“Plan B” consists of layoff measures would cut 125 police officers and 32.5 other non-essential general fund positions, some that are currently empty. These personnel cuts are in addition to other cuts that have been proposed to Toledo City Council for approval.

Mayor Mike Bell has proposed $28 million in other initiatives to prevent layoffs, but while the proposals are being deliberated by council the mayor has set plan B in action in order to balance the budget by March 31.

Layoffs would be effective April 15.

Joe Napoli

“When you consider the fact that ticket sales are down across the board during this recession, raising the price of tickets in this environment is a huge mistake,” said Joe Napoli, president and general manager of the Toledo Mud Hens and Toledo Walleye.
The legislation for the proposed tax was sent to council March 5. The bill states that an 8 percent tax should be applied to all admission tickets within the city’s limits. Venues affected by the proposed tax include “indoor and outdoor theaters, cinemas, dance halls, amphitheaters, auditoriums, stadiums, athletic pavilions and fields, baseball and athletic parks, circuses, side shows, swimming pools, outdoor amusement parks and observation towers, race tracks, zoos, science centers, museums and all other similar places,” according to the legislation. The mayor’s office estimates that the tax would bring
$1 million in revenue for the city.
“I think all of us were taken by surprise,” said Ashley Mirakian, director of marketing and public relations for the Toledo Symphony. “We all can appreciate the situation Mayor Bell is in, but anything that would further raise the ticket prices would hurt our attendance, which is already down.”
Entertainment consortium
Many of the entertainment venues have banded to fight the proposed entertainment tax; those efforts have been spearheaded by Napoli and Toledo Arena Sports Inc., parent company to the Walleye and the Mud Hens.
“Joe Napoli and his group have really led the way on this,” Mirakian said. “They have been great about reaching out to all the members who might be affected by this, and it has been really good for us to talk to each other and get on the same page.”
Napoli said that after meeting with the entertainment institutions in the City of Toledo, the consortium came up with a rough figure that 350,000 fewer tickets were sold during 2009.
“That to me is a clear indication that the recession has definitely affected our businesses,” Napoli said.
Napoli said the damage is not limited to ticket sales.
“When you consider that drop in attendance, it also means that there is a drop in other areas as well,” he said. “For us that means a drop in concessions and a drop in souvenir sales, and it has a ripple effect all across the board.”
Toledo Arena Sports Inc. is not the only organization affected by the recession. All of the entertainment institutions in town have felt that sting of economic hardship in the past year.
Ward Whiting, the executive director of the Stranahan Theater, said the theater has not been immune to a down economy.
“Over the past year to year and a half, we have seen a 15 percent decrease in our ticket sales,” Whiting said. “We have also seen a 10 percent decrease in the number of shows that have decided to book a show at Stranahan due to the economy.”
Anne Baker, CEO of the Toledo Zoo, said the zoo was also affected. She said the number of visitors who took advantage of the zoo’s free days increased dramatically last summer.
“People are looking for deals right now, and they are looking for anyway to save a penny in these times,” Baker said. “Adding a tax on to that would just discourage patrons more.”
Debating the tax
Most of the entertainment venues around Toledo have said that such a tax would further decrease ticket sales and have a negative impact on the local economy.
“This tax is just going to make the matters we face worse,” Napoli said.
Toledo Arena Sport Inc. has used the Web sites for the Mud Hens and the Walleye, and its video boards at both Fifth Third Field and the Lucas County Arena, to encourage supporters to voice their displeasure with the entertainment tax. The company has rebranded the tax as a “Family Ticket Tax.”
Napoli said the rebranding is an accurate portrayal of who the proposed tax would affect.
“Eighty-three percent of the people who would be taxed would be families, since they represent the majority of attendants to the sporting and entertainment events,” he said.
Mayor disagrees
“We feel that it is definitely an inaccurate representation of the tax,” said Jen Sorgenfrei, the public information officer for the mayor. “We know Toledo Arena Sports Inc. has to protect their interests, but we are trying to protect the overall community by providing police, fire and other necessary services to the citizens of Toledo.”

