About 150 members of the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments (TMACOG) re-elected its officers and added two seats to its board of directors at the 2013 General Assembly held Jan. 29 in Perrysburg.

The TMACOG membership re-elected its 2012 officers to serve in 2013, including Lucas County Commissioner Carol Contrada as chair, Perrysburg Mayor Nelson Evans as vice chair and Fremont City Council member Don Nalley as second vice chair.  Perrysburg Municipal Court Judge S. Dwight Osterud swore in the officers at the meeting.

The membership also approved a resolution amending the TMACOG by-laws to add two seats to the board of directors, one representing Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) in Southeast Michigan and another for Bowling Green Transit. Prior to the amended by-laws, the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA) held the only seat on the board for a transportation organization.

“No matter what happens in Washington, Columbus or Lansing, services still need to be provided to their constituents by cities, villages, townships and counties that are members from Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan,” Contrada said.

“We are the center of the Great Lakes region so we better make sure that we put on our best face as a region,” said Tony Reams, president of TMACOG.

“We have the brainpower for solutions to the problems we face. TMACOG must continue to take a leadership role in the challenges the region faces,” Reams said.

TMACOG also recognized its former chair Kenneth Fallows for extraordinary service to the organization. Reams said Fallows was an outstanding ambassador for TMACOG for many years, making TMACOG a force on the state and federal levels.

“This is really an honor and I thank you,” said Fallows, who called TMACOG “very adaptable.”

Vice Chair Evans said, “We need to retain businesses in our region.” He cited the move of Owens-Illinois from Downtown Toledo to its current campus headquarters in Perrysburg as a recent example.

Another example was the decision by La-Z-Boy to keep its corporate headquarters in Monroe, which was the subject of the keynote address by La-Z-Boy President, CEO and Chairman Kurt Darrow and Monroe Mayor Robert Clark at the TMACOG meeting.

Darrow and Clark related the process by which the company, established in Monroe in 1927, came to the conclusion to remain in that community.

Following the keynote address, individual caucus sessions were held for cities, counties, townships, villages; public schools, colleges and universities; special districts and authorities; and nongovernment members.

TMACOG sponsors many events throughout the year to promote economic development and transportation in the region, including the annual Transportation Summit on March 22, National Train Day on May 5 and the Ohio Freight Conference in September.

Rick Hodges, executive director of the Ohio Turnpike Commission and Fulton county native, will present the keynote address at the Transportation Summit. He will discuss the details of the recently announced Ohio Jobs and Transportation Plan and how it will affect the future of the Ohio Turnpike.

The Transportation Summit will be held at the Holiday Inn French Quarter, 10630 Fremont Pike, in Perrysburg and will feature three panel sessions covering all modes of transportation in addition to the luncheon keynote session.

For more information, go to www.tmacog.org.

Tags: Carol Contrada, Don Nalley, Kenneth Fallows, Nelson Evan, TMACOG, Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, Tony Reams, Transportation Summit

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2013 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Toledo Business Link.
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When discussing Toledo’s competitive advantages, transportation is a key element, from rail, roads and waterways.

As reported by Toledo Free Press Senior Business Writer Duane Ramsey, transportation professionals came from around the state, several neighboring states and Canada to participate in the fifth annual Ohio Conference on Freight in Toledo on Sept. 20-21 and brought to light several interesting points. The conference brought about 160 transportation professionals together to focus on the movement of goods through Ohio and the Great Lakes Region, according to Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments (TMACOG).

“Transportation is the key to economic growth in the U.S.,” Leslie Blakey, executive director of the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors in Washington, D.C., told Ramsey. Blakey said that President Barack Obama supports transportation infrastructure and the American Jobs Act would provide funding for transportation that would positively affect the economy.

Ramsey reported that the conference included discussions of transporting freight by air, highway, rail and water as well as intermodal, which involves more than one of those modes.

“Ohio has a significant geographic advantage for transportation of goods,” Mark Locker, freight and maritime planner for the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), told Ramsey, citing the convergence of air, highways, railroads and seaport modes in the state. “Economic competitiveness in Ohio has resulted in a strong transportation system.”

One of the major topics at the conference involved the shipment of goods from seaports on the East Coast on the CSX and Norfolk Southern rail systems that connect Ohio and the Midwest to those ports, Ramsey reported.

“Both CSX and Norfolk Southern have connections to the Port of Toledo and intermodal projects in Northwest Ohio.

“CSX opened its new intermodal facility in North Baltimore earlier this year that handles moving container freight from train to train, train to truck and truck to train,” he wrote.

CSX is planning a new terminal in Maryland to handle the large volume of freight that comes into the Port of Baltimore. Much of that freight has destinations in Ohio or passes through the state for other locations in the Midwest. Norfolk Southern is developing the Airline Junction intermodal project in South Toledo, which is scheduled for completion by the end of this year, according to company officials.

Another topic at the conference was Ohio’s connection with Canada, which is the state’s largest trading partner, according to officials on both sides of the border. Ohio is Ontario’s second largest trading partner, trailing only Michigan.

The opportunities with intermodal and Canadian freight are not pie-in-the-sky dreams. They are real, money-making paths right in front of us. Regional branches of government need to be in tune with TMACOG and ODOT to make sure the Toledo area is accessing the most of these opportunities.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, Ohio Department of Tranportation, Publisher's Statement, TMACOG, Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, Tom Pounds

This entry was posted on Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 12:00 am and is filed under Opinion, Publisher's Statement.
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