Five years ago, a colleague wrote about a local woman who risked death to deliver her baby.
The original story ran as part of the Mother Day’s coverage in Toledo Free Press.
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Kristy Kress had been in her seventh month of pregnancy when she developed peripartum cardiomyopathy — pregnancy-induced heart failure — and gave birth to a premature son.
A few months later, she had a successful heart transplant.
She went back to work, she and her husband Chad raised little Hunter, and she became a huge advocate for organ donation.
In most cases, we would never have to revisit this story. But then everything changed — in a heartbeat.
On Feb. 7, Kristy, 36, died after suffering a rare form of rejection related to her heart transplant — years after the surgery had been deemed successful.
It was a shock.
“She wasn’t sick over the past five years,” said her sister-in-law Lexy Batey. “You would have seen her on the street and you would have thought she was just like you.”
I vividly remember the original story from 2009. At first, her last name didn’t sound familiar. However, her photo gave me pause. It was Kristy McVicker, a 1995 graduate of Springfield High School, my alma mater.
When I started to see on Facebook that she had passed, I thought it had to be because of something other than her heart. She had met all of her transplant milestones.
“We have had five extra years,” said her mom, Diana McVicker. “Her rejection started in August and progressed really quickly.”
As the family struggles to find a routine after Kristy, they try to focus on her memory. Unfortunately, none of her organs could be saved and donated.
“She would want to be remembered as a good mom. She had five years with her son that she wouldn’t have had,” Batey said. “We are holding up, but it is tough. We are trying our best.”
In the future, the family would like to do something in her memory or organize a benefit. They will be paying medical bills for a lifetime, so encouraging organ donation is a more immediate gift.
“Organ donation meant so much to Kristy. She wasn’t sick over the past five years,” Batey said. “She was back at work a week after being released from the hospital with a heart transplant.”
Kristy was the general manager of Extended Stay America in Holland. She and her husband met at work.
“Kristy was so down to earth. Monetary things meant nothing to her. She is my sweetie,” her mom said.
The Thursday before she died, it was suggested that Kristy go on disability. She refused. “That is not going to happen; don’t even go there,” she said.
In honor of Kristy, the family asked that donations go to Life Connection of Ohio, an organization dedicated to organ donation.
“It became her passion,” McVicker said. “Every time she posted she would mention it. If Kristy would have asked anything of us, she would ask us to be organ donors.”
Her other passion was her family, which was evident the first time we wrote about her. Doctors didn’t think she would survive a cesarean section to bring her son into the world. She did it anyway.
“Kristy was a fighter. She believed in hard work. She had a great deal of love, and she loved her family, especially Hunter,” her mom said.
Pity the Clip Show, because even when the Los Angeles Clippers win, they lose.
In their third consecutive year making the playoffs, and their first year without having to share the postseason spotlight with the Lakers, instead of making headlines with their play on the court, the Clippers were instead in the news for an entirely, brutally different reason. Team owner Donald Sterling was recently banned from the NBA for life for some incredibly racist comments he made in a recorded conversation with his girlfriend.
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After a few days of hearing this discussed on my radio station, I feel like I need to address some of the more common issues that keep coming up.
First and foremost: “Doesn’t he have the freedom of speech?” Sure he does. The First Amendment guarantees that the government may not pass laws to infringe on your right to say, print or draw whatever you want. Now, there is some question as to how this is applied lately, from everything from indecency laws to “free speech zones.” But Sterling hasn’t been criminally charged or arrested. The government has, in fact, done nothing. The court of public opinion is what weighed in here, and boy, did they bring down the lumber.
See, the freedom of speech includes the freedom to respond. We are not compelled to sit on our hands and listen to what somebody says. We are free to argue, walk away and refuse to talk to that person again.
The NBA is walking away, refusing to do business with the man, and using the rules he agreed to abide by in an effort to force him to sell the team. You can argue if they should, but you can’t argue that they can’t. I’d certainly hope you’d do the same if someone you did business with suddenly dropped a Marge Schott-like “Hitler was good at the beginning” kind of line.
Second: “Why is this blowing up now?” Yes, there are mounds of evidence of Sterling’s bad attitude for people with different levels of melanin in their skin, most of it tied to his property holdings, and his refusal to rent to African-Americans and Asian-Americans. So why is one recording suddenly the catalyst for his ouster?
There are two answers. The first is that the old guard at the NBA, former commissioner David Stern, never took Sterling on directly. Don’t know why. He was probably hoping Sterling would pass away before he did something else. Adam Silver, as new commissioner, had to come out strong in his first real test as the man in charge. Also, and it hurts to admit it, but you have to look at who broke the story on the recording: TMZ. Just the sheer volume of that audience, not to mention its direct feed into social media, meant that it was going to catch fire, and quickly.
And here’s the question that hasn’t been asked, but is in the back of the mind of everyone who’s freaked out by the whole situation: “Am I next?” Not to say that they have the same kind of hate in their heart as Sterling, but I think people are literally afraid that they’ll lose their jobs if they say the wrong thing. They look at what happened at the Mozilla Corporation, when CEO Brendan Eich stepped down after a public outcry over his donations to campaigns that were trying ban same-sex marriage in California.
