankfully, the city council stood in the way of this latest stupid money decision. Councilmen Tom Waniewski and Joe McNamara both pointed out that they think there are less expensive ways to do this.

Of the $60K, $25K was going for postage. That leaves $35,000 to go to the firm for thinking up mailing out flyers? I find it hard to believe that in all of the city, nobody could have thought of mailing out flyers without the help of an outside agency. The city has an in-house print shop to print the flyers. They already mail out utility bills to everyone who gets trash service. This isn't rocket science.

Then there's the $50,000 bill for an outside law firm to represent the city and the mayor in the Perlene Griffin firing. Here again, the city has a legal department. Why does the mayor think that the city's lawyers aren't competent to represent the city? Councilman Collins said that he thinks the fees should come from the mayor's pocket. Given the back story on the Griffin affair, I agree, unfortunately, state law says that the city has to pay to defend the mayor. However, maybe the council could not approve the money for the use of an outside firm and instead make the mayor utilize the legal eagles that the city already employs. Again, doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

I believe that the outside law firm is already approved, but I look for the mayor to take the same financial high road he took on the Erie Street Market to pay for the marketing firm. I see six marketing projects at $9,999 each on the horizon.

Union issues

In the face of these trying economic times, it boggles my mind that unions seem to be willing to cut off their own noses.

In his latest incarnation of the budget, the mayor proposes three days of layoffs for "nonessential" employees, and the unions are fighting it in court. According to an article in the Toledo Blade, they are filing for a restraining order to stop this because it didn't go to arbitration.

I understand the motivation. Technically, the union is trying to protect the workers' contract, but it seems that effort (like so many efforts that unions make) is quite short sighted. According to what I heard on WSPD yesterday, while the city may not have the legal right to do these three-day layoffs, union officials admit that the mayor does fully have the legal right to do permanent layoffs. What a great idea. Save the three days pay for those non-essential employees and put the city in a position where they have to permanently put some of your membership out of work.

Look at the automaker situation. In spite of the fact that the cost of labor for the US automakers is nearly twice that of their competitors in foreign and transplants (foreign companies who manufacture in the US), Ron Gettelfinger says that the UAW is unwilling to make any concessions. The simplest of economic theories says that if you leave your cost of making your product at an uncompetitive level, you will not be able to stay in business. So, again, save your people some money in the short term, lose them their jobs in the big picture.

Where I work, management put a freeze on overtime. Last year, I made about $7000 in overtime. This year will be considerably less than that, and next year will be lower still. It's a lousy situation that has caused me to find part-time work and tighten my household budget some, but the fact is that I and all my coworkers still have jobs.

A few years back, in my hometown, there was a foundry that went out of business, idling about 200 workers. The six management-level employees went out and found some small manufacturing contracts, put together some financing, bought the building and went about opening it up again. Their plan was to work the floor themselves and make whatever it was the contracts called for. The union said they couldn't do that because they weren't using the union workforce. The new management said that they couldn't afford to do it at that point. They said that if they could develop the business, the union workers would be the first people hired as soon as they were able to hire anyone beyond themselves. The union said that wasn't good enough and went to court. Fortunately, the judge saw things the way of the new owners and didn't put the new company in a position where they couldn't afford to start up. Typical union short-sightedness. They couldn't have what they wanted in the short term and they were willing to kill the potential of having jobs come back down the road. Today, that foundry is still open and is employing about 150 union workers.

What the unions seem to be unwilling to accept about the economy today is that, to quote one of my favorite movies, Full Metal Jacket, "it's a big sh** sandwich and everyone is gonna have to take a bite." The union leaders need to realize that a small bite for everyone is better for their membership in the big picture than putting a smaller number of their people in a position to take a really big bite.

Too little, too late?

City Councilman Joe McNamara held a press conference today to push for a ballot initiative to reallocate the monies from the 3/4% to allow for police and fire classes. Here is 13abc's report on it:

They've also put the entire press conference up on their website. View it here.

On its face, this looks good. After all, I'm all for more police in our town, but there are a couple of things that bother me...

1) McNamara says that a special election would cost $200,000, so it won't hit the ballot until September. So, even if the voters pass it, the police class won't start until the end of 2009, meaning we won't see any new police on the streets until 2010.

2) This is going to take funds away from things like road repairs. We've got so many roads that drive like bombed out airstrips now that I don't think taking away from infrastructure is such a hot idea.

