The race is on!
That’s right, gentle folk, the municipal races are officially underway with the filing of petitions by candidates to run for office. Seven candidates filed to be the mayor of Toledo after the next election, and eighteen filed to run for Toledo City Council. While the primary election is still two months away, there’s much to be learned from the filing deadline. To wit:
The Lucas County Democratic Party was better off with the A-team B-team split. Back in oh-five, the internecine war within the LC Dems produced two separate slates of Ds for voter consideration. Even four years ago, there were enough Ds running for City Council that the Party endorsed seven for six seats after the primary.
Now that the rift has been mended, the Ds can barely even run a full Council slate. Joining incumbents Shaun Enright, Adam Martinez and Steven Steel are former Mayor Jack Ford and current School Board member Larry Sykes. That’s five candidates for six seats, and not a woman among them. The only other declared D candidate is something called Joshua Fowler. We’ll do the math for you. In a city that votes nearly two thirds Democratic, only one third of the Council candidates filing have a wee “D” behind their names. Ouch!
The current Lucas County Republican Party is such a freak show that only complete freaks admit they’re members. The Jon Stainbrook-led Party has never fielded so many candidates. Of course, we’ve never heard of most of them. The lone exception is Council incumbent Rob Ludeman, who has been an elected “R” for the better part of two decades, which makes it too late to hide. The other declared Rs include such household names as Joseph Celusta, Ron Johns, James P. Martin, Ernest McCarthy, Alfonso Narvaez, James Nowak, and Alex Rivera. At least we hope they’re household names in their own households, because no one else has any idea who they are. Unless Ron Johns is somehow connected to that surf shop… but we doubt it.
Longtime Rs Sandy Spang and Theresa Gabriel don’t even have the guts to admit it and are instead running as Independents.
Losers just don’t get it. Narvaez joins Green Party candidate Sean Nestor as the biggest losers on the ballot—both ran for a District Council seat a mere two years ago. Narvaez garnered a robust one hundred thirty three votes in District 4 and Nestor received a well deserved one hundred forty nine nods of those who voted in District 6. Such miserable results meant both finished last in their respective races.
Let’s face facts: if you can’t win your own district, you can’t possibly win citywide. In the 2009 primary it took over five thousand five hundred votes just to finish in twelfth place and move on to the general election. No one who got less than seventy eight hundred votes in the primary won in November. Quite a bit of ground to make up there, boys.
Then there’s bar owner Bill Delaney who is running for Council as an Independent. Delaney earned fame by fighting the city wide smoking restrictions, then refusing to enforce the statewide smoking law put in place by a vote of the people. He has declared that he doesn’t trust the voters.
We do, Bill. And we trust they won’t elect you.
A certain member of the Toledo School Board seem a bit divorced from reality. Board member Sykes held a press conference on a Wednesday, surprising fellow Board members by laying out his platform for the District and deflecting questions about his plans to run for another office. The next day, he filed petitions to run for Toledo City Council. Umm, not sure you realize this, ol’ bean, but it’s gonna be a might tough to enact your School Board agenda if you aren’t actually on the School Board.
Prophecy ain’t what it used to be. Witness self-avowed prophetess Opal Covey, who famously opined that God had chosen her to be the next Toledo Mayor and that she’d leave town if not elected. That was twelve years ago, and she’s still here and running again.
Then there’s Donald Gozdowski, dedicated evangelist and missionary, who first ran for Mayor in oh-five. At the time he said he just woke up one day and decided he could be the mayor. The voters had other thoughts. He got ninety one votes, twenty less than Covey in the oh-five primary. He’s on the ballot this year as a write-in candidate.
Here’s a bit of prophecy for you: no, Don, in fact you can’t be the mayor.
