Visit and help test out the new Glass City Jungle

I recently bought the domain Glass City Jungle and have started to post over at glasscityjungle.com/wordpress.

Not everything is finished and there are links to still add as well as some features to install, such as the ability to edit comments as well as many many more awesome plug ins that should make the blog better for everyone as well as more reliable since there will be no more blogspot downtimes.

Commenting is set up to still allow those of you who want to comment anonymousily to do so, so I'd appreciate you trying out the new site so we can see if there are any bugs/issues that need to be resolved. It's a new system for me to learn but? I'm getting there.

Almost all of my old posts and comments have been imported over to the new domain.

:-)

And the winner of the first campaign to lit drop my house goes to...

The Lourdes Santiago for Toledo City Council campaign.

Yesterday two campaign volunteers from the Lourdes Santiago for Toledo City Council campaign stopped by to give me a card/flyer. It is kind of obvious by our front yard that we follow local politics. :-)

So, major kudos to being the first ones to visit over here. Since I know many of the candidates are doing door to door contact/lit drops, I find it strange that my part of South Toledo had not been visited by supporters of candidates or issues.

If you haven't been visited yet? Here is the material I received yesterday:

Back of card

Front of card

For those really into the detail of who published this? I have no idea, it's too hard to read even when magnified but it does state it was paid for by the Ohio Democratic Party.

:-)

Will the campaign finance report error be costly to Anita Lopez?

As you can tell I didn't blog here yesterday, but I did read the story in yesterday's Toledo Blade and the other article the day before.

I don't think this will be a large enough issue that would make people who were already considering voting for Anita Lopez for Lucas County Auditor to decide against it but depending upon the numbers of undecideds, it's possible this could have an influence on the outcome.

While it was a simple error rather than any type of purposeful wrong doing, Larry Kaczala is going to make this an issue, and realistically I think we all know if it was reversed, the same would be done if Mr. Kaczala had been the one to have a finance report error.

I'd also like to point out it would be nice if the campaign finance reports were online. While it would probably only be of benefit to those of us who are really into politics, the media reports on these reports really don't give us enough information to make accurate comparisons.

More local trash talk...

I saw this last night on WTOL and meant to post it:

TOLEDO -- Instant citations are creating instant anger in Toledo. It doesn't matter whether you've got huge piles of trash sitting in front of your home, or just one little box -- if it's there too early, you're going to get a $75 ticket from the city.

City councilman Rob Ludeman says the city has to punish those who abuse collection time, but he also said the city shouldn't immediately be raking people over the coals. "Let's educate the public," he said.

Ludeman doesn't want this issue to turn into a head-butting situation between the council and the administration, or between the citizens and the administration. But it may be too late to win over the citizens. Ludeman said 500 phone calls about the new trash rules poured into city council offices over the past two weeks.

Ludeman says he wants to sit down with Mayor Carty Finkbeiner in the next day or two to see if a six-month educational process can be established -- to warn people about what it'll cost them if they violate the rules.

There's more at the link and...our trash collection day is Tuesday - still no flyer from the City about the discontinuation of alley trash collection.

:-)

Konop plans Barbershop Tour...

From the Ben Konop for Lucas County Commissioner campaign:

Konop to Speak with Citizens about Community Issues at Local Barbershops

Democratic Candidate plans Barbershop Tour focused on listening to citizens’ concerns

(Toledo, OH) – On Saturday, October 28, Democratic candidate for Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop will tour five local barbershops to listen to citizens’ concerns. The tour is as follows:

3:15- Destinee’s Hair and Nail Salon (3248 Cherry St.)
3:45- Annette’s Style Collections (1610 Lawrence)
4:15- Klippers Barbershop (3051 Dorr St)
4:45- Fosters Hair Concepts (1645 Bancroft)
5:15- Kings and Queens (16 Hillwyck Dr.)

“Many candidates have focused on what they think is best for Lucas County,” stated Konop, “but my campaign is focused on observing, hearing, and addressing citizen concerns. The barbershop is where people talk about issues with work, their family and their community. It is my hope that citizens will share their concerns with me and together we can move Lucas County forward.”

Media are welcome to join any part of the tour.

Whole lotta green being spent...