Mike Bell

Mayor Bell said he understands that while not all of his ideas are going to be popular, they all are going to help fund basic protection that the city provides to its citizens.
“If we have to make severe cuts that will affect our safety forces and that will affect these entertainment venues as well,” he said. “I have said since day one that we have to figure out what is best for the entire city and not what is best for the smaller groups around town.”
According to the state of Ohio, it is estimated that admission tax collections totaled $24.4 million in calendar year 2007. A total of 66 Ohio municipalities (50 cities and 16 villages) levied the tax.
Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop said he disagreed with the tax proposal, citing a tax would defeat the purpose of Fifth Third Field and the Lucas County arena, which are both owned and operated by Lucas County.
“The whole reason these venues were built is so that families could afford to go to shows and games at both facilities,” Konop said. “There are better ways to close the gap on this deficit without passing it on to the backs of taxpayers who want to enjoy a baseball game or a hockey game.”
Many entertainment venues believe the tax would drive business away from Downtown, which they feel is the antithesis of what the city should be trying to accomplish.
“This  puts one more obstacle in our way to attract people to Downtown Toledo,” said Steve Miller, SMG general manager of the Lucas County Arena and the SeaGate Convention Centre.  “The  point is to bring money Downtown; a tax does not help.”
Napoli agreed.
“If people do not attend a game then that means that they aren’t eating at the restaurants, shopping at the art galleries, or having a drink at the bars before or after games,” he said. “This would be unfair to all of those businesses who have invested in Downtown Toledo if this tax would go into effect.”
Entertainment officials also accused the mayor of not conferring with the institutions prior to the introduction of the tax proposal.
“We found out about this through the media,” Napoli said. “I think in the effort to solve this budget crisis, they threw an idea out there without speaking to the people who would be directly affected by this tax.”
Miller had similar feelings.
“We never were contacted directly by the mayor’s office,” Miller said. “We had to reach out and make that initial contact. Unfortunately we were never given the opportunity to voice our opinion prior to this proposal being introduced.”
Bell said that while the situation could have been handled differently, there was plenty of opportunity for the entertainment industry representatives to voice their concerns.
“I would have loved to have gone out and talked to everyone about this, but I didn’t have that kind of time to speak with everybody who would be impacted,” Bell said. “We have been discussing these issues at several different meetings, and all have been open to the public. So we feel we have been as transparent as we can be, considering the time restraints that the budget needs to be balanced by March 31.”
A compromise?
Since the mayor’s office and the entertainment industry cannot see eye to eye on the proposed entertainment tax, the question is whether some form of compromise can be reached. Initial reception to such an idea has seemed frosty.
“I don’t think a compromise is possible right now,” Miller said. “It may be too early to tell, but I think we are all doing a good job of bringing people to Downtown Toledo to spend money. Any tax, no matter the percentage would be an obstacle to achieving that goal.”
Baker said a tax would lead people to choose venues that would not be affected by the tax.
“I think all this tax would do is drive people to spend their money outside of the city limits,” she said. “There are zoos, movie theaters and arenas that are around here that are not going to be affected by this tax. Why would they patron Toledo venues where they have to pay more?”
Mirakian said any tax would cause music lovers to boycott the symphony.
“We are so reticent to raise prices period, and in fact we lowered our ticket prices last year to entice people to attend the concerts,” she said. “There are plenty of people who would stop coming to the shows if any tax were to go in to place.”
Napoli said such a tax would deepen the deficits of all the entertainment organizations.
“Every organization has said they have had to cut wages, cut hours, or lessen the amount given to 401(k) programs,” he said. “Many of the organizations have said that if they have to absorb this tax they do not know where that extra money is going to come from.”
Bell said he is willing to compromise, but with the understanding that it might mean the loss of jobs at the police and fire departments.
“We can compromise, but that means it starts to affect staffing numbers,” Bell said. “There is no easy solution to fix this. No matter what I do, someone somewhere is going to be affected.”
Legal action
The latest in this saga occurred March 9 when Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken cautioned Toledo City Council that if the entertainment tax were to go into effect, the county would file a temporary restraining order against the city.
Gerken said the county would cite a decision from a 1965 Ohio Supreme Court Case that ruled against Lake County. The case dealt with Lake County’s desire to place a 3 percent tax on greens fees on a golf course that was in the county limits but owned by the Cleveland Metropolitan Park District.
Bell’s administration said this statute does not apply in this case.
“I think Adam Loukx, our city law director, put it best,” Jen Sorgenfrei said. “The case the prosecutor is citing is dealing with entities that have political jurisdiction. The Mud Hens and the Walleye are not entities with political jurisdictions.”
Konop does not share a similar view on any litigation against the city. He feels that any court proceedings would be a waste of resources for both the city and the county.
“I just feel that is wasting tax dollars,” he said. “The whole region is in dire financial straits and this is just spending money that could be spent in other fashions.”
Konop said this matter can be solved through other channels.
“A court proceeding is not the right the way to go. I think this can easily be taken care of through the course of the legislative process,” he said.  “I am still firmly against passing this tax, but this sets up an ugly situation for the city and the county. I think we need to sit down and discuss the situation, if this was to pass, and try and avoid any kind of litigation.”
Sorgenfrei said the mayor and his staff agree, but they will pursue any course necessary to make sure the tax is enforced should it pass.
“I don’t think it will get that far,” she said. “But if it is approved and the county was to put a challenge in court, we would reciprocate that.”