Look, Sterling and Eich were very high-ranking management. Donald Sterling was simultaneously a bigot toward minorities and an owner of a basketball team that employs minorities. You can see the conflict of interest. The same thing happened with Mozilla: The company employs many homosexuals, and had often been cited as a very gay-friendly organization. Hiring someone who does not hold those same values to lead the company caused many to be disillusioned with the direction of the organization. You can’t have a guy in charge who openly discriminates against his employees.
The fact of the matter is that there’s nothing illegal with what happened between the NBA and Sterling. Sterling has his views, and the NBA has theirs. They’re no longer compatible, and the NBA has the bigger stick.
“Shaggy” Matt Culbreath is sports director at 1370 WSPD. Email him at [email protected].
The Amazing Johnathan was performing in front of a crowd full of fans in San Diego about two months ago when he knew it was time to call it quits.
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He’d planned for this moment for a while now. The famous comedy magician was diagnosed back in 2007 with a serious heart condition, cardiomyopathy. It means the heart muscle, for whatever reason, is beginning to deteriorate, leading to heart failure. At the time, the situation looked grim. Johnathan, who’d been a regular act in Las Vegas for years, made plans for retirement. But then, after losing weight and getting on blood thinners, everything seemed OK. He decided to cancel the end of his career.
Now, more than six years later, he was once more preparing to bow out of the spotlight, but on his terms — this year-long nationwide tour would be his farewell before he would quit performing for good. But he’d already learned the hard way that with this condition, even the best laid plans of mice, men and magicians are built on a foundation of quicksand. And in San Diego, it all came crashing back.
“Everything starting shutting down,” Johnathan said in an interview with Toledo Free Press. “My heart’s not allowing enough oxygen to be pumped into my legs and my arms. So halfway through the show, my hands started cramping up, and my legs started freezing up on me. And I pretty much made the decision then to cut this one-year tour short to only about three months.”
Johnathan — last name Szeles — will perform in Toledo at Laffs, Inc. from May 1-3. Then he’ll head to Los Angeles for a gig in Hollywood at the Magic Castle. And then … that’s it. He’ll retire to Las Vegas and work on maintaining his health as long as possible.
“It’s supposedly supposed to deteriorate more and more. In fact, I’m getting ready to go right now to the doctor’s to see if the medication that they gave me [is working]. And that’s my last resort. Because if that’s not working, they told me I probably have about a year. So, that’s not what you want to hear.”
Johnathan’s voice spoke of his mortality — which he gleefully pretended to imperil on a nightly basis for much of his adult life — in matter-of-fact terms. This is happening, and that’s that. “They were wrong last time about it. They said that it was going to deteriorate, and it didn’t. For six years, I was fine. And now, it’s just starting up again. So we’ll see what happens.”
In some ways, one gets the impression that the saddest part of everything for Johnathan is not that his health may be failing, or that he must give up his livelihood. No, the real tragedy is that he has to give up his act right when it’s getting so good.
For 30 years he has performed his wild brand of comedy magic — part purposefully bad tricks, part old-fashioned geek show, part prop comedy, part genuinely great illusions — and just now he’s reaching a point where he feels like he’s perfecting it.
“The show is actually better than it’s ever been. Before we announced that I was retiring, we started getting standing ovations, which was always sporadic throughout my career. Everybody loves the show, but to get a standing ovation is not an easy thing,” Johnathan said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, great. Now that I’m finally getting standing ovations, I’m sick and I can’t go out and enjoy that.’”
He’s also found a connection to a whole new generation of fans, thanks to appearances on fellow magician Criss Angel’s series “Mindfreak.” The shows opened the door to younger fans who weren’t around when he first made a name on the national stage 25 years ago through appearances on “Late Night with David Letterman” and FOX’s “Comic Strip Live.”
“Comedy Central is a good gauge for that. Because they called me after 10 years — after I thought I’d never hear from them again — they called me out of the blue after 10 years of not calling me and said, ‘Hey, you want to do an hour special?’ I’m like, wow. I can’t believe it. I thought it was a joke.”
Despite his condition, Johnathan is doing everything he can to make this truncated final tour as epic as it can be. He has plans to record the entire run of his final week at the Magic Castle for possible release — he even hinted that the Toledo stops may be recorded, as well. And don’t even think about asking if he has any regrets.
“The good news is that even if I did go tomorrow, I’ve had such a great career. I’ve been so blessed for 30 years. A lot of the people I started doing comedy with are either working regular jobs, or out of the business or dead,” Johnathan said. “I’ve been on the top for at least 25 of those 30 years, I’ve headlined.”
It’s remarkable — Amazing, one might say — how many lives a performer can touch during their career. Even if said performer swallowed razor blades or took swigs from a bottle of Windex while he was onstage.
