The Toledo Blade
Article published Monday, February 23, 2004
By TOM TROY
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Mayor Jack Ford hopes to take Lucas County on its first real step toward regional government next week in a summit to be convened at a train station.
Using the term "Unigov," known to municipal policy wonks as the merger 34 years ago of Indianapolis and Marion County, Mr. Ford repeatedly has pressed the Lucas County commissioners to begin planning for unified government.
When the commissioners didn't act, Mr. Ford announced during his State of the City speech last week that he would take the lead.
Whether anyone will follow remains to be seen.
"Cities like Indianapolis and Louisville have gone this way. And even our neighbor, Cleveland, is looking at regionalism. Why Cleveland and not Toledo? Why Louisville and not Toledo? Why Indianapolis and not Toledo?" Mr. Ford asked.
Local officials may be ready with some answers to Mr. Ford's questions when they meet next week.
"I have heard very little," said Stanley Wielinski, mayor of the village of Whitehouse. He's one of likely a couple dozen mayors, council presidents, and county commissioners who are being invited to the two-hour session March 3 at the offices of Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments at the Amtrak station in South Toledo.
He said an outright merger won't be popular in his village.
"We're kind of a close-knit town. We don't like somebody else telling us what to do. I would probably put a committee together to oppose it," he said.
Marge Brown, the mayor of Oregon, said she's in support of cooperating to deliver services and share information whenever possible, but doesn't want to lose control over local functions, like the police department.
"I don't think we're ready for that here," Ms. Brown said.
Despite their doubts, most officials contacted by The Blade said they will be interested to hear Mr. Ford's pitch.
"It's certainly worth listening to," Sylvania Mayor Craig Stough said.
Keith Haddad, a member of Sylvania City Council, said a good place to start would be a regionalized water system, instead of the Toledo-owned water system. He said regional planning would also make sense if it would dampen the rush toward sprawl - the development of agricultural land and the loss of taxpayers from the city.
"I don't agree with one government for the whole region," he added. "There's a lot of people who move to the suburbs because they want to control their own destiny. To just try to put everybody together in one pool I don't think is beneficial."
Mr. Ford has not fleshed out his invitation with detail.
His press secretary, Mary Chris Skeldon, said the meeting will be open to all possibilities. She said there will be a presentation on different forms of regional cooperation by the University of Toledo's Urban Affairs Center, and James Lindeen, a political science professor at the University of Toledo, will facilitate the discussion.
"It will be a review of models of regional governments, not only the Unigov type, but also more cooperative ways of doing business rather than just merging government," Ms. Skeldon said.
Toledo is not the only Midwest city looking at regionalism. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo are among those seriously talking about supersizing their city by joining forces with the smaller municipalities that surround them.
The two best-known examples of city-county mergers are Indianapolis-Marion County, Indiana, in which the term Unigov was coined, and Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky, which merged last year following a public referendum
Both are, in essence, county-sized cities governed by a mayor and city-county council.
Indianapolis's council has 29 representatives - 25 district members and four at-large members. Four towns are exempt from Unigov, and some local services such as schools, fire, and police remain unconsolidated.
Louisville has 26 district council members. It left intact 84 municipalities, which continue to collect taxes, employ their own police departments, and even elect their own councils.
The merger of city and county government is viewed as politically difficult to achieve in Lucas County, where racial and political tensions divide the city and its suburbs, and where suburban cities have histories as old as Toledo's.
Possibly a more achievable form of unified government is found in the seven counties that center on Minneapolis-St. Paul, where property taxes are shared, based on population and poverty.
Wade Kapszukiewicz, a Toledo city councilman, said he favors the Minneapolis model.
"There could be a day when we do end up with an Indy-type model, but we're obviously a long way from that," Mr. Kapszukiewicz said.
"Which mayor is going to volunteer to step down? Which council is going to dissolve themselves?" he asked. "If we follow the Minneapolis model we wouldn't have to do that."
He said the alternative to regional decision-making is wasteful competition, which he considers unacceptable. That's how he sees a plan being considered by Sylvania to construct its own water treatment and pumping system, for a potential cost of $200 million.
"That is a $200 million tax on noncooperation," Mr. Kapszukiewicz said.
Harry Barlos, president of the Lucas County board of commissioners, said he has been hearing Mr. Ford talk about "Unigov" for more than a year, in connection with the county's efforts to get the city to agree to ship water to townships on the western side of the county.
"We sent Mayor Ford a letter in July of last year saying any time you want to begin discussions on areawide cooperation, we're there," Mr. Barlos said. He believes Toledo is looking for tax sharing, whereas what the county needs is a regional planning body with authority.
"I don't think creating the revenue stream is priority No. 1," Mr. Barlos said, adding, "If you start talking about elimination of governments you're going to have some uneasy elected officials."
Peter Gerken, who is running against Mr. Barlos for the Lucas County commission, said he plans to make regional government a prime topic for the election campaign.
"What I have in mind is a movement of competing political subdivisions into areas of cooperation," Mr. Gerken said. "We ought not be competing over scarcity when we could be cooperating over abundance."
He noted that the cities that have merged functions - Indianapolis, Louisville, and Minneapolis - are known for their successful economies.
City Councilman Betty Shultz, who is running as a Republican for county treasurer against Mr. Kapszukiewicz, said a merger that results in the loss of municipal jobs will be hard to sell in a strong labor town like Toledo. Like Mr. Kapszukiewicz, she said it could be approached incrementally.
"If we successfully implement some of the smaller pieces we should be able to move forward with the bigger issues, but it will not happen overnight," Mrs. Shultz said.