A special day for both the museum and for the public.
On this day, January 17, in 1912, the brand new Toledo Museum of Art building was officially opened to the public. At the event, during which Edward Drummond Libbey ceremoniously opened the doors to the museum, which was also his wife, Florence Scott Libbey’s birthday, Toledo mayor Brand Whitlock presented the museum with the key to the city.
110 years later on this day, you could say that the museum returned the favor to the city of Toledo, by opening its doors on a Monday (a day it has always been closed) in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
You could sit in the Libbey Court and watch Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “I Had A Dream,” under the portrait of Edward Drummond Libbey.
It was a very special day, and a lot of people came.
It’s just too damn bad that nobody who works at the museum (except for the historian) was even aware that January 17 was the museum’s anniversary. (I know because I asked several museum workers that day, including a museum Trustee, and they were totally unaware, but one called up to the historian’s office, who told them it was indeed the 110th anniversary of the opening of the building.) That must be because they are deliberately erasing the museum history to form a new narrative — and the great museum history gets shoved down the memory hole. They hired a “brand” manager to give them a new voice. The museum is finding itself — because they are no longer the great teaching institution that they used to be – Fellows used to teach – imagine that! – 2,500 public school children filled classes every Saturday, and adult classes during the week! The museum used to be the hub of the art world for local artists — imagine that! The community “drew its vitality from its existence in the heart of the art world” which was the museum. There were annual juried local artist shows, and monthly individual local artist shows! All of that took considerable effort, along with having blockbuster shows, which they no longer have anymore, either. Today, in their rebranding, they apologize for being such a beautiful white marble columned building. They want everyone to think that our museum began as a stand-offish place for the Mrs. Libbeys of the world (rich white women married to rich white men who collect “art” out of boredom) when actually the museum was started by local artists, and run by a modern, progressive, liberal, inclusive, hard-working and talented husband and wife team — George and Nina Stevens.
Wiping out the museum’s history of inclusion, and then rebranding the museum to be inclusive, is an extreme insult to our community, and I mean every person who lives in Toledo – we are getting used – as well as every Mrs. Libbey or Mrs. McKelvy of Toledo who has bequeathed anything to the museum and given her time and money for our city to have better education, better music, and a strong French Impressionist collection of paintings at our museum. I think these women ought to be respected and not used to highlight differences, which is divisive. They gave our city so much. And they did — it’s always been our museum.
We the people of Toledo are getting manipulated once again by an out-of-town director who is getting a lot of publicity at our expense. Selling our masterpieces! OH!
I hope Director Adam Levine is getting the controversy he was quoted as hoping for when he announced that he was selling our great French Impressionist paintings by Matisse, Renoir, and Cézanne. The museum recently had a fundraiser and raised $42 million to replenish their art-buying fund. That’s not enough to buy new artwork?
The museum’s trustees are apparently getting used like the rest of us, as our strong art collections get minimized, and our valuable paintings are used as currency, as if the museum is a for-profit blood-sucking corporation and not the educational non-profit institution that it was set up to be.
What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Brand Whitlock, mayor of Toledo, 1906-1914 (painted by I. Abramofsky), and Sam “Golden Rule” Jones, mayor of Toledo, 1897-1904. The political progressives, like George Stevens, were similar in spirit. (Jones’ house stood where the Peristyle now stands.)
A Man and a Dream George Stevens had a dream too, and it became our magnificent Toledo Museum of Art. Nina Spalding Stevens wrote a book about it titled A Man and a Dream, see excerpts here.
The floodplain of Ottawa Hills on a sunny day. Now under the authority of Lucas County??
I protested. I filed a remonstrance. Check out my many posts about the ditch petition going back to May 2021 reflecting my efforts. Taxpayers affected by this need a fair hearing, and not by commissioners who live in the counties, because they are biased. They should have to recuse themselves, as does the county that brings it, as explained in this blog post following my Letter to the Editor of August 2, 2021.
Letter to the Editor, The Blade, August 2, 2021
Sunshine and the watershed
Section 6130.04 of the Ohio Revised Code on ditch petitions states that if a petition for ditch improvement is brought by the county, that instead of the board of county commissioners deciding it, that hearings and decisions would be made through the Court of Common Pleas.
And here’s why: for fairness to everyone involved.
Lucas County cannot deny that the county engineer, Mike Pniewski wrote the Ten-mile Creek Watershed and Swan Creek Watershed ditch petitions, then shopped them around in person to find a puppet sponsor for each one of them. (Mike Pniewski pitched it to Sylvania Township, who turned him down, and he went to Spencer Township.) Then the county commissioners themselves approved the petitions, being their own judge and jury. Not exactly fair to the hundreds of thousands of residents who will be forever affected by their action (increased tax assessments and blanket rights to go onto their private property.)
At the last minute, right before the hearings, addendums were added to each of the petitions, more than doubling the number of ditches of each petition, and adding road ditches, which are already paid for with county money! Ten-mile Creek Watershed petition originally had 21 waterways listed, but on Oct 27, 2021, added 22 more waterways. The Swan Creek petition originally had 34 waterways, but then added 46 to the list. 90 ditches! The petitions also removed the initial limits on certain ditches and rivers covered by the original petition, to cover the entire lengths, not just certain sections, as was in the original petition.
The Village of Ottawa Hills has a plan to care for their portion of 10-mile Creek / Ottawa River that runs through their village. It’s called, “Envisioning a Greener Future.” Yet with the Ten-mile Creek ditch petition, Lucas County is taking control of this river going through Ottawa Hills, becoming “Big Boss” Overlord of the Village, if you can imagine that, having the right to move machinery through this beautiful, natural landscape, that comes up naturally every few months and has for as long as I have lived, to do whatever they fancy to be an improvement to the Ottawa River / 10-mile Creek. Taking private property rights. Disturbing ecology. When Lucas County has never had such an authority before, nor any experience, nor is it associated with science and nature. And most of all, it is not necessary!
With 25 feet of land taken from the banks of the waterways and access to that waterway, that’s quite the land grab of private property taken by the county government.
Notably, the plans and budget for cleaning the ditches remains the same – doubling the number of ditches and taking ten years to perform. Whereas without the petition, landowners would continue to maintain their own parts of the river, as it is now and how it has worked, forever, without any problems at all.
The ditch petitions will cause a lot of disruption to landowners and to private property owners adjacent to landowners, and they will cause damage to the natural habitat, and they’ll have to find a dump for the sediment if they dredge the river, but Mike Pniewski, Lucas County Engineer, said that if the commissioners don’t approve it, the waterways will fall into ruin! (He failed to state the obvious, that the landowners would of course continue to maintain their property, as they always have done since the beginning of time. Pictured here is the 10-mile creek running through Wildwood Preserve.)
The Metroparks
I wonder how our beautiful Metroparks will be looking in a few years, waiting in line for their turn for county ditch maintenance, if ever. But I suppose the park system will appreciate not having to do their own maintenance on their rivers anymore with tax dollars they already get. Since the eminent attorney Fritz Byers, who is on the board of the Metroparks, is litigating for Lucas County on the Lake Erie-EPA lawsuit, and also serves as legal counsel for the Toledo Blade, I’m sure the Metroparks knows what’s going on and they seem to have no objection to it. Hopefully the Metroparks have a contingency plan for keeping the Metropark rivers and streams maintained in the interim, until it’s their turn to get cleaned by the county, like maybe in 2066. Or maybe the Metroparks will get the first cleaning, in that they have so much clout, making the other 132 waterways listed in the petitions have to wait until 2066, at least some of them.
The Hearings
In spite of the numerous private property owners braving the Covid-19 Pandemic to be present at the hearings in order to make their voices be heard, as well as the many remonstrances and public comments filed with the county before the hearings, the petitions were discussed, voted on and approved, in only one hour flat.
The Engineer’s own Final Report dated November 4, 2021 for the Ten-mile, same date as the Ten-mile Creek watershed ditch petition hearing, acknowledged a few obvious drawbacks of the ditch petition —
potential disruption for adjacent property owners, potential tree removal in areas of larger log jams to obtain access, disruption of habitat… and if they remove “excess sedimentation,” they will need to find a “location for spoil, depending on quantity and nature of property.”
Then the engineer slipped us a fast one, as if he can see what will happen in the future if the county does not get their way with the petition, as if the actual property owners (like the Metroparks, Boy Scouts of America, Franciscan Sisters, the Cities of Sylvania and Toledo, University of Toledo, the Village of Ottawa Hills, and those few lucky rich people who have the river on their property) will become totally irresponsible and will all of a sudden stop caring for their own property. If the county doesn’t clean the waterways, then it will all fall into ruin!
After the report, the commissioners quickly voted affirmative on the petition and adjourned the hearing, all within 63 minutes of the start of the hearing.
Similarly, with barely a quorum present of the three-county joint board of commissioners attending the Swan Creek Hearing on December 2, 2021 (not one commissioner came from Henry County and only two commissioners came from Fulton County), the five out of nine commissioners on the joint board who bothered to come to the hearing rushed through the hearing and voted yes, in all within 47 minutes from the start of the meeting to the adjournment.
