City Council - Regular Meeting

I call to order the Toledo City Council meeting of September 22nd, 2026. Clerk, please call the roll.

Driscoll. Here. Gattis. Here. Hobbs. Here. Jones.

Please stand for the invocation by Dr. Calvin Sweeney from Tabernacle, Toledo, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag and the singing of the National Anthem by Desiree Viout, a student from Toledo School of the Arts.

Thank you so much, President Williams. Thank you so much, Desiree, for being here. Any chance, you know, I go to Pluto School for the Arts every morning at 737 to drop off too many people, quite frankly. Got a little carpool situation on my hands. But it's just a wonderful place and so much talent in that building. I don't know how it even is all contained in one structure. So thank you so much for being here. Always a joy. And then to Pastor Sweeney, thank you. Thank you, sir. It's good to catch up and hear from you. Thank you for your community, your leadership in this community. And it did

Thank you. Clerk, please begin with the resolutions in attendance recognizing Susie Coates and Kids and Hannah Socks on their 20th anniversary. The representatives from Susie Coates and Hannah Socks, could they please come up to the podium?

Councilwoman Cramer. Thank you so much, Madam President, and thank you so much for all you do in the community. As I read up more about all that you do, I am just so amazed. But one quote from you really stands out for me, and that is, I believe that when children are warm, they feel safe. And when they feel safe, they are much more hopeful about their tomorrow. and that just really hit me. We all work very hard to make our community safe and we have to remember those small things like having a warm coat, having warm socks, having those things help to make children feel safe in their homes, in

We have a couple more comments, just a second. Council Member Gattis.

Thanks, I'll keep it real brief. I just, I wanted to thank you for the 20 years of giving to the community. Educator for 15 for TPS. I've seen kids come wrapped up in blankets walking over the high level bridge in the middle of winter. I mean, what you do for our children is beautiful and I can't thank you enough. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Congratulations on 20 years. And I remember Hannah coming to our church and asking us to collect socks for Hannah's socks. And so with the collaboration, I love that word, and partnerships, the organization has grown and it is helping throughout the city with not just the clothing, but also with food and understanding of books and classroom preparedness and readiness. It changes the life of a elementary or high school student when entering into the classroom, when they are warm, when they are full and assured that there's somebody out there that cares for them. It changes the whole

Thank you so much. Well, if you will, come on in and take a picture with Toledo City Council.

All right. Recognizing and honoring the Toledo Troopers. Would the Toledo Troopers please step forward.

This is an exciting day for not just me, but for the city of Toledo to recognize the Toledo troopers. And because one of the famous Toledo troopers is also a graduate of Libby high school. Sister Jefferson, who was also inducted into the African American Legacy two years ago. Yeah, and then I just remember Sunday Jones, so many of the other players that played. i want to thank you ma'am for coming to council and reminding us when you had that conversation in the corner with me and mayor wade and we talked about this and sister gaddis and now we also know that you also have a bench at the Metro

Thank you. I'm so excited that we get to finally celebrate you guys. Trailblazers, I am a huge women's sports fan, so this is such an honor for me. You guys led the way for Toledo Reign. I was just at the women's rugby game a couple weekends ago, and I'm just thinking, you guys made all of this possible for my generation and the generations that are coming after. And it is just a huge honor. So thank you for coming and thank you for changing Toledo for women in sports for us. Thanks, Chair. Councilwoman Morris.

Thank you. Thank you, ladies, for taking time out of your schedules to come down, because sometimes it's hard to be honored, and so I'm happy that you came. Thank you to Council Member Gaddis and McPherson for allowing me to try sponsor this. I ran into some of the members at Mama's Kitchen, and they were having breakfast. They were having a meeting, and I went to have breakfast. And I was, you know, as you do, you kind of sit around, and you look, and you think, wow. I wonder what they're doing. What's Toledo Troopers? So what do you do? You start Googling, right? Oh, oh my goodness. How do I

OUR MAYOR ACTUALLY IS OVER HERE FANNING. SO I'M GOING TO LET HIM SAY SOMETHING.

I had lots of conversations about that yesterday.

I said it was about our meeting with the zoo yesterday. Oh, it was horrible.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. No, she doesn't.

First reading. Let's continue on with new items from the administration.

Thank you, Madam President. I don't know if you all saw the referral response to the question I asked about the portion of the climate action plan that this refers to. But I think the administration admits in that, I think the 1% for the environment is designed to address our climate action plan. And the monies we spend from that fund ought to be used to address our climate action plan, which I think of as an internal document. It's about our operations. This audit, it seems to me, and I think it is admitted by the administration in the referral response, is taking a look at everybody's recycl

Thank you, Madam President. Just to piggyback on that, based on what I saw on the referral that I had requested, it's not that I'm opposed to doing the audit, but I think it's been done prior, and I think funds should be better spent for actually implementation strategies versus actually trying to figure out what we should do. So we've already had multiple audits in the past, so now it's time for action. So I'll be voting no, but not because I don't support what they're trying to do. I think we need to get off the dime and actually do something about it. Thank you.

you madam president i promise this is the last time uh we got a referral response to this question uh from the administration said this was in fact a budget adjustment but after discussions with chief robeson uh what i learned about this is this does not uh we did we did not find any savings anywhere else in the budget i think we'll attempt to do that at close out at the end of this year but i think everyone on council should recognize What this does is it just increases our expenditures by $1.4 million, and that will ultimately, if we don't find cuts elsewhere, savings elsewhere, it will come

I move to relieve item 353-26 from the Transportation Committee.

