City Council - Regular Meeting

Please stand for the invocation by Reverend Sohan from the Buddhist Temple of Toledo, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag and a performance of the National Anthem by Adam Beanman.

Thank you so much, President Williams. This is, you know, it's always fun. We get to put these pairings together, and this one really threw me off, to be honest with you, because These two gentlemen here, one is a very new friend, one is a very, very old friend, so I'm going to give a little background on Reverend so on. I reached out to the temple to have someone come out for this month, and I did not know who it was going to be. kind of dealer's choice, if you will. And so wouldn't you know, when I go find someone who we, 20 years ago, we first met, and I have memories of us playing music to

Thank you. Clerk, please begin with the resolution in attendance.

Ms. Willis, you can come to the podium. And whoever you want to bring, you can come to the podium. Councilwoman McPherson.

Good afternoon. This is such an honor to be able to present this to Lady Willis. And it is more so because Lady Willis actually showed up. if you know her, she is not one for wanting to be upfront. But because I had heard this story in her being honored as a silent hero, I said, we definitely have to do this in city council chambers to tell the story. And as the resolution that I will be presenting to you, Lady Willis, it says, earning your diploma five decades ago, delayed but not denied. They can hold it up. But God has the final say so. And you stood fast in that. And I want to read what sh

Councilwoman Morris. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for coming and allowing us to honor you. This kind of falls into, this is Toledo, and these are the everyday heroes that don't go noticed. And I worked with Congresswoman Kaptur for nearly 30 years. And I remember your tenure at the Lucas County Metropolitan Housing Authority. And I remember how hard you worked for your residents and how you stood up for them. And you should be immensely proud. I had no idea about this other chapter in your life. And this is how Toledo is, right? You know somebody in a certain way, but you don't know the who

Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Brittany Jones.

Thank you madam president why I echo all of the comments that my colleagues have said and I know that Councilman McPherson had said that you didn't want to to be acknowledged just like the first lady and think well I'm going to acknowledge you as a delta because. We are. the trailblazers, but also we fight for what is right and you are a prime example of that. It is an honor to not only celebrate you, but to really have you as a sorority sister and also just the work that you have done here in Toledo and really forging a lot of just housing and all of the community activism That is what we do.

Thank you, Madam President. It's such a pleasure to see you. It's been a while. And I had the opportunity to work with you in various capacities, whether I was on city council or a CDC director, and I always appreciated your quiet power. Very unassuming. People always kind of thought, oh, we'll just go in here and I've seen you rule with what I would call an iron fist and a velvet glove, and nobody knew what hit them. And I always appreciate your passion for the work you did in our communities. And not just the black community, but also the Latino community. And seriously, you have helped so m

All right, Lady Willis, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Ms. Willis. I now turn this meeting over to Councilmember Meldon.

Thank you. Clerk, please begin with the second read items.

Thank you, President Williams. I know that initially we had gone first reading on this, but I've talked to a couple members who have some questions about how the dues are calculated. Additionally, the folks at Lake Erie West have some new data gathering and tracking tools that they want to show us that we'll have access to. And so I think we're going to do a committee meeting to present on those in addition to talking about the dues that we owe to Lake Erie West. So that meeting will take place either on the 16th or 30th. I'm waiting to hear back from the folks at Lake Erie West on a date for

Clerk, I am going to abstain from this next one, so let me give you the proper intro, okay? Clerk, please continue with new items from the administration.

I move to dispense with the reading of the Toledo City Journal for the Toledo City Council meeting of August 25th, 2026.

Seeing no objections, it's still ordered.

I move to excuse Council Member Meldon for non-attendance at the Housing, Community Development, and Public Health Committee of August 27th, 2026. Councilman Driscoll for non-attendance at the City Council meeting of August 25th, 2026, and the Finance, Debt, and Budget Oversight Committee of August 26th, 2026. Councilwoman Jones for non-attendance at the Agenda Review meeting of September 1st, 2026, and Councilman Martinez for non-attendance at the Housing, Community Development, and Public Health Committee of August 27th, 2026.

Thank you. Just one simple thing, I think, from me today. I'm just really thrilled that we passed 382.26, this policy setting our intentions on a more disability-friendly community. We talked about this at length last week, so I'm not going to rehash all of it. I think now the hard work begins of actually thinking about different policy changes that we wanna make in line with that resolution. And of course I was wrong, there's one more thing. Next week, an Economic Development and Innovation Committee hearing at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, I believe it's the 15th. Right? Let's hope so. So hope to see e

Thank you, clerk. I know worlds collide a little bit sometimes, but in my other profession, my boss was let go at my other job, and he was with the company for 11 years, and with restructuring and the way things are going, I really want to wish him a happy retirement, which is just really sad that you kind of get forced into retirement. His boss was let go as well. So lots of changes out there in the private sector, but I can tell you about Steve Gibson. He is a Maumee resident, but he does like to hang out in Toledo, and he has a magnanimous demeanor. uh... and he's just uh... he's that he's

Thank you. Well, this weekend is the annual Greek American Festival and opens up Friday at 11 a.m. And from 11 to 3 p.m., it's totally free admission. And there'll be plenty of Greek foods to choose from. And there'll be plenty of pastries and plenty of cultural activities. And Imagination Station is going to be there on Saturday and Sunday with a special scientific experiment booth for our young folks. So it should be a great weekend. So everybody try to come out to the Greek Festival. Enjoy the food and the dancing and the music and everything else that goes along with it.

