Old TT: Toledo Mayor Jack Ford's State of the City Speech

Good evening, welcome to the Valentine Theater. I thank you for attending or listening tonight. My family--Cynthia, Jessica, Ryan, and Jackie join me tonight.

I am often asked by citizens-- are you having fun? That is the wrong question. The right question is do you enjoy the "public trust" of being mayor. And, the answer is yes, I thank you for the honor of being mayor.

And, we owe thanks to our City directors and my Chief of staff Jay Black.

And I want to acknowledge our City Council led by new President Louis Escobar.

My first year as Mayor has been both humbling and gratifying.

Many of you have graciously responded to my calls for assistance. Let me thank the many business leaders who have given advice and support to this administration.

Particularly, I thank Bob Savage, Sr. for facilitating so many meetings between City Hall and the business community.

Our veteran's organizations have worked with City Hall to bring focus and perspective to the many contributions made by men and women of this area who have bravely served our country so that we all can be free. This year we were able to triple the attendance at Memorial Day and Veteran's Day celebrations.

Let me also thank Juanita Greene for her splendid efforts on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the September 11th observance.

Labor leaders like Lloyd Mahaffey, Fran Lawrence, Jeff Stephens, Ron Stormer, Ron Hanz, and Tom Joseph have been there to provide insight and guidance on issues that affect the workplace, both in the City and throughout the business community. Don Czerniak, the AFSCME Local 7 labor chief with the City, helped foster the first departmental consolidation in ten years in Toledo.

The young people of this city have responded so very well to the focus we have placed on youth programming. We have found no greater joy than to visit the schools and respond to the questions of our curious and hopeful youngsters.

Toledo had much to be proud of in 2002. We were in the national and international spotlight. In April, the opening of Fifth Third Field was a joyous event and the park was hailed as one of the nation's greatest minor league ballparks. In July, the Sister Cities International Conference brought representatives from 26 nations and most of the 50 states. It was a rousing success and acclaimed as one of the best ever such conferences. This year Toledo will host the U.S. Senior Open along with our annual hometown favorite--

the Jaime Farr Kroger Classic.

But there looms across our land economic hardships. The nation as a whole is struggling.45 states have budget deficits...counties and cities, including Toledo, face rising costs and falling revenues.

This is a time of Hard Choices but they will be made with one thought in mind -- getting the most services for every dollar that we spend. You deserve nothing less. With your assistance we will make the Right Choices.

The budget was balanced last year with no layoffs despite a 15 million dollar shortfall at the beginning of my term. This year, we face an 8 million dollar budget shortfall, but we will balance again. Directors made and will make more difficult cuts this year in their departmental budgets. Under Joyce Chapple's leadership in the Human Resources Department, we have refined our health care coverage proposals and that will lead to the City saving money. And, we must continue to find new ways of saving money.

This will not be the growth days of the 1990's. It will be tough, but our city is getting used to tough budget choices.

We need your assistance. We ask the public to help us by volunteering to keep our parks and city clean. That simply means, "don't litter". And we thank Leslie Mickens, John Lewandowski, and Willie Perryman – just some of the women and men of our streets department--and on our strike team who clean our neighborhoods.

Tomorrow, we will host a summit on cleaning our neighborhoods and you are invited. Every neighborhood is included. We start at 1pm in City Council Chambers. We have divided the entire city into sectors. Each department head chose an area--this will result in cross-departmental attention and cooperation never before seen in Toledo. Every neighborhood need will be itemized, then coupled with a timeline to fix it.

We have joined forces with our local CDCs, our Block Watch leaders, our precinct captains, and our non-profit organizations in the fight against blight. We will win this war.

And we have implemented Toledo Stat--every two weeks our directors meet and compare Toledo's benchmarks with other cities throughout the country--we will continue to move towards excellence. We aim to be the best city our size in the country.

Let me assure my fellow citizens--you have an administration that seeks economic development progress--and an administration that wants art in the city and an elegant future. You also have a Mayor who will not forget you elected me to lead, to make the hard and the right choices--and as I lead, I ask for your help.

I learned in the legislature that ideas and words can make a difference. Last year, in this speech, I challenged the two largest health systems to come together and fund a health care access program for the uninsured of Lucas County. ProMedica Health System and Mercy Health Partners came together, along with multiple other partners such as MCO, St. Luke's, Neighborhood Health Association, and Lucas County, and made health care access a reality. Alan Brass and Scott Shook are with us tonight--please join me in thanking them.

As you know, the first 500 enrollees start this month. We will go slowly at first but we remain true to our goal of enrolling 20,000 or more people in the near future. We are reminded--a society is best judged by how it treats those who have the least within our midst.

And, speaking of health issues, in April, we will kickoff a major healthy lifestyle campaign for Toledoans. I will ask Council to study a ban on smoking in public areas. I stand ready to support a ban.

During this past year, we put great emphasis on our park system, the arts, and education.

Susan Reams deserves our applause for her work as an advocate for the arts. She has raised the focus on arts at City Hall and is developing an arts consortium that meets in this building. Susan has finished the funding of the first phase of the Walbridge Destination Park--a world-class park for all children--she has done an extraordinarily good job.

On education:

· I visited our schools over 30 times in the first year to read, cheer, and motivate

· We raised funds to enhance the libraries at Nathan Hale and MLK schools

· We encouraged City Hall workers to volunteer on the HOST reading program

· We worked as reading tutors at Ryder and Stewart elementary schools

· We pushed pretty hard on the TPS administration to improve scores. I will continue that in a public manner.

