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Why Is the City of Toledo Interested in Selling Its Most
Precious Investment?
By Carty Finkbeiner,
PROTECT OUR WATER
Guest Column
I attended the City of
Toledo-Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Sanger Branch
Library to listen and learn about the water “deal.” Citizens
attended to obtain answers to key questions – the number one
being: WHY IS THE CITY OF TOLEDO INTERESTED IN SELLINGS ITS
MOST PRECIOUS INVESTMENT – OUR WATER SYSTEM?
At a moment in time when
drinkable water has never been in greater demand, a fact
that our suburbs get, the Chamber of Commerce is pushing
city and county politicians to sell our valuable water
system for a fraction of its worth.
After 10 years as a
councilman, including two years as vice mayor and 12 years
as mayor, I know what is the most valuable asset Toledo owns
– our water system. This meeting was a rehearsed public
relations/sales pitch, where citizens could ask questions,
but never offer an opinion without getting cut off and at
least half of the questions went unanswered. Too many
citizens left with too many unanswered questions about this
very questionable push to sell our most valuable asset – our
water.
You might ask who’s
running the “dog and pony” show? The leader of the Chamber
of Commerce presentation is a resident of Chicago, a
highly-paid consultant, who’s pushing the Chamber of
Commerce-suburban mayors’ proposal to force Toledo City
Council members, and our mayor, to sell our water system to
the suburbs.
Toledo makes up more than
60 percent of the water used and has paid for the majority
of the cost of the physical infrastructure improvements
recently made. That infrastructure has an estimated value in
excess of $1 billion. In the last half dozen years along,
the plant has received physical upgrades totaling a half
billion dollars.
The suburban mayors, and
the Chamber of Commerce, have been vague and vacuous about
what they will offer to purchase or lease the water system.
Yet they are pushing our mayor and council members to commit
to making this deal. With fewer than half of the serious
questions answered, and too many other questions answered
vaguely, no responsible citizen of Toledo, including council
members and our mayor, should support this low ball and
specious offer.
Lucas County
Commissioners, who have put themselves in the middle of
this, need to tell Toledo citizens that they are sticking
with Toledo and not abandoning the citizens who put them in
office. Sixty five percent of the Lucas County voters live
in the City of Toledo. Isn’t it time to remind the
commissioners that they represent Toledo?
In the last three years,
here is what the commissioners have attempted to do to their
Toledo voters:
1.
Force Toledo to pay for the booking of criminals into our
jails at an annual cost of $10 million. Four judges have
told the county commissioners “NO,” but they persist in
demanding Toledo pay this large annual bill;
2.
Force a new jail onto a slice of land on Angola Road in
south Toledo against the wishes of the residents;
3.
Force a jail onto Alexis Road in north Toledo against the
wishes of the residents. There is much hostility in the air;
4.
Take Toledo’s water system and sell it to the suburbs for
way less than its true value.
PROTECT OUR WATER, a group
of which I am a member, plans to go into the neighborhoods
to discuss the sale of our water system. We will not leave
until all questions are answered.
At the Sanger Branch
Library meeting, we were all shooed out of the room after 90
minutes of the “dog and pony” show. This is disrespectful to
the citizens who came with serious questions.
The deal Toledoans have in
front of them through the “Memorandum of Understanding” is a
very bad deal for Toledo. For having initiated and developed
our existing regional water system, after having serviced
all of northwest Ohio for decades, Toledo is not getting the
respect it deserves. The Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce
needs to remember where it was founded and who has been
loyal to it over the years.
The Chamber’s highly-paid
Chicago consultant should place on Toledo’s table the same
deal he struck in Detroit, where the suburbs will lease
Detroit water for 40 years and pay $8 billion to Detroit –
rather than the paltry offer he has placed on Toledo’s
table. If he can’t put together a similar, generous deal for
Toledo, Toledo City Council should reject this terrible
offer and we Toledoans should thoughtfully guide our
precious and very valuable water system into a promising
future for all residents of northwest Ohio – just as we have
done for decades. And, the politicians who have their hands
in this should retire, or some of us will work very hard to
retire them.
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