Anthony Wayne Democrats to meet June 24

The next meeting of the Anthony Wayne Democratic Club will take place Wednesday, June 24 at 7:00 pm at the Waterville Branch of the Lucas County Public Library system. The library is located on Michigan Ave. in Waterville. We will have a speaker from the Lucas County Prosecutor's office on hand for the occasion.



Hope to see you there!

A sad week for our family

My Dad passed away this week Wednesday after a long illness which weakened his heart and kidneys to the point where he couldn't fight the good fight any longer. He loved his wife and family fiercely and would do anything for us. He leaves behind my mother, his wife of more than 51 years, 4 children, 8 grandchildren and many friends along with cousins, nieces, nephews and other extended family.

He was a man who cared deeply about his family, his community, and the state of affairs in our state and country. I know he was deeply happy when President Obama was elected this past fall and I'm glad that he got the chance to see the first African American President elected. He supported both me and my older brother in our political aspirations, and I know he was a loyal reader of this blog. Somewhere, he will read this post and a smile will come to his face.

We laid him to rest today, and I know he is finally at peace and in a better place. Congratulations Dad for fighting the good fight and thank you for your love and commitment throughout our lives. You will be missed even as you will still be with us. Rest in peace and we love you.

Vote for Maumee Schools

Tomorrow, May 5, 2009, the citizens of Maumee, OH will be given the choice on whether to support the "Excellent with Distinction" schools in their fine city as denoted by the State of Ohio by passage of an additional 3.9 mill operating levy.

Hopefully the citizens will respond with a resounding yes and further cuts to the superlative educational system in Maumee will be forestalled. Even with passage of the levy, cuts in teaching personnel and elsewhere will be necessary due to reduced funding at the state level. Any further cuts, besides the ones already announced, will seriously continue to jeopardize the ability of the school system to operate at the high level of achievement that residents of Maumee have come to expect and enjoy.

If you are contemplating not voting for the levy to send a message to the state of Ohio regarding fixing the school funding dilemma which has plagued our state for at least the last 12 years, I would suggest the following action: Vote for the levy to keep the schools functioning at a high level of effectiveness; then, contact your locally elected state representatives to ask that they make school funding in Ohio the priority it should be. The folks to contact are State Representative Barbara Sears, and State Senator Mark Wagoner.

Ask these representatives to put aside their other priorities, whatever they may be, and focus on this groundbreaking issue at this time. It may require these elected officials to expend a little political capital and some energy, but if enough citizens contact their offices, we may see some effort from these "leaders" to make progress on this issue.

Irresponsibly pushing this issue off into the future is simply not good enough for the fine citizens in the Maumee, Anthony Wayne, Sylvania and other schools systems in the area Mr. Wagoner and Ms. Sears represent. Contact them and ask that they work on this issue at this time. The citizens of the District 46 community are counting on them to make this issue a priority this year.

Please support our schools until we can figure out another method to fund education. The education of your children and grandchildren, neighbors, and friends are hanging in the balance.

AW Democrats to meet April 22 at 7:00pm

The next meeting of the Anthony Wayne Democratic Club will take place at the Waterville branch of the Lucas County Public Library, located at 800 Michigan Ave., in Waterville. Hope to see you there!

Casino Gambling a Good Idea for Ohio?

For what it's worth, I believe that casinos and gambling would have been a good idea for Ohio to create jobs and raise some revenue, but the sad fact is that the time to make this move would have been about 20 years ago. At that time, fewer states and cities were home to gambling casinos and Ohio could have been a leader. From what I remember, groups for various religious and moral reasons fought hard to keep the gaming industry out of Ohio for fear that that type of development would lead to organized crime, prostitution, problems with addictions, and other moral misgivings. While true, we already had all those things at the time, and still do to this day, but without any of the benefits and tax dollars this industry would have brought along with it.

Now, after the horse has left the proverbial barn, we see some local politicians advocating the idea of gaming casinos in Ohio. It is my opinion that we're at least a few days late and many dollars short after more than half the country allows casino gambling on some scale with our nearest neighbors in Michigan and Indiana well established in this industry. So, time for some new ideas folks, not the recycled thoughts that may have worked 20 years ago.

In NW Ohio, we have various legislators who have made the re-designation of the "pit bull" and new "Joe Wurzelbacher protection" legislation their priorities. Elsewhere in Ohio, we have a state legislator who is interested in a bill to allow our General Assembly members the privilege to marry folks who are so inclined to enter into matrimony. All worthwhile endeavors to be sure!

I believe, on the other hand, that after we get through with all these important priorities, we may want to focus on jobs, economic development, education funding, and a tax policy which works for all Ohioans. We're not so patiently waiting for these insignificant "pet projects" to be taken care of so we can get back to the work of important policy debate and hopefully solutions. The clock is ticking and the natives are getting restless. This space intends to keep the heat on these folks who would represent us.

Curious Priorities in SW Lucas County

There are probably many issues to be concerned with at this time with our economy in freefall, health care costs skyrocketing, education funding, our high unemployment and declining tax base. Hunger, desperation and hopelessness!

We are extremely fortunate to have a state representative who has identified as one of her priorities the proper classification for the "pit bull" in Ohio. I can't tell you how much sleep my neighbors and I have lost recently regarding this issue. Personally I can't think of a bigger problem to sink one's teeth into (no pun intended, of course) than removing the pit bull from a list of "vicious" dogs! Read the link from today's Toledo Blade. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090318/NEWS24/903180353/0/OPINION03

I'm sure you will agree with me that we're certainly getting our money's worth from our present representative from District 46 in Ohio. Fix the "pit bull" classification and the jobs will surely follow! Sort of like Field of Dreams' "build it and they will come" ? Finally, after all these years of wandering in the proverbial desert, we have a representative who truly gets it in SW Lucas County! I can almost hear every pit bull within a three mile radius heaving a sigh of relief.

Seriously folks, haven't we got bigger fish to fry? Amazing!

Volunteer opportunity in NW Ohio

My family and I just returned from a wonderful volunteer experience working with "Food for Thought", a christian based group which operates out of New Harvest Christian Church in Oregon, Ohio and works to help feed the hungry in NW Ohio. Their website link is as follows: http://www.freelunchtoledo.com/



Last night we helped from 6 pm to a little after 7 pm, helping to pack lunches for almost 400 people and also packing toiletries to pass out Saturday morning. This morning we met with other volunteers to help pass out the lunches along with fresh fruit, eggs, and cookies/cakes to an estimated 150-200 persons near the Lucas County Public Library at Michigan and Adams in downtown Toledo. This was an excellent experience for our family and the nice thing is that our two daughters, ages 7 and 4, were able to and encouraged to help out with the effort.



I encourage any of you in NW Ohio who are interested in helping out to check out the website mentioned above and contact the group to indicate your interest. We were wholeheartedly welcomed and plan on returning to help out in the coming weeks and months.