Ideas for mayoral candidates
6/2/2013Blade Editor David Kushma’s May 26 op-ed column, “Where are the big ideas in city mayoral contest?”, was enlightening.
I have a few issues of my own that I’d like to hear the Toledo mayoral candidates discuss. What is their plan to clean up the city? Toledo has litter and refuse from one end of the city to the other. It is disgusting.
How can we clean up our neighborhoods? How do mayoral candidates expect to attract employers to our city when it looks like a pigpen?
What are the candidates going to do about abandoned and boarded-up houses? How would they deal with the growing number of homeless residents and those who are living below the federal poverty level?
How would candidates restore hope to the hopeless so they will become productive residents?
What is their plan to fix the city’s roads and to fill dangerous potholes? Is there any hope of making Toledo Express Airport something to be proud of?
There are other ways of restoring Toledo’s economy besides selling out to foreign investment. How about using innovation to bring Toledo back to having a vibrant economy?
ALAN BUCK, SR.
Jackman Road
Quality-of-life concerns abound
Toledo needs to improve its zoning ordinances, especially its commercial standards, on the aesthetic front. There are too many cinder-block, windowless storefronts going up in town.
If Toledo is going to attract or keep young, smart, creative, and technology-savvy people, it is going to have to develop a passable entertainment scene. This means, at least, working with concert promoters to get cutting-edge rock bands that routinely stop in Ann Arbor, Austin, Portland, Ore., and larger cities to play at the Huntington Center, the Valentine Theatre, the University of Toledo, and Owens Community College.
Toledo needs to time the traffic signals on more of its major thoroughfares.
It does a decent job downtown and on the Anthony Wayne Trail.
But Monroe Street needs work, as do many other streets, to have traffic lights timed.
That, as much as traffic cameras, will promote safe driving, and unlike traffic cameras, will reduce commuters’ daily frustration and aggravation.
Can the mayoral candidates vow to enact legislation that would require publications to honor property owners’ requests not to put papers on their front stoop? Some delivery persons throw the publications in the driveway.
Thanks again to Mr. Kushma for eliciting and considering reader input.
RICK BAUM
Densmore Drive