Okay, the post title is a paradoy of the Issue 3 catch phrase, but as today's Toledo Blade points out, both the Tobacco Industry and the Gambling Interests have put a lot of money into trying to sway voters into believing what they are promoting:

Seven racetracks, a pair of Cleveland developers, and a handful of economic development groups raised $17 million as of Oct. 20 toward their effort to pass Issue 3...

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. alone has funneled more than $5.4 million into Ohio's smoking-ban war...

Mark Dansack Media Release on Campaign Finance

From the Mark Dansack for District 46 campaign:

Campaign Finance Reports/Mark Wagoner, fiscal conservative or reckless spender??

Citizens of District 46

"The pre-general campaign finance reports are due today and I think they are worth a comment or two. Do we want or need to have all this money influencing our election campaigns? Should we look toward some sort of campaign finance reform to stop the madness which our elections have become? I think we need to seriously consider changing a system which is tilted so severely toward incumbent office-holders and leaves them in debt to their huge corporate contributors at the expense of ordinary hard working citizens in our state."

Link to Mark Wagoner's reports:
here

Link to Mark Dansack's reports:
here


"It's quite ironic that the self-described fiscal conservative, Mr. Wagoner, lists expenditures of $146,022.15 in his pre-general finance report campaigning for a seat that pays somewhere around $50,000 trying with all his might to dispatch a political newcomer such as myself, considering my report shows expenditures of $6,320.43 over the same period."

"I'm not sure District 46 residents will benefit from such a reckless spending pattern should Mr. Wagoner return to Columbus for an additional two years. I encourage residents of District 46 to investigate this link to Mark Wagoner's contributions here, and take a look at mine as well Mark Dansack contributions here, to determine for yourself whether you want a state representative who is indebted to huge contributors and lobbyists for the next two years or a state representative whose only concern is to be a representative for the people of District 46."

"Take a look and compare. The choice is simple. You can choose a candidate who accepts large donations from numerous special interest groups, and lobbyists representing huge banking, health care, energy, and manufacturing entities; or you can choose a citizen candidate whose only concern will be to help clean up the mess down in Columbus, turn our state government back to the people of Ohio, and get to work on some of the problems that have been ignored over the past decade."

"Citizens of District 46 should ask Mr. Wagoner how he can accept $500 from RJ Reynolds PAC when he "supports" issue 5. Consider his statements that he is a watchdog for energy prices in Northwest Ohio and contrast that with the $3,000 contribution he accepted from the First Energy PAC."

"We deserve to know who our representatives will be working for in the next two years. Let's take it back for all Ohioans. They've had their turn, now it's our turn. Send the power brokers in Columbus a message that our state cannot be bought and paid for."

Mr. Dansack is married to Heather and they live in Monclova Township with their daughters Caitlin and Sophia. Dansack is a legal aide with Gallon, Takacs, Boissoneault & Schaffer in their Workers Compensation Department. He previously spent 18 years working with General Mills, Inc. in Toledo.

Continuing with the coverage of Judicial Candidates...

Today's Toledo Blade features information on Stacy Cook and Michael Goulding.

This continues in the series of articles written by Mark Reiter that I have posted about yesterday

I have interviewed Michael Goulding as well as Mark Davis and Jim Nusbaum, I have talked with Stacy briefly but haven't had a chance to interview her yet. My schedule of who I wanted to interview has been disrupted but I hope to be able to get back on track before the election.

The previous interview for Glass City Jungle readers with Jim Nusbaum can be found here

The previous interview for Glass City Jungle readers with Michael Goulding can be found here

The previous interview for Glass City Jungle readers with Mark Davis can be found here

Michael Goulding, Jim Nusbaum and Linda Jennings have campaign websites that are listed on the side bar for those wanting more information on these candidates.

Joe McNamara mailings to Republicans and East Toledo

This morning I received the scans of the cards that have been discussed by the Dave Schulz campaign who also sent me the copies of the information flyers that were part of a door to door lit drop to East Toledo voters and the card sent to local republicans/independents from the McNamara campaign. So, here they are for you to see and decide for yourself, clicking on the image will give you a larger view. The only thing I altered was I blocked out the postal permit number since I wasn't sure about having that be there or not. I'd also like to see cards that the other Toledo City Council candidates have sent out to both their party members and those not of their party for a valid comparison so if anyone would like to send them to me? I'll post them.

