Support fire department
Written by Autumn Lee | | news@toledofreepress.comSupport fire department
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Don’t be fooled again.
The numbers from the township on the budget for the fire department are out. The fire department is expected to have a
$1.6 million deficit for 2008. The half-mill tax levy for operations placed on the ballot by the trustees for the fire department will bring in about $740,000. How is $740,000 going to offset a deficit of over 1.5 million? Sounds like fuzzy math to me.
Even if you include the supposed bond levy for capital improvements they say is for the fire department (ballot language does not), another $740,000 still does not equal the deficit numbers. Does this mean more cuts are in store for the fire department, even with the “higher” tax?
Or is this their way to scrimp by until the end of 2008 and then “cry poor” to gut the safe minimum staffing language in the firefighters’ contract and make more cuts?
A solution is at hand. A grassroots citizens committee, “Supporters For a Safe Sylvania,” has placed a 1.5-mill, 5-year basic operations levy on the ballot this November. It is the only one that will properly fund the fire department back to staffing levels before the lay-offs and response-unit closures.
It is the only levy that will work.
Don’t be fooled, vote 1.5 to keep the fire department alive.
MIKE FROELICH, Sylvania
No redskin potatoes
Beaners can do what they want, even if it costs them $1 million to change their name (“Changing Names,” Sept. 23 opinion by Karl Rundgren). That’s what gutless people do. It is time someone stands up for common sense and tells these PC people where to go. I for one, and I believe many, am tired of a few telling the masses what to do! This is PC going amok! Beaners may think they are appeasing many. I hope there are millions who think as I do and boycott these gutless people and bring them to their knees. Where will this garbage end?
The next thing to go will be Red Skin Potatoes. I think Native American Potatoes sounds better. On second thought, let’s ban the word red completely.
MARVIN FOX, Sylvania
Arena naming
Have the team names for hockey and Arena League football in Toledo been decided? I am sad to hear that the public has not been asked for help in this category. I was very proud to see the new arena design incorporate so many features that were suggested by the citizens of Toledo, and believe that this can be extended to the teams as well. By involving the community in every aspect of planning, we will have much more of a vested interest in Toledo sports. With that, the public will be more inclined to attend the events and buy products that they helped to develop.
When I first heard that “The Storm” name would not be used, I felt like it was really a loss for the city. The name was quite unique and creative, especially the fact that it and the mascot, Dukes, were determined through public contests. The only thing that the team had been lacking was a quality logo, and this is something that the Mud Hens could easily fix with their reputation as having one of the best logos in Minor League Baseball.
Aside from retaining the Storm name, one other solution that would be just as widely accepted would be bringing back the Goaldiggers name. When asked, a majority of the fans I have encountered through the years would agree that it would be the greatest thing that could ever be done for hockey in Toledo. Though it may seem like the history of Goaldigger hockey in Toledo may not be nearly as pronounced and nationally known as the Mud Hens, it is just as important to Toledo and the sport itself. There is quite a lot of nostalgia involved with the simple green-and-gold logo that brings people back to the heyday of hockey in this town.
The Mud Hens have taken pride in the heritage of their team, so should they of our hockey team. By changing the name of the team without asking the people of Toledo, I feel as if they do not want to embrace the history of hockey in Toledo. This will not fare well with avid Storm and Goaldiggers fans alike.
The Mud Hens do have a chance to create their own legacy, and that is in the form of the new Arena League football team. This should be their outlet for creative license. Much can be done with this team, especially when introducing it to a community that has never had a chance to experience a game firsthand. While I do not know nearly as much about the sport, I did have one suggestion for a name. I understand that there could be license issues, but I believe that it does not have to be a complete representation of the TV show, as the name would be more of a tribute than a reproduction. I do think it would be fitting to call the new Arena League team the Toledo Mash. What better way to acknowledge something that has given Toledo a positive recognizable status; not to mention, the term just fits with the sport.
I hope that the Mud Hens and Lucas County can take the lessons they have learned with the designing of the new arena and ask the public to help with the naming of the new teams in Toledo. I hope this letter is received by those people who are taking part in the planning process and that some of my suggestions are taken into consideration.
JOSEPH ALEXANDER, Toledo
Tired of the attitude
I have never written a letter to the editor in any newspaper before, but Melanie Flores’ self-righteousness sense of entitlement and blatant disregard for others makes me want to scream. I’m tired of women who have a child and then think that they belong to some all-deserving elite club. These are the same women who believe their screaming child is acting normal and refuse to quiet them or leave the public domain, be it at church, the movies, etc … These women push their wailing children through aisle after aisle of the grocery or department stores and instead of leaving the store will deftly continue shopping.
