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Editorial
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
11-20-98
It isn't perfect. No capital improvements bill ever is. In terms of actual dollars, Lucas County still trails the big guys. But Toledo and northwest Ohio didn't do too badly in the two-year, construction spending bill dropped into the hopper Tuesday in the Ohio House of Representatives.
We understand Mayor Finkbeiner's distress, but maybe we see the glass half full because so often in the past it's been nearly empty when it came to funding construction projects in our corner of Ohio. Who can forget how hard it was to get the state to sign on to help renovate the Valentine Theatre in downtown Toledo?
But the good news in the state's new capital improvements spending plan is that it includes the final state installment -- $3.5 million -- for the Valentine, which ensures that the restoration not only can continue but should stay on track for a grand reopening late next year. An interesting aside: The Valentine is the only theater or museum project in the capital improvements bill that got the full amount sought by local officials. When is the last time we could say that?
Another truly significant allocation in the bill is the $2 million earmarked for the Fallen Timbers battlefield site. Even though $2 million will not come close to covering the entire expense of the project, we are encouraged that Fallen Timbers even made the cut, and by legislative leaders' assurances that it is indeed a priority. That's true for Gov.-elect Bob Taft, too, who has indicated the state should pay as much as half the cost.
So there should be more Fallen Timbers money on the way. This is a project, in fact, which ought to be completed in time for Ohio's bicentennial in 2003.
The state's participation should encourage our congressional representatives to seek and secure federal help for Fallen Timbers.
Two other projects considered regional priorities also did well. The bill includes $2.9 million for renovations and a museum of military history at Ft. Meigs and $1.75 million to renovate the former Wood County Jail on the courthouse square in Bowling Green as a law library, record center, and family research center.
It's worth a tip of the cap to state Rep. Randy Gardner, R., Bowling Green, who agreed to steer a quarter of a million dollars from the B.G. jail project to Fallen Timbers to provide adequate amounts for both. Mr. Gardner also was elected speaker pro tem of the House, the No. 2 position, by his colleagues, and that can only further help the northwest Ohio delegation.
An obvious omission from the capital improvements bill is any funding at all for a new downtown ballpark for the Toledo Mud Hens. But that should not be a surprise, given the defeat in May of Issue 9, the ballpark sales tax increase proposal, and given the absence of any viable public plan to find another way to build it.
But build it we must. A new home for the Mud Hens should remain at the top of the community's priority list. We trust that when the next state capital improvements budget rolls around in two years, a "game plan" will be in place and the state will honor its commitment to help.
It would be easy to whine that ballpark money is included in the capital improvements bill for football stadiums in Cleveland and Cincinnati, but, if anything, that ought to solidify Toledo's claim next time around.
Mayor Finkbeiner laments the downtown ballpark's absence from the bill, but it could be his own lack of public enthusiasm in the months since Issue 9's loss that has sent the wrong signals to Columbus.
It's important to remember that the capital improvements bill is only that, proposed legislation, at this point. It will be poked and prodded, with additions here and subtractions there, before it is finally signed into law. It's not everything we want, but it's better than we've often gotten, and that qualifies as progress.
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