Tricia Lyons threw a tea party and started a revolution.

Among those joining the Toledo resident on the front line is journalist Kevin Milliken, who is set to resign from WSPD on May 15, so he can join Lyons in a run for Toledo City Council.

“Teamwork Toledo” will officially announce May 18 that it is seeking six at-large seats. Also running as part of the team are John Adams Jr., Ty Daniels, David Washington and Michael Watson. If they win, they will occupy six of 12 council seats.

“This is a great group of individuals — honest, hard-working, family-oriented,” Milliken said. “They reflect all that is good about Toledo.

Teamwork Toledo: Bottom row, Tricia Lyons, David Washington, Kevin Milliken. Top row, from left, John Adams Jr. Ty Daniels, Michael Watson.

“With our collective experience and expertise, professional and business backgrounds, and common-sense, back-to-the-basics values, I think we can make a real difference in what is a very unique period in our city’s history,” Milliken said. “These are all 30- and 40-somethings, first-time candidates willing to step forward because we care about our community and what we want it to become.”

In like a lion

Lyons decided to run for office after the Tax Day Tea Party in Toledo, on April 15 which she organized in response to excessive taxes and government bailouts. At that time, Daniels had already been thinking about running for council, and Lyons decided to find four more people to run as a bloc. The goal was to vet people who were fiscally conservative, regardless of party affiliation.

“We are going to have a new mayor and I think it would be great to have six new people on council,” Lyons said.

Milliken said the name Teamwork Toledo is a play off of Mayor Carty Finkbeiner’s Team Toledo “concoction” from his first term in the 1990s.

“It’s a play on words, because we don’t believe Team Toledo is working for the taxpayers,” Milliken said. “It takes true teamwork to make Toledo move forward.”

“We are all running as independents because we don’t want to be tied to either party,” Lyons said, “but we aren’t wishy-washy. We are staunch, fiscal conservatives. We all think we are overtaxed, overregulated, and it is time to get some smarts back into running the city.”

What makes this bid interesting is that no one really knew each other before becoming part of Teamwork Toledo, Lyons said. She met Washington when he gave a prayer at the tea party; she works with Watson’s wife and he spoke at the tea party, and the first time she met Adams was at the tea party. As for Milliken, he was covering the tea party that started it all.

Milliken quickly stepped up as one of the team’s more vocal candidates, leaving behind an investigative reporting career that helped inspire him to step into the race. He said running as a team makes sense because it would cost each candidate $25,000 to $100,000 to make a concerted effort to win, and as independents, they won’t receive money from the big parties.

“If we run as a team, we can fan out our reach and talk to more groups … we are young professionals in Toledo,” Milliken said. “Most of us are parents who want a future for our children. We come from different sections of Toledo. We are trying to reach out to the greater Toledo community. We are one of you guys. We get it, help us help you.”

And just because the candidates part of Teamwork Toledo have never sought office before doesn’t mean “we are naive,” Milliken said.

“We have experienced behind-the-scenes supporters who have run campaigns, who have been candidates in the past, who know political strategy and know what it takes to win a campaign,” he said.

John Adams Jr.

Adams, 33, 3211 Astor Ave., is a lifelong Toledoan who graduated among the top of his class at Libbey High School. Adams is an independent contractor for FedEx Home Delivery.

“I got a phone call from Tricia Lyons, who saw my passion and asked me if I ever thought about running. I said, ‘Yeah, but I don’t know the first thing about running.’ She gave me some encouragement and I said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’”

Normally a Republican voter, Adams said he was one of those people who sat at home and complained. People always told him he should run, in particular “with a name like John Adams,” he said, laughing.

“In the absence of common sense there is corruption,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you use common sense to balance a budget? I can balance my checkbook. I do it every month, and I have been doing it for years and years, and I just don’t understand why these people can’t do it.”

Adams served for several years in the Ohio National Guard, called to duty twice to assist disaster victims across the state. He received an honorable discharge in 1999.

“I believe in morality. I love our Constitution and I respect it and I see a lot of people trampling on it,” he said.

Ty Daniels

Daniels, 42, 1450 Eastgate Road, said he was considering running for city council long before Teamwork Toledo formed.

“I have been thinking about it for quite some time,” Daniels said. “I wasn’t sure about the time commitment, but the police layoffs put me over the edge.”

Born and raised in Toledo, Daniels moved to Pemberville and then graduated with a degree in finance from BGSU. He returned to Toledo in 1990 and is married with two children.

The senior medical sales representative for Meda Pharmaceuticals is fed up with the mayor talking about “crazy things,” he said. One idea that makes him chuckle is turning the Southwyck Mall property into green space for people to bring their horses.

“First, that is a business district, and second of all, who pays for that,” Daniels said. “It would be a park where people could bring their horses to ride? People don’t usually bring their horses to the middle of a busy road; usually they take them out to the country.”

Daniels is normally a registered Republican but always intended to run as an independent. Win or lose, he’s glad to be taking action.

“I am not going to be apathetic anymore and just screaming at the radio and the TV,” he said.

Tricia Lyons

Lyons, 43, 4542 Wedgewood Court, is a single mother of a teenage son who she wants to remain in Toledo. Brain gain, not drain, is what she is promoting for the young people of Toledo.

