Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (right)
Posted on 02/09/2008 12:17:48 PM PST by bimboeruption
Mayor kicks Marines out of Toledo 1-24th Marines were scheduled for weekend urban warfare training in downtown Toledo, when Carty gave them the boot
By Darsha Philips Posted: Saturday, February 09, 2008 at 2:05 p.m.
TOLEDO, OH -- Mayor Carty Finkbeiner on Friday ordered some 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines from Grand Rapids, Michigan, out of Toledo just before the unit was suppose to start a weekend of urban warfare training downtown.
The mayor’s spokesperson Brian Schwartz said, “the mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people. He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area."
Toledo police said they knew about the training and had approved the unit’s use of the Madison Building and the Promenade Park area. The training was scheduled to start Friday afternoon and last until Sunday. Police said the unit’s presence would have a minimal impact on the city. Police issued a press release earlier in the week saying the marines would be wearing green camouflage uniforms, operate military vehicles, carry rifles, perform foot patrols, and fire blank ammunitiion during the exercise.
Schwartz said there was a breakdown in communication between police and the Finkbeiner administration that led to the mayor’s action.
“The marines drilled here three times during the Ford administration and once under the Finkbeiner administration. After the last visit, the mayor told then police chief Jack Smith, that he did not want the marines back. Smith failed to inform the current police administration of the mayor’s feelings,” Schwartz said.
NBC24 spoke to Jack Smith who recalled that after the marines last visit, he and the mayor had a heated exchange about the training.
“He told me he did not want them, as he put it, “playing war in Toledo’”, Smith recalled. I told him, as a former marine, “that if one young marine’s life is saved because of training he or she received in Toledo, Ohio, then it was worth the inconvenience.”
Smith said if the mayor objected, then he should have been the one to convey those feelings to police. Smith took his run-in with the mayor as an objection to that last visit, and not future training in Toledo.
As a result, the Toledo police went ahead, granting approval to the 1-24th Marines to conduct the routine exercise. The police notified members of the Finkbeiner administration, who were not aware that the mayor objected to unit’s training in Toledo.
When the mayor found out, he sent a member of his staff to tell marines they could not conduct urban operations in Toledo.
The unit was notified about 3:30 p.m. after an advance team arrived in Toledo. Five buses carrying some 200 marines traveled four hours from Grand Rapids, only to find out the training had been shot down.
The unit briefly stopped at a another 1-24th marine base in Perryburg Township, then returned back to Grand Rapids where training was expected to be held this weekend.
A spokesperson for the marines said they were disappointed by the mayor’s decision especially after the city had been so helpful in the past.
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Perhaps the voters of Toledo will get a chance to frighten the Mayor.
So how will he feel when war, in the form of terrorists, comes to Toledo for real? I’ll bet he’ll want the Marines around then.
I think Mayor Finkbeiner is anti american and should go away on a long long one way boat cruise
“the mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people.”
WTF?
For their sake, I hope Toledo never gets attacked...
Here’s the phone number for Mayor Finkbeiner’s office: (419) 245-1001.
Give him a call.
Who cares. Let’s get this out. Make Finkbeiner famous.
Granted, I don't think they are, I think the mayor is just an idiot who insults his people.
Carty is an idiot and that’s just for starters. Not so odd that he did this on a weekend so WPSD couldn’t go after his butt.
I don’t have enough words to describe Carleton Finkbeiner. The Toledo Gestapo is also going to put up more cameras at the lights to raise money. Makes me want to shop there...
It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when some asshat named Finkbeiner can order America’s Finest to get TFO.
WastedYears typing
He’d be frightened, alright.
Toledo is a port city.
It’s difficult to know what’s loaded on those cargo ships.
Democrat.
The part of cut n run. The Clinton/Obama party retreat and surrender.
Just think what will happen if McCain loses, because some number of conservatives can’t find strength and importance in his support for the military.
We lose. They win. The damage will go on for each and every day of the next four years.
Toledo’s a French word?
Toledo is just another Democrat parasite nest ("city"), right?
Heh, what do those people know or care? They'll re-elect that scumbag mayor in a landslide.
man, quite frankly watching MARINES practice would put me at ease not frighten me. I guess military folk frighten liberals.
Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (right)
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