After more than two years, plus a final few months of hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing, Toledo City Council finally pulled the trigger. In a unanimous vote, our peerless leaders passed sweeping legislation aimed at ending the scourge of lead-poisoned children in Toledo.
We aren’t here to praise or vilify said legislation, however. The merits and deficits and unintended consequences can be masticated elsewhere. Instead, let’s examine the process that produced the “lead-safe properties” ordinance. It allows a brief peek behind the scenes of City Politics.
Movin’ on up
Let’s start with the original legislation, introduced way back when Paula Hicks Hudson was still a lowly district council rep and Jack Ford still strode among us. PHH decided to make eliminating lead hazards in older rental stock her One Big Thing.
And what a big thing it was. Crafted with help from the public interest legal aid group ABLE, her ordinance would have required full-blown lead abatement of any property found to have a trace of the suspect element. Ford held a committee hearing on the ordinance, and a parade of Chicken Littles pronounced the imminent fall of the housing stock sky.
They warned that no one could afford to comply with the ordinance’s requirements, citing expected costs of tens of thousands of dollars per property. Abandoned houses! they wailed. More blight for copper thieves to pillage! they moaned. And that was that. PHH’s One Big Thing died on the vine, or at least, died in committee.
Except it didn’t die. PHH became Mayor Hicks Hudson, and a large group calling itself the Lead Safe Committee formed to have another go at the undead beastie. Front and center in the group was ABLE lawyer Bob Cole. But the faces of the committee also included reps from the health department, heads of community groups, ministers of black churches, and even the President of the local NAACP.
The new incarnation of the lead ordinance was less onerous, requiring only lead containment rather than abatement. Hearings were held, Chicken Littles paraded, amendments were offered, and in the end, the new lead-safe ordinance is now law in T-Town.
Lessons learned
What can we learn from this legislative sojourn? First, it’s good to be mayor. PHH has lots more clout with Democrats on council as mayor than she ever had as their peer, even as President of Council. There’s also a larger, more dependable cadre of true-blue Democrats on the current council to have clout with. So another lesson is, elections matter.
A third and most basic lesson is that elected officials want to look like they’re accomplishing something. PHH wanted this to be her signature legislation when she was a simple council member. She wants it even more as mayor. Members of council were confronted with the horrifying statistics of lead poisoning in Lucas County. They predictably responded with, “we gotta do somethin’!”
The “somethin’” to do was provided in a neat, leagalese-laden package by an influential group who could make or break future election cycles. It was one thing when PHH and a lawyer wanted an ordinance passed. When black ministers and the NAACP speak, Democrats on council listen.
Those voices demanding passage of the ordinance were balanced by the hue and cry of doom and gloomers who wanted the whole effort scrapped. Lesson four. When electeds want to “do somethin’,” demanding they instead do nothing will never work.
Was the final legislation the best and brightest somethin’ that could be done? That doesn’t matter. Let the health department figure it out. And that’s the biggest take-away from the lead ordinance saga.
In City Politics, looking like you’re “doin’ somethin’” is all that counts.