• Number of published issues (including this one): 257.
• Number of pages designed: 12,136.
• Most appearances on the cover: Ben Konop (8), Carty Finkbeiner (4), Mike Bell (4).
• Number of estimated published ads: 24,000
• Number of bands interviewed by Vicki L. Kroll: 270.
• Number of columns by Michael S. Miller: 260
• Estimated number of Miller columns about his kids: 35
• Estimated number of Miller columns mentioning Carty Finkbeiner and/or The Blade: 65

Number of letters received from Blade lawyers: Four.
We’re looking forward to adding to and boosting those numbers as we join you in working on making Toledo a better place to live, work and raise a family.
Well, most of those numbers, anyway.

Thomas Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. E-mail him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.

You may ask, “Nick, where in the world would one find such a brobdingnagian euphoria of entertainment in Toledo, Ohio?”

At 6:03 p.m .on Friday, go to the Village Idiot! Regardless of whether your collar is blue, white, hemp or tattered, you’ll feel at home when you come out for this late afternoon/early evening performance with Jon Barrallie and Bobby May. Their organic jam session consists of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, JJ Cale and many other classics. Bob chops the electric axe while Jon riddles your ears on the acoustic guitar and mandolin to a point where you ask, “how the heck does he do that?” Baffling really – these two musicians stand on stage, alone in Toledo, as the dynamic duo that we need to start our weekend off with some excitement and pleasure. I have heard songs like: Dead Flowers, Quinn the Eskimo, Mustang Sally and tons more that will send the nostalgic flag flying for many of you classic rock lovers.

Bobby and Jon don’t just give you an array of monumental songs; they give you a performance worthy of any stage in this country. When you look at Bobby you think, “David Crosby is that you?” When you look at Jon you may ask yourself, “And you’re in Toledo because…?” Because we need you, Jon! We need a little sunshine on a Friday afternoon. Toledo likes music, too!

The best part about this duo is that they almost act like father and son on stage, experiencing the song as a product of the present and reading the crowd gracefully. They seem to finish each other’s sentences, much as they finish each other’s solos, blending together as musicians should: coordinated, supportive and competitive. You’ll get a sense of classic rock mixed with country bluegrass that by all means should de-bore any musical enthusiast seeking to give his attention, rather than lose his attention, to a couple of hard working performers doing what they do best.

