RELATED STORY: Rocky Ridge creates dust up in South Toledo
Inside Toledo City Council: Proposed zoning changes voted down
TOLEDO – Following a brief summer break for Toledo City Council, representatives jumped back in on Tuesday, July 15, voting on ordinances 223-25, 224-25 and 225-25.
Controversy has surrounded these ordinances, which proposed the rezoning of areas west of Byrne Road and Airport Highway to general industrial. The past two times the ordinances came up for a vote, all three were tabled.
Rocky Ridge Development LLC proposed the rezoning back in May at the planning and zoning committee, but began to suffer backlash from the South Toledo neighborhood the proposed rezoning would affect.
Mayoral hopeful Roberto Torres initially made headlines for interrupting a Toledo City Council Agenda Review by presenting petitions from South Toledoans, and on Tuesday was able to celebrate a small win as all three ordinances were voted down.
Before voting commenced, Toledo City Council representative for District 2, Adam Martinez, admonished his fellow council members to vote against all three ordinances.
“I would encourage all of my colleagues to vote this down,” he said, and was not disappointed.
Only two council members—Vanice Williams, District 4, and John Hobbs III, District 1— voted for ordinance 223-25, which proposed rezoning on 4004 Angola Road, where Rocky Ridge Development admitted it had begun mining without the proper zoning. And according to residents, the company had increased their mining activity in the months preceding the vote.
Williams was available for comment after the meeting. “I voted on the first one, because I wanted the project to be finished and cost effective and be done with it at the end of the year. Just getting it finished,” she said.
The City of Toledo had contracted with Rocky Ridge Development to dispose of spent lime, used in the water purification process.
The other two ordinances, which proposed an expansion to the mining were unanimously voted down. Williams said, “I don’t want them to expand; y’all causing too much trouble. Just finish it and get out the way.”
Residents affected by the mining stepped outside of the council chambers to celebrate after the voting was finished on the three ordinances.
“We came in here thinking it would be held off again,” said Jason and Kelly McKown, two South Toledo residents.
“I think they finally listened to the residents. That we don’t want it [the mining development] in that area,” Kelly McKown said. “It’s not good for a residential area.”
Torres could be seen hugging affected citizens in the foyer of 1 Government Center.
When asked about the city council vote, Torres said he was excited for the community, and continued on to say, “I ran [for mayor], because in this city, it tends to be a politics that’s governed by the special interests.”
When Rocky Ridge Development went before the planning and zoning committee, they admitted to beginning mining as far back as 2021-2022.
Bill Hoag, who grew up near the area and owns property near the mining development, said he reported the mining to the city four years ago. “They were told right in the very beginning and still kept going,” he said.
“Why you letting them break the codes for three years? Who was telling them not to do anything?” Hoag said, and called for accountability. “It’s somebody in the city. Who told them it’s okay in the first place? Who allowed it [the mining] to go on without stopping it?”
WTOL reported that the FBI had been looking into the circumstances surrounding the mining near Angola Road for years without proper zoning.
“I think this was a well organized fight from the residents, and that’s what service is about,” Martinez said after the meeting.
Hoag mentioned an effort to find a different use for the land that escaped rezoning.
We’re actively involved right now as a group to try to find developers to step in to do something better with the area,” he said.
13 ABC reported the stop work order was posted on the 4004 Angola Road property Wednesday, which should stop the mining in the area.
Choreographer talks Heathers: The Musical
Riley Runnells weighs in on this month’s show at the Collingwood Arts Center
TOLEDO — There’s nothing like the flood of emotions when taking the stage and the curtain lifts for your opening night.
You’re jittery in full hair, makeup and costume, knowing that months of hard work have led to this moment. When the lights come up on the stage, you’re not only ready—you’re confident.
Only this time, instead of feeling the warm lights on your face and trying to block out the individual faces of the crowd, you’re one of those audience members. This time, you’ve spent months training your cast on choreography, so when the time comes for an audience, you can sit back, relax, and watch your friends shine.