In this unfair environment with no chance of a discerning, unbiased deliberation and unbiased decision from the judges, Lucas County thus took control of a large swath of private property of over 127,000 homeowners and their families, mostly Toledoans, and forced a tax on them. And Lucas County already got the city of Toledo to say that they would go along with them, so that the city of Toledo would not enforce their “home rule” in spite of their responsibility to the citizens of the Toledo to do so, where nearly every living soul is affected by the county ditch petitions.
Shedding light on the subject
We are masked and we are vulnerable, we are quarantined and we are isolated from each other by the Covid-19 Pandemic that is raging through its third year now in 2022. Those of us over 65 are particularly at risk for serious illness and death. And that is what it is like when I tried to get a public forum going to discuss the ditch petitions and share information.
Lucas County, rather than being a disinterested party in the ditch petition process, has been difficult to communicate with, as if they are an adversary. They will not have a dialog. They don’t answer questions. They are not listening. They are defending their position as the powerful, biased party that they are, forcing this tax and this perversion of law on their defenseless, masked, and isolated.
Ohio’s Sunshine Laws are in place to shine a public light on the workings of our democratic government. But here in Lucas County, the county’s bulb is burned out and needs to be changed.
Six days after the December 2, 2021 Swan Creek Hearing, I asked to see public records, including the minutes of the Hearing. On December 21 after I still did not get the records, I emailed the clerk, but my email was “bounced,” returned to me with a notice indicating that the recipient had blocked my email. Outrageous! I had to contact the county prosecutor’s office when I couldn’t get a response from my email sent from a different email address.
The county prosecutor’s office had already been in touch with me before that, though, having been contacted by the commissioners’ office to handle my earlier request. The email from the prosecutor’s office was quite a jolt, and no doubt a nasty way for the commissioners’ office to intimidate and silence me. I had requested to see historic ditch petitions because I wanted to find out about a similar ditch petition that failed in the past. I asked the clerk about that ditch petition. She referred me to the county engineer’s office, but all the county engineer’s office was willing to tell me was that it occurred in the 1980’s. There is no list of ditch petitions in the commissioner’s records that I can quickly peruse to find hints. So I asked to see the actual historic ditch petition records. I first asked to see indexes to the records but was told that indexes do not exist. Nothing is digitized before 1997, I was told. I’m still trying to find out, as it seems very relevant to the current petitions.
Driving a Jeep in the 10-mile Creek just to prove that they can. Location: Inlands estate, Ottawa Hills. Photocomposition by Penny Gentieu (The actual photo of the Jeep in the river was photographed downriver by the old Jeep Factory by Central Ave., photo courtesy Images in Time, TLCPL, river photo by PG is how it appears present-day.)
Inaccurate records and obfuscating historic ditch petition records
Does the Clerk of the Lucas County Commissioners know what she is doing? Only she and the county commissioners know for sure. As for my request for the minutes to the Swan Creek meeting, I also asked to see the remonstrances and public comments on the petition. The clerk sent me comments submitted by seven people, but did not include my own comments that I submitted on December 1, 2021 through the Lucas County portal for Swan Creek ditch petition comments. How many other comments did she omit that were submitted to the public record on the Swan Creek ditch petition?
Then in regard to the hearing minutes, which took her 25 days to finish because she had to get them “approved,” she listed only two of those seven people, along with the Home Builders Association of Greater Toledo (who gave Lucas County their undying support and kudos for doing the petition! And no wonder – since the petitions are such a gravy train for construction workers.)
Perhaps to make it perfectly clear that she keeps inaccurate records for the commissioners, the clerk voluntarily sent me a completely different set of comments made to the Ten-mile Creek petition. The new set culled, not added to, the set of comments I had already received in November. The updated collection did not include several comments from people opposing the ditch petition. In fact, 107 pages had been cut out! I admit that 99 culled pages were my detailed remonstrance and comments that I had worked on for all of these months. But, I was cut out? I thoroughly expected my remonstrance that I hand-delivered to the Lucas County Board of Commissioners at One Government Center on November 3, the day before the Ten-mile Creek hearing, to be in the public record!
But such corruption of the public trust is just that easy do. You have to wonder, when public records are requested by the public, what “set of books” do they get?
Perhaps the clerk is incompetent, or perhaps she might say that she’s just doing her job. But as a disinterested keeper of public records for the public trust, she fails miserably. I requested the corrected minutes of the Ten-mile Creek Hearing. In the corrected minutes, citizen comments are still labeled as “public question” and “in favor” when they clearly are opposed to the ditch petition. She corrected only one such label. Also, at the top of pages 2 and 3 of these officially signed minutes is the text, Minutes of the Hearing for Schmitz Ditch instead of Ten-mile Creek, and it’s there quite obviously – you can’t miss it! – it’s printed in a bold 12-point font! Mistakes on purpose, perhaps. What a muddy mess that makes for these ditch petitions!
The county’s behavior all makes sense when you see that it’s in the county’s best interest to suppress the voice of the opposition. The county itself is the interested party bringing the petitions, and not Spencer Township who signed the petition. The Spencer Township trustees are simply puppets in Lucas County’s plan. Not one of them even showed up to a View or a Hearing of the sweeping ditch petition on which they signed their name.
Ditch petition of yore
I’m a very patient person. I’m as business-like as can be, having been in business all of my adult life, most of my years as a successful and well-known photographer in New York City. In New York City, there’s no time for bullshit. People are professional and considerate. But with Lucas County, trying to negotiate my rights to see public records is like being in a Kafka-esque nightmare!
I can’t even describe how painful and anxiety-ridden it was to have received an email from the actual Lucas County prosecutors’ office, which misrepresented my public records request; and then to have had my email address get literally blocked by the clerk of the county commissioners; and then to have been shown “two sets of books.” It seems like they are putting their thumbs up to their ears and wiggling their fingers at me!
But I soldiered on, knowing I have every right to see public records on ditch petitions. As for trying to find the historical ditch petition that Lucas County had tried but failed, I will find it. But the clerk is telling me that it will take considerable time for me to go through the records. Apparently because there are no finding aids for any of the pages of records they have on film and microfiche. Apparently, the Lucas County Commissioners Office didn’t digitize records until 1998, and apparently the previous clerks did not keep a database of Resolutions before that, either. At least nothing that’s handy that they are willing to share with me. Am I to believe that the clerks and commissioners that came before her left everything in a big mess, as if it’s all thrown in a giant shoe box with no way to navigate anything?
I trust that the clerks of yore were organized and professional, and that Sandy Isenberg, the President of the Board of Lucas County Commissioners in the 1990’s, was a diligent and forthright public official, and that those in the past who worked in the Engineer’s Office took their jobs seriously. I wonder what our public officials of the past would think of our present Lucas County commissioners and engineers playing fast and loose with their reputations? I wonder how the memory of today’s commissioners will fare, and what legacy they will be leaving.
Why don’t they just outright tell me what I’ve been asking — what about that similar ditch petition that failed?
I am starting to think that the county must have something to hide to go to this much trouble to hide it. I’m learning that the proper venue for these two ditch petitions should have been the court of common pleas, because the petitions were clearly invented by the county. The county commissioners should have recused itself from judging its own petition since it can’t be objective — follow the intentions of the law. Respect the people! Maybe that old ditch petition that I am looking for was correctly heard by the court of common pleas….
…on account of fairness for everyone involved.
Ohio Revised Code Section 6131.04 Petition for construction of ditch improvement. If the petitioner is a public corporation or the state, the petition shall be signed by its authorized representative. If the petitioner is the county, the petition shall be filed with the clerk of the court of common pleas, the matters in the petition shall be heard by the common pleas court as if the petition had come to the court on appeal, and the clerk and the court shall do all things that sections 6131.01 to 6131.64 of the Revised Code provide that the county commissioners shall do. The court of common pleas may appoint a board of arbitrators to assume the duties of the judge. The board shall be comprised of three disinterested persons chosen by the judge, who shall designate one of the persons to be chairman.
Nitschke Hall, Nitschke Auditorium, and Nitschke Technology Commercialization Complex, Department of Engineering, University of Toledo.
Rich or poor – few escape the power of the Lucas County Board of Commissioners, but the City of Toledo certainly can and should!
City folks should not be taxed for rural ditches.
On November 4, Lucas County Board of Commissioners voted to pursue the controversial Ten-Mile Creek Watershed ditch petition affecting 73,236 homeowners and their families. Two of our three Lucas County commissioners, along with three Fulton County commissioners, voted for it, with the President of the Lucas County Board of Commissioners, Tina Skeldon Wozniak, notably absent from her duty to officiate the hearing of this important issue and vote on it.
On December 2, Lucas County will vote for the matching Swan Creek Watershed ditch petition, nailing a total of 117,554 Lucas County property owners and their families to suffer these two ditch petitions, with an extra 6,095 Fulton County property owners added into it, which earn them the three votes from the Fulton County Commissioners too.*
No proof has ever been shown at any of the “views” to justify the sweeping petition. In the final report submitted on November 4 by the Lucas County Engineer, Mike Pniewski, only a single exhibit is in the record as an example of cleanup and maintenance that needs to be done to justify this overreaching, outrageous petition — it is an image of an out-of-date Google Earth overhead image captioned “a significant log jam in Sylvania Township.”
The only example used in the November 4, 2021 final report. This location is behind million dollar mansions off of Corey Road.