I’ve had a chance to talk with these guys outside of their shows and have never been apprehensive about paying a couple bucks to check them out wherever they are playing. They are extraordinarily nice guys, especially Bobby who loves playing music more than anyone I’ve ever seen, and I find no reason not to support their act. If you don’t believe me, then go to the Village Idiot on Friday because these shows are free! You may even get a chance to talk to the guys and make a few requests. Don’t worry, they know them all.

Recently I sat with Bob as he was packing up his van that no doubt had as many miles on it as he has on stage. My ears were ringing, and the vision of a man packing up his tools of artistic expression with nothing but a huge smile gained my respect. No complaints from Bob, and the only one coming from me was wishing the show had lasted a little longer.

One Red Cross contract up for negotiation is between our very own Western Lake Erie Blood Services Region and its UFCW Local 75 employees. The national Red Cross would prefer to have all its employees, unionized and non-unionized, be covered under the same national benefits plan. An agreement like that, sometimes called a “me-too” plan, would have the unionized workers cede any bargaining rights on health care, and instead accept whatever plan the organization rolls out nationwide to its exempt employees, including any future modifications to premiums, co-pays, and coverage. The Red Cross says a national standardization is part of their long-term strategy to control costs.

The UFCW has proposed instead that the Toledo-area Red Cross workers be covered under its own managed health care program, which would have premiums around twenty dollars a month or sixty for families and would cover about ninety percent of the cost for most services and procedures. According to UFCW Local 75, about 5,000 of its members from other employers are in their coverage pool.

The Red Cross coverage on the table, at least after the last negotiating session under the “me-too” proposal, carries higher monthly premiums for comparable coverage of about $40 for singles and up to $350 for families. The Red Cross coverage would provide about eighty percent of the cost for most services and procedures and a less robust vision plan, though the Red Cross says their program also includes life insurance.

The economy may be taking its toll on wages and benefits across the country, but it’s hard to see how letting the Toledo-area workers participate in UFCW Local 75’s health care plan would be an injury to the Red Cross. The Red Cross still accomplishes its ostensible goal of reducing its cost to provide health care. Even further, the cost of health care benefits and associated administrative overhead for its unionized employees would be zero. Meanwhile, the employees get affordable coverage and vision benefits. As a regular blood donor, I’d prefer that anyone putting a needle into my veins has corrective lenses to give them 20/20 vision.

Complicating the battle for the hearts and minds of the community is the fact that the Red Cross is actually two major enterprises. One half is the disaster relief side, which provides aid and coordination for people and places ravaged by disasters and is funded through donations. The other half is the blood collection side, which is self-funded by sale of blood products to hospitals.

The workers are put in an extremely awkward position. The Red Cross enjoys tremendous goodwill with the American public and around the world, and rightly so. The work done on the ground by Red Cross disaster relief personnel saves countless lives and provides humanitarian care and comfort to those in the most dire straits imaginable. But because of low awareness about the roles of the two halves of the Red Cross, the public is prone to thinking that striking Red Cross blood donation workers in Toledo might be, for example, jeopardizing the recovery effort in Haiti.

This is not the case. Any work stoppage in Toledo will have zero impact on international relief efforts, as the two wings of the Red Cross are independently funded and operated.

A work stoppage will have some impact on the local blood supply, but more in terms of cost than availability. The Western Lake Erie Blood Services Region, like other Red Cross units, has contracts to sell blood products to area hospitals. Since the Red Cross is the primary vendor for blood products in our area, the cost per unit would temporarily go up as hospitals solicited blood products from other vendors. Those cost increases would be passed on to insurers and patients. Rationing would occur and the wait time for less-urgent procedures would also increase while blood is shipped in from farther away, but surgeries would not simply be postponed until a strike ended.

All that being said, none of the UFCW workers I know want a strike. In Philadelphia, Red Cross blood collection employees represented by Teamsters Local 929 were given the same “me-too” coverage proposal by the local Red Cross chapter. The workers went on strike after unsuccessful negotiations, and the Red Cross portrayed the Teamsters as obstructing the blood supply and endangering lives. Public pressure against the striking workers escalated, and the Teamsters eventually broke.