This is the unusual thrill you get from working as a choreographer: your creativity, passion for the art, and love for teaching come to life on stage, all while you get to witness the excitement. My current experience choreographing Heathers: The Musical with Stone Productions.
The show itself follows Veronica, a high school loser who strikes up a popularity deal with Westerburg’s most popular divas, the Heathers. But when Veronica gets a sour taste from the so-called “sweet life,” and teams up with her boyfriend to teach the “populars” a lesson, her high school angst develops a body count.
What makes this show so special is that everyone can resonate with the story in some way, though not from the murders (I hope). Audiences will see themselves in the characters being bullied, the characters learning compassion, and the effort of these characters to work through their trauma, big or small.
Now, this isn’t my first rodeo as choreographer. I choreographed my first show (Seussical The Musical with Waterville Playshop) in April 2024, and since then have completed six total shows as choreographer. Heathers is my seventh, and it’s my third time choreographing a show for Stone Productions.
I’ve been grateful for all of my choreography experiences, but there’s something truly special about Heathers. Not only is it one of my favorite shows—my neighbors are seconds from filing a noise complaint thanks to my belting in the shower—but it’s also a choreographer’s dream. I went into this show equipped with a witty, biting, and overwhelmingly fun score, along with a cast full of Toledo’s finest community theatre staples to bring it to life.
Our director, Jaymes Gregory Mull, and assistant director, Lizzie Schmitz, had their work cut out for them with the staging and vision for this iconic show. Our music director, Ben Tittl, dealt with intense, advanced harmonies and was tasked with whipping our cast into shape vocally. Our crew, lead by Stage Manager Brad Arps, had to find ways to construct croquet mallets, fake guns and bombs, and a torturous high school scenery, all while keeping the scene changes short and sweet.
As for me? I’m the lucky one on the production team. My role never felt like a job; it only ever felt like a privilege. Bringing to life iconic numbers like the Heathers’ battle cry, “Candy Store,” and the nostalgic teen party anthem, “Big Fun” was nothing short of a gift. I pulled influences from the original Winona Ryder flick, paid homage to the original West End cast version, and studied the characters and their relationships to create the most authentic picture possible.
I could drone on and on about the gratification I receive seeing my own vision come to life. After almost seven shows, it never ceases to amaze me that what I envisioned in my head and wrote down in the notes app of my iPhone (I’m a professional, what can I say) turns out as incredible as it does on stage.
This is all thanks to our Toledo talent: the cast of Heathers. I am forever in awe of the way they study the choreography, take to the material, and always find the fun in the process— even after I’ve drilled them on the same section for the 40th time, it’s 10 p.m. and there’s no air conditioning, so we are all drenched in sweat. Dancing in this show brings them joy, and I couldn’t be more grateful and proud.
So when we talk about the flood of emotions from opening night? For me, every emotion falls to the wayside save for one: pride. I am so proud of this team for the work we’ve done and the production we’ve put together—and you will be, too.
Heathers: The Musical runs at the Collingwood Arts Center July 18, 19 and 26 at 8 p.m., and July 27 at 3 p.m. This production, though featuring teen characters, has adult themes, so viewer discretion is advised.
Father, son launch OJ Tech company
WESTON — Basement and garage startups are baked into the mythology of the tech industry, and one such basement in Weston, Ohio has been loaned to 14-year-old Ollie Schroeder.
Jeremy Schroeder, Ollie’s father, made a deal with his son.
“Hey, you get the basement completely cleaned out, and we’ll build some benches down there,” Jeremy said, alluding to making a space to work on computers.
Shortly after making the deal, Jeremy said his son “had that sucker cleaned out and all of the tech stuff moved down there.”
A server rack, some tools and a logo later, the father-son duo launched OJ Tech— where the “O” stands for Ollie and the “J” for Jeremy.
