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If the
continuity of effective homegrown leadership matters most,
as best-selling author Jim Collins asserts in Built To
Last, then Rob Ludeman is a shoo in for re-election to
Toledo City Council on November 7.
Ludeman,
one of 12 candidates for just six seats, was the District 2
representative for 14 years beginning in 1994 and was term
limited. After sitting out for two years, Ludeman returned
to run again in 2010, was elected to an at large seat and is
now running for reelection to a “final four year term,” he
says.
We
caught up with the homegrown Toledo public servant to
discuss his life and long career of quality leadership.
Perryman:
You have been on city council for a very long time, which to
me suggests stability.
Ludeman:
Yes, if I am blessed to have another four years I’ll end up
in 2022 with a total of 26 years on council.
Perryman:
What contributes to your stability?
Ludeman:
My parents were great parents. They were always involved in
my life, whether it was sports or school. I think a lot of
people might remember my dad’s been gone for 30 years, but
he was the Lucas County probate judge for 22 years and he
made a lot of friends and he introduced me to trying to be a
responsible individual and I probably never thought until I
was about 40 that I would run for public office, although I
was a political science major in college. But, I enjoyed the
public service and as a real estate agent the council
position blends in very nicely with scheduling and
everything else. But yes, I was raised well and raised in
the Lutheran church and taught to be as responsible and
hardworking as possible.
Perryman:
Tell us about high school. You and I were talking during an
intermission at a recent council meeting and you provided me
with a little of your background in sports at Bowsher.
Ludeman:
Yes. I played football at Bowsher and when I was a junior
we beat St. Francis to win the city championship, which was
one of the big thrills of my life and then I excelled
probably more at track. I held all the sprint records at
Bowsher and my teammates and I from 1971 still hold the 4 x
400 relay record at Bowsher, which I don’t know that any
record in the city has stood up that long. And I was
inducted into the Bowsher Athletic Hall of Fame, I think,
around 2004 and that was the real thrill of my life to be
inducted into that.
Perryman:
And you also competed against some other Toledo legends in
athletics.
Ludeman:
Yeah, there were two guys I couldn’t beat, one was Greg
McClelland from Scott and the other was Bobby Lawson at
Libbey. By the time I met my wife in college, she asked
about sports and stuff, and I told her that I was fairly
fast in high school and she goes, “I haven’t seen you move
fast since I met you.” I have a son and a daughter, my
son’s 39, my daughter’s 36. They both are Bowsher grads.
My son played football and actually his senior year they won
the city championship and then our daughter was a very good
track and cross country runner and she did very well. But
now with five grandchildren, all the grandkids are involved
in some sport, whether its baseball or football or soccer or
cross country and that kind of makes me feel good. It’s a
good training for the future because you learn some
discipline and you learn how to get along as a team and I
think that that’s very important.
Perryman:
Great. Let’s talk about your political philosophy. You are
one of two Republicans on council?
Ludeman:
Tom Waniewski and I. And, you know…I registered to vote and
registered also for the draft the day I turned 18 because
that’s what you were supposed to do and back then you were
supposed to declare your party the day that you registered.
My mom and dad were Republicans, so I put down Republican
because I feel I’m conservative, especially fiscally, and
I’m probably a little more middle of the road on social
issues. But other than that there’s not a whole lot of
issues at the city council level that come down to party
like it is in Columbus and like it is in Washington. I
think it’s more that we’re trying to run a city and do it as
fiscally responsible as possible and so I don’t know that
it’s a whole lot of times that it comes down to a political
party and if you remember back, I was actually council
president for almost two years at the end of my term as
district councilperson and people would say, “Geez, you’re
Republican, how did you do it?” And I said, “Well,
apparently the folks have trusted me.”
Not
everybody voted for me, but I do remember that as soon as I
was given that position I went to every member of council
and said I’d like to sit down with each one of you
individually and see what your goals are for the next couple
years and how I can help you attain those goals. And so
it’s just a matter of trying to work together because we
have to keep our eyes focused on our constituents and not on
what a political party is trying to tell you to do. And
I’ve never had any direction suggested to me from the
Republican Party. They’ve been supportive as far as
elections are concerned, but not interfering during the
term.