The back of the mailing to Republicans/Independents:



The front of the mailing to Republicans/Independents:




East Toledo one side of the flyer:



East Toledo the other side flyer:



UPDATE: I received a copy of the East Toledo flyer from the McNamara campaign since part of the flyer that Dave had was ripped, it's not an image so I can't upload it here as the others ones are since they are in pdf format. So...I uploaded them to my old personal domain - Inside East Toledo Flyer and Cover East Toledo Flyer.

Imagine yourself winning the lottery....

While I do believe in the power of positive thought, not sure what I think about this article in the Toledo Blade entitled, "Visualizing going to polls boosts turnout rate, study finds":

Lisa Libby, an assistant professor of psychology, says 90 percent of the 77 people who visualized themselves voting from this third-person perspective the night before the 2004 presidential election actually did so.

Among those who used a first-person visualization, only 72 percent went on to cast a ballot.

Obviously this won't work for the over 20,000 people so far here in Lucas County who have sent in absentee ballots...we don't want them to try to vote twice.

:-)

Toledo citizens want wall around jail as promised...

Today's Toledo Blade points out another problem with communication as far as promises made to residents that didn't materialize.

What's interesting is I can't find anything in the Blade archives about this or even a lot of information about when the Toledo Correction Institute was built.

Some material on the actual facility:

TOCI is located on more than 45 acres. The Main Compound occupies more than 16
acres and the Minimum Camp occupies over four acres. The original design is a “high
security”, multi-story “podular” design with centralized core services and an attached administration building. Four buildings are located inside the fence, and one building is outside of the fence. From information provided on site, the Toledo Correctional Camp houses 186 minimum security adult male offenders in a combination of single and double bunked open dormitories.

The minimum camp comprises over 37,000 square feet of space. It is completely separated from the close-security side by a fence.

The ODRC website of July 6, 2004 cited the total construction cost as $90 million, which included construction of the following facilities: Administration Building, Inmate Housing Unit, Minimum Security Camp, Warehouse, Entrance Building and Guardhouse. The Administration Building houses the central plant and support functions.

Hopefully now that the issue has been raised it will be addressed though I agree with George Sarantou and Andy Ferrara that this is most likely an issue that will have to be addressed at the state level.

Dave Schulz and GOP Chairman Reichert to hold Press Conference

This from the Dave Schulz for Toledo City Council campaign:

Schulz & GOP Chairman Reichert To Hold Press Conference On Deceptive And Unethical Campaign Practices Of Joe McNamara


City Council candidate Dave Schulz and GOP chairman Bob Reichert will hold a press conference on Thursday October 26th at 11:15 a.m. at the Point Place Branch Library to discuss more unethical and deceptive campaign practices of Joe McNamara.

Republicans have been calling party headquarters complaining about postcards Mr. McNamara has been sending them because of the implication that he is a Republican candidate. On the heels of the dust up involving the Democratic Party slate card mailing earlier this week, now comes another instance of deceptive and unethical campaigning.


“It begs the question: who is the real Joe McNamara? One day he appears to be Democrat. The next a Republican. We are trying to replace the ethically challenged Bob McCloskey and this guy is taking a page from the McCloskey playbook.”, Schulz said.

Last year McCloskey couldn’t decide whether he was running for election or re-election and now Joe can’t decide what party he belongs to.

Schulz will discuss and detail the hypocrisy and misrepresentations on Mcnamara’s communication to voters.

Who is the real Joe McNamara?

He says he is fighting for our values?

Deception, dishonesty and weasalry are not our values. He tries to deceive Democratic voters and now is trying to fool Republican voters. Mcnamara will do or say anything to get elected.

He says he will fight to help our economy and create new jobs?

Supports Issue 2 that will burden businesses with reporting requirements and subject personnel records to inspection. He also buys his signs and postcards out of state. His deceptive postcards and brochures were bought from a company in Tyler, TX. Real Republicans oppose larding up the constitution with issues the legislature should address.

Strengthen law enforcement?

He has proposed millions of dollars in campaign promises, yet offers no way to pay for them; threatening police, fire and other basic city services. Real Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility.

