The Truth Staff
Lucas County Recorder Michael Ashford hosted his annual spring fundraiser at The Peacock Cafe on Tuesday, April 14, as dozens of friends, colleagues and supporters came by to contribute, share a buffet meal and hear Ashford speak on several issues while also thanking those who have done so much for the Toledo community.
Ashford began his remarks by reflecting on recent local and national incidents that have reminded him of so many troubles of the past decades.
“Some of us have got to be disturbed by that video we saw last week,” he said of the scene in which a Toledo police office threw a 15-year-old girl to the ground twice after stopping her for walking in the street.
“In my age group, a child of the 50s, 60s, 70s, when we got through the 70s, we said we would never see that again,” he recalled.
He spoke of several recent issues that remind him of the sometimes-calamitous decade of the 70s such as war. “War is never good,” he said recounting relatives who served in Korea and Vietnam who returned home with nothing good to say about the glories of war.
“We thought protesting was fair,” he also recalled about those actions in the streets in the 60s and 70s against war which would ultimately lead to incidents such as the killing of four protesters at Kent State University in 1970.
“I said that will never happen again but then when you look at Minneapolis and see the ICE shootings …”
“And the cost of gas ,,, unbelievable,” he noted about not only what is now happening with gas but also utility bills of all kinds.
And then, women’s rights. Ashford spoke of the strides made in the 70s with women’s rights established in part by Roe v. Wade, only to see that overturned in recent years. “Wait 50 years and you see everything coming back again,” he said.
However, he added that, “just as we got through [what happened 50 years ago], we are going to get through this too.”
Returning his listeners’ attention to the police incident of the previous week, Ashford noted that over the past few years, such incidents with Toledo police have become all too prevalent. “This is not a one-time problem,” he said as he ticked off several other such police issues.
The police officer in question should never have been on the force, said Ashford, and was only a part of the force because of the legacy privileges he was apparently entitled to.
Things were different, he added, when other mayors were in office, such as Carty Finkbeiner – who attended the fundraiser – and when police chiefs, such as Mike Navarre, ran the department.
In wrapping up his remarks, Ashford commended the efforts of three people in the room, for their successful efforts in the past to ensure that people of color were hired in greater numbers. He praised Theresa Gabriel, Finkbeiner and Larry Sykes for their accomplishments in increasing such hiring rates.
