This in from the communication manager of the Red Cross:
Smoke on the Water - Ribs for the Red Cross Proud to Feature Many Local Rib Vendors
In the wake of several media reports, the Columbia Gas Smoke in the Water – Ribs for the Red Cross presented by Key Bank proudly reminds the community that the majority of rib vendors at its event are local.
Confirmed vendors, and their hometown, include:
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It’s clear that the City is facing some economic challenges, and very few would disagree that the storm water control system in some parts of the City is a huge problem. Is the solution though to double the current surcharge from $3.16 to $6.32 per month? That’s what was suggested yesterday by Councilman D. Michael Collins at yesterday’s Committee of the Whole meeting:
“After they collect that and pay down debt service from other things they already have to pay, the city is left with only $1.5 million,” Mr. Collins said during a committee-of-the-whole meeting. “At that rate, it would take 35 years to complete those [$44 million in] projects and that is not reasonable.”
He said doubling the assessment would allow the city to complete the same number of projects in just over six years.
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As I was reading this over on NBC24, my attention was drawn to:
The FDA discovered the Salmonella bacteria strain on a single Mexican-grown jalapeno. They still don’t know if the pepper was tainted there, or during transport to Texas. As the mystery continues, more contaminated food means fewer choices for customers.
So what’s a pepper lover to do? Well my favorite Mexican Restaurant isn’t letting this stop them:
“I am cooking all the peppers, it doesn’t matter. Not only do customers come here to eat, but my family eats here as well too, my children, my grandchildren, so I’m responsible for their health too,” Frank Villa, El Tipico Mexican Restaurant.
I can’t help wondering with only one pepper being found with the bacteria strain, how many others were affected. You’d think if it was a large number the FDA would have found it on more than one pepper…
WVTG’s Kristin Brown talks with a 7 year employee who was recently fired, part of the recommended read:
The Toledo city charter states that employees must reside in the city, unless a waiver is given. The mayor decides who gets them, on a case-by-case basis. But if you don’t get one and you live outside the city limits, you’ll be canned.
Tonya Ayers worked for the city of Toledo for almost seven years. Everyday she would commute from Michigan to Toledo. Until she got the memo. Ayers said, “I’m charged with conduct unbecoming and gross insubordination.”
I can’t say I’m against the idea of residency requirements, my problem with this situation is she was hired knowing she worked outside of the City of Toledo and she worked for the City for seven years. As most of you know, I have a problem with things being selective. Either have the policy and enforce it for everyone? Or don’t have it at all. A waiver policy only is fair if there is some set standard to it…
Another reason I think this is wrong at this time is as the reporting points out, if the Courts rule against city residency requirements, those who are fired can not only win their jobs back but their lost pay…
I loved the Rib Off when it was Downtown, I’ve never been a huge fan of the new location but we still go. Part of the reason is the local vendors. Sure the national guys are great but if you find a really, really awesome taste of barbeque and it’s also local? You can go again and again rather than wait once a year. It was disappointing to read on WTOL that local vendors are being given the run around.
Hopefully some of these vendors will be at Smoke on the Water…It’s very disappointing that the concept of supporting local is not being demonstrated. As a message to the new owners of the Rib Off? It’s not the entertainment as the reason most of us go. It’s the food…
Righttttttt here - www.jimblue.com. His media vlog is a recommended watch.
Welcome to the blogosphere Jim!
With all of the discussion we’ve had on unions and politics, I thought this press release and an earlier Detroit Free Press story might be of interest. The release is titled, “Funny How PowerPoint Technology Comes Back to Bite You, Says Michigan Chamber of Commerce to Byrum & Fisk Firm” it was sent out by the newswire I subscribe to by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce:
LANSING, Mich., July 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — When Byrum and Fisk Advocacy Communications and their employee, Thomas Morgan, were creating a PowerPoint presentation on a government reform ballot proposal back on November 21, 2007, at 4:08 p.m., little did they know it would come back to bite them, reports the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
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Toledo Free Press has the breaking news story, City Launches Investigation of Port Authority on their website. Some of the recommended article:
The City of Toledo has launched its own investigation of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority and the agency’s president and CEO James Hartung, according to a July 21 public records request from the city’s law department.