“It’s been tough to announce the farewell tour and tell people it’s a health issue — I’ve had a huge outpouring of love from these people. You don’t really think about the effect you’ve had on their lives until they come up to you and tell you, ‘I had cancer and going through my treatment, you made me laugh during that time.’”
Comic book fans have paused in collective wonder over DC
Comics’ recent launch of a new weekly series and announcements of two more on
the way. The venerable comic book house has taken a clear backseat to rival
Marvel Comics over the past several years, but the infusion of the weekly
publishing projects brings some excitement to readers who may have fallen away
from the company after the 2011 revamping of its entire line.
Batman Eternal
purports to celebrate the Dark Knight’s seventy-fifth anniversary, a published
weekly title that kicked off this April and whose story encompass the entire
universe of Batman characters. In its first few installments, stalwart Commissioner
Jim Gordon’s been accused of the deaths of several Gothamites when he derailed
a subway train during a perp takedown. Batman’s on the case, though, and heroes
like Batwoman, Red Robin, Batgirl, and others will join in the investigation
soon.
On May 3rd, which happens to be Free Comic Book
Day, the weekly called The New 52:
Future’s End begins. Its narrative jumps readers five years into a possible
future of the DC Universe and the aftermath of a war with an alternate Earth.
The central character is Batman Beyond, the hero of the animated TV series of
the same name. The crux of the title rests upon skewed versions of classic DC
characters, and the company claims the story will “forever alter the direction
of the New 52.”
Then, this October, DC launches Earth 2: World’s End, which also concerns an alternate Earth, this
one a nod to the publisher’s properties from the 1940s. Few details have been
released on the series, but teaser artwork for it indicates more apocalyptic
goings-on.
Weekly comic book series are not easy to produce. In an age
when monthly titles – the industry standard for decades – are late to the
shelves on a regular basis, a weekly series seems a foolhardy gamble. Comic
companies must maintain a strict schedule on them and by utilizing numerous
writers and artists they create backup protocols should any part of the machine
fail. DC had a major hit with its 2006 weekly opus, 52, but has never truly matched it since. Maybe 2014 will put it
back on the hit parade – and on schedule.
ToledoFAVS.com
– a locally based website covering area religion news – learned that its
funding ends May 31, forcing a change in its business model and approach.
The
Lilly Endowment, based in Indianapolis, had guaranteed three years of funding
to ToledoFAVS in 2011, one of five community-based regional hub sites for
Religion News Service (Columbia, MO).
However, ToledoFAVS wasn’t launched until summer 2012, at which point
the three-year grant clock had already been ticking.
“I
was guaranteed three years of funding, and we’d likely get another three years,
but then I’d have to be self-sustaining,” said David Yonke, ToledoFAVS editor
& community manager. “After May 31,
I don’t have any income unless it’s by donation. I’m going to continue it, but I’m not going
to be able to devote as much time to it.”
“We
were not guaranteed another three years, but there were a lot of indications
that we would get another three years.
So, I would say it was a surprise,” Yonke said.
Religion
News Service Publisher Debra L. Mason indicated in a statement that the
original business model was flawed from the start.
“The
business model previous relied heavily on grant funds to launch FAVS as a
start-up,” Mason said. “Unfortunately,
the business model we relied upon (which was adapted from Knight
Foundation-funded research) overestimated the amount of revenue we could raise
via donors and advertising. As a result, our overall budget going forward
needed to be cut.”
Under
the new business model, Yonke will become a contractor for ToledoFAVS as of
June 1.
The
site was conceived as a gathering place for non-sectarian coverage of faith and
values news (hence FAVS) for
Northwest Ohio. Readers embraced the
site, having generated 20,000 hits per month, second highest among the five hub
sites nationwide.
“It
will look the same, but right now I’m updating it five times a day,” Yonke
said. “That may go to twice a day,
depending on how much I get from volunteers.
Right now I write 4-5 stories a week, but that may go down to one a
week. We’ve published 2800 stories since
inception of the site, and with blogs as well, maybe 3000 stories in 21
months.”
Religion
News Service offered nothing but praise for Yonke and ToledoFAVS.
“It
was a real pleasure to have had the opportunity to work with David Yonke and
the Toledo community,” said Tiffany McCallen, national community manager for
Religion News Service. “It has been
obvious to me from the beginning that David is a true treasure in his
community, a notion that was reflected in the area’s willingness to heartily
engage with ToledoFAVS as readers, writers, event-goers and supporters. I have
no doubt the community will continue to embrace ToledoFAVS in its new
form.”
At
least two of the five regional hub sites will cease operation. Yonke hopes to find new funding somewhere,
but is not counting on it.
“I
don’t think religions leaders know, they might not be aware of it,” Yonke
said. “I haven’t tried to really rally
the troops, so I don’t think people are aware of it. There’s been some outpouring of support,
mostly from regular visitors. I don’t
expect to bring in enough money to make it self-sustaining in a month, but
maybe in the long term we can build it up and bring in some revenue. It all depends. If some funding does come in, I have big
plans for it.”