I’m a regular blood donor to the Red Cross, and they can count on that to continue. Placing someone’s life at risk by decreasing the blood supply is not worth making a political statement. But that cuts both ways. It would be just as uncouth for the Red Cross to use the safety of blood product recipients as a club to beat its unions into submission as it would be for unions to obstruct the blood supply. Hopefully the Red Cross, and the community at large, will realize that as well. The Red Cross shouldn’t let a standardization ideology get in the way of the very real benefits to its workers of the coverage the UFCW can offer.

www.grascals.com

Like London’s Evening Star.

Growing up in the UK capital in the 1940s and 50s, we had three competing evening newspapers. The Evening Standard, The Evening News and the Evening Star. And I still remember the Cockney cries of “Star, News and Standard!” coming from news vendors huddled outside every single Underground station in the metropolis.

Then in October 1960, The Star was merged with The Evening News which in turn was folded into The Standard.

Finally…hurrumph…in August of last year, a former Russian spy, Alexander Lebedev, bought The Standard, which had been serving Londoners since 1859, and turned it into a free paper. Which probably makes it a cousin of sorts…

A star of another stripe was heard–rather than seen–in Antwerp, Belgium in 1973 when a friend–who was actually a choral scholar from Cambridge University and should have known better–took me along to a Rolling Stones concert.

The grand finale, accompanied by appropriate pyrotechnics and weird smelling smoke, was a song called “Star, Star”. But the fans, who knew it’s real title, went wild joining in the chorus of the raunchiest song in the Stones’ repertoire…which is sadly unfit to print in this august newspaper. You’ll have to use your imagination!

Another star in the Belgian firmament traces its roots back to 1388 and is still massively popular.

In 1926 Stella (Italian for star) was “married” to Sebastian Artois–a famous 18th century brewmaster–thus creating Stella Artois, now one of the world’s best selling lager beer brands.

The beer is marketed in Belgium today under the line, “My home is where the Stella is”. But we’ve always known it as “Stella for the Fellas”!

Still, Belgium doesn’t have a lock on stars.

Germany also has some. One of them is the “Stern” (or Star) magazine, a popular weekly that began in 1948 and now has over 1 million readers. The Stern became internationally famous–or infamous–in 1983 when it printed the so called “Hitler Diaries” which turned out to be nothing but clever forgeries.

France’s best known star can probably be found in Paris at the confluence of twelve radiating avenues. It’s the “Arc de Triomphe d’Etoile” (Star) which was built in 1833 and at a height of 162 feet is both the world’s largest triumphal arch…and the most blood chilling memorial to drive around!

To travel to Paris from London these days, the best and quickest way by far is the 186 mph TGV train known as the “Eurostar”, which makes the trip between the capitals in a tad over two hours including twenty minutes under the English Channel.

But trains are not the only conveyances with star power.

As early as 1898, the Star Motor Company of Wolverhampton, England was building cars. They were followed in 1903 by the Star Automobile Co., of Cleveland, the Star Societe Torinese de Auto in Turin, Italy in 1905, the Star Automobile Company of Peru, Indiana in 1908 and finally in 1923 the Durant Motor Co. of New Jersey began marketing a car called “The Star” as a competitor for the Model T.

Stars have also been a mainstay of the British-made BSA motor cycles since 1932 with models ranging from Blue Stars, Silver Stars and Shooting Stars to Empire Stars, Royal Stars and Gold Stars. Today, Yamaha has taken up the mantle with their Star brand of bikes.

On this last Sunday night at the Oscars there was certainly no shortage of superstars on the Hollywood stage. But as bright and a beautiful as these earthlings certainly were, they pale in comparison to the cosmic display we once witnessed in the Australian outback near Ayers Rock, our favorite star memory to date.

Following a champagne reception, all lights were suddenly extinguished and in the total darkness a stargazer pointed out the brilliant constellation of stars overhead…some hundreds and even thousands of light years away.

And at the end of the light show, the eerie and beguiling sound of didgeridoo came to us out of the desert…

So today, another “Star is Born” (1937 movie, remade in 1954 and ‘76). It’s big. It’s bright. And it’s beautiful. But the best news is that it doesn’t cost a single penny…and it didn’t take 175 years to get here!

