Free Republic

Thank you for your thoughts. Your message will be conveyed to the Mayor. Attached is the Mayor's Statement to the Media and a statement from Lt. Colonel Piccoli, U.S. Marine Corps on this issue. Statement from Mayor Carty Finkbeiner -Regarding U.S. Marine Corps. February 10, 2008 Frank Szollosi can play politics with anything. It is what he does best. Today, I spoke with Major Jeff Brooks of the United States Marine Corps. I conveyed my sincere regret for the failure to communicate within the administration and any inconvenience that caused the U.S. Marine Corps. I also conveyed, as my staff...

They were gone but not forgotten. A day after Mayor Carty Finkbeiner ordered 200 Marine Corps Reservists out of downtown Toledo, residents here and elsewhere expressed disappointment, disbelief, and even outrage. His last-minute call Friday resulted in the unit canceling its planned training exercises and returning to Grand Rapids, Mich. And by yesterday afternoon, the mayor's reaction had become a national news story picked up by Internet blogs along with the popular Web site, The Drudge Report. Media phone lines and e-mail boxes kept busy as keyboard-tapping critics sounded their opinions on what some have billed the "Carty vs. Marines"...

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 supposed 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...

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...

A company of Marine Corps Reservists received a cold send-off from downtown Toledo yesterday by order of Mayor Carty Finkbeiner. The 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., planned to spend their weekend engaged in urban patrol exercises on the streets of downtown as well as inside the mostly vacant Madison Building, 607 Madison Ave. Toledo police knew days in advance about their plans for a three-day exercise. Yet somehow the memo never made it to Mayor Finkbeiner, who ordered the Marines out yesterday afternoon just minutes before their buses were to arrive....

OK, so 200 Marines stationed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, piled on to five buses and came to Toledo, Ohio, yesterday to practice some urban patrol exercises. The Toledo police knew about the request for the three-day exercise well in advance, but somehow Mayor Carty Finkbeiner didn’t see the memo requesting permission for the event. So when when the first bus arrives at 3:20 p.m. and Staff Sergeant Andre Davis steps off, he is greeted by a city employee and told that the mayor wanted him and his soldiers out of town by 6 p.m. “I wish,” Sgt Davis drily remarked,...

Mayor to Marines: Leave downtown He says urban exercises scare people By JC REINDL BLADE STAFF WRITER A company of Marine Corps Reservists received a cold send-off from downtown Toledo yesterday by order of Mayor Carty Finkbeiner. The 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., planned to spend their weekend engaged in urban patrol exercises on the streets of downtown as well as inside the mostly vacant Madison Building, 607 Madison Ave. Toledo police knew days in advance about their plans for a three-day exercise. Yet somehow the memo never made it to...

Perrysburg, Ohio - From Interstate 75, the sight is striking: A gleaming white mosque with twin minarets in the classical Islamic style rises out of the Ohio countryside. A visit to the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo during Friday prayers offers another remarkable scene. Inside the mosque's domed prayer hall, as light streams through stained-glass windows inscribed with attributes of God and verses from the Koran, men and women gather to pray alongside each other, with a low partition in between. In most mosques, women pray either behind the men, separated by a curtain or enclosure, or in another room....

TOLEDO -- A golf outing for politicians left some embarrassed after they found out strippers were handing out drinks at the event. Days after the annual event, members of the Lucas County Democratic Party are calling for John Irish to resign and to clear the party's name. One participant said he saw a woman flash a group of golfers. Others at the fundraiser for the Democratic fundraiser said they didn't see any inappropriate acts. "When the word got out that these girls are strippers, it gave the party a black eye," said Clerk of Courts Bernie Quilter. "Every elected official...

Since the VT shootings in Blacksburg, Virginia, we have seen all manner of wild-eyed, anti-gunners come out of the woodwork to cynically use this crime as a chance to beat their gun grabbing drums. But, proposing that we send government Stormtroopers to smash down the doors of every home with a gun in it to confiscate their Constitutionally legal firearms is a step I haven't seen in a purportedly responsible newspaper. That is, until the Toledo Blade published a proposal for taking away our right to self-protection that included "Special squads of police" with unlimited powers to confiscate all guns....

