toledoblade.com --

Toledo City Council agreed yesterday to transfer $1.3 million from the Southwyck revitalization project to put the finishing touches on a new public boat dock in the Marina District, while Mayor Carty Finkbeiner fired back at critics of the transfer.

Council approved the transfer after Mr. Finkbeiner assured council of his strong support for Southwyck, and pledged to add the money to the 2007 budget when it is expected to be needed for the proposed South Toledo “urban village” project.

The emergency transfer was needed to complete work on a city-funded boat marina off Front Street in the city-owned Marina District that is set to be completed before the end of the year.

The vote was 10-1, with Councilman Michael Ashford dissenting. Councilman Ellen Grachek was absent.

The administration initially portrayed the transfer as a mere bookkeeping procedure. But in the last two weeks, it has become a political firestorm.

The mayor accused Councilman Frank Szollosi of fanning what he said was the misleading perception that the Southwyck project was being moved to a lower priority.

“Any councilman not playing political games knows that [Marina District and Southwyck developer] Larry Dillin and I are 100 percent committed to both [projects],” the mayor wrote.

“Councilman Szollosi spent his whole last term doing nothing and saying nothing about Southwyck or the Marina District — while very little happened,” Mr. Finkbeiner wrote. “This Administration has given new life to both projects without any help from Mr. Szollosi, I might add.”

Mr. Szollosi fired back that he took part in the groundbreaking, under former Mayor Jack Ford, for the boat marina that the $1.3 million requested by Mr. Finkbeiner will finish paying for.

He said Mr. Finkbeiner “hasn’t added anything except pretty pictures” to the Marina District, and has yet to attract any private financing. He termed the mayor’s memo “a stink bomb” and said the mayor was making their political dispute personal.

Mr. Szollosi had said he might vote against the $1.3 million because he didn’t think the administration had shared enough information with the public, and alluded to several projects from Mr. Finkbeiner’s first term on which the city was forced to take over the annual debt service.

Mr. Finkbeiner and Mr. Szollosi hail from opposite sides of the Democratic Party: Mr. Finkbeiner is the leader of the B-team now in control of the party, and Mr. Szollosi is a member of the A-team group, which supported Mr. Ford’s failed re-election bid last year.

Asked to respond to Mr. Szollosi’s criticism, Brian Schwartz, the mayor’s spokesman, identified no new private financing. But he said Mr. Dillin, whom Mr. Finkbeiner recruited, envisions a lower level of public investment than that proposed by Mr. Ford’s developer, Pizzuti Cos.

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