Not only was it a more convenient experience, as I saved 40 minutes of drive time, it was also easier to follow and more informative than being at the meeting since the Board has gone paperless.

The Toledo Board of Education deserves credit for improving public access to its meetings by contracting with WGTE to provide live coverage of this important special meeting.

While watching the virtual Board meeting and reviewing the materials presented, it became obvious that many important questions went unanswered.

What cuts did the TPS administration evaluate?

Did they evaluate every TPS program or service?

What are the costs for all programs provided by TPS and which are discretionary as opposed to statutorily mandated?

Are there any other changes in operations besides those suggested that could improve efficiencies and save taxpayer dollars?

What proportion of TPS students participate in extracurricular athletics?

Has the district effectively matched their reduced student enrollment with the number of school buildings? Are there more schools that should be closed or consolidated?

Besides unanswered questions, it became evident that there was little detail provided by the TPS administration in their budget presentation. All that was offered for some items was a short general description with a dollar figure attached. Cuts in elementary education programs and secondary education adjustments that required additional staff or payments beyond core instruction or programs resulted in a savings of over $4 million.

What are these programs?

How many students are affected by these cuts and in what manner?

Among the final cuts discussed were over $14 million of unspecified contract concessions which made up 36% of the $38 million in budget cuts presented by TPS.

Are the cuts envisioned by TPS administration reasonable concessions to expect employees to make and can these cost savings be realized?

While labor negotiations in Ohio can be behind closed doors, the magnitude of the savings and their impact on students, parents, staff and community demands they be identified.

Without details, just how can this community understand the overall picture and the impact and trade-offs of these difficult decisions? How can our community determine if these cuts are really being made with student interests placed first?

“Trust us” is not acceptable from the TPS administration or the Board of Education in these times of economic difficulty and public cynicism given the poor academic results, corruption revelations and history of indifference to the needs of the Toledo community.

As a taxpayer providing financial support to TPS, I believe every program and service should be evaluated with a cost attached. Every program or service should be identified as discretionary or required to meet statutory mandates. If no evaluation has been done, there should be. If such an evaluation was completed, there is no reason to be shy: show us see the results.

With our local economy in recession, an uncertain recovery date, and personal and governmental budgets on life support, everything has to be on the table and open for discussion. As we sit around this table, one simple principle of shared sacrifice should prevail and be evident to all when the five member Board of Education votes on the final package of budget cuts.

Steven Flagg is a community activist and education advocate. For more information visit TPSINFO.COM.

As we are finding out here in Toledo however, not all the gifts that are given are well chosen, nor are all those received welcome. Oh I’m not talking about the hideous sweater that will never be seen in public, the duplicate blender that will never leave the box, or the rock hard fruitcake that will be discarded without tasting. I’m talking about gifts that are as harmful as they are horrible, as onerous as they are odorous.  For we seem to have discovered that though our mayor-that-was has now left the building, some of the poor decisions that he (and the City Councils that he led) have left us as a parting gifts continue to give in a rather horrific life of their own.

There is no exchange department anywhere where we can take back the bad behavior of the former mayor and get the city back the $150,000 payment that appears imminent in the Perlean Griffin settlement of a discrimination lawsuit, or the $300,000 Dwayne Morehead could be receiving from similarly inappropriate mayoral actions.

There is nowhere to go to get back the thousands of dollars spent on mayoral showers, COSI, and the the Erie Street Market; or the millions spent on a Marina District project that has stalled like a fifteen year-old Yugo with a cracked block and a dead battery.

And then there are those lovely gifts that appear in daily discussions of how the city will climb out of the financial morass that it now finds itself in, the contracts that have been negotiated with Toledo’s unions.

