By Fletcher Word
The Truth Editor
The Community Solidarity Response Network held a mayoral candidates forum on Thursday, October 16, at the Wayman Palmer YMCA, although not all of the candidates made an appearance.
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz apparently had to attend another candidate forum, according to information the CSRN received from his staff, so the Wayman Palmer forum was a two-person affair between independent Roberto Torres and write-in candidate Harold Harris.
The event, organized by the CSRN’s Washington Muhammad and moderated by Toi Creel, was the first such event held at the newly-built and opened Wayman Palmer Y and about 60 attendees turned out to hear what the two candidates had to say on a wide range of issues.
The candidates replied to questions such as: How can small business owners afford to both live and build their companies within the community? How can small business owners have the opportunities and access to own local real estate and commercial properties, for the opening and operating of their brick-and-mortar businesses instead of Dollar General and Sheetz and car washes who come from other cities and states and build brand new from the ground up? Do you have a plan to revitalize vibrant neighborhoods other than downtown to create businesses?
And, in perhaps the most current topic of the day, the inevitable question about how to handle the problem of local law enforcement officials working with ICE agents when they appear on the streets of Toledo?
“We need to work with the governor and see what the borderlines are … we will be in touch with the governor,” said Harris in response to the ICE issue.
Torres, however, was quite a bit more specific in his response, as he was all night in his answers.
“Our safety forces have enough already on their plate – we need to have actual legislation, codified, that will say in the City of Toledo our local safety forces will not act in that way. We can do that type of legislation through the City.”
In fact, during the entire discussion, Torres was much more specific than his counterpart. He offered greater detail and gave examples from his own extensive government experience drawn from work with the cities of Toledo; Canton, OH; Grand Rapids, MI, and Detroit. His performance was masterful throughout and the response of the audience with their frequent applause after his answers, reflected their approval.
At one point in describing the problems with neighborhoods, Torres spoke of specific issues in three different neighborhoods and offered ideas to address those different issues. Then he described the way to look at neighborhoods all over the city by addressing problems along main corridors such as Monroe Street, Lagrange Street, for example.
One critical theme that Torres addressed was the fact that the mayor and city council do have the wherewithal to make a difference. The city council can legislate. And the mayor can point the way.
“It’s all about mayoral leadership,” said Torres at one point. “The mayor can make priorities … a mayor’s role is to be creative and imaginative”
As an example, Torres, after being asked how to assist aspiring entrepreneurs, replied that a mayor was in a position to guide neighborhood investment from a variety of sources even when the federal government was unresponsive to a city’s needs.
“You can’t build your city, your neighborhoods relying on federal funds, we invited minority contractors to build up capacity,” he remarked about his time in Toledo city government under the direction of Mayor Jack Ford. He also suggested ways to seek funding other than from the federal government – rebuilding neighborhoods as part of private contractors agreements, for example.
Speaking of the mayor – the current mayor – he was nowhere to be seen and apparently had another candidate forum to attend, according to his staff. Washington Muhammad had some comments about that notable absence.
“As of last night, we were led to believe that the Mayor would not be able to attend our CSRN Mayoral Forum because he was attending another mayoral and candidates’ forum yesterday at the same time. Even though all of the candidates were invited, we were told by his assistant Austin, ‘to remove his picture and name from all of our posters and flyers since he would not be able to come to our forum and also we were told that it may suggest his participation.’ We later found out that there was NO FORUM and the Mayor blatantly and knowingly lied. We’re demanding a public apology for taking our votes for granted and belittling our community.”