Against the rural normalities of Weston, the OJ logo, an orange overlapped with a glass of orange juice, hangs off the side of the red home with the words “Computer Repair” falling vertically below it.
Out front, Jeremy Schroeder’s nephew rides a bicycle in the street, while Ollie Schroeder pulls apart a computer a few feet underground.
Let’s get to work
In less than 30 seconds the 14-year-old dismantled a computer, showed the machine’s insides.
“I was replacing the bad SSD [Solid State Drive],” Ollie Schroeder said. “One [hard drive] just went bad, and so I just replaced it and installed a new operating system of Windows.”
This fall, Ollie Schroeder will enter high school as a freshman, but with a working knowledge of Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.
Software is his dad’s side of things, where Jeremy works full-time as a web developer for MadAveGroup, but Ollie likes to blaze his own path on the hardware side of tech.
When people come to Ollie he said it’s usually a simple hardware issue people are afraid of fixing themselves. Converting hard drives to solid state drives, a basic backup maneuver improving speed and resilience of the data, is what Ollie said he gets the most requests for.
“It’s pretty much just like adult Legos,” Ollie said. “Because everything has a specific place, and everything goes in one place, like building an actual desktop computer. Super easy.”
Connecting computers
More challenging for Ollie’s inquisitive mind was managing servers.
In the OJ basement, behind the workspace desk and next to the sump pump, a metal rack holds information accessible to the outside world, two gaming servers for Minecraft, a router and a few data host servers the father and son made functional.
Much of the technology a layman might struggle understanding was bought used from GovDeals, a website that sells old government surplus items, including computers, parts and servers.
A sticker reading “Indiana Family & Social Services Administration,” still is attached to a hard drive in the basement, indicating its origins.
Jeremy Schroeder simplified the website as “Ebay for governments,” and these used parts were enough for Jeremy and his son to cobble together a workable network.
“When you go to OJTech.net [the company website] this is literally talking to that computer right there,” Jeremy Schroeder said, pointing to one of the boxes in the server rack.
Honing skill
For now, Ollie Schroeder is just following his curiosity and making a quick buck here or there.
“Last year, we did like $5,000,” his father said, and mentioned they had done some work for Monnette’s Market for their deli queue system this year. Because of that work, Jeremy Schroeder said they might do around $15,000 this year, which is a good start for the teenager who already has a good handle on what he might want to do in the future.
On the docket for the almost high-schooler is making a 10gb ethernet.
This next school season, Ollie will begin his studies at PENTA Career Center, studying IT. He then plans on going to Owens Community College, followed by a bachelor’s degree in IT or server maintenance at the University of Cincinnati.
Learn more about the father son duo on their website and Facebook page.
Concerned citizen weighs in on Rocky Ridge mining
The mayor of the City of Toledo is complicit regarding every illegal activity Rocky Ridge is committing, whether he acknowledges it or not.
Rocky Ridge continues to ruin the environment and the lives of its residential neighbors with its overweight trucks spewing diesel exhaust, dust, dirt, oil and debris while dumping whatever/wherever they want. Digging and dumping who knows how much or what possible toxic chemicals and heavy metals…
No city permits. No proper zoning. No restrictions. Completely decimating acres of perfectly good farmland.
All of this should be halted immediately.
Every five minutes, Rocky Ridge continues to have free rein as each dump truck rumbles in to gather or dump without any oversight. What’s buried there? No one will say exactly, while toxic contamination on the land and local water sources are inevitable.
There is no question that Rocky Ridge has been given a green light by the weak leadership of Toledo City Council, and a silently snoozing mayor who has no regard for Toledo residents who are at their wits end.
SEIU Local 1 janitors seek fair pay
TOLEDO — As negotiations continue between SEIU Local 1 and janitorial contractors, workers throughout Toledo say they’re scraping by while adhering to their duties of keeping essential buildings clean.