We all remember how the former mayor’s gift of rejected contract terms in a 1995 negotiation led an arbitrator impose even greater costs to the city as a result. We know that this present has for years had the city paying pension pick-ups and health care premiums that no private sector employer grants their employees. That same mayor gave similarly at the office in 2009, balancing the city’s last budget at the cost to every subsequent year with a “temporary” pick up of pension and health care costs by employees in exchange for 6.5 vacation days through the end of the 2009 fiscal year and a 3.5% raise beginning on January 1, 2011. This contract gives even more to Toledo, as fire and police are now eligible for substantial payments for accumulated overtime, sick time, and holiday pay (accumulations again that are far in excess of those allowed to those working in the non-union private sector). And at a time when the city is estimated to be well over $40 million in debt, these payments could reach a cost of $3 million.

There are also less visible but equally troublesome gifts from the former mayor that keep on giving. There is the mistrust between Toledo and its neighboring communities, a situation that will be little helped if laws are passed that eliminate reciprocity for taxes paid by those living in Toledo but working elsewhere. There is the mistrust between Toledo and the unions now being asked to actually sacrifice, but held back by a combination of their own greed and the city’s propensity of for years finding money for anything it wanted in places no one knew about. Finally, there is the mistrust between Toledo and its few remaining taxpayers, who after watching years of greed, ignorance, and fiscal stupidity are being asked yet again to dig into their pockets to pay off the bills of past extravagance on the part of the city’s former first giver.

Oh, before I forget there is one further amusing, but nevertheless expensive gift left behind by the previous administration that gave the incoming mayor little choice but to replace the carpeting in his 22^nd floor office. It appears that the former mayor’s dog Scout left behind some stains from his own little gifts to the city (though perhaps they were comments on the goings on there).

Yes, no matter how much we would like it to be otherwise, some of the gifts that we get in life, especially here in Toledo, just keep on giving.

Columnist Tim Higgins blogs at http://justblowingsmoke.blogspot.com/.

Toledo Free Press contributor Lisa Renee Ward operates the political blog Glass City Jungle.

I am on baby number three and have yet to bring a child into the world who didn’t find carpet lint, cat hair and random pieces of paper as appetizing as bananas and Cheerios . As soon as they could drag themselves across the floor, all three of my children quickly made a hobby out of cramming inappropriate items into their cheeks whenever I turned my head. I was semi-pleased at first when Lucy, my youngest, took the “opt out” approach to pacifiers in her mouth, considering the detox/rehab process that is involved when the addiction eventually takes over completely at two or three years old. However, I soon realized that pacifiers were the one thing that deterred my other two children from completely giving in to their infantile pica.

Their prior obsession with mouthing inedible items became even more baffling once my children started shunning eating altogether. I did just what the experts said regarding food introduction. I offered up a healthy, varied fare and reasonable, subtle encouragement. Such a good start never fails to fail me, however, once my children determine that their mother really likes to see them well-nourished and that they really like to see their mother squirm. Between finding pleasure in holding something over my head, and having trouble squeezing table time into the grueling schedule of a two-year-old, the good eating habits always seem to take at least one hiatus, lasting anywhere from a few days to a few years.

“Your kids put things in their mouth as babies and then refuse to eat as toddlers?” I know, I know; it’s unheard of. On top of the eating issues, my children also don’t sleep. I realize that your five-year-old still takes a two-hour nap after school each day and is still in bed by 6:15 each night, but I can assure you that this is not the case in my house. For reasons that continue to elude me, my children ditch the napping around two years of age and never look back. If we used interoffice memos to convey changes in our home, the sleep one would read:

“Until further notice (i.e., adolescence), I have decided to cease all daytime sleep. The world has proven itself to be a vast, wonderful and entertaining place and I refuse to miss any of it during daylight hours. If you force my missing even ten minutes of it through desperate measure, such as a long, warm car ride, I will be forced to make up the playtime lost by pushing bedtime back from 8:00pm to 11:00pm. Do you really want to risk not being able to watch ‘Lost’ due to the presence of little eyes and ears? I didn’t think so. And don’t think that my dropping my nap will somehow get me to finally sleep through the night. It won’t. So, save me a spot in your big, warm bed, and I’ll see you at 2am. Love, You Kid”

That’s my kid. All of them, actually. Somehow, despite my children all being so different in some ways, they are three for three in many others. Szyperski children put everything in their mouths, need little food and little sleep, respond to baths like they downed a double shot of espresso instead of a calming calamine tea and have at least seven months of brutal teething instead of “a bad night” here and there.

