Ohio

One has to wonder. My neighborhood is filled with smoke from fireworks. I think this year is worse than before and has even made it into our house. Will the smoke nazis stand up and protect us innocents from secondhand fireworks smoke, which unlike smoking is actually illegal?

"DETROIT - Faced with soaring gas prices, a sputtering economy, and rapid U.S. market shift away from trucks, the U.S. auto industry's weakest player, Chrysler, may have to seek bankruptcy or sell its Jeep and Dodge Ram brands as early as next year, JPMorgan said yesterday.

But rivals GM and Ford are likely to get through the rough patch and turn a profit in 2010."

"Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner yesterday said the city - with the help of a data analysis firm based in Washington - identified enough people uncounted by the U.S. Census Bureau to boost the population back over the 300,000 mark.

Jan Scotland, an insurance agent who once held an appointed seat on Toledo City Council, said he plans to seek the Republican endorsement to run for Lucas County commissioner against Democratic incumbent Tina Skeldon Wozniak.

Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner yesterday painted a bright picture for the city's downtown development and job creation while just hours later Toledo City Council's finance committee received some dire warnings for next year's budget.

(Cleveland) - Prepare for a steep rise in your utility bills. So says Richard Lubinski, president of Think-Energy Management in Silver Lake, near Akron.

The Wall Street Journal has taken notice of what a trainwreck this state has become, especially in the past two years:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121460691372812085.html?mod=opinion_main...

Ohio Senator Bill Seitz will be on Eye on Toledo tonight to talk about the pro business smoking amendment - SB 346. It will be mosh pit Friday and you can call with what you want to hear or what concerns you. Call in at 419-240-1370 or 1-866-321-1370. Senator Seitz is one of my favorite Senators in the General Assembly.

More than 2,200 workers at the Toledo Jeep Assembly complex will be laid off for nearly two months because of dismal sales of the Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro, United Auto Workers officials said yesterday.

From the Columbus Dispatch:
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Of the thousands of aspiring Pamela Andersons, only one will become Playboy magazine's 55th-anniversary Playmate.

She might be picked from the pool of 600 applicants who visited the Westin Columbus during a two-day casting call this week -- or from the six other cities where the magazine is hosting talent searches this year.

COLUMBUS - State Rep. Tyrone Yates (D., Cincinnati) and Rep. Shawn Webster (R., Hamilton) stand at polar opposite points in their ideas as to how to deal with pit bulls, those muscle-bound dogs with jaws of steel.

This week on the Toledo View...

Interviews with Jeanine Perry and Art Jones.

Toledo View has also changed it's format, at the request of many of our viewers, you may now listen to previous interviews of the Toledo View.

www.ToledoView.com

MOUNT VERNON — A lawsuit was filed Friday in the southern district court on behalf of a student at the Mount Vernon Middle School. The federal suit alleges civil rights violations by the Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education, superintendent Stephen Short, middle school principal William White and science teacher John Freshwater.

Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner promised yesterday to clamp down on soaring overtime costs for city employees and admonished his top staffers for letting the situation get out of control.

"I am extremely disappointed in the directors of the city of Toledo and the staff of the 22nd floor," Mr. Finkbeiner said, referring to the floor of his office in Government Center.

Used Google maps to locate a place in the city and noticed that the street view is enabled now.

Pretty nifty

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=One+Government+Center,+...

If the American economy is to recover, taxes at all levels must be lowered, economist Arthur Laffer told a Toledo audience yesterday.

Mr. Laffer, best known for the Laffer Curve and for advocating so-called supply-side economics during the Reagan administrations, spoke at the Toledo Club to more than 100 clients of Huntington Funds, a subsidiary of Huntington National Bank.

A large, empty plot of cleaned-up riverfront property near I-75 could soon be in the hands of a self-described "visionary developer."

Thieves ruined any possibility for Toledo to open its public pools a few days early to help people beat the sweltering temperatures, city officials said yesterday.

"These [metal] scrappers ended any chance at all," said Sherrie Shipman, manager of recreation for the city.

Pickett Elementary School in central Toledo will be given a new set of teachers and administrators next school year in hopes of improving its chronic under performance and complying with the federal No Child Left Behind Act, Superintendent John Foley announced yesterday.

The vast majority of people who owe the city of Toledo money for razing nuisance buildings, cutting grass and weeds, or clearing away debris never pay up.

Over the past two years, the city has collected just $35,000 out of $4.1 million billed to current and former property owners.

Councilman Tom Waniewski Newsletter - June 2008
Refuse Update

This week on the Toledo View:

Interviews with:

City of Oregon Police Chief, Richard Stager

Lucas County Prosecutor, Julia Bates

Read the hot editorial on the Citizens View...

A CONSEQUENCE OF CROWS

And on the Anonymous View...

OBAMA TAKE A LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND SEE THE PROBLEM

The increasingly controversial proposed Toledo law to require owners of vacant buildings to register and pay a fee was vehemently denounced yesterday by a number of opponents and applauded by others during a lengthy City Council committee hearing.

If approved, the fee starts at $100 for residential buildings and increases the longer a property is vacant.

WESTLAKE, Ohio - A Cleveland-area principal says he's embarrassed his students got proof of their "educaiton" on their high school diplomas.

Westlake High School officials misspelled "education" on the diplomas distributed last weekend. It's been the subject of mockery on local radio.

Read More Here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080606/ap_on_fe_st/odd_diploma_typo

Final drawings for the arena under construction in downtown, to be unveiled today by the Lucas County commissioners, show a green side - literally.

The designs include not only environmentally friendly construction with efficient heating and cooling systems, but also a lobby packed with trees and bushes as well as an ivy-covered glass "Green Wall" greeting visitors at its south entrance.