Cut taxes and control spending?

Proposed tax cuts for fire and police employees and teachers. He offers no way to pay for them. Can you say tax hike on the rest of us to pay for the selected few?

He proposed a spending restraint law but refused to say how he would cut the budget to comply with his proposal.

For those following the Lucas County judicial races...

Today the Toledo Blade highlighted Charles Doneghy who is currently the incumbent Judge running for re-election and Mark Davis who is running as an independent as his opponent.

Yesterday the Toledo Blade focused on James Nusbaum and Linda Jennings.

The buy local issue enters Lucas County politics again...

Today's Blade focuses on Lucas County Commmissioner candidate George Sarantou pointing out that not all of Lucas County Commmissioner candidate Ben Konop's campaign materials have been bought locally:

denouncing Mr. Konop for veering 1,080 miles away from Toledo to hire Designer Graphics, of Tyler, Texas.

As the Blade article mentions this is not the first time the issue of campaign material being bought out of Toledo has been raised. I know we discussed it then but this again raises the question, of campaigns and buying local.

So how do you feel?

A) A candidate should buy local no matter the price
B) A candidate should buy local if the price is close
C) A candidate should buy what is most cost effective no matter the location
D) This shouldn't even be an issue

The Republican Attack on Mark Dansack...

I've seen some of the attack mailings that have come out against Mark Dansack. Basically what they are doing is taking one small statement that Mark made while on the Nookular Option back in July and claiming things like "Mark Dansack has made his position, uh, clear"; "MORE TAXES are in the works - Vote NO on Mark Dansack"; "TaxPayer Alert: Be on the look out for the Mark Dansack Tax Attack...It's Coming".

So, I listened to the interview again, and transcribed the places where Mark Dansack specifically talked about education, as for the attempt to try to make fun of him for saying "uh" or "um" when pausing, that's something that quite a few people, other candidates included do when they are speaking in public. It's really kind of a petty slam, especially if anyone has spent anytime watching our current legislators speak in the House...

What Mark said on July 11th on the issue of education and taxes (which you can listen for yourself here):

We rely soley on the property taxes and time after time the poor citizens have been saying enough is enough and they are voting down these propety taxes...

I'm not saying I personally have all the answers but I am saying we
should investigate this, put some proposals out there and try to lead on the issue...

A male caller: Hi, Mark, I'm listening to what you are saying about education, I'm reading thru your blog and it looks to me you're not proposing any solutions, you just say we need to study and study and study the issues. Mark, we are knee deep in studies, why don't you propose one solution right now for what we can do for education.

Mark responds: Well education and education funding, we need to get away from the property tax sytem of funding education which we have known for the last ten years and I think to ask me to come up with a solution in three months when the entire Republican House, Senate and Gubernatorial people have not been able to do it in ten years is asking a little something. What I'm trying to say is let's move on this, let show some leadership, lets propose something because the way we are doing it now when you have Lake Local Schools who have gone seven levies without passing, you have Maumee School system which has an excellent rating every year and they had to go to the voters twice to get an operational levy passed. It's not working and whether it be a combination of additional income tax, additional sales tax, rolling back certain taxes that been repealed, we have to look at different, different alternatives instead of just pushing the problem off into the future, because that's not working

.

Male caller - Right but at the same time we can't just expect you to get hired to the job and learn as you go, we need solutions.

Mark responds: Well, I would ask what solutions have been proposed in the last two years by any of the legislaters that are in there now?

Male caller - Well that's a question I can't answer, I'd still like to see solutions on your part.

Later in the interview:

Well, if you make education a priority maybe you don't give the top 2% that tax cut, maybe you bring some of that money down and you funnel it to education. I don't want to sound socialistic, which I'm sure I would be accused of by some people but we have to look at...(phone call with question about living wage)

Further in direct response to the claims on Mark Dansack wanting to raise the sales tax on a post written by Mark on his blog he states in the comments:

I'm not sure that additional taxes are absolutely necessary and a 2 cent sales tax represents a regressive tax which hits low income families much harder than higher income groups. I would obviously listen to constituents, although I'd like to look at other plans and I am not sure that many Ohio residents would welcome an increase in the sales tax of that magnitude at least without a corresponding drop in other taxes or fees.

