CITY POLITICS

PAID FOR BY: HAROLD HARRIS

Did’ja know? Every officer and employee of the City of Toledo must be a resident of the City of Toledo. So said the new and improved Charter of the City, passed by the esteemed citizens thereof in the year Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen.

Fast forward to today. Section Sixty-One of the Charter is still there, glowing with the aspirations of those long-ago Toledoans. That the leaders of their beloved T-Town would also love the city enough to live here. That those paid by Toledoans’ hard-earned tax dollars would also be Toledoans.

And more. That those charged with running the city would have skin in the game, in the form of emotional and financial investment. Purchasing a house and making a home in the city. Raising a family in the city. Creating a life lived in the city.

We seriously doubt they meant living in the hinterlands but having a few friends who live in the city. Or taking occasional trips to the then-nascent Toledo Zoo.

No, that wouldn’t be enough. The good folks of Toledo wanted to hire and compensate their own, not interlopers who relished the perks of working for the city without doing the hard work of being the city.

All things must pass

Alas, intervening time relentlessly watered down Section Sixty-One, and then rendered it moot. Amendments made it ineffectual by allowing City Council to grant waivers to its provisions for special circumstances. Longterm urban-averse suburbanites were grandfathered in.

And in the final coffin nail, the Great State of Ohio passed a law in two thousand six making it illegal to require city employees to reside in the city. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the law in two thousand nine.

Today we have large swaths of city employees who love the city enough to live elsewhere. Some live hours away. Some live in other states.

Toledo Mayor Wade K says he thinks that’s a damn shame. Sez folks who work in the City should live in the city. Especially safety forces, who should better respect and understand the citizens they serve by living among them.

Of course that means Wade stuck to his guns when appointing an Interim Police Chief to replace retiring Chief George Kral. Kral resides in Toledo, so of course Wade’s choice for Interim Chief, Michael Troendle, does…

Not. Oopsie, seems Troendle doesn’t call Toledo home. Just like the majority of the police force he has been chosen to lead. Troendle sez not to worry, though. He sez he’s vested in the City because he drops in from time to time on family outings and such. And also to collect his generous City paycheck with bennies, we’d imagine. Nah, he prob has direct deposit.

Anyway, he has a few friends in the city, and prob takes occasional trips to the Toledo Zoo.

Troendle claims he can’t move into the city because of family issues. We assume that means he and his family use “urban” as a pejorative term.

Fool for the city

Lest you think this is rank hypocrisy on Wade’s part, consider that the majority of political appointees in his administration also apparently live outside the city. And get direct deposit for their generous paychecks with bennies. While still hypocritical, it’s par for the course.

One last question about Toledo leaders who don’t live in the City. Toledo City Council recently appointed Carrie Hartman to a vacant at-large seat previously held by Dr. Michele Grim. Hartman held city positions in the last two Toledo mayoral administrations, but apparently lived in Maumee. She ran unsuccessfully for Maumee City Council as recently as twenty nineteen.

Now she’s on Toledo Council. Rumor has it she is now a Toledo resident. Oh, the places you’ll go, Madame Councilor.