The letter, from acting law director Adam Loukx to port authority board chairman William Carroll, requests copies of documents that discuss or relate to the Northwest Ohio Legislative Consortium (NOLC), among other things.
If you’d like to read a copy of the actual records request made by the City, the link to the pdf is here .
This in from the office of Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop:
6203 Identical Votes and Counting…
LCIC, wasteful spending continues with Gerken/Wozniak voting bloc…two have voted identically on 6203 out of 6204 (current numbers) votes and 2521 Consecutively
Continuing a disturbing pattern that is emblematic of the problems that hinder our community and block change, County Commissioners Skeldon Wozniak and Gerken once again voted to block a new direction in economic development today and continued their remarkable string of consecutive votes in accord with each other. Amazingly, Commissioner Wozniak and Commissioners Gerken have now voted identically on 6203 out of 6204 votes while they have sat together as Commissioners as well as voting in tandem on 2521 consecutive votes.
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This in via email from the campaign to retain Rep. Barbara Sears for Ohio House:
Ohio Right to Life PAC Endorses State and Federal Candidates
Strongly Urges Pro-Life Members to Support Candidates Committed to a Culture of Life
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) - The Ohio Right to Life Society PAC today announced its endorsements of Ohio’s federal and state candidates.
“This election cycle will dictate the course of our country and state for the foreseeable future. The philosophical direction of Congress and the Ohio House of Representatives hang in the balance. It is an absolute responsibility for the men and women of Ohio’s Pro-Life movement to support those candidates, who support, promote and defend a culture of life.” said Mike Gonidakis, on behalf of the Ohio Right to Life PAC.
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The question raised is should David Yonke blog about religion and is he demonstrating a personal bias. There is some validity to the concerns expressed by Sally Oberski, communications director for the Diocese of Toledo. When you look at Yonke’s blog, that was set up on the website he promotes his book, “Sin, Shame, and Secrets” just one quick look at the religious scandals category shows the only religion he’s focused on has been the Catholic Church.
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Personally I wouldn’t, but a breaking news story on the Toledo Free Press is about videos that Chris Myers from SwampBubbles found when searching YouTube videos on Friday night. I give him kudos for finding them, and for letting the media know about it with the end result of the Toledo Police looking into the videos. I wouldn’t however blog about it because to me providing links to the videos, that’s exactly what these types of people want. Attention. I haven’t watched any of the videos, I don’t have to, I can only imagine what the homeless person who was attacked and urinated on must have felt like.
There’s also a personal safety issue involved here, these videos show people who demonstrate they are violent. They don’t seem like the people that I’d want to have easy access to my personal information, and I personally wouldn’t want them to know that I was the one responsible for their being caught. Call me a coward and call Chris braver than I am, because I wouldn’t place my family at risk. I wouldn’t ignore it, I’d make sure that the proper authorities knew what I found but I wouldn’t blog it, at least not until they were identified. (Then I still wouldn’t share the videos.)
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This in via email from the office of State Representative Matt Szollosi:
TOLEDO – State Representatives Matt Szollosi (D-Toledo) and Edna Brown (D-Toledo) will host a news conference with other state legislators today concerning the ability of employees at the Lucas County Juvenile Court to organize with union representation.
Court employees have voted to form a bargaining unit, but the Court reversed an initial decision and now has stopped the employees’ effort to organize. Reps. Szollosi and Brown have sent a letter to Juvenile Court Judge Denise Cubbon, asking her to reconsider the situation and allow employees to negotiate for better wages and work conditions.
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This information in via email for those of you who are not currently on the email list from Councilman Tom Waniewski:
An update to the Wednesday, July 23rd meeting at Sanger Branch Library….
I will be answering questions about the affect of eliminating roll calls at the northwest district police station, and the facts that lead up to the police chief’s decision.
You’ll recall the July 23rd meeting was intended to bring police and Old Orchard residents together to discuss neighbors’ concerns. We will still do that. However, please note that I am adding information about the district station. I received a lot of calls and emails this weekend on this matter.