Thank you Councilman Driscoll first call Thank You clerk a couple things I'm going back in time a little bit because I missed the last meeting in our summer session the opportunity to share this but I attended council president Williams pool party at Willie's Park and And I had a great time, and the kids were great, and the pool was fantastic, and the employees did a great job hosting us. But I have to say, I grew up going to the Pickford pool as a kid. Most of my family grew up in South Toledo, so we went a lot. I went into the locker room to get changed for the party. I got to be honest, it

Thank you. And I'd also like to acknowledge that I'm happy we're moving forward with flock auditing. I know Councilman Driscoll and I had had lots of conversations. We've spoke to the auditor and really happy that we're moving forward as a council. It's been 69 days since I made a 10 point records request. for information around flock. I made that on July 1st. I have not received any information and so I am requesting that the administration send me the records as they gather them in installments rather than one lump sum. so maybe I can start getting some of the information. I've had conversat

We just like everyone to remember that this is the September is the National Suicide Prevention Month so please be especially aware as we should at all time but just the signs to help someone that could be in danger and just experiencing It's extremely important, and sometimes it can be hard to ask for help. So sometimes you have to try to reach out and help, you know, those that may not necessarily be asking for it but could be in trouble. on the, as far as the pause on the flock camera, I am asking until we have the data that we do not pause. There are a lot of things that this information c

I'll start off from as a follow-up to the committee meeting that we had regarding Brent Industries. I did talk with the health department as far as how We would gather information in case people are experiencing symptoms later on, where should they call in and things of that nature. So the health department does have a page regarding just what to do in these instances. So as of now, they do not do like on-site testing, but they rely on the hospitals in order to keep foul of how many people are complaining about nausea, migraines, any breathing issues. uh... issues and then that's how they get

Thank you so much, Clerk. I want to thank everybody who attended the hearing we had last week for an update on Brent Industries and a special thank you to the administration for being upfront and transparent with our residents. I did have a conversation today with Commissioner Simon about the current state of what's happening there. The chemical tanks have all been remediated and removed, which is a really good sign, and are now offsite. The cleanup company that has been contracted has requested from the OEPA to pause testing water and air quality as they no longer believe that it is a threat.

Thank you, Clerk. A lot of serious topics before us this evening. I just wanted to say I attended the produce party at Sonia Organics this weekend and it was packed it was very well attended we were all excited to get that fresh produce from some of our urban farmers and i know the pop-up produce stands at swainfield are planned through the fall and i really urge the administration to work with those urban farmers to include them. Could we have stands as we do at the farmer's market downtown for those urban farmers? I definitely think that's worth having a conversation because we definitely wa

Thank you, clerk. A couple things. I wanted to say a belated happy Labor Day to everyone. I appreciate everyone to echo my colleague's comments earlier that have made our workforce what it is today. And I sincerely appreciate all of the hard work and continued effort moving the agenda forward as things change and evolve, Secondly, I want to thank Councilman Meldon for bringing, what number was that? 382-26. So as District 2 rep, I challenge all of my colleagues, all of my district reps. to include more ADA-friendly and elderly policies in place. And I just wanted to highlight a couple that we

Real quick, our team has used up all the minutes. I want to extend my condolences to the families of the two who were found at the St. Agnes Church fire tragedy. And because of the situations that we have in our city of those unhoused, we have this tragedy. So I'm kind of flipping from where everybody else is going. Heartfelt in that we, after the fire and after the fact, and that happens. um let me say thank you and kudos to calvin harris and his department for always being consistent and sending us emails about what's going on with the water department with sewers as we deal with these heavy

President Williams, first call. Thank you, clerk. So it's been busy and we've had some good times and it's been some lows, but I definitely appreciate this council and all the feedback and the way that we think and can work together on different topics. But I wanna just bring us back real quick to Joseph Johnson. Joseph Johnson was a young man that he was a 16 year old Woodward High School student. He was shot and murdered on Woodward Avenue back in March of 25. On Friday, myself, Councilman Martinez, and Commissioner Lisa Sebecky went over and we looked at the workings of Flock, and we looked