The Toledo Master Janitorial Agreement, which covers about 400 janitors, expires today, July 14. Camilo Villa, lead negotiator of SEIU Local 1, says that a new contract is being negotiated, with talks of an extension.
The SEIU Local 1 unites 50,000 workers across the Midwest, including five states and 10 cities. These workers include janitors, security officers, school service workers and more.
Local 1 began in Chicago in the early 1920s by residential maintenance workers with the goal of maintaining high labor standards for property service workers everywhere.
Tanya Staples, a Local 1 member who works at ProMedica’s Wildwood facility, said her current wages barely cover necessities. Staples has more than 25 years of experience in janitorial work – four years at ProMedica – and earns just under $15 an hour.
“I love my job,” Staples told the Toledo Free Press. “I give them my number one, but it’s sad because even with my number one I’m making pennies. My check sometimes makes me want to cry. I don’t even buy a full dozen of eggs.”
Union organizers are pushing for a $15 minimum wage as a baseline, though that figure still falls short in today’s economy.
“We know these institutions have the resources to pay the janitors a living wage,” Villa said about ProMedica. “They are not only very successful; they also receive a lot of public assistance for various things.”
For a workforce that is predominantly Black, the union is also hoping for the recognition of culturally significant holidays, specifically Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“Juneteenth represents the end of enslavement of black Americans,” Villa said. “If you’re making $13.75 or $14.90 trying to survive, you’re not really free, right? The symbols matter when we’re talking about the dignity of our members, and it’s tricky because often the buildings don’t close for those days, but they close for the Fourth of July.”
Staples disclosed she wanted to wear a Juneteenth shirt to work one day but didn’t for fear of offending coworkers and patients. “There’s no Black doctors, no Black nurses,” she said. “I didn’t want to offend anybody.”
Michael Evans, a janitor who works the evening shift at Owens Community College, cleans buildings from 6 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. He transports supplies across campus in his own vehicle, without mileage reimbursement. He makes $13.90 per hour.
“You better have some gas,” Evans said.
Evans, a single father who’s recovering from a surgery he had in June, said he provides for his daughter by working nights.
“She gets off at five and I try to get her,” Evans said. “I get her to my mom and then go in at 6. It’s just that I’m trying to keep her hair done, clothes, shoes, everything else to go along with that, and the financial end is really rough sometimes.”
Although working in schools and hospitals can make janitors like Evans and Staples more prone to illnesses, janitors like Evans can’t afford to get sick.
“You don’t even get your one paid sick day until you’ve completed your first year,” said Dana Sammour, SEIU Local 1 internal organizer and grievance representative. That’s the case for Evans, who has over 20 years of work experience in the janitorial field.
Amidst the struggles, Evans says he loves the work itself — especially when it comes to creating squeaky-clean floors.
“My work reflects who I am, what I am, what I do, and how I do it,” he said. “When you look at that floor, that floor represents me because it has a heck of a shine on it. I want you to wear sunglasses walking down that hallway because I want that floor to blind you, and if I was waxing the floor you’re gonna need hand rails because you’re gonna think it’s wet.”
He recalled restoring a classroom floor at a medical college that hadn’t been touched in 23 years. He was awarded by the hospital for his effort.
With all the hard work janitors like Evans and Staples put in, they say they still face unwanted stigma in the workplace.
“I always find that over the years I’ve done this job, they always treat the janitors like a lower class of people, unfortunately,” Sammour said. “If something comes up missing from the building, the first person they’ll suspect is the janitor.”
Under the current structure, wages vary by location and client contract, Sammour noted. While some members of the SEIU Local 1 make more than other janitors, they still need to be paid the minimum pay of the contract. The average remains below $15 an hour. Former employees from previous contractors may retain seniority and higher pay rates when accounts are taken over, but newer hires often start at the base.
The union’s next negotiation session is scheduled for July 22. Leaders, including Villa and Sammour, say they hope to finish contract talks, but will extend talks further if needed.