I traced Google Earth up the 10-mile creek and found the exact location, behind the homes of rich and prominent people, off Corey Road in Sylvania Township, on Riverhills Lane.That’s all the county has to show us. It is the same example that the county engineer gave to the Channel 13 news team on August 19 for their news story on the ditch petition. They filmed a tree down on the floodplain and a few logs in the river, behind these million dollar mansions.
The property off of Corey Road, on Riverhills Lane, on which was found a log jam some time ago spotted on Google Earth, which was used as the sole example to justify the ditch petition by county engineer Mike Pniewski, in his November 4 Final Report.
One of the residents within a few hundred feet of this example is the grandson of Norman Nitschke, the famous safety glass industrialist who donated millions to the University of Toledo for three new engineering buildings with his name on it. Strangely, Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski, in his near-full-time moonlighting job that was revealed to us in the September 10 edition of the Blade in regard to his teaching five freshman classes at the university, teaches a class in Nitschke Hall. Norman Nitschke died in January 2021 of Covid-19. It’s so peculiar that our Lucas County engineer would use an example from the neighborhood of this great man’s grandson with the same name – Nitschke. We should expect at least a modicum of respect and discretion from our elected officials when dealing with our citizens — renown or otherwise. It begs the question, did Mike Pniewski ever contact the property owners of the log jam example, or is he really so crass that he would drag them through the mud with no consideration, just to push this ditch petition through?
Nitschke Hall, one of the buildings where Mike Pniewski does his moonlighting, teaching freshman engineering classes.
The owners of the property used in Pniewski’s only example are also quite distinguished. In the 1970’s, Malcolm Keith Weikel served in Washington, DC as the Commissioner of Medical Services Administration responsible for Medicaid. He later became the COO of HCR ManorCare, then the largest nursing home company in the United States. However Mr. Weikel also died in 2021, in March, just as Mike Pniewski was shopping around for a sponsor for his opportunistic ditch petitions.
It is worth noting here that even though a log jam was spotted in Sylvania Township, that the Sylvania Township trustees refused to sponsor this ditch petition. Did Pniewski tell them about their log jam? Pniewski then went to Spencer Township trustees for their sponsorship (even though they are technically in the Swan Creek watershed.) It is unknown if Pniewski ever contacted the Weikels about their log jam that he found on Google Earth, or whether he just used the image to justify this ditch petition. I venture to say that if he had contacted the owner about their log jam and explained to them that someday it might have an impact on flooding and drainage problems, the problem would have been solved right away, without Pniewski getting to use it as an opportunity to drag in the entire county, and Fulton County too. Furthermore, it is unproven that the log jam has ever caused any flooding or drainage issues. Mr. Nitschke told me emphatically that he had no such problems, when I reached out to ask him if he or his neighbors were experiencing flooding or drainage problems from the river.
Contrast that picture, of the wealth and advantage of these famous Sylvania Township homeowners and their splendid river views, to the image of Toledo’s disadvantaged city population being forced to pay for the clean-up of those rich people’s log jams through this overreaching ditch petition. They use the rich to steal from the poor.
Look at these arbitrary maps drawn for those who are going to have to pay. For example, look at the Junction neighborhood behind the art museum in the city of Toledo. Every homeowner in that neighborhood is either named in the Ten-mile Creek or Swan Creek ditch petition. They will all be taxed. For what?
Areas shaded blue show the parcels that will be taxed for the Ten-mile Creek Watershed ditch petition.Areas shaded blue show the parcels that will be taxed for the Swan Creek Watershed ditch petition; it fits into the Ten-mile creek map like a cookie cutter.You may wonder, as do I, why all of the parcels in the poor neighborhood behind the art museum are so tightly designated into one petition or the other. Whereas, the museum itself is only partially included, with the other half being off the hook from any ditch petition. The Peristyle is out, but the Canaday Gallery is in. The Glass Pavilion is out, but the Director’s office is in. The Frank Gehry CVA building is out, but the old art school is in. We will never know why this is either, because the Lucas County Board of Commissioners doesn’t answer questions.
Is the City of Toledo really going to give Lucas County the right to force their disadvantaged population to pay for the clean-up of the river behind the homes of the richest people in Sylvania Township? Beyond that outrageous inequity, do we really want the county government to usurp our municipal powers and private property rights as well?
There is such a thing as Home Rule. Why is the City of Toledo letting Lucas County do this to us?
It is preposterous!The City of Toledo should take care of their many problems, and let the wealthy people of Sylvania Township take care of their problems. The same goes for ditches out in the country. Ohio ditch petition laws were written for unincorporated, rural parts of the state, not cities! City folks should not be taxed for rural ditches.
As for the river in the metropolitan area of Toledo, it is already taken care by its major owners, because the rest of the river, beyond the neighborhood of those prestigious and wealthy citizens mentioned above, is owned by the City of Sylvania, the Sylvania Country Club, the Franciscan Sisters, the Boy Scouts of America, the Metroparks, the Village of Ottawa Hills, the University of Toledo, the City of Toledo, and then a few miles of industrial ownership until it flows out of Point Place. All of these areas have had clean-ups and restorations, mostly funded by grants in programs that were initiated by Tina Skeldon Wozniak’s own father, Ned Skeldon, as is shown on this web page, Ned Skeldon, Betty Mauk, and their river legacy.
*The three Fulton County commissioners are all white men, I might add — and purportedly, they go along with how the two Lucas County white men vote. Those three votes from Fulton County represent 5% of the affected population, but they increase the ditch petition voting percentage in Lucas County’s favor by more than double! Who knows how the one woman (also white) of Lucas County would have voted on the Ten-mile Creek petition, or might be voting, for or against the Swan Creek petition – because she evaded the issue altogether – she was absent during the Ten-mile Creek hearing and vote. As the president of the board, and as a woman, she’s the closest thing to “diversity” that we have to represent us – but her vote wouldn’t count anyway, with that majority of male commissioners sticking together as they do – all due respect given to our white commissioners for their “service” to our community – but I strongly feel that they are not representative of me, nor of our diverse city population whatsoever, nor do they listen to us, and they are certainly not looking after our best interests. I live in the City of Toledo. Toledo City Council, will you please look after us? After all, the concept of “Home Rule” is the major reason why the City of Toledo exists, and that’s how you got elected!
my 10th great grandfather, an immigrant ancestor landing in New Amsterdam, supported the Great Remonstrance of 1649 which led to a better life for Americans.
I try to do what I can.
Filed with the Clerk of the Board of the Lucas County Commissioners, with a copy sent to the Fulton County Board of County Commissioners on November 3, 2021.
The following 99 pages, consisting of this list, web pages and Facebook posts made between May 26 and November 2, is our legal remonstrance consisting of our comments and protests in opposition to the 10-Mile Creek Watershed ditch petition.
We will not benefit from this petition. It is a hostile government takeover of private property rights, which is not an improvement. The petition has no value to us, it is unbeneficial. We, and our property, would not benefit for the following reasons.
1. We haven’t been shown any proof as to why this petition is necessary. Nothing was shown at the “View,” And pdf’s that I downloaded in June, made by Amanda Kovach of ditch photos shot in May, but strangely dated in August and September, don’t show anything wrong with the rivers and creeks, such as log jams and fallen trees that Mike Pniewski told the Blade was such a problem, as reported after the Swan Creek watershed View on September 16.See pages 26, 27, 60, 61and 93
2. There is a worldwide pandemic that has been going on for about 20 months, and these two county governments are being cruel to their residents. A 1.7 trillion dollar federal infrastructure grant is coming. The county wants to tax us for ditch cleaning even under these conditions. See pages 60, 70, 83, 90
3. Landowners were not noticed properly. See pages 5, 51, 58, 77, 92
4. The circumstances of the execution of this ditch petition suggest that it is fishy. See pages 5,13-16, 26-33, 49, 62, 67-68, 76, 79, 83, 90, 97, 98, 99
5. No public discussion of this earth-shattering life-changing petition has been allowed, even after I personally tried to initiate it with the county commissioners and other interested parties. See pages 49, 55, 56, 64, 67-68, 69,96, 76, 77, 98
6. It’s taking a law meant for rural Ohio and using it on a large population of Toledo city, and Sylvania City and the Village of Ottawa Hills. See pages 5, 6-16, 17- 25, 45-46, 53, 59, 71-73, 74, 77, 82, 83, 97
7. Property rights would be taken from us and taxes would be assessed to us but clean-up work of any adjacent river/ditch near to us would be few and far between, considering that ditch projects cost on average $500,000 each for the clean-up and/or restoration of a just a couple of miles, when there are perhaps 200 miles of rivers/ditches and the county plans on collecting only two million dollars each year. See pages 75, 78
8. Our urban rivers (that Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski calls ditches) are mostly owned and maintained by the Franciscan Sisters, Metroparks, University of Toledo, the City of Sylvania, Village of Ottawa Hills, and City of Toledo, and we already pay tax that goes to the maintenance and restoration of the river. Grants pay for it, and it’s done with care for the delicate ecology of our rivers and Lake Erie. See pages 5, 17-25, 34-43, 61, 71-3, 74, 93, 96
9. The example given by Engineer Pniewski to the Channel 13 news team on August 19, the day of the Toledo View at Jermain Park, was of a fallen tree or log jam in the backyard of the neighborhood of million-dollar homes off of Corey Road in Sylvania. Since I know exactly whose house they went to, to film the river in their backyard, I asked a neighbor a few homes upstream if they have any flooding or drainage problems from any backup caused by the fallen tree or log jam. The neighbor answered emphatically, NO. That neighbor happens to be the grandson of Norman Nitschke, the famous and wealthy industrialist-inventor of safety glass who donated millions of dollars to the University of Toledo and thus has three engineering buildings named after him, one in which the county engineer teaches a university class. The University of Toledo gave Norman Nitschke a special Memorial on August 17, just two days before Pniewski used Nitschke’s grandson’s downstream 10-mile creek location to show as an example of maintenance that was needed for the river that 117,000 county residents should have to pay for. One wonders, knowing that that Pniewski teaches five university classes in the engineering department, which btw is apparently fine with the Lucas County government, and that the Memorial program was that very week, did Pniewski use that part of the river on purpose, knowing about Nitschke’s land-ownership? Or was he just that thoughtless and dumb that he would use Nitchke’s grandson’s river area, perhaps because there is nowhere else on the metro-area 10-mile creek that isn’t owned by the parks, universities, cities, villages, nuns, or the Boy Scouts of America, who all do a very good job maintaining their portions of the river in the Toledo area?See pages 17-25, 46-54.