She organized the tea party because she was fed up with bank bailouts, giving money to private industries and she wanted to have a voice.

“Our government took matters into their own hands and did not give us a voice,” she said. “It is our money and our children’s money that we are going to have to pay back.”

Lyons said it’s asinine to demonize people who earn a good living and to make them pay for other people’s mortgages. Normally Republican, Lyons doesn’t want partisan politics to get in the way of running the city.

“Our current budget is a mess, and there is too much partisan politics going on here,” she said. “If six like-minded individuals come together, we can make a huge difference already, no in-fighting, no left versus right here.”

Lyons is originally from Marion but has made Toledo her home since she was 18. She works as an account executive at Electro Prime Group, an auto parts supplier. She plans to continue working there if elected. Her co-workers are supportive of her political ambitions, she said. It was a natural progression.

“Instead of screaming and yelling and e-mailing, I decided I would run for council,” Lyons said.

Kevin Milliken

Milliken, 42, 5702 Angola Road, is set to leave his job as a morning drive news anchor/reporter at WSPD on May 15 so he can run for office. The Federal Communications Commission forbids a journalist from being on air and covering city government, he said.

“I have been a government watchdog for 20 years,” Milliken said. “In every city I have been, I have covered city government, and watching what has happened over the past three or four years has been gnawing at me. If I get the door slammed in my face as a journalist, what are taxpayers going through?”

When Teamwork Toledo formed, it forced him to think. “Are you in or are you out? How strongly do you feel about this? I am a big believer in instinct and what your gut tells you.”

Milliken, a former Toledo Free Press opinion columnist, will work as a freelancer, a voiceover talent and a public relations and marketing consultant. After all, he and his son need health insurance, he said.

His hometown is in Minerva, which is in the Akron-Canton area. He has lived in the Toledo area for 13 years, and late last year, he moved from western Lucas County into the city limits.

“I’m running as part of Teamwork Toledo because I believe our city government has lost touch with its residents and taxpayers,” he said. “They’re supposed to represent us, but somewhere along the way, they decided instead that we answer to them. That’s flat-out wrong.”

Milliken is normally a Democrat who is a “fiscal conservative with a social conscience.” He’s only leaving the D behind for this race. Fiscal conservativeness with a social conscience will remain, he said.

“The current budget situation is a great example,” Milliken said. “We’re $21 million in debt; the deficit continues to grow, but all we’re seeing is political in-fighting, back-biting and the blame game. Grow up, roll up your sleeves and sit down at the table and work it out — it doesn’t matter how long it takes.”

David Washington

Washington, 40, 3628 Torrance Drive, was the last to commit to Teamwork Toledo. He didn’t know any of his fellow candidates and only got involved after being approached by Lyons. Known widely as P.R.E.Z. because of his seven years on Yes FM, Washington owns a new business called 4Six3 Media Services, which specializes in audio/music production, voiceovers and copywriting.

His hometown is Cleveland, but he has lived in and around Toledo for the past 20 years. This father is a registered Republican who is fed up with the party doing a lot of nothing and having no direction, he said.

“I’m running with Teamwork Toledo on the foundation of the same general governmental philosophy: less taxes on Toledoans’ backs, less government in people’s lives, less frivolous and irresponsible spending, less dishonorable behavior from our public servants,” he said. “I want to see this city turn back to a place of freedom, a place where businesses will come in and create jobs.”

Michael Watson

Watson, 44, 1634 Amesbury Road, is a Democrat, but is running as an independent because, “I don’t want to be told what to do by the Democratic or Republican parties,” he said.

The truck driver for 19 years has never sought office.

“I spoke at the tea party, and Tricia was talking to my wife. They work together, and that is how it got started,” Watson said.

Watson grew up in Sylvania and graduated from Northview High School in 1983. He has lived in Toledo since 2003. His anger has been building since the start of the refuse tax. He believes Toledoans are burdened with high taxes and fees instituted without the public’s input.

Married with four children, Watson is an army veteran and a member of the American Legion. He served as a tank gunner on a six-year tour of duty, receiving an honorable discharge from the army in 1989. He also is an ambassador for “Freedom Team Salute,” which salutes veterans for their service in the army.

Watson, a man of few words, said his reason for running boils down to one thing: “I don’t like the idea of being told what to do.

Background checks

Toledo Free Press ran criminal background checks in Lucas County and Toledo on each of the six candidates who are part of Teamwork Toledo. David Washington was charged in a 1993 incident with criminal trespass, vandalism and assault. All the charges were dropped, except assault, which was reduced to a peace bond violation, to which he pleaded no contest. He also pleaded no contest to passing bad checks in 1990. He served three days in jail and was placed on probation for one year, according to court records.

Washington said he knew his past would come out. He said he was young and has used his past as “applied wisdom to my life.”

Washington said he has no intention of dropping out of the race because this was all long ago and he has changed.

Fellow candidates Tricia Lyons and Kevin Milliken said they did not know about the specific charges. Lyons said she had no comment. Milliken said, “People make mistakes. Voters will have to decide if that matters.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 10:12 pm and is filed under City of Toledo, Community, Featured.
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