“Our members across the country and here have fought for a long time to get what they deserve,” Villa said. “There’s urgency — but also patience. We want to get this right.”
More information about the SEIU Local 1 can be found on their website.
Dragonfly species abound in NW Ohio
NORTHWEST OHIO — Dragonflies are out and about these days. Zipping, dipping and darting, performing high-speed maneuvers, feasting on thousands of insect pests — especially mosquitoes.
Look for them in flight or on open perches where they can scan and locate prey, all while monitoring other dragonflies entering their territory.
Thousands of species of dragonflies are known worldwide; 164 have been recorded in Ohio. Look for them in and around the typically still or slow-moving waters where most of them and their aquatic larva feed — often on mosquito larva. They’ll emerge to shed larva skin and take flight as adults.
The adults often sport beautiful iridescent colors and have great names to go with them.
There are dashers, dancers and darters. Skimmers, pondhawks, cruisers, forktails, pennants and gliders. And then there are meadowhawks. Great names for well-adapted predators.
Rocky Ridge creates dust up in S. Toledo
TOLEDO – Just west of the intersection of Byrne Rd. and Airport Highway, 30 acres of land is coming up on eight years worth of controversy.
“This was also slated to be the property for the jail,” said Kelly McKown, a resident who lives across from the contested area.
“Maybe that’d be quieter,” she said in jest, as empty trucks, one to three at a time, enter the driveway across from her home, and exit — full of materials—onto Byrne Road.
In 2017, the same parcel of land was part of a proposal for a new jail, which fell through. Then, four years later, Dennis Topsoil and Landscaping proposed to change the zoning to industrial for their mulch business. This attempt to rezone the area for industrial use was met with over 1,000 names from area businesses and residents petitioning against that rezone proposal.
Now, four years later, a different company — Rocky Ridge Development, LLC — has already started mining without the proper zoning, and the residents are unhappy, to say the least.
“It’s like they don’t care what kind of damage they do,” said Stephen Chenault, owner of American Auto Gallery on South Byrne Road.
“They widened this road out here, took a bunch of my property [through eminent domain], and then literally, you can see dump trucks lined up from the light all the way back to there,” he said, motioning beyond his car lot.
Chenault has been on S. Byrne since 2017, long enough to see the last attempt at changing the zoning to general industrial.
“It seems very odd. It seems like they get things done or don’t get the same kind of discipline [as other companies],” he said, referring to Rocky Ridge Development.
Another oddity is the two bedroom, one bathroom single-family home at 4004 Angola Road that sits on 30 acres and is currently used for the mining operation … without the proper zoning.
In 2021, Rocky Ridge Development bought the property and started mining on the land shortly thereafter, Chenault said.
But just recently, on May 14, Brandon Stansley, director of sustainability at Rocky Ridge Development, presented before the City of Toledo’s Planning and Zoning Committee a proposal to “…assist the city of Toledo and its regional partners, to provide high quality, safe, economical drinking water to consumers through the beneficial reuse of what we call DWTM — Drinking Water Treatment Material.”
Stansley was requesting the same parcel of land to be zoned for general industrial use so the company could continue to mine the land they admitted in the committee meeting they had been mining since somewhere around 2021-2022.
WTOL 11 reported that “a zoning approval from September 29, 2020, confirms the city only granted Rocky Ridge permission to establish a wetland — not a mining operation. An accompanying letter dated Sep. 30, 2020, explicitly states: ‘This letter does not grant approval for a mining operation.’”
During Toledo’s zoning and planning committee meeting in May, the cities of Toledo and Oregon were identified as the main clients associated with the mining operation, and Rocky Ridge proposed a plan to backfill the land with those cities’ waste product from water purification.