Could
an outpouring of community support in the form of fundraising keep ToledoFAVS
in its current state?
“We
would love nothing more than for the community to support this site; that’s in
fact what is needed,” Mason said.
Those
interested in assisting ToledoFAVS.com through financial or in-kind gifts, can
contact Yonke at [email protected], or 419-346-1007.
It’s Cinco de Mayo all year long for the local Mexican eateries that bear that name — but the day itself is always one of the busiest days of the year, local restaurant managers said.
Cinco de Mayo, which is Spanish for “fifth of May,” is “the biggest weekend of the year,” said Arturo Castro, assistant manager at Cinco De Mayo Mexican Bar & Grill at 304 E. Alexis Road.
The eatery’s annual celebration will be bigger than last year, featuring the return of a jalapeño-eating contest at 5 p.m. May 4 and 5, Castro said.
Also on the calendar is a Tony Orlando revue and Elvis tribute contest 2-5 p.m. May 4 and folkloric dancers at 5 p.m. May 4 and 5. Starting at 4 p.m. May 5, there will be a live band downstairs and DJ and karaoke upstairs. Happy hour, featuring 12-ounce margaritas for $3.75, is 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
Carlos Fuentes, owner of La Fiesta Restaurante in Maumee, agreed Cinco de Mayo is “the biggest day of the year.”
The 1406 S. Reynolds Road eatery will feature a tent in the parking lot on May 5. Pints of draft beer and Mexican bottled beer will be $2.75. Margaritas will also be on special. DJ Excel will perform all night starting at 3 p.m. The Bradberries will perform at 6 p.m. There will also be giveaways all day.
“Any day we can give something back to our customers and pay them back what they give to us all year round is a good day,” Fuentes said. “This is the way I see it — a day you can celebrate with your customers.”
La Fiesta will also host a “warm-up party” May 3 and 4, featuring jumbo margaritas for $6.25 and 23-ounce domestic drafts for $2.99.
“A lot of people think Cinco de Mayo is Independence Day for Mexico, but it’s not,” said El Camino Real owner Jesus Angel. That’s Sept.The May 5 holiday honors a great military victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.
The festivities at El Camino Real, 2500 W. Sylvania Ave., will kick off May 2 with “the biggest guacamole ever made,” featuring free guacamole and chips to the first 100 people starting at 3 p.m., Angel said. Guacamole mash will be free to the first 100 people May 4.
The eatery will also feature a jalapeño toreado-eating contests on May 2, 3 and 5, burrito-eating contests on May 3 and 5 and a taco-eating contest on May 4. Folkloric dancers and a mariachi band will perform May 3. May 4 will feature $1 off drinks. May 5 will also feature a variety of DJs from local radio stations and plenty of giveaways all weekend, Angel said.
El Vaquero — with locations at The Docks, on Secor Road and in Perrysburg — will feature “five days of fun” starting May 1, said general manager Arne Lopez. There will be live DJs broadcasting on 101.5 The River from all three locations on May 5.
Specials include all Mexican beers, buckets of beer and pitchers of margaritas.
“It’s a party,” Lopez said. “It’s going to be a great day for a deal.”
Jeanie Kunzer, owner of Loma Linda, is excited because Cinco de Mayo falls on the Swanton eatery’s Margarita Monday this year.
“You know what happens when Cinco de Mayo finally falls on Margarita Monday — margaritas on special, beer specials, food specials, entertainment and fun on the patio!” Kunzer said.
Kunzer’s birthday is May 7, so she usually makes Cinco de Mayo a week-long celebration.
May 2 and 3 will feature a live mariachi band at Loma Linda. There will also be a live band May 5.
The family-owned eatery, at 10400 Airport Hwy., has been in business since 1955 and was the first Mexican restaurant in Toledo. The eatery will celebrate its 59th year in business June 9.
“Cinco de Mayo is a big one, but our anniversary will be even bigger yet,” Kunzer said.
Ventura’s, 7742 W. Bancroft St., will feature $2 Mexican beers, $3 margaritas, half-off appetizer specials and live entertainment on May 3 and 5, said general manager Valerie Mundt-Scott.
Mi Hacienda, 3302 Glanzman Road, will offer food and drink specials all weekend, including half-off beer, 12-ounce margaritas and jumbo house margaritas during happy hour from 2-6 p.m. May 5-6. Food specials include a $5.99 taco dinner on May 5 and $2 off fajitas on May 6. There will be a DJ on the patio on May 5.
Other events
The Toledo Zoo will host its 14th annual Cinco de Mayo event from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 4, including performances from DJ Tony Rios at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and the El Corazon de Mexico Ballet Folklorico at noon and 2 p.m. There will also be a piñata at 1 p.m. and cultural crafts throughout the day, said zoo events coordinator Jen Brassil. The events are free with a paid zoo admission.
“Compared to other Cinco de Mayo celebrations, we’re very family-oriented,” Brassil said. “I think people just love to see the performances and all the costumes.”
