A no-win situation, part IV
Written by Michael Miller | Editor in Chief | mmiller@toledofreepress.com
Initially, Carty reportedly told United Way officials he did not object to their failing, near-abandoned building being demolished as long as the organization stayed Downtown. But he has publicly been in lockstep with The Blade and a few patsies in demanding the building be saved, and he finally toured the building Sept. 12.
Leading into the tour, the mayor had engineered a Sept. 9 meeting with three minor preservation groups to demand the United Way board give him up to three years to find a seller for the building.
It is fair to wonder what makes Carty think he’ll be in office three years from now, but that’s off-topic.
At that Sept. 9 meeting, Carty told Blade reporter Kate Giammarise he “plans to put his request in writing today in a letter to the United Way.”
As of Sept. 18, a full nine days later, the mayor has not done so.
Under pressure
A number of people have contacted me to say the mayor pressured the smaller preservationist groups into making the Sept. 9 media appearance. I was told that the groups feel they have to “play ball” with Carty to maintain his goodwill for inspections, demolitions, exceptions and other city services. I guess one man’s “play ball” is another man’s “extortion.”
I spoke with Lonnie Homan of the Vistula Historic Foundation on Sept. 17, and while he chose his words about Carty carefully and did not disparage him, he did express frustration that the mayor isn’t being open with one of his possible motivations.
“I don’t know why he just doesn’t come out and say that this is about tax credits,” Homan said. “That current United Way building could house hundreds of people; their new building only holds 70 or so. The city does not want to lose that revenue.”
If Homan’s theory is correct, that’s some optimistic, albeit shaky, logic on the mayor’s part. Filling the building with taxpaying employees will require more than $10 million in updates, renovations and replacements, according to estimates from architectural firms SSOE and The Collaborative.
Carty vs. the First Amendment
On Sept. 12, a landslide of contradictions descended upon this story, tangling loose threads into a knot I’m not sure I can unravel.
Follow this:
1. Carty’s office notified the media he was taking the tour. When Carty showed up and saw media there, specifically WSPD’s Fred LeFebvre, he balked and refused to continue until the media was excluded. LeFebvre’s full account of the encounter is posted at www.wspd.com/pages/fredl.html.
Carty invited the media, but wanted them excluded when they showed up. Would he have reacted as strongly to anyone but LeFebvre? Only Carty can answer that, but my requests to interview him about this general subject have fallen on deaf ears.
Insert your airport joke here.
2. The building’s original architect, Byron West, accompanied the mayor on the Sept. 12 tour. Although they welcomed him, the United Way says they did not invite him. The Blade’s Giammarise told Finkbeiner spokeswoman Elizabeth Phillips that The Blade invited West to take the tour. West told Toledo Free Press Managing Editor Justin R. Kalmes that the mayor invited him to take the tour. Phillips said she did not know whether or not the mayor invited him.
Why does it matter who invited West? Because West was a clear ringer brought in to preserve the building; he was invited to give The Blade and Carty another preservationist voice, not to make any fair judgment. If the mayor was his host, and any public money was spent to prove this point, that should be known. If The Blade invited West, but he is denying that because being tied to Carty is the lesser of two evils, that should be known. If the mayor and daily newspaper conspired to involve West, that should be known.
If you’re feeling like you’re in the middle of a mediocre Coen Brothers film, welcome to my world.
Of course, muddying the water is part of Carty and The Blade’s mission; burying United Way’s simple and harmless plan under a mudslide of contradiction and controversy is a classic way to redirect the conversation, make people nervous about addressing the topic, and force them to choose sides.
More information
There is, as usual, an important detail The Blade’s coverage has overlooked, or chosen to ignore.
From near the top of her story, Giammarise launches this slanted sentence: [West's] conclusion – that it is structurally sound but needs many costly mechanical upgrades – is similar to that of others who have inspected the building, which the United Way of Greater Toledo plans to demolish.