10. That the county engineer, Mike Pniewski, teaches a near-full time schedule at the University of Toledo, who is minding the Lucas County engineering department, and why should the county engineering department be taking on the supervision and maintenance of our 10-mile creek watershed, especially in light of rational thinking that such an undertaking needs the full-time supervision of the county engineering department head, to whom we pay an annual salary of about $150K — second highest only to the county coroner. Not to mention thoughtfulness and a green thumb in regard to our waterways and Lake Erie, as engineers are not the same as scientists, and why should they take ownership of our rivers? Local is better.See pages 83, 85-89, 92
11. What is the relationship between Lucas County and the University of Toledo, including as to why the county engineer teaches university Freshman-level classes nearly full-time, and also uses Nitschke’s backyard river as an example for a broadcasting on Channel 13 to show why taxpayers in Toledo need to fund a ditch and river cleanup requiring the taking of property rights and unlimited tax assessments, forever?See pages 83, 85-89, 92
12. That the county engineer has time to take off of his already shortened schedule, since he teaches so many university classes, to speak up at a gerrymandering hearing in the middle of his work day shows us that he is number one a politician looking out for his own political interests, not a county engineer, and he’s not looking after our best interests. We don’t need a watershed boss. We don’t trust him with our delicate ecology. And he has not shown proof of such a need for the county to be a boss of our waterways. See pages 44-54, 80, 81, 83, 88
Thus, for the foregoing reasons and for points made in all of the articles and comments in the following webpages and Facebook posts with pages numbered 5 to 99, the 10-Mile Creek Watershed Ditch Petition does not benefit us; in fact it is detrimental. It’s an outrageous land-rights grab, and doesn’t seem constitutional. We are not sold on the so-called improvements. We think that landowners are responsible for cleaning up their own ditches, and that they have been doing an excellent job of it. We think that river clean-up projects should be small, localized and any radical changes should be overseen by the EPA, because the ecology of our rivers and Lake Erie is delicate. The water clean-up projects funded by grants inspired by Ned Skeldon have been successful and should continue.
June Boyd with her great granddaughter, Leilani, photographed at the Toledo Museum of Art on October 27, 2021. “I’m a fighter and I’m looking to provide a better future not only for my family, but for all these little children I spend time with.” June Boyd, Second Wind, Interview by Rev. Donald L. Perryman, PhD, Sojourner Truth, Sept. 18, 2019 (Note that baby Leilani came along after the publication of that interview two years ago. She now has a new great granddaughter, one month old, so when June Boyd says she wants a better future for the kids, she means business!)
June Boyd
June Boyd is one sharp octogenarian. Two years ago, she ran for city council at age 84. She’s a great grandmother raising two of her great grandchildren. She’s an activist for children and is fighting the blight and violence she has seen grown out of control in Toledo.
After 60 years in politics, June Boyd is very wise. She has experienced many firsts in her long Toledo history. When she was just two years old, she moved to Toledo with her mother from Georgia to the shiny new Brand Whitlock housing project on Junction Avenue behind the Toledo Museum of Art. It was a great place to live, with all the modern appliances. The first generation growing up at Brand Whitlock reads like a who’s who in the history of Black Toledo.
June Boyd was the first African-American to graduate from St. Ursula Academy high school, in 1953. To get her enrolled in the what was then an all-white girls Catholic school, in 1948, her mother called and asked if they would take black girls. The nun answered, “I don’t see why not!” When Ned Skeldon, president of the Lucas County Board of Commissioners, put out the word in 1959 that the county board would like to hire African-Americans, she was the first to be hired, and she worked for Skeldon himself. She paved the way for many black women working in politics. In 1993, she along with Edna Brown were the first two black women elected for Toledo City Council.
She did not win the election in 2019, but still works her agenda in the community to improve conditions for children in Toledo’s central city. She writes letters and gives interviews. Lucky for us, she keeps on keeping on, and she does it for the kids.
“I recall Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz stating it was his intention to hire 30, 40 and 50 year olds in his administration totally excluding senior citizens or anyone over 50 who just might have the wisdom and knowledge to address the foregoing,” Letter to the Editor from June Boyd, Sojourner’s Truth,Sept. 30, 2021
Toledo sadly lacks the wisdom and knowledge of what once made it great. The city eschews the hiring of senior citizens or anyone close to being a wise elder. Memory of the past is the first to go in times of corruption, and we are living in corrupt times.
The Toledo Museum of Art is built on the same ground on which Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones had once lived.
Golden Rule Jones
Who knows about Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones? He was the Mayor of Toledo from 1897 until he died in 1904.
Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones is ranked the 5th all-time best mayor in the United States. Jones built Toledo’s first city playgrounds and public swimming pools.
Jones was a millionaire who gave away his entire mayoral salary every month to needy people. He built the Golden Rule Park for his employees and gave them instruments for their newly-formed Golden Rule Band. He gave his workers 8-hour work days, paid vacations, health insurance and Christmas bonuses. He made his fortune in the oil business, a consequence of the oil monopoly that would not be broken up until five years after his death. Rich through ugly monopoly at age 43, Jones had an existential moment where he saw clearly that he had to live by the golden rule. Thus, he was elected mayor.
Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones died of a sudden illness at age 57, but he had a protege – the young lawyer and novelist, Brand Whitlock.
Brand Whitlock
Whitlock was an artist and intellectual at heart, without much interest in money. He served as Mayor of Toledo from 1906 to 1914, when President Wilson appointed him minister/ambassador to Belgium. He then served overseas throughout the Great War until 1921, when he moved to the French Rivera to write his books. He died in Cannes at the age of 65. Two years later, in 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt named Toledo’s magnificent new housing project, the “Brand Whitlock Homes.”
Whitlock and Jones served during 15 years of the Progressive era. Their spirit was similar to that of the Toledo Museum of Art, founded in 1901, the foundation of which embraced his time and literally, his space. It was right beneath the Peristyle.
Brand Whitlock by Israel Abramofsky – a gift to the mayor from the young artist, who befriended him, and as mayor, Whitlock wrote Abramofsky a recommendation for his study in Paris. Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones
The real deal
Golden Rule Jones made the City of Toledo livable — he sought to turn love into municipal policy, feeling that “each person could reach a kind of perfection just as plants reach perfect beauty.” By building parks, playgrounds, public swimming pools and the zoo, he helped children and families thrive.
Jones advocated for municipal ownership of utilities, to do away with the corruption of “closed backroom deals” made by city council members and their buddies. A good utilization of municipal ownership today could be city-owned broadband that would cover the entire city. Imagine the savings as well as the access. Like healthcare for all! Ha ha!
Jones and Whitlock fought for “home rule” to protect the rights of the city against the state. It’s a right we need to have our city invoke today in regard to the county’s over-reaching ditch petition, which appears more like a closed backroom deal between the city and the county, and now we the citizens of Toledo need to be protected from them!
For a while, Toledo became a better place to live, all because of the innocent, pure vision of Sam Golden Rule Jones. He was the real deal. The entire city came to his funeral, he was so loved.
Today when we hear the name, Brand Whitlock, instead of it conjuring up this great progressive mayor and novelist, we tend to think of the failed Brand Whitlock housing project instead. The Brand Whitlock Homes were once was great, then pushed down the memory hole. June Boyd remembers.
A happy childhood at the Brand Whitlock Homes is the reason why June Boyd advocates so diligently for Toledo’s youth —
“We need a total overhaul: Swayne Field could have a bowling alley; Warren Sherman could have a skating rink; there are dozens of vacant land that could be putt-putt golf and go-karts for our kids. I personally have to drive my grandchildren a long way to get the go-karts they love. Why do we not have them in the central city which would not only create employment, it would be a boost to our neighborhood, and something we could teach our young to appreciate.” Letter to the Editor from June Boyd, Sojourner’s Truth,Sept. 30, 2021
How about more police, to police the outrageous crime spiking in Toledo? How about cleaning up the central city blight? Can’t the city make parks and playgrounds safe? Why such a low percentage of police in our community compared to the 8.8 million population in New York City, a city with nearly twice as many police officers per capita than Toledo, and less per capita crime?
