{"id":17515,"date":"2025-10-23T19:58:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=17515"},"modified":"2025-10-23T19:59:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:59:55","slug":"michael-ashfords-fundraiser-at-the-peacock-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/23\/michael-ashfords-fundraiser-at-the-peacock-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Ashford\u2019s Fundraiser at The Peacock Cafe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Truth Staff<\/em><\/p>\n

Lucas County Recorder Michael Ashford brought together friends, colleagues and supporters on Tuesday evening, October 14, for a political fundraiser at the Peacock Caf\u00e9. During his address to those gathered in the Caf\u00e9 meeting room, Ashford spoke of the necessity of being prepared in life and of the need for elected officials to be pro-active and take stances against injustices. He also introduced two candidates for Toledo City Council that he is endorsing.<\/p>\n

Ashford introduced Debroah Barnett, who organizes a series of workshops titled \u201cGetting Your Affairs in Order,\u201d in partnership with the Area Office on Aging and UAW Local 12. The workshops are designed to inform attendees on a number of issues \u2013 financial, legal, insurance, communication with loved ones \u2013 that can protect an individual and his or her family as circumstancess change in life \u2013 death, illness, accidents, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cI encourage you to have difficult conversations, necessary conversation,\u201d Barnett told the audience.<\/p>\n

Ashford recalled his years of service as an elected official with the city and the state and his term as the leader of the Lucas County Democratic Party \u2013 that ended in 2023. He voiced his displeasure with other elected officials who have ignored injustices over the years for the sake of political expediency.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not happy\u201d with some elected officials, he said. \u201cWhen I see a police officer and he takes his attack dog and he lets that dog go and [maul someone] and our elected officials say nothing \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashford spoke of his own difficulties with the Democratic Party in the past because of his refusal to always toe the party line \u2013 especially when it comes to who to endorse.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cI can\u2019t tell you who to vote against,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I can tell you who to vote for.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that he did. He introduced two candidates for the at-large City Council seats. Blair Johnson, an independent and first time-candidate for elected office, and City Councilwoman Brittany Jones, PhD, were both in attendance to receive Ashford\u2019s blessing and to put their cases forward.<\/p>\n

Johnson, a contractor, said he is \u201cbrining a new approach to council.\u201d One of his primary concerns is the lack of maintenance within the city. \u201cI\u2019m talking all levels,\u201d he noted while decrying \u201cthe customed tailored fix to these issue \u2026 not one size fits all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s desire to run for political office arose when he felt that he, as an ordinary resident, was not \u201cgetting the service I felt I deserved as a citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones, an academic, an urban planner and a non-profit (United Way) operative, was appointed to council in early 2024 and won a special election later that year. \u201cI am an independent thinker, I\u2019m a researcher.\u201d Combining her various issues, Jones asked \u201chow can we get healthy and also make some money \u2026 at United Way, I talk to community organizers and [offer data].\u201d<\/p>\n

Emphasizing the importance of gathering information and data, Jones added \u201c there can\u2019t be a blanket solution \u2026 we have to talk to everyone and see what makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ashford fundraiser buffet was catered by Joanne Menefree and Gwen Wyse of Tastefully Two Catering and Event Planning<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Truth Staff Lucas County Recorder Michael Ashford brought together friends, colleagues and supporters on Tuesday evening, October 14, for a political fundraiser at the Peacock Caf\u00e9. During his address to those gathered in the Caf\u00e9 meeting room, Ashford spoke of the necessity of being prepared in life and of the need for elected officials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[252,17],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[317],"class_list":["post-17515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17519,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17515\/revisions\/17519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17515"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=17515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}