3) I still stand by what I said in yesterday's blog. I feel cheated. During the campaign for the 3/4%, they sold it that if it passes, we wouldn't have to worry about things like this.

The mayor said in a press conference that there wasn't a need for the police class because crime in Toledo is down. I would beg to differ. According to a report by WSPD:

Murder-last year 4, this year 7 up 75%
Manslaughter-last year 1, this year 5 up 400%
Robbery-last year 561, this year 619 up 10%
Burglary-last year 2,565,this year 2,896 up 12.9%
Arson-last year 139, this year 188 up 35%

They also say that rape, larceny and auto theft are down. Rape is a different story, but my criminology minor in college tells me that the other two are due to underreporting. Toledo Police don't have the manpower to come out and take a report when it's just something was stolen. I know this from personal experience. With this in mind, unless someone is turning it in to his insurance, he's not going to make the effort to go make a report just for the record. If they can't turn out to take a report, they certainly aren't going to try to solve the crime, so why bother reporting it?

With these crime stats in mind, I agree with McNamara, we need a police class. However, while this seems like a good plan on its face, it's a lot like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. It's an effort and it's better than nothing, but it's not going to fix the inherent problem. The problem here is a City Administration that spends time and money planting flowers and putting up lights in the name of making the city more attractive to citizens and businesses instead of addressing the real issues. And for those of you who may have missed the meeting, the real issues are that the roads drive like bombed out airstrips, the police have a one to three day response time to crimes that don't involve shooting at the moment of the call, and the school system is on academic watch with the state. Solving those problems will attract more people to live and do business in Toledo than any amount of flowers and lights.

Excuse me, I want my 3/4% back

Dear City of Toledo,

I would like to request my 3/4% back please. When we this was on the ballot, you told us that without it, the city would essentially go broke. You said that the city could go into receivership and the state would take over running things (although, at this point, how much worse could they do?). You said that there would have to be reductions in Police and Fire services. You promised us that if we passed the 3/4% tax, you wouldn't have to reduce services, you wouldn't have to reduce police and fire.

So we passed it.

Now, on my way into work, I hear that the city is looking at laying off people, cutting back services and that they're not going to have a police or fire class in the upcoming year. For those of you keeping score, that means that by attrition (retirements, etc.) there will be reductions in the police and fire departments. I heard sound bites from councilmen saying that it will be harder to get things done in the city because there won't be as many people to do things.

I've only needed the police in my neighborhood a couple of times. Once when my garage got broken into -- they wouldn't come. Instead, they told me to stop by a station and make a report in the next few days. The second time was for a problem between a couple of my neighbors that was in danger of becoming a fight in the front yard-- it took four hours. As we lose officers to retirement, etc. in the coming year, with no police class, we'll have even less response.

Fortunately, I haven't needed the fire department.

So, being that the City of Toledo is unable to deliver on their end of the bargain, I would like to request my money back.

P.S.

The Toledo Police Patromen's Association has a suggestion for taxpayers that is posted on their website:

Fees

Last night, 13abc reported that the Lucas County Commissioners are looking at raising the Real Estate Conveyance Fee from $3 per $1000 to the state maximum of $4 per 1000 take a look...

Note in the story that Pete Gerken seems to be for it and Ben Konop is solidly against it. The extra dollar would go to the Lucas County Improvement Corporation (LCIC) which Gerken is in charge of and Konop has been trying to find a way to get rid of. That explains the opinions. So far, Tina Skeldon Wozniak has not weighed in. I'll be interested to see which way she goes, but my guess is that she'll side with Gerken



As much as I hate to agree with Konop, he's right... at least to a degree. If the money is going to go to the LCIC, then don't do it. If it was going for actually doing economic development in Lucas County, then I could probably get behind it.



The woman from the Toledo Board of Realtors opposes it, and she makes somewhat of a good argument. At this point in economic history, raising government fees on anything seems like a pretty bad idea. However, according to the report, it would raise the transaction fees an average of $125 per transaction. On a $100,000 house, the fee would go from $300 to $400. She says that this could cause buyers and/or sellers to walk away. All of the houses I've owned have been in the $100,000 area and the fact is that an additional $100 wouldn't have been a deal breaker for me and I don't think it would be for too many others.



Gerken is right, we need to work on getting jobs to come to Lucas County. However, looking around at the economic development I've been seeing going on here, even before the economy went on the skids, I have to say that giving this money to the LCIC will do little if any more for economic development than setting hundred dollar bills on fire.