Bowling Green State University’s Latino Student Union and Latino Networking Alliance will celebrate Cinco de Mayo a week early. Its Latinopalooza event, featuring “food, games and fun” will take place 1-5 p.m. April 26 on the University Hall lawn.
A new app developed by a company with Northwest Ohio connections will make its Ohio debut at the Medical Mutual Glass City Marathon on April 27.
The app, called RaceJoy, was released about a year ago by Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based developer Tri-Perta, based on the personal experiences of owners James and Shelly Harris as both athletes and spectators.
“James used to do triathlons and Ironmans and I’d be out there with the kids all day trying to cheer him on,” Shelly said. “It can be very tiring for the spectator and stressful. We wanted something that could let us know where the other was and ways to connect in with each other.”
Shelly’s mother moved to the Toledo area for a job and now her parents and several siblings call Maumee and Holland home.
The app also offers course and parking maps, Expo information and race progress updates, which can be automatically posted to social media.
“Ninety-eight percent of the app is free, provided by the Glass City Marathon for participants and spectators. Everything you want to know about the race is in there,” Shelly said.
“You get results within moments of crossing the finish line,” she said. “It’s very instantaneous.”
A 99-cent upgrade called Phone Fun can use the GPS technology in a smartphone to track a runner’s progress. If the runner is carrying his or her phone, a spectator can watch the runner’s progression along the route in real time.
“Some tools are estimators. With this, you’ll see them actually move on the course,” Shelly said.
The tracking feature is also expected to be helpful to relay runners since the app gives a “proximity alert” when a specific runner is nearby, Shelly said.
Another popular feature of the Phone Fun upgrade is the ability to send runners an “audio cheer.”
“There will be thousands of those going out on race day,” she said.
Audio alerts is a new Phone Fun feature debuting during the Glass City Marathon, Shelly said. As runners cross a timing mat, their phones will announce the mile mark, pace and estimated finish time so they don’t have to look down at their phones, she said.
The Harrises have both run the Glass City Marathon’s half-marathon. They will be at this year’s pre-race Expo, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 26 at University of Toledo’s Savage Arena, to answer questions. The Expo is open to the public and will feature more than 40 vendors.
Record registrants
More than 7,000 people are registered for Glass City Marathon events — a record number of participants, said sixth-year Race Director Clint Mc- Cormick. The half-marathon and five-person marathon relay events have been sold out for weeks, the relay for the first time. A course change to the final three miles of the half-marathon allowed organizers to increase the number of runners from 2,500 to 3,000. Even with the increase, the half-marathon sold out faster than last year, he said.
McCormick said he’s excited about the new app. Recipients of the text alerts the race has used the past few years often reported delayed delivery, he said.
“Reliability was a big factor and the text messaging was really a one-way communication. The app provides more information at the fingertips of the user,” McCormick said.
Economic impact
The Glass City Marathon supports several charities, including the Toledo Roadrunners. Last year’s marathon raised between $100,000 and $140,000, McCormick said.
“It’s our signature event of the year,” he said. “It helps us fund all the other races of the year. So the success of this event is really critical to the events for the rest of the year.”
An economic impact study done by a UT professor last year found almost half the marathon and half-marathon registrants came from outside Northwest Ohio, mainly southeast Michigan and Ontario, Canada, and that the event accounted for more than $600,000 of increased regional economic activity.
Organizers are encouraging participants and spectators to use the hashtag #RunToledo. For more information and to check road closures, visit www.glasscitymarathon.org.
Sarah Ottney will run this year’s Medical Mutual Glass City Marathon as a member of a five-person relay team.
Maria Rodriguez-Winter of the Sofia Quintero Art and Cultural Center with a mural in South Toledo. Toledo Free Press photo by Kim Sanchez.
Vacant lots strewn with trash, abandoned buildings littering the city, boarded-up windows — it’s no secret that neighborhood blight is a problem in Toledo. “Revitalizing neighborhoods” even became a campaign issue in the November election.
One such abandoned building sits at the corner of 18th Street and Madison Avenue in the UpTown neighborhood. The Arts Commission, Art Corner Toledo (ACT), Home Depot, the UpTown Green planning committee and volunteers from United Way of Greater Toledo are all working together to place murals over its boarded-up windows.
The artwork is expected to do for UpTown what murals have done for other parts of the city. Murals have revived dilapidated landscapes, increased a sense of ownership and transformed a neighborhood plagued by vandalism and prostitution to one that kindles respect and pride. Murals have revitalized Toledo’s neighborhoods, supporters say, and more are planned.
“[Murals] have a huge, huge impact on the way people interact with the city and engage with the city,” said Ryan Bunch of the Arts Commission. “They’re more aesthetically appealing … they create meaning. … Some of Downtown is a little rough-looking at times and it creates this feeling that ‘I’m not alone here — there’s some life and activity here.’”
“Murals and public art have been proven to create destinations for people to visit, take photos and simply be in a positive, creative space and place,” said Rachel Richardson of ACT. “They also attract developers and activate parts of blighted neighborhoods that need some extra help due to decades of decay.”