Additionally, the University of Toledo will update residents about their new security sirens on campus. I hope you can attend. Please tell a neighbor. Blessed Sacrament area residents are encouraged to attend. Other at-large councilmen will be in attendance. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. sharp.
A quick blog update, when I originally started Glass City Jungle, I only linked blogs that were from this area or were current or former Ohioans. As the blog has continued to grow, it’s become clear that there are other blogs out there that I read that I think you might enjoy as well. Hence the creation of a new category, “Out of Ohio” on the right sidebar. The first blog selected is one that I enjoy reading and has linked my material from my blogs in the past, The Blogging Journalist. One of his articles that he wrote as a guest piece on the Blog Herald back in 2006, is in my opinion, a must read piece for those who are thinking about blogging or who blog.
Other blogs will be added to this list in the days to come…
The cover of this week’s Toledo Free Press is faster than a speeding bullet…more powerful than a locomotive, yes, it’s about the 70th Anniversary of Superman being celebrated at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. Also between the pages of this week’s TFP is an interview with a 15 year employee of the Port Authority, Kelly Rivera Nye who had some interesting items to share, including:
Rivera said she had asked Hartung why the port was paying Teigland $20,000 a month when the other partners in the consortium had stopped paying her. Rivera said Hartung “dismissed me.”
Also of interest is it appears that Jim Mettler is stating he is going to seek civil action against Rivera for some of the things she had to say about him.
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As previously discussed here and as reported in the media, Councilman D. Michael Collins has stated that it costs $83,000 in salary and benefits per sheriff. He’s also suggested in an interview earlier this week on Troy Neff that by just replacing the staff at the door doing the metal detector/searching that $600,000 could be saved. Collins urged the Judge to try this and promised if he was wrong that not only would he be the first to apologize but that he would support the Court fully to restore things the way they were. Judge Kuhlman stated that a savings of $600,000 could not be generated by changing the staff at the door.
Earlier it was stated that Councilman Collins felt that $35,000 could be saved per position by using retired police officers, the normal hourly salary for officers that do off duty work is $23.00 per hour. Using the $83,000 figure (while I know that includes benefits and overtime) and subtracting it from the $35,000 gives us $48,000 which does translate close to $23.00 per hour. This is where I started to think, and to wonder exactly how much savings could be accomplished using the information from both Councilman Collins and Judge Kuhlman. I realize there is some disagreement as to how many men are where, etc., but with my level of math skills, I started working out the following scenario to get an idea as to how much could be saved…
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Bottom line logic, if the City continues to tax us at the present rate of collection, even if they eliminate the “trash fee” the average resident of Toledo will pay more to a private trash collection service than they currently are, especially for those who recycle. Yet, that’s exactly what is being looked at, City of Toledo seeking cost estimates on privatizing trash service.
The City was (as predicted by many of us) taking in more than what it expected for the trash collection fee as reported in May to the tune of an additional $70,000 The same scenario happened last year, when the City wanted to take in 2.9 million and took in over four due to the lack of interest in recycling. Then they stated they “needed” the new amount of 4.8 million.
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I received this email in response to some of the information shared in yesterday’s Blade article, UT students air their worries. The Blade states:
Students remain concerned about a recently introduced budget process that asks colleges and departments to think about how they could move 5 percent of their budget toward strategic initiatives internally and 5 percent toward a universitywide pool for the same purposes.
It was not aimed to reduce budgets by 10 percent, Scott Scarborough, UT’s senior vice president for finance and administration, said.
“There never was a planned budget cut,” he said. “It was always about spending more for advancing the strategic plan.”
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The pdf to this case was sent to me via email, link to full pdf as the decision came down today:
On consideration whereof, the judgment of the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas is reversed. This matter is remanded to said court for further proceedings consistent with this decision. Appellees are ordered to pay the costs of this appeal pursuant to App.R. 24. Judgment for the clerk’s expense incurred in preparation of the record, fees allowed by law, and the fee for filing the appeal is awarded to Lucas County.
