Mayor Collins holds town hall meeting in East Toledo

Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins revisted his campaign promises not to leave East Toledo behind in a well-attended “town hall” meeting at the East Toledo Family Center Wednesday night.

He started out by apologizing for the low level of money in capital improvements budget for East Toledo streets.

“I owe you an apology and you didn’t get fairly treated in the road projects,” Mr. Collins said. He said the engineering was all done when he inherited the budget, but promised to make it up to East Toledo in the following three years.

About 140 people showed up for the event.

The mayor responded to questions about blight, persistent crime, and the lack of progress on the Marina District. He said that the owners of the Marina District have been promising him a meeting since February and have yet to make good.

He said if he doesn’t see some progress toward development by fall he’s going to tell the law department to notify the owners that the city intends to start marketing the property to new developers.

“We’re going to recover that property for $3.8 million. It will be a seamless transition of owners,” he said.

Dashing Pacific bought the Marina District in July, 2011, and the city can buy it back between July 1, 2016, and July 1, 2017, if there hasn’t been “substantial” development, according to the purchase agreement.

It was the mayor’s first town hall meeting, after a public budget meeting in January. His goal is one per quarter.