True, John Block, Ben Konop, Fifth Third Field delayer Paul Sullivan and irrelevant San Diego “urban planner” Michael Young have said that, but that list pales next to the clear-cut opposite views of United Way, SSOE, The Collaborative, University of Toledo, city councilmen Mike Craig and George Sarantou and Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken. To not mention any of those names is to purposefully build an argument for one side.
Here’s more. West, the building’s original architect, has an understandable attachment to the structure. But he has more than an emotional tie; for 30 years, West was on the building’s maintenance committee, a fact Giammarise did not report. That means West bears some of the responsibility for the building’s disrepair, but it can’t be easy for him to admit that he is culpable for his own baby’s failure to thrive. West’s unreported role is another powerful motivation for him to make such puzzling statements as “I don’t see anything unusual for a 40-year-old building.”
Well, if most 40-year-old buildings have earthquake-wracked foundations, blow black dust from the HVAC vents, fail to meet most ADA codes, need a new roof, a new cooling tower, new electric infrastructure, smell of mold from roof leaks and are half-ass cooled by tanks of ice anchored in the parking lot, then, no, there’s nothing unusual about the building.
But, hey, I’m not an architect.
The Big Mac bet
After West’s utterly predictable statements, many of which actually support United Way’s claims, Carty allowed the media to access his findings. And — no shock here — he was even more determined to save the building.
In a moment that shows how far into clownhood Carty has descended, he made another statement to save the building for three years, and said, “I’d be willing to bet a substantial amount of money, $5, maybe, or a Big Mac, that we can sell this building.”
That “levity” demonstrates how far removed Carty is from the gravity of United Way’s dire financial challenge. A half-million dollars each year is being eaten by this building, money that people in this community desperately need, and Carty reduces the situation to a lame joke about a three-year delay he equates with a fast food burger.
In three years, that burger will cost United Way almost $1.5 million, plus escalating building costs.
Some joke, Carty.
It is fair to wonder what makes Carty think he’ll be in office three years from now, and maybe that’s not as off-topic as I thought.
Deck chair arrangers
Block, Finkbeiner, and the people they drag into this mess, would have you believe the building can be saved; it’s just money, right? Technically, sure. Hell, you could raise, fix and re-launch Titanic if you wanted to spend enough money. But as United Way CEO Kitson points out again and again, none of the “preservationists” have any financial solutions, or are offering any money. They’re just getting in the way of a solid, three-years-in-the-making business plan that would add the first privately funded new building to the Downtown landscape in longer than anyone cares to admit.
When Finkbeiner threw a fit and demanded that Kitson ask the media to leave on Sept. 12, it put Kitson in what he described as a “no-win situation.”
I have been told, though I cannot confirm, that people close to Finkbeiner and Block have urged them to let this go, to move on. It really is time to let United Way go about its business, to find more productive places for our energy and resources.
But as long as Block and Finkbeiner treat this topic like a personal toy to be played with, louder and more important voices than mine will continue to rally around United Way and see that at the end of the day, this “no-win” situation will have victors; the people who depend upon United Way.
Postscript: I have spilled about 8,000 words on this subject, but blogger Tim Higgins, at his excellent Just Blowing Smoke blog, beautifully sums the whole thing up in just a few sentences: “The owners, United Way, would like to tear a building down that no longer meets code, that they can no longer fill and that they cannot afford to maintain or upgrade, to build a more affordable building on the same site. [But] in a city where there are lots of empty buildings, there are some people who want to make sure that one more is added to the list. They would like to prevent the group that had a building designed and built for its use, a building that they still own and which no longer fits that use, from tearing it down and building something in its place that they want and can use. That which they seek to tear down is not on any historical register of buildings, nor is its architectural design of any real significance. Its only claim to fame or survival is that it has been there for a while.”
Tim, I’m humbled by the economy of your description.
Maggie Thurber does a marvelous deconstruction of a recent Blade editorial at her blog, Thurber’s Thoughts.
Also, as this epic sprawls on, JR at ToledoTalk.com has started a page () that collects the bulk of the media reporting so far.
