If you’ve ever attended a public government meeting in Toledo, there’s a good chance you’ve seen John McAvoy.

Usually wearing a cowboy hat, he’s involved at several government levels — “a little bit of national, quite a lot of state and a whole lot of local,” he said.

“[Local is] where you can make the difference. You could spend $100,000 on a national election and make almost no impact at all. But, boy, if you spend $100,000 locally, you’re going to make some huge, huge impacts. Of course, I don’t have $100,000 to spend,” McAvoy said with a chuckle.

In 2011, McAvoy served as state coordinator of The Ohio Project in support of Issue 3, which opposed President Barack Obama’s health care bill. He is also one of the founding members of the Northwest Ohio Conservative Coalition (NWOCC), which provides support for smaller conservative groups around the region.

Performance audits are a passion of McAvoy’s, who pushed for Toledo Public Schools to undergo one after the district put a levy on the ballot in 2012.

The father of two and grandfather of “a whole bunch” compared performance audits to a parenting dilemma.

“When my kids come through the door and say, ‘Can I have $20, $50?’ I might give it to them, but odds are good I’m gonna say, ‘What did you do with the last $50 I gave you?’ or, ‘What do you need it for this time?’” he said.

The Ohio Auditor of State offers performance audits. These audits look at the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of programs to potentially make improvements and establish savings.

“[NWOCC] decided to push these because they’re an excellent management tool that’s actually not very well known. What we’re really doing is educating the community,” McAvoy said.

“[The idea to push the audits] started about two years ago. We knew that no one or very few people were doing performance audits so we knew people were going to start putting levies on [the ballot], so we just waited until the levies or the rates started being introduced.”

Public utilities

His latest local drive is pushing for a performance audit of the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) after a potential increase in water rates was brought up. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified $300 million worth of upgrades and replacements needed for the city’s water system. About $260 million of that would be for plant upgrades in the next five years, according to Jen Sorgenfrei, the city’s public information officer.

John McAvoy

“We have not finalized a rate model yet, but based on the timeline needed to address the EPA concerns we would need the rates to take effect no later than January 1, 2014 — however, sooner is better because as soon as we have the rates passed by Council we have the ability to borrow,” Sorgenfrei wrote in an email.

McAvoy said the NWOCC would push for the City of Toledo as a whole to be audited as well.

Sorgenfrei said of performance audits, “We’ve actually been doing benchmarking in public utilities and public service to find communities situated similarly to Toledo (population, attractions, services, etc.) that excel at service delivery, examine how they do what they do, and determine how we can successfully benchmark Toledo services against this.  This has included looking at staff alignment, public education about the services we provide and changing how we go about delivering services to incorporate greater efficiency and better citizen access.

“We’re not ever against examining our performance, but there’s a difference between auditing performance and improving performance. … We’re always looking to do the latter.”

First reading

During a Toledo City Council meeting March 5, Councilwoman Lindsay Webb presented a first reading of legislation to put together a 10-person committee to further discuss the potential performance audit.

Council President Paula Hicks-Hudson said she expects legislation for putting the committee together to pass at the next Council meeting. She also said she believes the committee would be a broad representation of ratepayers in the area.

Hicks-Hudson added that it’s important to balance the potential need for a performance audit with the EPA’s recommendations to move forward at a safe speed.

“I don’t think it’s an either/or. The purpose of a performance audit is to see if there’s a way to do things better, more efficiently, and I think that’s a good thing to do,” she said.

When asked if an audit of the City of Toledo was needed, Hicks-Hudson said she wasn’t sure yet.

“It depends. I think you have to target [specific areas]. … We should look at our systems and make sure we are using taxpayer dollars wisely and being good stewards of it. … But the point is audits cost money, so I think we have to be sure we’re spending those dollars wisely,” she said.

McAvoy estimated that an audit of the DPU would cost about $150,000.

Workplace freedom

On a state level, McAvoy’s next move is serving as state coordinator for the potential Ohio’s Workplace Freedom Amendment, similar to Michigan’s right-to-work law.

“The Ohio Workplace Freedom Amendment guarantees Ohioans have a choice in whether or not they join a labor union and pay dues or fees at their place of work as a condition of employment,” according to the group’s website.

McAvoy said, “This is probably one of the most important statewide issues. We don’t seem to be addressing it; we seem to be knocking the can down the road because we don’t want to hurt people’s feelings.”

“[Workplace Freedom] is top of the list for people coming into the state wanting to set up shop,” he said.

Hicks-Hudson said she’d have to see the amendment to say more, but from what she knows, “I’m on the other side of that argument. I believe that people should be able to associate and that unions do have a place in protecting workers and workers’ rights.”

McAvoy said he became involved in politics about 10 years ago. He partially attributed his interest to his parents. His father was an Irish immigrant and his mother is a second-generation citizen.

“The family did a pretty good job of instilling responsibility and leadership. … They pretty much left us a country that we could pretty much do anything we wanted to in. There were a lot of opportunities as long as you were a responsible person and I see that dwindling away,” he said.

When he’s not attending meetings, McAvoy works with computers, performing process control work in factories. McAvoy is also a Wood County resident, something that he has been criticized for, he said.

“I still own property over here in beautiful Toledo. … That’s usually when people start harassing me. They’ll say, ‘Oh, you don’t even live here.’ I’ll say, ‘Well, there’s a problem here. I pay taxes here, but I’m not allowed to vote here.’ Which even aggravates me more,” he said.

Still, McAvoy said he tries not to get in political fights with people.

“I don’t really fight people. I fight for what I think is right and if you’re opposing me in that, I’m sorry, I’m not going to fight you; I’m going to fight for what I think is right,” he said.