“Neighborhood revitalization and economic development follow in the wake of public art.”
The murals at 18th Street and Madison Avenue will be painted on panels that can be moved to preserve the art for the future. The Arts Commission is accepting artist submissions with a design concept of “activism and community.” When finished, the murals will be 8.5 feet high and 14 feet wide with contributions from more than 10 artists.
“We are excited about it,” said Julie Champa, executive director of the UpTown Association. “And it will certainly add to the overall feel of the neighborhood in general.”
The mural will be adjacent to a park, called UpTown Green, that is currently under construction. Both the mural and the park are expected to enhance the neighborhood and entice potential developers.
Toledo City Council plans to vote on a measure to spend $15,000 on murals for the city. The money will match $15,000 offered by Lucas County and will go to ACT, said City Council member Lindsay Webb. The measure was on the agenda April 22 but was held for a vote, Webb said.
“Murals are a great way to capture the heart of a neighborhood and express it visually, Webb said. “It’s a part of developing and identifying and dealing with blight. My hope is that we can roll it out citywide and look at Summit Street or maybe on Secor Road and in East Toledo.”
Point Place is also another neighborhood that has expressed interest in getting a mural.
“Point Place would love to put up murals about boats and that aspect. I can’t do that if I don’t have the resources,” Webb said.
One percent of the city’s capital budget is designated to the Arts Commission, Webb said, but that money must be used on city-owned property. Council would like to get murals into neighborhoods to improve blight and increase economic development, she said.
Ahmad Jacobs painted the murals at the Red Velvet Jazz Club at Junction and Belmont avenues. Toledo Free Press photo by Andrew Weber.
Red Velvet Jazz Club
Artist Ahmad Jacobs said people in the Junction neighborhood had a sense there was a “movement” about to happen.
The business owners in the area and the residents were “all happy and full of excitement” to have him paint a mural on the side of the Red Velvet Jazz Club at Junction and Belmont avenues.
“It was really good feedback for me. I felt special,” Jacobs, 45, said. “It brought a lot of people out who didn’t want to come out.”
The building is under new ownership and in the process of opening, according to Jacobs.
Jacobs has painted a number of murals around the city, many of them as a volunteer. He attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and taught kindergarten through sixth grade before life got in the way and he said he lost his creative direction.
“I wanted to give up,” he said. “I ended up finding myself again and experiencing art. … I had to get humble. Once I started volunteering, it worked wonders. … My whole thing was to make the city my sketchbook. No one knew I was an artist. I started going around giving businesses a ‘hug.’”
Richardson enlisted Jacobs to paint the mural that he says altered the Junction neighborhood.
“The spirit of the neighborhood completely changed,” he said. “A lot of the businesses had hope when they saw it. And even the people, the winos, they had something positive to talk about. They saw people come into their neighborhood who didn’t live there (who) had passion and drive for their neighborhood. … They needed to step their game up and join in. … So many people I would never talk to came to talk to me and offer suggestion on what they wanted to see.”
The Love Wall
The “Toledo Loves Love” mural at Adams and 13th streets has not only helped revitalize the UpTown area, it has also become a destination spot. Wedding parties, residents and people taking selfies use it as a backdrop.
“It’s a great promoter of Toledo,” said Manos Paschalis, owner of Manos Greek Restaurant, 1701 Adams St., and the owner of the building sporting the “Toledo Loves Love” wall. “Yes, it brings people together and it brings energy to the area and it’s always positive.”
That positive energy can only enhance a neighborhood, Champa said.
“The ‘Toledo Loves Love’ has gotten a lot of attention. … So many people come to that and take pictures. It’s become synonymous with the district and we think that’s really cool.”
Paschalis said the mural is bringing in business; every year, more and more people who come out to see the mural are flocking to area businesses.
A new business is going in at the building the mural adorns. Toledoan Aggie Alt is opening Moxie Live, an art house and pub that will have art on display and offer theater, dance and “anything to do with art,” Alt said.
“I think the mural is such a perfect fit,” she said. “I think it’s going to help us identify with that area. Even people outside the city know it.
“The mural shows artists, ‘Yeah, you can have your work shown here and (the art world) isn’t dead,’ and I think the mural really promotes that.”
‘The Voyage’
In 2013, the United Way of Greater Toledo held its Days of Caring event. The organization set out to “transform a neighborhood, strengthen relationships.” And to do that, they went straight to the Junction neighborhood residents to find out what changes they wanted.
The neighborhood responded. During the event, more than 30 properties were landscaped and mulched, 13 houses painted, five schools beautified, three wheelchair ramps built, two home foundations repaired, two playgrounds improved, one church basement floor installed and two murals painted, plus much more.
Titled “The Voyage,” one of the murals looks like a big blue wave rolling across the side of a building and wrapping around its edges.
It’s painted on the old Munchies building at North Detroit Avenue and Dorr Street, whose sign reads “Munchies. Again. Shrimp. Fish. Chicken.” Behind it sits a Family Food Center and, next door, a dollar store.