I move to dispense with the reading of the Toledo City Journal for the City Council meeting of September 8th, 2026.

I move to excuse Council Member Meldon for non-attendance at the Zoning and Planning Committee of September 16, 2026, and the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee of September 17, 2026. Councilwoman Morris for non-attendance at the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee of September 17, 2026. Council President Williams for non-attendance at the agenda review meeting of September 15th, 2026, and the Transportation Committee of September 16th, 2026. Council Member Gattis for non-attendance at the agenda review meeting of September 15th, 2026. Councilman Hobbs for non-

um i'm not good at the circular breathing thing that would have been helpful there yeah um hey uh happy fall feels like it out there uh just a couple things for me one is uh speaking of the committee hearings thanks to everyone who was a part of the one on uh last week our ai and our responsible ai strategy i think it's a really important conversation and i look forward to more um THE POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF THAT MOVING FORWARD. ON A REALLY FUN NOTE, I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO VISIT WITH A THIRD GRADE CLASS AT BLESSED SACRAMENT TODAY, AND WE KIND OF LOOKED OVER. WE GOT THE OFFICIAL APPROVAL OF TH

Councilwoman Morris, first call. Thank you, Clerk, and I would agree with you with Bob. He was a gem of a guy. I met him through the Arts Commission way back when, and his touch was always on the different organizations throughout the city, so we definitely mourn his loss. I would like to say thank you for my colleagues for supporting the grants for the Summit Street Embankment Stabilization. When I first got on council five years ago, this was the first thing that came to my desk and we spent many a times trying to get grant funding to uh... get this project done so i'm i'm excited that it's

Thank you, Madam Clerk. First of all, I want to extend my sympathy, too, to the Meeker family. I knew Bob, and certainly he touched so many lives throughout Toledo and northwestern Ohio with so many hours of dedication to so many nonprofit organizations. But I also had the privilege of working with Bob in my business, and I appreciated his wisdom and his commitment to being an effective business owner. Also, I want to report that the Greek Festival was very successful. It was nice to see many of you at the festival. And we had a great weekend and appreciated everybody's support of this very fi

I think at the very least, the zoo needs to expand, expound a little bit on the decision, why they came to it. And they say operational, financial. It's not exactly clear to me that they're having any operational or financial issues. And so I think they owe it to the community to explain why they would have ended such an important program so suddenly and affected a few dozen kids in our community that RELIED ON THAT PROGRAM AND GOT A LOT OF VALUE OUT OF IT. I WOULD BE REMISS IF I DIDN'T MENTION THAT OBVIOUSLY I THINK EVERYBODY HERE, THEIR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE WITH THE MAURO FAMILY, ANDREA

council member gaddis first call thank you i just want to uh dr jones would want me to remind everyone that thursday there's a housing community development and public health policy committee hearing it's going to be fun and it's the day before my birthday, so maybe there'll be cake involved. So please come, 3.30, thanks.

Just asking everyone, as Councilman Driscoll has already stated, please keep Andrea Morrow and her family in your prayers. I've been with them several times over the last two weeks. I was with her Saturday for the home-going service, and Wauseon really, really came out. He spent almost his entire working career at uh saunters if uh if you know where that is and there's a lot of work there so there were just a lot of um folks that showed up to show their support to her family and uh please keep them in your prayers also asking you to remember the family of michelle williams who passed she was a

Thank you, Clerk. I want to start with good news. Last week, the city of Toledo was named the Store It Safe Community of the Year, yeah, by the Ohio chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. So thank you so much to Mackenzie, who kind of put that all together in terms of getting that award. But to all of us who are working very hard to encourage our community to lock up their guns, we will be recognizing Columbus next month for that. So very excited about that. I do want to thank Councilman Sarantu for bringing up the ADAPT program. My family has very close ties with the zoo. Two of my ch

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Nothing at this time. Thank you.

first goal whoa so um i do want to send our thoughts and prayers to chief allison armstrong who was in a crash in colorado as she was serving our community i'm going to a firefighters conference so Definitely want to keep her in our thoughts and hopeful for a speedy recovery. Also, too, thank you for everybody checking on little Kendall. She slept last night, so it was great, and I'm excited for her to sleep every night. So thank you all for being here today, and the word of today is grateful. This meeting is adjourned.