It all started with a poem.
In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Coleridge told of the ill-fated mariner who shot an albatross with a cross-bow. Because of this foul deed, the mariner was doomed to live the rest of his life with the albatross slung around his neck. One simple mistake, and the poor sap was stuck with a heavy dead bird hanging from a chain for the rest of his days.
In a poem come to life, Toledo neck, meet One Government Center albatross.
Flying the coop
But first, more about a recent foul deed. In which the most tea bag conservative member of Toledo City Council, Tom Waniewski, fielded a couple complaints from neighbors of urban chicken owners. Waniewski cried fowl and moved to make chicken keeping, without an onerous permitting process, illegal in T-Town.
That got the goat of his liberal colleague, long-haired hippie and chicken keeper Councilman Steven Steel. Well, not exactly the goat, since all indications are that Steel doesn’t keep anything with cloven hooves. Anyhoo, the two got together and decided on a piece of compromise legislation that allows chickens but not roosters and sets a bunch of other guidelines.
So the streets keep eroding, the budget is tighter than Carty’s derriere in a staff meeting, the sewers can’t keep up with the massive summer deluge, and these two decide the most pressing decisions involve what to do about chickens.
At least they didn’t do the obvious and create a new position of chicken inspector.
Risky business
In other news about diversionary decisions, the City is now poised to take on the twenty-two story albatross known as One Government Center.
Seems the State of Ohio forgot to bill the City for the space it occupies in One Guv starting back in 2013, during the former Bell administration. When the Collins administration formed in 2014, they notified the State. The State then replied by jacking up the rents, like, way up.
The City started to negotiate, and along the way, still hasn’t paid rent since 2013. Several million dollars of back rent sit in escrow. The amount of the rent still hasn’t been determined. And the State has since offered to off-load the building, with all the maintenance problems the state has ignored, to the City for a cool one dollar.
This leaves us all with choices. Take the building, use the escrowed rent for upgrades, and hope the City leadership doesn’t screw up the management of the building. To us, this seems unlikely. The City is notorious for robbing Peter to pay for fancy dinners and a movie for Paul.
Or, stay put with the status quo and hope rents don’t get jacked too high. This could bust the budget with unforeseen costs. The City could also move to different space. Moving costs could be prohibitive, and rents would probably still be higher than the current budget planned for.
So that leaves us with the uncharted waters of owning a major building downtown, hoping to keep it occupied, and praying that management doesn’t screw it all up. Hoo boy, what a pickle.
In the poem, the mariner had a choice and made a bad one. The leadership of our fair Frogopolis looks to be forced into a similar situation, with a bad choice the less bad of three stinkers.
Cross yer fingers and hope, folks, ‘cause it appears we’re about to slay that albatross.