Newsflash: Being a parent can be an inconvenience. Sometimes, in order to properly care for your child, you may have to stop what you are doing and tend to your No. 1 priority. I saw the news coverage and listened to a phone interview with Flores on 92.5 KISS FM. Not once did she mention the comment “you can’t just throw your breasts out wherever you’d like” that you quoted. She is obviously embellishing for her impending lawsuit. Breast-feeding is natural. So are bowel movements. Breast-feeding is not a lewd or sexual act. It is an intimate act. Your picture inside shows the flesh of her breast with her youngster suckling on her nipple. That is intimate.
Flores made a choice that day to not interrupt her shopping and feed her child in the space provided but to feed her child in a clothing store. She does not care that others may feel uncomfortable in witnessing intimacies of strangers. If she would have been discreet (covering with a blanket) no one would have known and the situation would have been avoided, but clearly Flores bore a child and gained membership to the elite club whose rights and entitlements supersedes that of all others! I hope PacSun and Westfield do not pay her one greedy, red cent!
TAMARA GIRARDI, Toledo
No second chances?
I read Michael S. Miller’s column (“Left flat by tire store,” Sept. 23), and think filming a commercial is way more important than his flat tire. Just kidding.
Customer service is a little shady these days, but I do want to let you know that I have been to the Belle Tire on Secor Road multiple times, and they have top-notch customer service. The sales rep that works there, Tim Phillips, is helpful, honest and has always made me feel very comfortable.
This says a lot, because I am a newly single mom who ranks getting tires, shopping at a home improvement store, etc., right up there with scalding my eyes out with a hot iron. I showed up 30 minutes before closing one night with a spare tire on because my other was flat, and they helped me out. It meant they had to stay open a little late, but they were friendly and compassionate. So, a second chance may be helpful down the road.
STACY KAMINSKI, Toledo
Customer service
Sorry, but as a 63-year-old grandma, I can tell you that the days of the Texaco singing service station guys are over! I had very good luck with the Belle Tire on Secor Road. They repaired a tire for me “no charge” and I didn’t buy the tires there. Guess where I have my oil changes done.
A friend also had very good service and met nice folks at the Midas shop on Alexis Road, and Moses Automotive on Sylvania Avenue. I always suggest these places to those lost in the automotive mire.
Gee, am I making a commercial? By the way, I wouldn’t have been as nice as you.
ELOISE ZARECKI, Toledo
Servicing customers
I am very much in agreement with Michael S. Miller’s article about [customer service]. Similar circumstances have happened to us at other places. Does no one care any longer? Employees will criticize other employees (quite loudly) in front of customers and ignore the waiting customer. They almost act like they are doing you a favor just to wait on you.
I loved the article and I can’t remember laughing out loud to something I read in the newspaper. The 10-people theory is so true. You have done much better in a shorter amount of time.
TRUDY KURTZ, Temperance, Mich.
Belle rung
I can tell Michael S. Miller that from personal experience, the Central Avenue Belle Tire is no better at customer service than the one you mentioned. My wife and my first experience with them was pretty good; we needed new struts put on immediately due to ours freezing in the compressed position, they got us in and finished the car before they closed.
That was our first and last good experience with them.
Since then we have found a new mechanic, who is one of the most honest, straight-shooting mechanics I’ve ever met, by the name of Budd’s Expert on Central Avenue. I hope you print this or a portion of it at least so nobody else has to go through the same BS we did.
P.S. You the Man; it’s about time somebody in the local newspaper business has the balls to stand up to big businesses.
WES WHITNEY II, Toledo
The Jena 6
I start my commentary with the following quote from James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”: “In the generality, white people cannot be taken as models of how to live. Rather, the white man is himself in sore need of new standards, which will release him from his confusion and place him once again in fruitful communion with the depths of his own being.”
Meanwhile, I ask you to direct your attention to District Attorney Reed Walters of the “Old Southern Boys Club,” whose fellow member is now disbarred former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong.
Who prosecuted the members of the Duke lacrosse team? Both men have now been revealed as psychopathic, racial personalities. Particularly, as the Jena scenario shows the hate and spiritual incarceration nurtured by White America’s lack of spiritual leadership.
This is exactly why White America has one type of criminal justice system, and Black America has another criminal justice system.
The late Johnny Cochran addressed the power of the police officer thusly: “The police officer in Black America is more powerful than the Supreme Court.”
District attorneys like Nifong and Walters use their interpretations of the law and act as practitioners of economic apartheid as officers of the court. I define economic apartheid — the use of taxpayer monies to discriminate and/or exploit African Americans.
With Mychal Bell and the other members of the ‘Jena 6,’ Walters has shown the world that American racism is more of a spiritual concern than terrorism in Black America.
CLARNECE GAFENEY, JR., Toledo