“There are many adults around here who graduated from school and they are illiterate, and then you wonder why they can’t get any jobs, and not to mention the drug problem, the homelessness, the abandonment and the fact that people have gotten so beat down until they don’t have any encouragement to do anything else.” June Boyd, Second Wind, Interview by Rev. Donald L. Perryman, PhD,Sojourner Truth, Sept. 18, 2019
It means a great deal to know someone as wise and experienced as June Boyd and to be able to benefit from her perspective. I asked Ms. Boyd if she could identify people in this photo I shot at this groundbreaking ceremony on October 31, 1978. She gave me three names. Who else could do that — she was there 43 year ago, and she is still here with us. Although two men, Wayman Palmer and Bill Copeland, are not. How great June Boyd is for her wisdom alone! If only she had won city council instead of her opponent who won, who actually got arrested a year later for fraud along with three other city council members — talk about corruption!
“It’s time to pay attention to the children. Teachers, ministers, grandparents, and responsible parents, notice what children are doing. If they have a gun, where did it come from? If they are neglected, they become pawns for adults who want to take advantage of them for their own profit… We must take an interest in our youth… Do something!” June Boyd, Let’s come together to save Toledo’s children, The Blade, Oct. 9, 2021
2021: “Ditch Petition” takes over our rivers, disregarding our past.
After everything that Ned Skeldon did 40-50 years ago to set into motion the clean-up our waterways, today we are facing a “watershed” takeover by the Lucas County engineer, Mike Pniewski, who claims the “watershed” needs a “major cleaning” because it has not been maintained for “50 – 70 years.” That’s exactly what he told us at the “View” on July 15, and to Channel 13 on August 19 to justify his two ditch petitions called the Tenmile Creek Watershed Ditch Petition and the Swan Creek Watershed Ditch Petition.
Using the ditch petition process intended for rural and unincorporated county areas, he’s manipulating it to cover cities, too. It takes only two people to bring on a ditch petition, and only the three county commissioners to vote on it (in this case, six, including Fulton County) for it to become a reality. How easy is that, for government to tax and control property in large swaths of a so-called “watershed” area?
Need I mention that our tax money already pays for work done to our rivers? If I seem hard on Mike Pniewski by calling him a ditch dictator, it is because I’m disgusted that these flawed petitions have even seen the light of day. Mike Pniewski wrote them, then had to shop them around to get two people to sign them, and now he is forcing them through the system, all during a pandemic, while Lucas County residents are suffering. It’s a shameful power and money grab. It’s thoughtless and cruel. He doesn’t care.
a river is not a ditch
The premise of the petitions is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Mike Pniewski is attempting to control all work done to the “watershed” by calling the Ottawa River and Swan Creek “ditches.” Really, our rivers are ditches? Because this Lucas County engineer tells us so at the View? That’s not how the dictionary and Wikipedia define rivers and ditches. Somehow, in Pniewski’s mind, calling rivers ditches justifies the sweeping area he’s out to cover with these ill-conceived ditch petitions. Apparently he is too lazy to apply for grants for grant-worthy projects, so his bright idea is to tax us twice. He wants our city money to provide his department with a steady stream of income for his county ditch projects, by tying the rivers into his scheme, taking charge of the “watershed,” no questions asked, with no oversight of the ecologists, in defiance of the way it has worked since Ned Skeldon’s time, as well as being a complete misuse of the petition process.
He plans to tax 117,554 Lucas County property owners and do whatever “improvement” he wants. If you want to work on the river on your own property (even if you are a park system, a city, a university, or the Boy Scouts), you will have to get Lucas County’s permission – a permit! These ditch petitions will give his department and the Lucas County government control of every improvement made on the waterways of these two “watersheds” in Lucas County. They will tax us forever, whatever amount they want. The petitions have no limit of power or scope!
Clean 10-Mile Creek courtesy of Harroun Park, Sylvania, Ohio, which was recently cleaned and restored by the city of Sylvania with money obtained from a grant.
And he’s not kidding!
Channel 13 aired an interview with Mike Pniewski on August 19, 2021 reporting that the river needs a deep cleaning, and since Pniewski’s in charge of drainage, he’s going to tax all the property owners in the 173 square mile 10-mile creek watershed. Since so much of the river is in good condition, thanks to the myriad of independent restoration projects paid for by grants resulting from Ned Skeldon’s initiatives, he was hard-pressed to show an example. But, by flying a drone over private property on the river, Mike Pniewski found something and sent the Channel 13 news team in their van to videotape the private property “buried deep behind Corey Rd. in Sylvania township.” Perhaps he assumed that no one would think to ask the people living close by, a few houses up the river, if they have flooding or draining problems due to the tree that had fallen on the floodplain near the river. But I asked one such neighbor, who answered with an emphatic NO – no flooding or drainage problems at all.
Mike Pniewski couldn’t find a better example than the one he picked out from this very elite neighborhood – just about the only suburban or urban river property for which the river isn’t already cared for by parks, universities, cities, Boy Scouts, agencies, commissions, geologists, grant money and public funds.
Ironic that Mr. Pniewski can take time off from his important job – and we pay him a whole lot more than we pay our three county commissioners — to appear on MSNBC in a story about political gerrymandering. This is what he said: “The radical few have taken over the ability to make policy that impacts all of us.” Doesn’t he know it! Back in the Seventies, we would say, he’s projecting! Better put would be, “A few of us radicals are taking over the ability to make policy that impacts all of you!!”
Mike Pniewski took time off during a work day on August 26 to attend the Ohio Redistricting Commission public hearing, and appeared on MSNBC’s program, “Republicans against Democracy” saying, “the radical few have taken over the ability to make policy that impacts all of us.” The irony!
Very ambitious, this new Lucas County engineer, but does Mike Pniewski ever do any work for the Lucas County Engineering Department, as an official elected by the good people of Lucas County (since he was the only choice on the ballot)? It’s unusual that such a highly paid and important county department head like Mike Pniewski can take time off of his work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to teach 14 classroom hours of freshman-level civil engineering classes at the University of Toledo. Doesn’t he hold a high-office position in Lucas County – one needing his FULL attention, and shouldn’t he have the good sense not be taking on 14 hours of freshmen classes? I guess not! That’s our Mike “hands off the wheel” Pniewski. Very frightening that he’s trying to make all of these changes and grow his department, while not really being there. He must think he’s Superman. But he’s not. His “Rate My Professor” score is terrible. 9 out of 15 gave him the lowest score possible. Check out these comments:
“He is the least helpful professor.” “Terrible” “Awful.” “Extremely vague and unhelpful. He refuses to answer questions and gets upset if you have any.” “Avoid if you can.” “This guy was honestly the worst professor I have ever had. Goes incredibly fast and incredibly boring. You won’t even have another option for a professor, so best of luck, you’ll hate it.”“Probably the laziest professor you could imagine.” “He refuses to actually teach his students and half the time he doesn’t even show up for class.”
This is Mike Pniewski asserting himself in the first few minutes at the 10-mile creek watershed ditch petition View at Wildwood Preserve, Ward Pavilion, July 15, 2021. He didn’t take us to show us anything, nor did he show us photos. He showed us NO PROOF whatsoever, when showing proof is the purpose of a View. He didn’t even put chairs out for the large, overwhelmingly senior citizen-age concerned audience that he drew – retirees mostly, since he scheduled the View in the middle of a work day. While most working people cannot take time off of work to attend a public hearing, he himself, as a public employee, has no problem taking off work to attend a political public hearing such as the one he went to on August 26, see previous photo above. You may not comment negatively at my View, or else I will have you kicked out immediately! Sheriff, come here right now and drag her out of here! She didn’t budge, nor did the sheriff come get her. It was all for show, to intimidate the audience. Does he remind you of anyone? Imagine him in a classroom.
Check out this interesting investigation into Mike Pniewski’s teaching schedule reported by Tom Troy in The Blade on September 10, 2021:
Here is some great investigative journalism on the topic. The reporter interviewed the University, the Ohio state auditor, the former Lucas County engineer Keith Earley, Commissioner Pete Gerken, and Mike Pniewski himself. It came out that Pniewski teaches 74 students in four separate classes over four different days. “Mr. Pniewski said a graduate teaching assistant handles most of the lab instruction as well as grading student work.” Isn’t that comforting? And how about the following quote of Pniewski’s, in light of the comments by his unhappy students on “Rate My Professors,” as if students exist to make him a better engineer, instead of the idea that his expertise would make them better students –
“I do enjoy their questions. The way they see the world, the way they learn, makes me a better engineer,” Pniewski told The Blade.
Here’s the nitty gritty on Pniewski’s head county engineer position –
The Lucas County engineer’s salary is $143,910, second highest of the 11 county-wide elected officials after the coroner’s $219,862, according to the Lucas County auditor’s office. He oversees an agency with a core budget of $18 million and just over 60 employees that manages more than 300 miles of roads, 400 bridges and culverts, and 210 miles of storm drains in the county’s unincorporated areas.
And, it is reported that Commissioner Pete Gerken doesn’t mind that he’s the instructor on record for 14 classroom hours a week. Perhaps that is because Mike Pniewski does what Commissioner Gerken wants him to do, like waltz through the property rights and money grab “watershed” ditch petitions.