Perryman:
So what do you think are the core issues that the city faces
for this next term?
Ludeman:
Well, the three things I highlighted is that I’m going to
dedicate the next four years to public safety, meaning we’ve
got to have a strong police and fire service. As a
political science major, the primary reason for government
is to protect people and create a sense of security. So I
certainly want to make sure that we have a strong police and
fire department.
The
number two issue is roads. I hear that every time I go
somewhere: ‘you guys are doing a better job this year
getting some roads paved.’ But we’ve got to get to your
residential streets and I think in the next four years we’re
going to see an opportunity because the tax revenues will
continue to improve, so we’ll be able to dedicate more of
our dollars to capital improvement issues like roads and
sidewalks and that type of thing. So that’s number two.
And then
the third, which actually creates the opportunity and
funding for the other two is concentrating on the jobs and
the economic development and that’s been my forte. I’ve
chaired the Regional Growth and Development Committee for
our council for the last four years and I’ve tried to work
closely with the development. Let’s take ProMedica. There
was a little bit of controversy about Promenade Park and
that type of thing, but as soon as I met with them early on
and saw their vision and their plans, you talk about
bringing that many jobs into downtown Toledo, well the end
result of that is it’s a lot more tax revenue coming into
the city that, again, could be dedicated toward keeping a
strong police and fire force and to paving more streets. So
those are my three core issues I think for the next four
years.
Perryman:
Well how do you carry out your plan? What will you do
specifically to improve the safety and to bring more
economic development into the area?
Ludeman:
Larry Sykes chairs the finance committee and I’ve been on
that for many years and I think the main thing is we’ve been
through some pretty rough years trying to scramble to pay
bills and I think now that the economy’s come around the
last couple years I think we keep a fine eye on making sure
that the general fund budget is properly funded and then the
capital improvement budget is fully funded as far as roads
and streets and that type of thing. But a lot of the
direction obviously comes from whoever will be mayor. They
set the budget. Council can amend the budget if we wish to,
but typically there are not a lot of major changes to the
budget as presented by whoever the mayor is. And I think
then we have to keep a finger on the pulse of our
administration and the mayor to make sure that we fund
classes for our new recruits to come in to keep the levels
of officers up.
Perryman:
Lastly, from the perspective of the central city, although
we are seeing increased economic activity as a result of
ProMedica relocating people downtown, that activity appears
to be more or less a consolidation or moving people from one
place to another. We also continue to see an exodus from the
area like Hickory Farms’ relocation to Chicago.
So how
do we overcome that and also spread the wealth? How do we
attract businesses to the inner city? How do we include
other neighborhoods besides downtown in revitalization
efforts and what do we have that will attract other
businesses from outside the area?
Ludeman:
Well, I think one thing is we don’t really have control over
this in city council, but I do think education is
paramount. Somehow or another between Toledo Public and the
Toledo Catholic Schools and others, the charter schools,
along with partnership I think with parents and grandparents
or whoever, is a great thing. Instilling the pride of
knowledge and of looking toward a goal of at some point
whether its college or junior college or going into a trade,
that we work together.
Then,
jobs… I do think that one opportunity that has occurred is
the Overland Industrial Park and the fact that that is right
in the middle of the central city. I plan to go to Dana’s
ribbon cutting because I’ve got to believe that there are
opportunities there and I think that was one of the reasons
that the different entities that are in Overland decided to
construct there was to try to help some of the people that
are in the surrounding neighborhood.
But I
think if we enhance some of those possibilities and work
with the private sector, whether it’s financial incentives
or zoning or whatever, and to try to use our abilities
through the mayor and council to look to kind of enhance
opportunities for folks that are located in the central
city.
The
other thing is that 55 percent of our housing stock in
Toledo is rental and I know it’s been a tough road with
those foreclosures and everything else, but if we can get
folks some jobs and work with the lenders and the land bank
to start doing more homeownership, that I think will help to
revitalize some of the neighborhoods. Pride in home
ownership is one of the great tenets of our country and
hopefully we can increase home ownership in the central city
and other parts of the city.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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