Whether I am creating such creatures or whether they are simply following in one another’s footsteps remains to be seen. All I know is that I am also three for three on kids I wouldn’t trade for anything, not even for sleeping through the night or having the ability to be the one to say, “My kid never did that.”

Shannon and her husband Michael are raising three children in Sylvania. E-mail her at letters@toledofreepress.com.

It was always about attitude and motivation, and the representative from the candy supplier grasped the strategy. Though the candy ambassador differed yearly, the goal remained the same: Get unsuspecting children to develop new needs for worthless toys and new motivation to sell hundreds of candy bars.

The prizes and people changed, but the message did not.

Disgustingly, there must be a group of people thinking Toledo is more gullible than an auditorium full of children enthralled with useless playthings, and to Toledo’s terrible detriment, these people seem to get in elected office with a furious consistency.

One infuriating factor that drew me to budget meetings a few years ago was the proposal of a “temporary” garbage tax.

This temporary garbage tax has lasted longer than scam permanent hair removal methods. Talk about truth in advertising.

While our former mayor and Mayor Bell differ in several obvious ways, the message unfortunately has not. Both proposed drastic measures that are supposedly temporary yet certain to fix our dire situation. Both fed the line that drastic measures are needed to fix this severe problem. Both have placed the extreme and growing burden directly on Toledoans, while alluding to a poor economy as the core problem of Toledo’s fiscal issues.

I’m pretty sure those who have spent us into debt are the root cause.

The main difference in their message is one was occasionally laced with embarrassing comments and an intermittent curse word. The other is suitable for children’s ears.

However, I refuse to accept the premise that one shouldn’t complain about a shake down without a substitute solution. The concept is still public service, not public enslavement. Toledo is not your piggy bank to raid whenever you can’t come up with enough to make the budget.

Toledoans do not work overtime and multiple jobs for your pleasure.

It’s funny that city unions are given the courtesy of serious negotiation while the rest of the city is told to take it and shut up, or do politician’s job and submit an idea.

Who’s getting paid to do what? Do I really pay taxes to fund the salaries of public “servants” so they can in turn tax me more and tell me to come up with solutions if I have a problem with their scam?

Should Toledo take a lesson from the city unions? Just say no to ridiculous new taxes and increases. The majority of city union employees can be easily replaced by overflowing temporary staffing agencies. Who’s going to replace a population that refuses to go along with the Mayor’s fleecing?

The stark reality is irate citizens can easily make any public servant’s world a political hell; refusal to cooperate can make a 4 year term seem like an eternity, and it should when such thieving policies are proposed.

Beyond the fleecing Toledo will be forced to go through, the infuriating action the Toledo City Council has passed with Mayor Bell’s encouragement to recoup any remnant of cash they assume belongs to them is immoral.

Funny. They think our cash belongs to them.

The scam that has generated unrecovered revenue was only for our safety. Intersections without red light cameras were so unsafe it was amazing America survived without these safety machines that just happened to retrieve cash magically.

Alas, the punishment to recover revenue does not fit the crime. If you “owe” the city as little $200, they have granted themselves the right to confiscate your means of transportation. Nationally, even the most unethical debt collectors are probably envious.

Apparently, the safety card has been lost in the pathetic hand Toledo’s electeds have been playing in terrible fashion.

Fortunately, Google returns marvelous search results for removing boots from cars and protecting your license plate from intrusive cameras.

Just pray they don’t find cameras to ticket jaywalkers or anything else in the name of safety.

Toledoans are not gullible children pumped up and falling for exaggerations. We’ve heard the message before all from different mouths, but the fundraiser is unbearable to cash-strapped Toledoans. There is only one answer to this insanity.

No.