Many people today don’t know about the midnight viewings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show that went on for 20 years at the Westwood Art Theatre beginning in 1975. The Lucas County engineer was just a baby when that cult classic came out. But here comes The Lucas County Horror Picture Show in 2021 and guess who’s in charge? This nightmare will be going on forever – you will never see an end to it. Mike Pniewski doesn’t know our local history. What does he mean, that our rivers have not been taken care of for 50 years? Au contraire!
Commissioner Gerken claims Pniewski is “extremely responsive to the community.” I don’t see how, when Pniewski tried to fly these ditch petitions under the radar without any public discussion and with no information sent to the press, while hitting an unprecedented 117,554 Lucas County property owners with these surprise ditch petitions, sending out a mere postcard that some mistook for junk mail, not even a proper notice in a letter in an envelope marked “Legal Notice” as specified by the Ohio Code on ditch petitions.
How can Pniewski be the least bit “responsive to the community” when he uses a petition process meant for small rural ditch projects, for what seems to be a great political experiment, or a joke, counting on how gullible he thinks we are, to impose an unlimited tax on us while gaining control of our property rights, by lying to us about how our rivers (he calls ditches) haven’t been taken care of for “50 – 70 years,” so therefore the county must take charge of cleaning our rivers, the same rivers that 50 years ago, Ned Skeldon, the father of Commissioner President Tina Skeldon Wozniak, cleaned up by setting up a tradition of grants funding projects, a tradition which has grown into countless collaborations of agencies, groups, volunteers, and experts, as Dr. Patrick Lawrence, geography professor at University of Toledo, pointed out to The Blade in 2018, see link above.
You’d think that when we elected Pniewski to run the county engineering department, that he would be using his full attention at the job – isn’t that the covenant – not that he’d play political and legal games with us, as if the law says he really only has to show up for work five days out of 30 days – or is it five days out of 90 days? – before illegality sets in to kick him out. Have we really sunk so low? It’s like our elected officials are thumbing their noses at us! Has it really come down to what’s legal – instead of what’s common sense?
Hey Pniewski, Ask not what your county can do for you, but what you can do for your county.
What would Ned Skeldon and Betty Mauk think about the Lucas County government’s opportunistic takeover of the “watershed,” especially with Mike “hands off the wheel” Pniewski in charge?
Mike Pniewski should drop this petition, try working at the job of being head county engineer, and hire someone in his department to apply for real grants. Better yet, Mr. Pniewski and his engineering department should leave such fragile restoration work of our rivers to scientists and ecologists, and stick to fixing the roads.
“Ode to Swan Creek” poem by Betty Mauk for the Toledo Historical Task Force, 1998. Betty Mauk Papers, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special CollectionsInlands, the French Renaissance Revival country house built by Ward M. Canaday in 1927, is one of the few private property parcels in Ottawa Hills on the 10-Mile Creek/Ottawa River. Canaday is known as the Father of the Jeep. Will Pniewski target Inlands next? (Since there are very few other private parcels to pick on, along our river that he calls a ditch?)
More about the 10-mile creek watershed ditch petition:
Ned Skeldon, center, in Promenade Park with baby elephant, 1970's. Betty Mauk Papers, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections. Photocomposition by Penny Gentieu
Downtown Toledo waterfront, circa 1920’s. Betty Mauk Papers, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections
Two proactive Toledoans in the 1970’s
made Toledo rivers and riverfront livable.
Betty Mauk (1918 – 2012)
Betty Mauk made the downtown Toledo riverfront livable.
Betty Mauk was born in 1918. Her mother died in childbirth. Her father died when she was six months old, a victim of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Betty grew up in the Old West End, cared for by her society aunts and uncle. She married, raised a family, and lived in Ottawa Hills.
In 1964, the riverfront was a literal parking lot. But the commissioner of harbors and bridges put out park benches, then picnic tables, for the workers, who were going down to the river with their bag lunches.
Betty visited France, her great love, at least 50 times in her lifetime. When the downtown Toledo waterfront was lined with parking lots and old abandoned buildings, in the 1960’s during the time they were considering building the 475 – I-75 expressway along the river, Betty had a vision to turn the waterfront into a Parisian park, transforming the Maumee riverfront into the Seine.
Betty had the “savoir faire” and “je ne sais quoi” to turn the riverfront into a real park, giving it a French festival atmosphere, with monkeys, elephants, musicians, puppet shows and plays. Betty furnished it with an authentic French kiosk imported from Paris, and she herself operated a crepe stand. Betty and her husband bought a boat, the Arawanna II, and gave rides in their boat up and down the Maumee River.
A nativity play at Promenade Park in the 1970’s. Ned Skeldon is the third wise man on the left.
Imagine how our downtown riverfront would look today if a big expressway had been built over it, which might have happened if it weren’t for Betty Mauk. And that’s not all she did…
Ned Skeldon (1924 – 1988)
“a malodorous cesspool”
Ned Skeldon, who is the father of Tina Skeldon Wozniak, the current President of the Board of Lucas County Commissioners, made the Maumee River livable.
Ned Skeldon, city politician, Lucas County commissioner, fresh from bringing baseball back to Toledo in 1965 after a nine-year absence, was disgusted by the filthy condition of the Maumee River and Lake Erie. He warned that in 50 years, if something wasn’t done, the river and the lake would become a marsh.
Ned Skeldon had an equal amount of Betty Mauk’s “savoir faire” and “je ne sais quoi,” Midwestern style. A charismatic politician possessing much chutzpah, Ned, for the show of it, independently formed a temporary non-profit corporation, Clear Water, Inc., with five Toledo industrial leaders, to raise awareness and money to clean up the river and lake.
With such luminary partners as Steve Stranahan, Thomas Anderson of the Andersons, Charles Ballard, director of the UAW Region 2-B in NW Ohio, Dr. William T. Jerome III, president of BGSU, and John Willey, the associate publisher of the Toledo Blade, Ned Skeldon described Clear Water, Inc. to be “primarily a public relations organization,” its purpose is to alert the general public to the dangers of water pollution and prod them into action.
In 1968, Clear Water, Inc. sent a cleanup barge up Swan Creek, a river running into the Maumee in downtown Toledo, which had become a dump.
Clear Water, Inc. became a funding agency for state and federal pollution control funds. Since 1966, it has provided more than $1.75 billion in 2021 dollars for municipal and industrial pollution control facilities in the Maumee basin.
Ned Skeldon swam in the Maumee River in 1973 to symbolize the improvements made. This is the Blade photo for the article, Hundreds see Skeldon Master Muddy Maumee. “Like a bug thrashing in coffee with cream,” Ned said. The Blade, July 16, 1973.
“Every municipality of more than 5,000 population in the Maumee basin has improved sewage treatment facilities,” said Ned Skeldon in 1978. And the river was much cleaner as a result of Ned Skeldon’s grassroots efforts…
Ned Skeldon is one of the originators of the water-clean-up grant system we have today. These are some of the long-lasting accomplishments of Clear Water, Inc.:
helped to initiate the federal Clean Water Act.
and the formation of the Ohio Water Development Authority (1966) a funding agency for state and federal pollution control funds.
city of Toledo approved a $17 million bond issue to combat pollution by 1969, did more than other cities
Ohio EPA
Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act Ohio Water Development Commission (or Authority) — offering industries treatment facilities on a rental basis (1968) Skeldon appointed to newly created board by Governor Rhodes
Federal Water Pollution Control Agency, 1968
Ohio Water Development Authority – a funding agency for state and federal funds
Through Ned Skeldon’s efforts, many commissions and agencies came into existence that were able to get municipalities and industries to stop dumping filth and poison into the water.
Clear Water, Inc. was a “coordinating agency for citizens, local, state and national governments and other agencies interested in cleaning up the waterways in the Maumee River basin.” Lancaster Eagle Gazette, Dec 7, 1978
Ned Skeldon, in 1978, declared that he did the job he set out to do, to clean up the river and the lake, and closed Clear Water, Inc. for business. He always intended to do just that. He died in 1988.
One year after Ned Skeldon died, a Clear Water, Inc. founder granted Betty Mauk permission to start it up again, so that she could continue the Swan Creek cleanup work that Skeldon began in 1968 . . Betty Mauk worked on it throughout the 1990’s.
Clear Water gets grant, The Blade, December 19, 1990. Betty Mauk, of Clear Water, Inc. is photographed with Tom Kovacik and Peter Fraleigh (who later had a dirty, filthy Ottawa River tributary that was cleaned up, named after him.) They led a program for students to test the water of the rivers in the 1990’s. Betty Mauk Papers, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections
Here’s a random list of agencies, groups and projects that with the help of volunteers and experts, take care of our rivers since Ned Skeldon’s Clear Water, Inc. started it all:
Maumee Remedial Action Plan Advisory Committee in NW Ohio
Station 14, before and after. Layers of damage embedded in the 14th Station created its own expression.
William H. Machen, Toledo’s first known artist, made these paintings between 1866 and 1873 for the St. Francis Parish in Toledo. Decades ago, a fire at the church damaged the paintings. Poor restoration caused the paintings further damage, hence, sometime in late 2007 they were crated and put in storage.
Station 1 original damaged painting, partially crated and shown here in 2010 in the St. Francis sacristy, and the digitally restored version in 2021.