“Despite zoning issues, Rocky Ridge has received millions in city contracts to remove spent lime. One such contract, worth $11 million, was approved in December 2023. That contract was negotiated under then-director of public utilities Ed Moore, who retired just two months later. The city said that Moore would ‘continue to serve the city of Toledo in an advisory role,’” WTOL 11 reported.
Shortly after, Moore was hired as the managing director for Rocky Ridge Development LLC, and even represented Rocky Ridge before city council when they requested the zoning change.
“Current zoning does not allow for mining operations,” Stansley said during the committee meeting. “This is, in fact, the primary reason for asking for the zoning change.”
Regardless, residents have said the mining operation has picked up speed in the past year, and especially in the last few months.
“It seems like there’s been a significant uptick in the vehicles and the amount of stuff,” Chenault said. “I mean, the other day – I’m not joking – I don’t know how many trucking companies they would have had to hire, but we saw in the course of that day hundreds of semi dump trucks coming out of there, just nonstop.”
The Toledo Free Press talked with Kelly and Jason McKown, who live across from 4004 Angola Road, on their front porch.
“I’ve seen probably 10 to 15 trucks,” Jason McKown said during the 15-minute time frame that the Free Press had been speaking with the couple, who joked that the trucks come about every five minutes.
The McKowns and other residents in the area have voiced their displeasure with Rocky Ridge through a petition, steady involvement in public forums, and with yard sides reading, “Don’t Dump on South Toledo.”
Residents’ main concerns have been dust, effects on individual’s health, resale value of their properties, noise, and the viability of the land after it is mined and filled in with DWTM.
“Since I moved here I’m now on a maintenance inhaler,” Kelly McKown said. Her asthma symptoms have worsened since she and her husband moved to Angola Road two years earlier.
“Ever since we got here, it’s harder for me to breathe. And the dust? It’s incredible. It’s everywhere, like, you can’t have your windows open. You’ve power washed this,” she said speaking to her husband and motioning to the driveway, “I don’t know how many times.”
Toledo City Council members Nick Komives (at-large) and Adam Martinez (District 2) both had concerns with the development, mainly the potential health effects of the dust and any potential water contamination that could happen during the industrial actions on the land.
Moore said a five-point dust mitigation plan would solve the issue of dust, and would include rumble strips and street sweepers applying a synthetic polymer to the dust. In his statements to City Council, Moore assured the council the dust suppressant material was a non-petroleum product despite it feeling like “baby oil.”
Residents, including Bill Hoag, a local organizer in the area who owns a number of residential properties in the neighborhood, contradicted Moore after a city council meeting on June 3, emphatically claiming the dust suppressant contained oil.
“Byrne Road’s all oil,” he said, and complained of “an oil slick” left on Byrne Road from the suppressant.
Even with the use of street sweepers and the dust suppressant, some residents still complain of dust. Other individuals in the community, like Michael Schrickel, who owns Chop Machine Cycles, a custom motorcycle shop in the area, initially voiced concerns but said publicly at the committee meeting that the dust concerns had been solved with the dust mitigation measures put forth by Rocky Ridge Development.
Yet, for all Rocky Ridge’s efforts in the area to make good with neighbors, including helping to landscape a neighbor’s lawn, offering to give the land back to the city as a wetland when the project finishes, and the efforts of mitigating dust, many residents are still wondering how Rocky Ridge has been allowed by the City of Toledo to operate without the correct zoning.
“If I was out in the back of my yard right now building a deck without a permit, they’d shut me down,” Jason McKown pointed out, and then relayed that his brother-in-law tried to build a handicap ramp without a permit and was shut down.
Chenault said he had a similar experience when he tried to put a building up at the American Auto Gallery. “I have a laundry list of things they want me to do for Toledo, but it’s like it doesn’t seem to apply to them in the same way,” he said.
On Tuesday, July 15, Toledo City Council is set to vote on the three ordinances dealing with Rocky Ridge Development’s request for a zone change. The ordinances in question have already been delayed at the past two Toledo City Council meetings.