· I was proud to work with the School Board and Superintendent Sanders on the successful School levy campaign for new schools

While progress was made on proficiency tests, more must be done.

And the next round of tests is just around the corner. Tonight, I'm pleased to announce that City employees--100 strong--are responding to Dr. Sanders’ plea for tutors.

A simple one-hour training session and spending quality time with a student can make a dramatic improvement in test results. The time to act is now. Please call TPS tomorrow and sign up!

And we must not forget parents and their crucial role in society. Just last week, University of Toledo President Dan Johnson, at the urging of retired Judge Andy Devine, agreed to pursue developing a Center for Parents at the University. Judge Devine has been a lone voice in the wilderness for 30 years on parental support. Judge, please stand so we can thank you.

Chief Michael Bell and the Fire Department achieved something very unique--they reached national accreditation as a fire division. Only 5% of all departments in the U.S. reach this pinnacle in their profession. We are proud of that. Some have expressed disappointment in our fire recruitment process and the recent lack of African American hiring. We will strive to do better in recruitment but we will not drop standards for recruits.

I also thank Chief Bell and Chief Navarre for their leadership in homeland security. Will our two chiefs stand and be recognized? The City of Toledo and our Northwest Ohio neighbors are doing much to be prepared in the event of a disaster.

We are also proud of the decrease in auto accidents due to the implementation of our red light cameras. We are down 26%-- let's work to reduce that number even more.

Sergeant Sharon Cook has led the City on Block Watch development. She has brought new life and enthusiasm to this great citizen organization. We started my term with 59 Block Watch groups. Today we have 98. We will continue to work to reach our goal of 200 quality Block Watch groups before I leave office. Thank you Sergeant Cook, Eleanor Watson, and all the Block Watch leaders for your work. Please join me giving them a round of applause.

And, to the activists in the LaGrange area--we were pleased to finally tear down the Old Cooks Building.

Toledo stepped up environmentally in 2002. We settled the eleven-year-old US EPA lawsuit--the longest running lawsuit of its kind in the country. Let me simply say--you deserve clean water.

We thank the voters for your confidence in the Section 79 vote for the clean water system we will install. I also thank you for your vote on Issue 2--in support of rebuilding our schools. And I thank you for joining Hope Taft and me in defeating Issue 1, which would have handcuffed Ohio's judges.

The City's division of engineering completed many infrastructure projects including:

· The East side Water Main Phase 1 project

· The Swan Creek interceptor lining

· The lining of Point Place sewers

· Construction of the Shantee Creek Phase 1 We thank Tom Brady for his clarion voice in this area.

We continue to work on the Marina Project. To date, we have successfully sought $14.3 million dollars from the state and First Energy to remediate and build on that site. We will have 125 acres of clean riverfront land at our disposal very shortly.

We now have a blueprint for this project--the Chema Report--and I will be leading the effort to partner with the state, county, port authority and the private sector to get this project done. I thank Tom for his clear report on this issue. We also got the message: Seek as much private funding as possible-- We’ve already started that.

In 2002, we set the table on many fronts--arts... youth...neighborhoods...environment...reorganization...-- now, 2003 is the year for a stronger focus on economic development. You will see in a visible way the action we take to retain or expand business development in the City of Toledo. And, philosophically, I think we need to reorganize our effort on economic development into a single voice--and not the four voices...the city, the county, the port, and RGP... as we do now. Let’s organize into one strong voice!

While 2002 was a year of accomplishments, 2003 will be a year of many new challenges--and it will be a very busy year.

We have many initiatives:

· We are proposing a project for on-site power generation at the Bay View Wastewater Treatment facility. This project will utilize the methane gas produced and captured at the Hoffman Road Landfill. This "green power" project will provide a self-sufficient power source at a fixed fuel cost for the next twenty years and save the City thousands of dollars every year. This will minimize our energy cost while providing a funding source to potentially replace the aging Fleet, Facility and Solid Waste building.

· I plan to seek Council support to redevelop the old Federal Building site.

· We will reach a deal on the revitalization of Southwyck Mall.

· We plan to build a state of the art skateboard complex at Highland Park four our kids.

· We will work through the fire department to reach our goal of having every home in Toledo equipped with smoke detectors.

On police matters, I have directed Chief Navarre to make the following changes--it is a ten-point program to reduce crime:

1. A new format to intercede in drug trafficking

2. Reinstate a gun buy-back program using drug forfeiture funds

3. Ensure that response time to emergency calls for serious offenses is below the national average

4. Enhance city police and children services board relations toward reducing child sexual abuse cases

5. Step up the prosecution of domestic violence cases

6. Reduce underage access to alcohol by emphatic enforcement

7. Maximize use of Ohio's Megan's Law

8. Cut the murder rate by 25%

9. Coordinate with efforts for NW Ohio Amber Alert

10. And utilize Block Watch, Crime stoppers, and our neighborhood inspectors to crack down on illegal drug and dog fighting activity.

As Mayor, I ask you to continue to support City Council and my administration. We will continue to work for the public good.

I believe that every endeavor needs spiritual guidance to succeed either from within or without. I ask for your prayers on these issues. I ask you to ask God to intercede for Toledo. We can build new buildings, plan new programs--but we will ultimately fail unless we uplift our spirit. We need strength to face our challenges. Let's show this community to be the shining city on the hill, but a city inspired by prayer. I believe prayer changes things. Let's invoke God's intercession. So I end tonight by asking the Toledo community to pray more. Pray for me. Pray for our families in need. Pray for our children. And, pray for our city.

Thank you. Good evening.