In 2010, when I began this website, I went to see the damaged paintings. Soon after, I met William Machen’s great-nephew, James Machen. James hired me to photograph the damaged paintings in 2012. I put them on this website and we tried to garner interest in the restoration of the original paintings.
Jim Machen with his retouched rendition of Station 4.
When it didn’t seem likely that we would be able to restore the originals, Jim learned how to digitally retouch a set of low-res files of the photos and made a 24″ set of prints of the 14 paintings. This set ended up in a church in the Philippines. Sadly, in November 2020, James Machen passed away.
Then in December 2020, an architect working on the renovation of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Genoa, Ohio found my webpage about the paintings. The church’s priest contacted me about making large digital restorations of the paintings to hang in their church, which was a tremendous honor.
Holding the finished canvas of Station 4 (right); photograph of the original damaged painting in 2012.Dale, the caretaker at St. Francis shown with the damaged original painting of Station 11, and my self-portrait with Station 12 in 2012, next to the 2021 digitally restored images.
My 54″ digital restorations of the paintings are layered with the patina of their distinct 150-year history. The paintings are important to our history because they are painted by Toledo’s first known artist for Toledo’s first Catholic church. They were taken down by the church in 2007 and crated. Their fate was up in the air. But now, 15 years later, William H. Machen’s images hang once again on local church walls as they were originally intended. They have a new life in the beautiful, renovated Our Lady of Lourdes Church in the nearby town of Genoa.
Perhaps this story will inspire a way to restore the original paintings, which would entail hundreds of hours and as well as (guessing) about a hundred thousand dollars. The varnish would have to be removed and the flaking paint would have to be scraped off and re-painted. With my digital restorations, the best that I could do by using photography and technology combined with the finest archival art materials to instill them with artistic and historic integrity, William H. Machen’s paintings can once again be appreciated by the public.
It’s a great accomplishment for artistsoftoledo.com’s 11th year in terms of our mission to remember Toledo’s art history.
Standing next to Station 5 with Keith, who is making custom oak frames for the Stations, and Father Ferris at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in May 2021.The stations were installed in the church with digitally controlled focused lights that make them glow like stained glass windows.
More about William H. Machen and James Machen here:
What’s the problem? Check out the pdfs for more beautiful photos of the Ottawa River and waterways here and here and here and here and here. We have nice waterways and they appear to be kept up quite well by the actual property owners, such as the Metro Parks, The Boy Scouts, the Village of Ottawa Hills and the City of Sylvania and Toledo already.
Puppet Petitioners
Mike Pniewski is petitioning the Board for maintenance of ditch improvements.
From the Spencer Township Trustee minutes of March 4, 2021, the meeting that directly preceded the filing of the petition:
Under the heading of “Pay the Bills” —
Mike Pniewski from the Lucas County Engineers’s Office gave a presentation on the cleaning of 10-mile creek. He is petitioning the Board for maintenance of ditch improvements. Resolution 2021-03-04 was read. Trustee Valentine made a motion to accept the resolution. Trustee Anderson seconded. Roll call: 3 yes to 0 no.
Under the heading of “Road”
The Lucas County Engineer’s Office sent information to petition the Joint Board of Lucas and Fulton County Commissioners to construct and maintain ditch improvements to the Ten Mile Creek/Ottawa River Watershed.
A virtual meeting with the County Engineer’s Office for upcoming projects is scheduled for Friday, March 12, 2021, it will be a virtual meeting.
Then on March 20, 2021, Mr. Hood and Mr. Valentine and Spencer Township submitted a Petition that affects the majority of the landowners in not one but two counties.
From the Spencer Township Trustee minutes of April 1, 2021, the meeting that was directly after the filing of the petition:
Virtual meeting was held with LC Engineers on March 12, 2021
Nothing is documented in the April 1, 2021 minutes regarding the submission of the petition, nor is anything noted for the payment of the $500 bond plus $2 for each parcel of land in excess of 200 parcels — which would add up to be about $150,000 for the cost of the petition that was submitted in the name of Spencer Township, naming 74,644 parcel owners as “benefiting.” Hmmm……….. seems like a big action, as well as a big expense, for Spencer Township to leave it out of their minutes.
The bond is to cover the expense of the notifications. At two dollars per parcel owner, why didn’t Lucas County send official letters? The county cut corners by sending the landowners a notice in the form of a postcard, instead of in a letter that is clearly marked on the envelope, “Legal Notice” that would have been taken much more seriously by the 127 thousand landowners it will affect (including the recipients in South Toledo who are victims of the duplicate petition filed the same day by the neighboring village of Whitehouse for the “Swan Creek Watershed.”) Doesn’t the Ohio Revised Code specify that all petition notifications shall be in the form of a letter with the envelope so marked? Many people ignored the postcard, as it was casual, and you don’t have a clue why you would get it if you don’t live on 10-Mile Creek. That’s what we thought at first, and so did our friends. I venture to speculate that this sneaky petition is huge for Lucas County, in that it is directed to the largest group of people in twenty or forty years. Just a guess, judging from the very few tax assessments on our tax bill. Why didn’t Lucas County do it right? The answer seems obvious.
Also in the April 1, 2021 Spencer Township minutes is this report under “Correspondence”:
Spencer Township will be the lead agency to bid and award any crack seal work located in and around the Township. The Lucas County Engineer’s Office will prepare the necessary plans, bid documents, specifications and construction estimates.
Did Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski manipulate Spencer Township to put their names on a petition that did not really come from Spencer Township? Sure looks that way.
A blank check
Is this all a scheme to make a lot of money for the department, a result of Mike Pniewski’s zeal to “grow our economy?” Mike Pniewski is quoted in a Toledo Blade article from last April:
“I see myself as the chief infrastructure officer of the county,” Mr. Pniewski said. “I need to get as much money into the county as we can, to grow our economy and grow our competitiveness.” The Blade, April 21, 2020, “New position marks move closer to home for Lucas Co. engineer”
I don’t hear him saying, to clean up the environment.
How fair is that to the population of Toledo, Sylvania, and Ottawa Hills are essentially being told to give the county a blank check, and personal property rights, for entry anytime for anything they want to do to a creek, river, pond, or ditch on or near their property?
Seems like it is not the Lucas County engineer’s job to dream up tax assessments for us. Petitions for ditch improvements normally come from a citizen or entity and are limited to a specific legitimate need — not from the Lucas County Engineer himself, who seems to have economic growth and competition on his mind. Public officials are fiduciaries of our trust and best interest, after all. We elect them to serve us, not so we can serve them.
Hoodwinked
It appears that the origin of the scheme to put an eternal tax assessment on work that has not been proven to be necessary and unprecedently changes private property law forever, did NOT come from Spencer Township. It appears that the Spencer Township Trustees got hoodwinked by Mike Pniewski, and we in turn are getting hoodwinked by these unsavory shenanigans. A hoodwinking that will last forever….
Are we going to let them do that?
So Conflicted!
Recorded in the minutes of the November 5, 2020 Spencer Township meeting, Trustee Michael Hood stated that he would not put a levy on the ballot, especially in the current financial status of the country. But apparently Mr. Hood doesn’t care if homeowners are simply assessed extra taxes for this sweeping, multi-county ditch improvement that is undefined in specificity but unlimited in scope.
Location of the first “view” and hearing on June 10 at 3:30pm — Lathrop Park, 12150 Sylvania-Metamora Rd., Berkey, Ohio. Pack a snack since they are probably too cheap provide refreshments — and come early to reserve your picnic table!
And need I mention, the world is experiencing a pandemic. Lucas County’s big push now is to get our community vaccinated, as we lag in percentage of vaccinated population compared to the rest of the country. Listen to the county’s plans here — The Lucas County Commissioners still have virtual meetings! But as many as 75,000 landowners (and their spouses) received official notifications from the county to publicly gather for the first “view” and hearing at a venue that has a couple of picnic tables and one porta-potty. Doesn’t look like much of a venue for a “show and tell” for a community of 100,000 people, does it? but then does the county really expect anyone to show up? Because they think this is a slam-dunk! Hope it doesn’t rain…
The Engineer’s office at Lathrop Park?
Penny Gentieu June 5, 2021
Stay informed by following my new Facebook page on this subject, Toledo Now
10-Mile Creek painted by William H. Machen in 1875
Lucas County combined with Fulton County is taking a nasty money and property rights grab.
A postcard from the Joint Board of Fulton and Lucas County Commissioners, c/o Lucas County Engineer, 1049 S. McCord Road, Holland Ohio mailed to 71,000 addresses: “Ditch improvement notice — hearings on the TenMile Creek Watershed for a Joint-County Ditch Petition filed by Spencer Township on March 20, 2021 —
“All costs of engineering, construction, and future maintenance will be assessed to the benefiting parcels of land…”
Lucas County wants a new tax on 117,554 Lucas County homeowners for a new ditch improvement petition that covers Lucas and Fulton Counties.
We called about the above ditch improvement notice and spoke to Jay Mosley, the Lucas County Stormwater Program Manager, who told us this:
“At this point, we do not have a project identified nor are we making any assessments to any of the parcel owners, this is just to start the process.”
“The county doesn’t have permission to go in and work on private property, so we are setting it up.”
