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Welp, E Day twenny twenny fiver has come, and gone.
The outcome was precisely as we predicted. Okay, not precisely. Anyhoo.
All five incumbent members of Toledo City Council were re-elected, along with the incumbent mayor. To the east, in elections we ignored at our peril, the long-time mayor of Oregon was bounced, along with some incumbent members of Oregon Council.
That’s so last month. What now?
In any event…. Newly elected and re-elected politicos can focus on any of a number of thorny issues. Crime. Housing. Rising cost of living. The common thread tying these together? Economic development.
Make no mistake. The most important issue facing our dear froggy environs is an economy that produces good-paying, stable employment. With benefits, like pensions and reliable health care.
The largest local employers are not-for-profit medical facilities and governmental entities, like the City and County, and educational facilities like schools and universities. Large private employers like Stellantis and GM are also important.
Local pols have an impact on maintaining these jobs, to be sure. But their biggest concern should be support for the smaller, more diverse businesses that crop up across the fruited plain.
RELATED: Democracy Watch
As we traverse the economic landscape, what signs of such support do we see? Automated car washes pop up everywhere — which employ almost no one. Remember the restaurants around the ballpark? The former Packo’s at the Park and Poco Piatti are now so-called “event centers.”
Seriously, today there’s a glut of event caterers downtown. The old Roadhouse on Erie Street. The former pawn shop on Monroe, newly renovated, and now another “event center.” The aptly named Event Center on Summit.
What gives? Is there a stampede of weddings, reunions, and dances just itching for spaces to stage their revelries? Predictably, most of these spaces sit empty, producing exactly nothing.
Meanwhile, there are still no grocery stores downtown, and few other shops to provide the necessities for the thousands who live there. There is little quirky, funky, entrepreneurial energy.
It doesn’t compute
And what of Oregon? Two words. Data center. A behemoth of computing power, designed to crunch gigabytes, petabytes, exabytes of data. Incorporating massive electrical systems with backup generators and uninterrupted power supplies. With state of the art cooling systems. All designed to ensure continuous operation of high demand processing. Think artificial intelligence. And skyrocketing electricity prices. And virtually no long-term job creation.
Thus came the electoral loss of incumbent Oregon Mayor Mike Sefarian. Whose support of a new data center in Oregon likely contributed to his defeat at the polls.
A cautionary tale. A warning. It’s the economy, stupid. Meaning jobs, not massive empty buildings with pretty signs.
The Pythian Castle sits empty. Most of the Erie Street Market slowly rots away. The old Nasby Building is a wasteland. The Lamson Center is used sporadically, if at all. The Spitzer and Nicholas buildings, currently being renovated, must avoid this fate.
Challenge given. Take heed, local pols. Think creatively to provide legislative and financial support for productive small businesses there.
Make sure these spaces don’t ultimately become empty “event centers.”
Or utilities-sucking data centers. Or, cheesy crepes, car washes.