“The concept that we wanted to capture is that there is a voyage that needs to take place, for the past, present and future — so (the generations) know who they are and how they are connected to American history with a positive perspective,” said Alicia Smith, a resident and community organizer.
Smith sees the mural as not only a lesson in the voyage of life, but also a testament to relationships: Hundreds of volunteers, sponsors and residents worked together to make the mural and Days of Caring a reality.
“The most important thing is connection. There’s strength in connection; there’s power behind connection. … When you allow the community to have a voice you stop prescribing what you think they need and they start prescribing what they need,” Smith said.
United Way shifted to a grassroots way of interacting with the community about five years ago, said Emily Avery, director of community engagement at United Way of Greater Toledo. The organization listened to the residents at Days of Caring, acted and got great feedback, she said.
“We heard a lot from the neighborhood — it gave people hope again — just to see how much community support that they had,” Avery said. “It’s amazing what a little paint can do. We heard from people that it just kind of spread joy through the neighborhood.”
The Junction neighborhood is not done with its revitalization plan. They recently cleared sidewalks, organized a voter registration drive and will continue to landscape and paint. The journey is not over, Smith said.
“We’re going to continue to do murals. The voyage doesn’t stop,” she said. “The minute you dock the boat, you have to continue.”
Broadway Street
Gordon Ricketts was influenced by the Latino art of his San Diego childhood. As art professor and director of the Arts Village at Bowling Green State University, he wanted to bring the Latino art style to Toledo. To do so, he enlisted his friend Mario Torero.
Torero, an artist born in Peru, helped paint 60 colorful murals on the concrete support piers for the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and I-5, called Chicano Park in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood.
Ricketts brought Torero to Toledo about five years ago for the first of several murals, two on the underpass of I-75 on Broadway Street. Passersby can see the murals are large and Hispanic in style, much like the murals at Chicano Park.
“Broadway made sense because of the bridge,” Ricketts said. “We got permission from ODOT (Ohio Department of Transportation) and the mayor’s office and business leaders in the neighborhood. It was a pretty involved project.”
Students from BGSU and residents helped Torero paint the murals that stretch from the I-75 underpass to the Green Lantern at 509 Broadway St., Ricketts said.
Since the murals have graced the neighborhood, leaders said they no longer see the graffiti or prostitution they once did along Broadway Street. So far, none of the murals have been vandalized and a survey of the neighborhood showed that residents like the artwork and the gardens.
Maria Rodriguez-Winter, interim director of the Sofia Quintero Art and Cultural Center at 1225 Broadway St., said the murals have had a transformative effect on the neighborhood, which in the past was very depressing with boarded-up buildings and absentee landlords. The decline started about 20 years ago, said Rodriguez- Winter, who has been involved in the neighborhood for the past 40 years.
About 10 years ago, things started to change and now every day she sees a synergy at work in the neighborhood, she said. Residents now have a sense of pride and respect for the neighborhood. The murals are a big part of that.
“We love [the murals],” she said. “We feel that they really add a lot of beauty to the neighborhood and it engages people. When Mario comes and when Gordon comes into the area with the students, they are engaging the community.
“It’s just a process of having the people of the neighborhood be involved in the creative aspect of it. We’ve gotten so much positive feedback that some of the businesses want to have their walls painted.”
This year will be the fifth year Torero has come to Toledo to paint. The artist will be in the Old South End neighborhood June 17-18, Ricketts said.
Sid Kelly diminishes humanity of low-income people
TO THE EDITOR,
I am writing in response to Sid Kelly’s April 20 editorial, “Accepted Assistance.” Kelly’s thesis appears to be that low-income Ohioans are using their SNAP benefits to purchase things they don’t need. The word “need” comes up a lot. One person doesn’t “need” crab legs. Another doesn’t “need” an iPhone.
All this talk of need got me thinking. What do people need? We need hydration. We need vitamin C to ward off scurvy. We need calories, fats and proteins. Do we need crab legs? Do we need phones? Do we need a Downtown ballpark? Do high-income Ohioans need the money they get from the home mortgage interest deduction?
More importantly, do people need choice, agency or free will? Do people need to make their own decisions about their own life? Maybe they splurge once in a while on their favorite foods. Maybe they have a phone that doubles as their computer. Or maybe, as Kelly argues, these people are prioritizing things we wouldn’t prioritize. Just like Toledo using their tax dollars to build a stadium and wealthier individuals using their tax credits on vacations or second homes, low-income Ohioans deserve the respect of being able to make choices with their benefits. That agency is a need. And Kelly’s judgment of that need only serves to diminish the humanity of our lowincome brothers and sisters.
There is another need. I need your readers to understand that no one “approach[es] assistance as a vacation” as Sid Kelly claims. To qualify for SNAP (food stamps), a household must be under 130 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. That’s less than $1,270 per month for a single person. About $2,580 per month for a family of four. Some vacation.
These people — our neighbors — are hungry and desperate. These benefits help them put food on the table. There is no value in shaming them for occasionally buying crab legs or saving up to buy a phone.