University of Toledo football player Richard Davis, toting a shotgun and a handgun, was looking to settle an ongoing dispute with a teammate yesterday when he tried to enter what he thought was his teammate’s house in southwest Toledo, police said. But the 21-year-old junior was greeted at gunpoint by Vincent Scott, an off-duty Lucas County sheriff’s deputy. “This could have ended so horribly,” Toledo police Capt. Ray Carroll said. “He could have killed somebody or been killed himself.” No one was hurt in the incident, but the suspect was charged with attempted aggravated burglary at the deputy’s home on...

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- A federal judge has told Toledo's mayor that a radio reporter who was barred from attending a news conference must be allowed into future news events. U-S District Judge James Carr ordered the mayor's office yesterday to notify W-S-P-D about upcoming news conferences. The station sued the city after one of its reporters who is also a talk show host was barred from a news conference last week. Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's office says it issued the ban because the reporter is not objective. A day later, Milliken and other station employees forced their way into a...

Local news report.

'Blade' Expects to Lose $5 Million in 2006 -- Lockout Could Go On 'Forever' By Joe Strupp Published: December 29, 2006 10:27 AM ET NEW YORK General Manager Joe Zerbey of The Blade in Toledo, Ohio, says 2006 is likely to end with his newspaper losing some $5 million for the year, claiming the paper must have wage and benefit concessions from union workers in order to make money down the line. "We hope that we can get a contract with our unions that enables us to make a profit," Zerbey said Friday about the paper's eight bargaining units, seven...

WASHINGTON --Sen. John Kerry didn't contest the results at the time, but now that he's considering another run for the White House, he's alleging election improprieties by the Ohio Republican who oversaw the deciding vote in 2004. An e-mail will be sent to 100,000 Democratic donors Tuesday asking them to support U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland for governor of Ohio. The bulk of the e-mail criticizes Strickland's opponent, GOP Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, for his dual role in 2004 as President Bush's honorary Ohio campaign co-chairman and the state's top election official. "He used the power of his state office...

REGRETTABLY, The Blade today finds itself in a labor dispute with the people who traditionally have mattered most to the company: our employees and their families. We wish it were not so. We wish that it had not become necessary to utilize a management prerogative with an unfortunate sounding name - a lockout. So we believe it is instructive to explain for our readers, and indeed, for our own workers, why we are at this point. The simple truth is that The Blade is bleeding financially and cannot continue to operate indefinitely under such circumstances. The company would not be...

Five Fat Girls Sought Cops report "flurry of chubby fists" in Toledo milk heist AUGUST 9--Robbery is never funny. Except when it's described by Toledo police officers with a peculiar sense of humor. Early this morning, Scott Gibson, 44, was returning from the grocery store with a gallon of milk when, as he told cops, he was surrounded by "5 fat black girls" in the parking lot of a Kentucky Fried Chicken. As described by officers Patrick Sutherland and Kristi Eycke in the below Toledo Police Department incident report, one of the "hefty felons" asked Gibson to surrender his milk....

Wanna read a great Horatio Alger story? Except that in Latin America, it’s a far more radical thing: President Alejandro Toledo, the outgoing president of Peru, a staunch, effective opponent of leftist Chavista populism, has decided to go back to being a shoeshine boy for charity, doing $100 shoeshines on behalf of the the shoeshiners pension fund. Toledo leaves office on July 28, and although he had plenty to be proud of as Peru’s first full-blooded Indian president, he was never ashamed of his humble roots ... Toledo was a wonderful president of Peru who openly challenged Venezuelan dictator Hugo...

I have recently learned that the OHIO IMMIGRANTS NETWORK/ NETWORK OF IMMIGRANTS OF OHIO - RIO is planning this (source link referenced): On Wednesday, April 12, 2006, the Toledo-based, Labor Party affiliate, Farm Work Organizing Committee (FLOC) AFL/CIO, in conjunction with the Ohio Immigrant Network (RIO) and the STUDENTS of the schools of Toledo, will be holding “A STUDENT’S MARCH FOR JUSTICE AND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS RALLY” The march is set to begin at noon, at the corner of South Avenue & Broadway and will commence with a rally & music at Golden Rule Park, located adjacent to Toledo Public School’s...

Immigration rally planned in Toledo By Carl Chancellor and Colette M. Jenkins Beacon Journal staff writers Ohio's protests over proposed changes to federal policies involving immigration rules have been relatively small compared to those in other states. But that could change next week when a rally in support of immigrants' rights is held at Toledo's Golden Rule Park. Beatriz Maya of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, a Toledo-based union representing more than 10,000 migrant farm workers mainly in Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina, said the noon rally is being dubbed March for Justice. Sister Rita Mary Harwood of the Catholic...