LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
City pride would curb blight crisis
7/7/2014Thanks to The Blade for giving Toledo’s blight the attention that is needed and long overdue (“A call to fight blight,” editorial, June 27). City residents deserve a solution.
Taxpayers expect the city’s code enforcement employees to identify problem properties and initiate action rather than waiting for a complaint to be filed. City housing inspectors should be assigned to zones or ZIP codes and be responsible for their areas.
The single biggest thing we can all do to help our city is promote pride in Toledo. This could lead to good things happening in the city.
TONY PLATH
Secor Road
Raze buildings for a cleaner city
To alleviate blight, the city should schedule demolition by private contractors of 5,000 abandoned houses over four years.
The city should raze the former Fiberglas Tower, Spitzer Building, National Bank Building, and Security Building. Those buildings likely never will be occupied again.
To pay for the plan, the city could float a $100 million, 50-year bond issue secured by a small property tax increase.
DONALD SOLOMON
Ottawa Hills
Don’t forget, daughters serve
Columnist Keith C. Burris’ June 15 commentary, “Lessons learned in Toledo and abroad,” did not ask whether our daughters were included in the 3 percent of the population who serve in the military. Was that unconscious bias?
My daughter served two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Army Reserve. In the Middle East, she was awarded a Bronze Star.
Commentaries should include women in the equation. Who knows? We may have a woman president in our near future.
SUSAN FIX
Waterville
Coal cartoon is no laughing matter
I agree with Kirk Walters’ June 8 editorial cartoon, which shows a young Gov. John Kasich overjoyed to get coal in his Christmas stocking. The fossil-fuel industry has bought another state government, that of Ohio.
It seems Ohio officials support anything that benefits big business. But these officials do not do anything to benefit the people who live in Ohio.
STEVEN POLODNA
Heidelberg Road