“This process allows us to spread the cost of any projects we would do…to all of the parcels in the watershed that contribute runoff that would ultimately get to the ditches and creeks and streams.”
“We are not proposing any projects at this point, this is just to have a mechanism in place so that when we do identify a project that has a critical need, we can come up with a cost and then spread the cost over all of the parcels in the watershed.”
“We are looking at places where there are ditches that need some maintenance that have been filled up with sediment and have some trees down, we certainly would not disturb nice natural habitat.”
“We are proposing to spread the assessments out over everyone in the northern part of the county and city of Toledo, even to Fulton county.”
“We don’t have a project identified.”
“We can’t go on to private property and do it without this mechanism.”
Diggers in waiting, in the early morning mist.
Rivers and ditches have always been the responsibility of the property owners. Ditches along county roads are the responsibility of the county, and tax funds are already allocated for those ditches, as are ditches created after 1957. Without this tax increase petition, river, creek and ditch maintenance on private property would remain the responsibility of the property owners, which Lucas County tells us in their FAQ’s.
Individual property owners have always taken care of their rivers, creeks and ditches, as it is on their property, but now the counties want access to all property on the 10-Mile Creek-Ottawa River Watershed, and also the Swan Creek Watershed.
With the passing of this assessment, property owners will be giving the counties blanket permission to bulldoze through their property for any and all future river, ditch or pond project, and they will be paying for it forever.
Without the passage of this assessment, the county does not have the absolute right to tear through private property. What they do have now is a limited utility access, as delineated on the maps on Areis (Lucas County property database.) If the county needs more, it has to get permission, and they have to repair any damage they incur with their bulldozers. The county now wants the absolute right to tear through our property, carte blanche.
Damage done to nice natural habitat on our property adjacent to the 10-Mile Creek caused by the use of heavy machinery.
The watershed and flow of water is like breathing air; it’s a fact of life, — it’s not a benefit. But the list of so-called Lucas County “benefiting parcels” in the 10-Mile Creek and Swan Creek watersheds total 117,554 homeowners, most of Toledo and all of Ottawa Hills and Sylvania!
Out of these 117,554 homeowners, maybe a total of ten or fifteen families actually have 10-Mile Creek running through their property. In Toledo, Sylvania, and Ottawa Hills, most of the land adjacent to 10-Mile Creek is owned by the various municipalities and parks, as will be shown below. But 117,554 Lucas County homeowners are hereby petitioned to bear the brunt of cleaning up twigs or dredging a ditch in Fulton or Henry County and while doing so, grant Lucas County the perpetual right to bulldoze through their private property whenever the county wants to and for whatever reason the county dreams up in the future, while Lucas County gets to raise taxes on 117,554 homeowners forever.
The pattern of the rise and fall of the floodplain, on which we live, has not changed during the the many years we have lived on it. I have also observed the floodplains of Ottawa Hills for over 50 years, and they seem the same as always. Our delicate watershed on which we live should not be disturbed by the county engineer.
In all of the county website information (see below for links) they have not even shown one good reason why they should be granted a tax assessment that could possibly disturb our ecology — we have floodplains, and our floodplains haven’t changed in the past 50 years, and our floodplains are working just fine now. Should the EPA be involved in this proposal that concerns our delicate watershed? We are just not convinced that there is a problem that needs to be fixed here. The county shows us no issues.
10-Mile Creek – Ottawa River watershed area (click to enlarge)
What about the River Raisin Watershed in Michigan, connected to the Ottawa River Watershed? Are they going to get them to pay, too?The Ohio Watershed — why not think big, politicians and money-grabbers!
Why us?
could this have something to do with it…
The vast majority of parcels containing 10-Mile Creek, that are really “benefiting” from 10-Mile Creek are owned by entities such as the City of Sylvania, the Franciscan Sisters, The Boy Scouts, the Metro Parks, the Village of Ottawa Hills, the University of Toledo, the City of Toledo, and the Lucas County Port Authority, who all happen to be Lucas County tax exempt from any assessment made to “improve” the 10-Mile Creek running through their property. (see these major 10-Mile Creek parcel owners here)
Taxpayers are already paying for a lot of the maintenance of the “watershed” because 1. these entities listed above get tax breaks that we make up for by paying more tax, 2. we pay taxes that support many, if not all, of these entities, and 3. the many grants available for river and ditch projects, much of which comes from our tax money!
It’s been the responsibility of the landowners all throughout the history of landownership (going back, no doubt, hundreds and thousands of years and probably based on the Magna Carta and old Roman law, if not the common law of cavemen) to tidy up their own rivers, creeks and ditches.
In Toledo, that’s exactly what they do — property owners care for the rivers and creeks on their land — those conscientious Franciscan nuns, the rich golf-course owners, the well-funded-by-our-taxes metro park maintenance departments, the well-endowed University of Toledo, the rich Village of Ottawa Hills, the cities of Toledo and Sylvania with their maintenance crews and dedicated water departments, and the very few lucky private owners of the eastern and most populated half of the parcels that contain such waterways. These stewards of the river are more than happy to be good caretakers of the water that flows over their land. They’ve been doing it ever since human beings have populated the planet. We don’t see them petitioning the residents of the counties of Lucas and Fulton Jointly to get the government to take this burden off of them.
Bringing this petition are two people who live in Holland, Ohio: Michael B. Hood of 630 N. Meilke Rd. (who lives at Spencer Township Hall, aside of Drennan Ditch, which is over-run with trees and brush. Why don’t they clean up their own ditch? They seriously want us to do it for them? Why should we have to clean their ditch? –
Drennan Ditch between N. Meilke Rd. and S. Raab Rd. This ditch is actually part of the Swan Creek Watershed, so why are these Spencer Township folks (who BTW actually do not own property in Lucas County as far as I can see, according to the AREIS parcel owner database) petitioning parcel owners of the 10-Mile Creek Watershed? So many details of this petition are weird and strange.
– Oh! I see that Lucas County IS cleaning up their ditch presently — 2.25 miles of it, and it is costing $200,000 and is funded by Great Lakes Commission’s Great Lakes Sediment and Nutrient Reduction Program…) and Shawn P. Valentine, of 9545 Frankfort Rd. (a neighbor who lives around the corner, a property which is also on Drennan Ditch, see photo on left, on the part that is getting cleaned right now. On Areis, Valentine is not identified as the owner of the listed address, just as Michael Hood is not the owner of the Spencer Township Hall.) These two petitioners, who actually live who knows where – they are not Lucas County parcel owners, attached the names and addresses of 74,644 parcel owners in Lucas and Fulton counties, petitioning them to pay for any and all ditch and creek clean-up projects they can dream up within a broad geographic reach.
There is also a petition for the Swan Creek Watershed for another 49,005 parcel owners, adding up to 123,649 total parcel owners who will be stuck with an assessment — 117,554 who live in Lucas County.
The petitions, both having the same exact language, site no problems, nothing specific; just, “Let’s do it!”
Lets do an improvement utilizing any and all of the methods in Ohio’s Revised Code Section 6131.01 (C)(1)(2)(3)(4)(5) necessary for the disposal of surplus water, and make this list of 117,554 suckers in Toledo pay for it! (As they outnumber us 100 to 1.)
You would think that farmers in the rural areas are fine with taking care of their own ditches, and when there is an urgent problem with a ditch or creek that they cannot handle, they would get assistance from the state or local bureaus that help farmers, maybe even theGreat Lakes Commission’s Great Lakes Sediment and Nutrient Reduction Program, as Spencer Township is doing right now.
But to force the responsibility of rural ditches on the majority of the population in Toledo, while at the same time taking away certain landowner rights and responsibilities? Not cool!
Tearing through private property and dredging up ponds and rivers on “watershed” missions to be determined (show us one example!) has got to be inefficient and hurtful to our local and regional ecology. But what a lucrative business model that would be!
Not the most transparent petition, this “Joint-County Ditch Petition filed by Spencer Township.” Yet, it is easy to see through.
125,185 parcels are proposed to be subject to the new tax. 117,554 of those parcels are located in Lucas County. 7,486 parcels are located in Fulton County. 145 parcels are located in Henry County. It doesn’t seem quite equitable for Lucas County to bear 94% of the proposed burden, especially when we already pay in tax dollars a healthy portion of the maintenance of 10-Mile Creek. I wonder if we should start thinking about charging Fulton and Henry counties for their water running through our “watershed.” It’s an idea almost as ridiculous as having to clean up their creeks, ponds and ditches, when we’ve already paid for our own. What are we, moneybags? Or just suckers?
Calculating a quick estimate of the cost of creek clean-up, as put forth by the Drennan Ditch project now being done on 2.25 miles of ditch for $200,000 by the Great Lakes Commission’s Great Lakes Sediment and Nutrient Reduction Program, it’s going to cost Toledo homeowners a lot of money, at $88,889 per mile of ditches. And when they have completed cleaning the 200+ miles of waterways in Lucas and Fulton counties for 18 million dollars, they will start all over again, under the guise of “permanent maintenance.” That assessment amount will stay on our tax bill forever, or at least until the year 2100.
Tell them what you think of Petition 1053.
Three Lucas County Commissioners will be either approving or not approving this petition. Here is their contact information — let them know what you think:
Tina Skeldon WozniakPresidenttwozniak@co.lucas.oh.us