On Conklin and Company Mark discussed education.

These attack flyers and the television commercials that have now come out are not only misleading but a purposeful attempt to use scare tactics, hoping that the residents of District 46 will be naive enough to believe what the Ohio Republican Party is saying about Mark Dansack and trying to allow Mark Wagoner to avoid taking responsibility for this behavior. Let's hope the voters of District 46 will not give that a pass as well...

I'd also urge voters of this area to contact Mark Wagoner and let him know that you don't agree with this type of campaigning, that he should renounce this publicly.

Some additional links of merit for this week

I wasn't able to contribute to this week's Carnival of Ohio Politics but as always there are some very good posts that were submitted so stop on by to see what's being discussed in the Ohio blogosphere.

Also over at the Toledo Journal there is an article on Joe McNamara and Lourdes Santiago that is noteworthy as well as an additional article about the some of the responses to the incident in Ottawa Hills that the Toledo Journal received. I also think the information provided from talking with other local police departments is worth pointing out.

I realize we haven't discussed that here, but personally I believe even if a person crumbled and tossed a ticket out of their window that the level of the physical response from the officer in question was not necessary or appropriate.

Blog it! Toledo, Ebay and more...

This week's Blog it! Toledo is up and at the title link, as always there are some excellent articles in this week's Toledo Free Press so make sure to get your copy today as well as visit their website for some exclusive material that you will only find online.

Michael Miller writes about his search of Ebay for items related to Toledo. I've never had much success at winning things on Ebay, except for the Spongebob square pants belly ring thingy that one of my daughter's wanted. Can't understand why that item wasn't more popular (lol). I'm an admitted fan of Traci Curth's articles in the Toledo Free Press, yet this week when I read her Writers Workshop submission it was hard not to yell out "AMEN! Testify!", Okay I might have actually have done that but I'll leave that up to my neighbors to confirm...

The article written about the Toledo Warehouse District Association is a recommended one, along with this interview with Columbia Gas President Jack Partridge.

I also hope you read this week's Letters to the Editor, as I give an internet wave to Janice and Jason Hill and of course Murphy the Dog...

:-)

Ben Knop receives Toledo Blade endorsement...

Continuing in the better late than never blog coverage category, Lucas County Commissioner candidate Ben Konop received the endorsement in an editorial today in the Toledo Blade.

There is also an interview with Ben in Sojourner's Truth as well as an interview with his opponent George Sarantou. (If the link the the articles becomes inactive they are still available online thru the pdf archive.)

:-)

Bob Vasquez on Nookular Option

I listened this morning while Toledo City Council candidate Bob Vasquez was on air with Don, Bob did an excellent job in sharing his ideas and as soon as the podcast for today's show is up I'll update here with a link. I didn't get a chance to call in since this morning was a rough one health wise but, I did want to get this information out there so that those of you who missed it will have a chance later to be able to hear the interview.

:-)

UPDATE: As promised - link to the podcast of Nookular Option.

Press Release: McNamara Rejects “Trash Politics,”

From the Joe McNamara for Toledo City Council campaign:

McNamara Rejects “Trash Politics,” Demands Answers On City Budget

Across-The-Board Cuts Could Threaten Essential City Services

Toledo, OH – With Halloween just around the corner, the Mayor and Lourdes Santiago are playing political tricks with trash collection. Toledo City Council candidate Joe McNamara will hold a press conference today at 2 PM in front of One Government Center to address this issue and demand answers on the mayor’s proposed budget cuts for 2007.

Despite having announced a compromise on the mayor’s plan to move trash collection times twice in the past week, Lourdes Santiago is holding a public hearing this afternoon to highlight citizens’ dissatisfaction.

“This gives every indication of being a manufactured issue, a manufactured conflict and a manufactured compromise,” said council Candidate Joe McNamara. “Meanwhile the mayor is proposing across the board budget cuts that could undermine basic city services.”

“While the mayor and Lourdes Santiago are pretending to bicker over trash collection times, I want to know if the trash is going to be picked up at all,” says McNamara.

“Why is the budgeting process happening behind closed doors without citizen participation? Where are those public hearings?”