MAYOR'S MESSAGE

Craig A. Stough 2/17/05

"Regional Cooperation Meeting Coming to Sylvania"

On Thursday, February 24, 2005, the City of Sylvania will be hosting the fourth in a series of meetings on regional cooperation. Elected officials from all over Lucas County have been invited to attend the meeting at the Sylvania Senior Center.

The first of these regional cooperation meetings was held Wednesday, March 3, 2004 at the invitation of Toledo Mayor Jack Ford. The meeting was well attended by area elected officials representing Lucas County, area cities, villages and townships. The meeting was held at Union Plaza outside the offices of the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments.

In his opening remarks, Mayor Ford worked to diminish the "unigovernment" speculation printed in the local press prior to the meeting. Mayor Ford recommended that a new term be found for cooperation of local governments in lieu of "unigovernment". His interest at this meeting was to look for cooperative opportunities of shared county wide services, not a Toledo takeover of smaller subdivisions.

Lucas County residents already cooperate for many services including the Metroparks, libraries, zoo, 911 services, TARTA and more which are funded across subdivision boundaries. Mayor Ford offered that if the suburbs were willing to take steps toward a county wide "metropolitan government" providing more shared services, Toledo would be willing to consider regionalizing its water system, reviewing Community Block Grant Funds county wide and sharing bonding capacity.

Many attendees expressed their concerns about joining with or being taken over by Toledo. Despite what some described as good working relationships with Toledo and Mayor Ford, all were concerned about merging or sharing tax revenues. The smaller townships, Washington and Jerusalem Townships in particular, spoke with pride about the quality and efficiency of their current services, and also about their fears of being absorbed by Toledo and losing their quality services.

Two meetings have been held since, one hosted by Sylvania Township at Secor Metropark, and one by Springfield Township at their township hall. The discussions have moved toward the possible benefits of combined regional purchasing of supplies – road salt, gasoline, paper, computers, vehicles, telephones, etc. During the meeting at the Sylvania Senior Center, I expect a committee report to be presented on possible lower costs with joint purchasing, followed by more discussion.