Linda Bowyer, who met McAvoy about four years ago through tea party activities, said, “John is a very personable guy. He really is a nice man and he’s very fun to be around and he’s not hostile. He’s not in people’s faces.”

When asked what she saw in the future for her friend, she said, “I think he wants to be a community organizer. I think he wants to get people involved in their government, especially locally.”

McAvoy said he’s been asked to run for office, but doesn’t want to. For now, he plans to keep attending meetings and being active in the community.

“This has been pretty much a fulltime job on a fulltime job on a fulltime job. I kind of, joking, tell people if you need to have something done … you should find a busy person and give it to them and they’ll get it done,” he said.

For more information, visit http://nwohiocc.com/ and www.auditor.state.oh.us/services/performance/

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Tags: Barack Obama, City of Toledo, Department of Public Utilities, Jen Sorgenfrei, John McAvoy, Northwest Ohio Conservative Coalition, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, The Ohio Project

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 7th, 2013 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Community, Featured, Politics.
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S&L Fertilizer, the company that handles all of the city’s sludge, must hire a consultant to determine the impact the company’s Maumee Bay site might have on the Maumee River and Lake Erie.

As first reported at www.toledofreepress.com on March 12, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has mandated “meaningful water and soil sampling data” through computerized models and sampling plans as a result of numerous complaints surrounding the facility. The company’s consultant would have to hand in results within two years of the contract’s start.

“It’s a legitimate concern; there are good questions being asked,” said Dina Pierce, spokesperson for the Ohio EPA. “Obviously the western basin is a very sensitive area from an ecological standpoint.”

Most complaints have flooded in from N-Viro, the company with which the city contracted prior to switching entirely to S&L.

Councilman D. Michael Collins, who has hammered the agency with records requests for months regarding S&L, shared similar concerns with N-Viro, Pierce said.

S&L has operated under the city’s permit for years but new regulations require that the company apply for its own. The permit is still in the draft stages, and the agency is amending pieces of it based on concerns that emerged during the public comment period, Pierce said. The particular sampling that the EPA will now require of S&L is not standard for all permits of this type, she said.

“The question keeps getting asked over and over and this is an attempt for us to say, ‘Let’s just do it,’” she said.

She pointed out that S&L’s facility takes up only a small portion of the entire island on which it sits. Sampling could also help determine to what extent environmental impact is attributed to the company compared to the entire area, which the Lucas County Port Authority operates. The island has been filled with dredging material for decades, so it is unlikely that any potential problems would be the sole responsibility of the sludge facility, Pierce said.

“We’ve done inspections out there and we see no evidence that there is any run-off getting into the lake from S&L operations,” she said. S&L Fertilizer has leased property on the island for decades, accepting a portion of the city’s waste, mixing it with other materials and sending some remains to the Hoffman Road Landfill. The result is called “Nu Soil.”

Until recently, N-Viro handled Toledo’s bio-waste. The company would take about 50 percent of the waste and mix it with high alkaline products, which raises the temperature and kills E. coli, worms and fecal coliform. The company sent its product to farmers across Northwest Ohio for its fertilizer-like qualities, said Robert Bohmer, vice president of N-Viro.

Terry Perry, the head of S&L, did not return phone calls for comment.

N-Viro produces what is considered a Class A biosolid, while S&L produces a Class B. This means that 98-99 percent of the pathogens have been removed and it is unlikely to spread disease. The city can use Class B material at landfills, but needs an EPA permit to spread it elsewhere.

Once approved, farmers can use it in fields, depending on the crop, as long as the area is restricted from human contact for a designated number of days. Cities can also use the product at places like public parks as long as they fence off the area for a year.

Collins has been researching the stipulations of this rule and trying to verify that all Class B biosolids have been accurately accounted for. A letter from the Department of Public Utilities raised alarm for Collins months ago. It stated that no Class B material from N-Viro or S&L had been delivered anywhere but the landfill. But according to city records, the company made deliveries to Ravine Park in 2007 and 2010.

Pierce said the city filed the appropriate paperwork for the reclamation project to be approved. Other nonlandfill places the mud has gone include the Retirees Golf Course, a private residence and a cemetery.

The city made the deal with S&L on the condition that the company produce at least $200,000 worth of topsoil annually. Collins and council members Lindsay Webb and Rob Ludeman voted against the contract. The city had completed its own testing of the surrounding environment and results came up clean.

Collins insisted that the city ought to employ an independent consultant to test the soil at the facility, but most Council members declined. Council president Joe McNamara, who has called Collins’ investigation into the sludge facility a “crusade,” said he thinks the EPA’s mandate is a relief.  Council had asked an EPA representative to attend council meetings during the decision-making process in the fall, but the agency declined, McNamara said.

McNamara solidly stood by the city’s positive test results and denounced the idea that “testing the mud” for bacteria and phosphorous, as Collins suggested, would prove anything.

“I think that it’s great the EPA has come up with a scientifically sound measure to test if there’s a problem,” McNamara said. “If it discovers something that we didn’t think was happening, we’ll stop. This puts the debate to bed.”

Not for Collins.

“It was in bed and this is now the awakening of the issue. We will now find out what we were afraid to find out if in fact the practice is not safe,” Collins said. “I feel this amplifies a response that council was not willing to do and that was to protect the environment by insisting that a study be done.”

Tags: Caitlin McGlade, D. Michael Collins, Department of Public Utilities, Dina Pierce, Joe McNamara, Lake Erie, Lindsay Webb, Lucas County Port Authority, Maumee River, N-Viro, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Ravine Park, Retirees Golf Course, Rob Ludeman, S&L Fertilizer, sludge

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 9:36 pm and is filed under City of Toledo, Community, Environment, Utilities.
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