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Editorial
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
6-13-00
The end game of the Battle of Fallen Timbers may finally be at hand.
Mayor Carty Finkbeiner has moved off his bottom-line, last-offer price of $6 million for the city's 187 acres at the battle site. He now says he'll take just a tad under $5.6 million, a concession that negotiations were going nowhere unless he came down a bit.
In fact, the mayor conceded on another point: he no longer insists that Toledo Area Metroparks come up with the entire purchase amount right away. Instead, he's willing to split the deal into two parcels. Metroparks would pay $2.8 million for 72 acres now and then take up to a year to come up with the other $2.8 for the remaining 115 or so acres.
The deal still must be acceptable to the Metroparks, and City Council has to add its approval, but parks officials and councilmen may want to conclude that this is probably as good a deal as they are going to get.
Splitting the purchase into two parts was the Metroparks' idea anyway. Metroparks had offered $5.3 million for Toledo's land, in two installments, an idea initially rejected by the administration.
The mayor's newest counter reflects a heady dose of realism, not just for him but for all the players involved. The $2.8 million he wants for the first parcel is exactly the sum total of the money which Metroparks has available for the purchase, including funds from the state, the county, and the city of Maumee.
So for the city to have held out for the entire purchase price of $5.6 million now would have only further delayed - and jeopardized - the day that the Fallen Timbers acreage, already declared a National Historic Site, would finally be protected as a park.
Obviously the hangup remains the second installment. The mayor's idea to solicit funding from private foundations, corporations, and groups like the Ohio Historical Society deserves to be explored.
But for now, the impasse appears to be broken, and that is good news indeed.
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