Inside Toledo City Council is an ongoing TFP series highlighting the public functions of the 12-member council so citizens can become more civically involved.
TOLEDO – Three resolutions started off Tuesday’s Toledo City Council meeting, whose most controversial ordinances were placed on “hold” so council members could further investigate them.
All council members were in attendance with the exception of Brittany Jones (at-large), and the meeting officially began with an invocation from Rev. Aaron Baughman of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. The invocation focused on the benefit and power of diversity, as told through a reimagining of the story of the Tower of Babel from the Bible.
Old Orchard Pride
Next, a neighborhood team, the Old Orchard Neighborhood Association, took to the podium, and advertised their Garden Tours happening this Sunday, June 8. The tours are priced at $10 per person, happen from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and all the proceeds from the tours go towards the beautification of the Old Orchard neighborhood.
Sam Melden (District 5), whose district includes the Old Orchard neighborhood exclaimed that “this is one of the coolest events in the city, and it’s a great example of what happens when neighbors care so deeply about their neighborhood.”
One day before the garden tours, on June 7, Old Orchard is featuring a garage sale day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Ohio Youth of the Year
Council then took pride in recognizing high school senior Tyreese Blue II, who won the 2025 Ohio Youth of the Year award for the Ohio Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs.
The award was announced in early April of this year and resulted from Blue’s volunteer dedication and service to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Toledo.
Blue plans on attending the University of Toledo, where he will have already collected enough credits to enter as a junior in undergraduate studies. The 17-year-old plans on majoring in construction engineering technology.
Multiple council members had words of encouragement for Blue, including Nick Komives (at-large), who hoped Blue would “stick around the city.”
During 13 ABC’s Rising Star segment, Blue said he intended on reinvesting in his family here in Toledo. “They put in so much work to put me in this position, I just want to give back to them in whatever way I can.”
Council members Vanice Williams (District 4), Cerssandra McPherson (at-large), Melden (District 5), and George Sarantou (at-large) all added their praises to Blue for his accomplishments and contribution to the community, with Williams and McPherson taking extra time to thank Blue’s parents for supporting him.
> A much shorter presentation was given to recognizing the Toledo Unified basketball team, a University of Toledo initiative in collaboration with the Special Olympics, for winning the 2025 National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association Championship.
Rocky Ridge LLC
Perhaps the most anticipated moment in the council meeting was the vote on Ordinances 223-25, 224-25 and 225-25, which deal with rezoning the areas near Byrne Road and Angola Road for industrial use. But these Ordinances were not voted on in Tuesday’s meeting, because Mac Driscoll (at-large) chose to table them.
The main company in question for this zoning change is Rocky Ridge LLC, a company that mines lime for use in agriculture.
Last week, the three rezoning ordinances caused a significant disruption during the Council’s agenda review when Toledo mayoral candidate Roberto Torres interrupted the review with 300 signatures of Toledo residents against the rezoning.
This week, Torres was back but left shortly after Driscoll tabled the ordinances, meeting the press in the 1 Government Center foyer.
“The residents need to be vigilant on this issue and be cautiously optimistic,” he said.
But Bill Hoag, who grew up in the area and owns a number of properties there, was less than satisfied with the hold. “You can’t keep postponing this,” he said. “It would have been turned down today if they voted, they don’t have enough [votes] to pass.”
Since the Plan Commission did not recommend the ordinances for approval, Council will need a supermajority of nine votes to pass the zoning changes from residential to industrial.
However, area residents say mining has already begun.
“They’ve been mining for two years. I watch it everyday,” said Kelly McKown, who can only vouch for the past two years she’s lived on Angola Road.
“They’ve been doing it without the zone change,” and the dust from the mining has been a significant concern for McKown’s health. “I do have asthma, and I’m now on an inhaler, a maintenance inhaler that I wasn’t on previously.
“If it’s because of that site, I don’t know. But going forward, the health implications for myself or residents around me, that’s a concern going forward.”
McKown and her husband said what Rocky Ridge LLC is putting into the ground and what residents are “breathing in” are of utmost importance to them.
There were three concerns brought to the attention of Toledo City council by the plan commission:
- Concern of dust from mining
- Reuse of the site after the mining
- Environmental impacts of mining
Driscoll seemed adequately assuaged by the efforts to mediate the dust with a “dust suppressant,” as Ed Moore, managing director of Rocky Ridge Development LLC, recommended. Driscoll referenced an individual who said the dust had gotten better since the use of the suppressant, but Hoag was less than pleased with the suppressant solution.
“Byrne Road’s all oil,” he said. “See, the people have complained so bad about the dust, [so] they’ve started treating that. Well, the treatment’s got oil in it. Come in off Angola, and come out onto Byrne…it’s an oil slick, basically. You can smell it. It’s not good.”
Regardless, the two council members who seemed most undecided on the issue were Driscoll and McPherson, who were very concerned about the size of the rezone (60 acres) and its viability for reuse.
“I asked them, could the property be used after this project is done for agriculture, farming?” McPherson said, but relayed that there were slightly different answers given to her by different sources.
Then came the issue of the signatures opposed to the industrial development, which she said she checked to make sure they were from residents of the City of Toledo.
She confirmed the signatures were from Toledoans, which also gave her pause.
“How does that [mining] affect those that live around there? How will it affect them? Will it affect the water around there? Will that dust and all of that, will that affect the people around here?” she questioned hypothetically, and added, “When you ask the question, then you get two different answers. Now, I got to go back, so we’ll look into it.”
Driscoll confirmed the ordinances could not be held indefinitely because it would not be fair to residents or Rocky Ridge LLC, but could not say when the ordinances would be voted on.