— L. Russell Allen, Columbus
Disappointed in Collins
DEAR MAYOR COLLINS,
I am writing this letter on behalf of my family who are property owners in Toledo, who have attended the public schools and have invested their time and money into businesses in and around Toledo. We are committed to the success of Toledo.
I am very disappointed to hear that you will not entertain any plans to privatize the Toledo Express Airport. I hope that you will reconsider your position. The business at Toledo Express Airport has been shrinking for a number of years. Paul Toth, president of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, has stated that “we continue to see great growth, good numbers,” in referring to the airports. Where are these numbers? Where is the evidence to support this statement?
The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority may have been the right group to manage the Toledo airports in 1973. However, it is 2014 and our economic situation is different. Under the current management, we have lost tax revenue, traffic volume has decreased, putting us at risk for reduced federal funding, and we have seen a decrease in economic development.
If we want the situation to change, then we need to change. We need a thorough review of the current management of the Toledo airports. We need to consider credible alternative solutions like the Treece plan. The taxpayers deserve the opportunity to hear the details of the proposal in a public forum. Improved management equals more tax revenue to improve schools and more jobs to help put Toledoans back to work. Now is the time to get out in front of this issue before it is too late. Let’s be proactive!
I have started a Facebook page www.facebook.com/SavetheToledoAirports and I have sent this letter to Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins and the Toledo City Council.
— Jim Wuwert, Toledo
Murphy’s law
TO THE EDITOR,
I just finished reading Tom Pounds’ Publisher’s Statement on the State of the Region in the April 20 issue of Toledo Free Press. I read the advice of Tom Murphy and I thought it to be very timely. Pounds’ column states, “Murphy said Pittsburgh invested in its cultural community and reclaimed the waterfront. Those are both lessons we should well heed.” Having just spent this past Saturday at 419 Day, I am very proud of how Toledoans support their cultural community. There are so many cultural opportunities available and people around the area show their support in so many ways.
However, what about the waterfront advice? We are about ready to sell out some reclaimed waterfront to ProMedica. People fought hard to open that area up to the public by getting rid of a hideous government issue building. Are we really going to give up this land for a parking garage? Are there alternatives? Some say that placing the garage underground is too costly. I think it would be worth the cost — in the long term.
I would suggest that people look no further than the University of Cincinnati. They have created acre upon acre of green space by placing parking structures underground. The aesthetics of the campus have changed drastically, making it a much more inviting campus. There is no doubt that enrollment has been positively affected by these decisions.
Like Pounds, I hope we can heed Murphy’s lessons. Let’s look at alternatives to another ugly parking garage blocking the view of our waterfront and taking up valuable space that could be enjoyed by generations of Toledoans. As Murphy stated, “You need to think of Toledo, not as it is today, but as it can be in the future.”
Will we heed this advice or settle for most expedient?
On two different evenings recently, area high schools had events in Downtown Toledo. One was a series of performances by students while the other was an effort to raise funds. The events took place in separate venues, but across the street from the same parking lot.
On both nights, the owner of the parking lot, seeing the opportunity for increased income, raised the parking charge to a flat fee of $10. Since regular parking would be no more than half that, he clearly was taking advantage of what he considered to be a captive audience.
What the owner did not focus on was the fact that future event planners might well determine that other venues would be more appropriate, where the people they were inviting did not have to pay $10 just to park. There are a number of venues around the city that could have accommodated these groups and each would have had free parking.
The parking lot owner is not there to serve the public. His is a private business, operated for his own benefit and at his own risk. He has substantial costs, not the least of which is real estate taxes. I am sure the daytime parking is down as well. He has to plow it, pave it and maintain it on his own nickel.
That said, the point is that parking is a problem and if the city is going to rebound, we need to get people Downtown. In a perfect world, parking would be free. But that would leave the question of who maintains the lots. Moreover, without charging for parking, people would avail themselves of the closest spaces, leaving those arriving later a two-mile hike.
For years, urban planners have cited airport parking as the appropriate model. You charge a high price for those who want the most convenience, and offer bargains for those willing to park further away. That is the way it is in Toledo, except when there are special events. But it seems to me there is a key difference between Mud Hen’s games or those of the Walleye and local high school events. The sports teams are both profit-making ventures, so I think parking lot owners are entitled to make a profit as well.
I’m not suggesting that the owner of the parking lot did anything wrong. But I am saying that this circumstance highlights the parking problem and it seems to me the mayor and his staff ought to address it.
Perhaps offering a tax break to parking lot owners to reduce their prices would help. Or, it might be suggested that they offer special prices for certain events, again with the idea that some form of compensation or tax break could be afforded to lot owners for doing so.
I am sure the University of Toledo has at least one if not more classes that study this topic. By reaching out to the university, the city could obtain some quality free consulting on the issue.
By the way, I know parking is important. Our firm is located on the south edge of the city and our building has its own parking lot, which is free. Our clients appreciate it and so do I.
Rick Kerger is a trial lawyer at Kerger & Hartman LLC in Toledo.
