Life happens fast sometimes and lately mine has been a whirlwind. Last year I was on un-employment and had just bought this mosolem of a house, I wanted to get the 2 lots that border my property cleaned up and now I'm blogging politics and winding up on the cover of a newspaper. Being interviewed on WSPD, meeting and making great contacts with powerful and influential people. If you had asked me last year if I had ever even concieved of any such thing happening..I'd have laughed..loudly.
I have always been a stay to myself kinda guy..stay out of the way and ignore what I didn't like. here's the problem that came to me, by doing that I had wasted over 15 years of my life and shirked my duty as a citizen in this Country, State and City. I sat, like many, bitching and complainning to everyone but the people with answers. I Just didn't see a place me for to get involved.
Along came this house and all my free time...and 2 lots that resembled the landfill heap. After a year of working my way through the municipal system and getting frustrated, it came to me that the only way I would ever see the results I wanted would be to confront hard and fast the entirity of the City Hall bunch. I would have to take a multi-prong approach and go after both the Administration and the City Council. More recently, I've also been working with the Lucas County crowd. It's a whole new world and I'm a novice at all of it. Luckily for me, I have my faith in God and the knowledge that the right thing will always be supported by the Heavens and the remaining sane people here on Earth.
For someone that has always enjoyed realitive obscurity, I suddenly find myself wandering in strange territory. It's exciting and dangerously fun..that either makes me nuts or on the right path at long last. Eihter way, Uncle Fester has found his lightbulb and I'll do my best to help light the way.
The moral of this story is, if you really want to be a part of positive change her ein Toledo, you have to do more than watch. You have to get down and dirty and get involved on every leval possible. 1 or 2 calls and emails will never get you anywhere..it takes persistance, patience and the stubborn refusal to accept "No" for an answer.
Thank you for all the "Welcomes" and the kind words.
In an term Shane will understand...."If you strike me down now, I shall only become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" :)
I also became involved with the city because of unmowed lots after houses were torn down.
Persistance and repeating the nearly same problems time in and time out are truly the way to get change in the city.
If we do not like something then as you suggest and state we must tell the leadership and doing that earned me a compliment from the Mayor after his letter to the editor, some time ago, about people that complain to much about the city, I am one of the biggest complainers in Toledo.
And I suspect that you also have an award in some people's minds.
http://toledoohioneighborhoodconcerns.com/blog
For positive change read "Numbing Numbers" in last week's City Paper, and read the letter to the editor, same subject, in this week's City Paper.
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Could be...lol