{"id":19259,"date":"2026-05-01T13:24:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=19259"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:27:09","slug":"michael-ashford-hosts-annual-spring-fundraiser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/michael-ashford-hosts-annual-spring-fundraiser\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Ashford Hosts Annual Spring Fundraiser"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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.<\/p>\n

Ashford began his remarks by reflecting on recent local and national incidents that have reminded him of so many troubles of the past decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of us have got to be disturbed by that video we saw last week,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my age group, a child of the 50s, 60s, 70s, when we got through the 70s, we said we would never see that again,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

He spoke of several recent issues that remind him of the sometimes-calamitous decade of the 70s such as war. \u201cWar is never good,\u201d he said recounting relatives who served in Korea and Vietnam who returned home with nothing good to say about the glories of war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought protesting was fair,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Lucas County Recorder Michael Ashford and Theresa M. Gabriel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI said that will never happen again but then when you look at Minneapolis and see the ICE shootings \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the cost of gas ,,, unbelievable,\u201d he noted about not only what is now happening with gas but also \u00a0utility bills of all kinds.<\/p>\n

And then, women\u2019s rights. Ashford spoke of the strides made in the 70s with women\u2019s rights established in part by Roe v. Wade, only to see that overturned in recent years. \u201cWait 50 years and you see everything coming back again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, he added that, \u201cjust as we got through [what happened 50 years ago], we are going to get through this too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning his listeners\u2019 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. \u201cThis is not a one-time problem,\u201d he said as he ticked off several other such police issues.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Things were different, he added, when other mayors were in office, such as Carty Finkbeiner \u2013 who attended the fundraiser \u2013 and when police chiefs, such as Mike Navarre, ran the department.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Juice 107.3’s Toni Battle Gaines and Rich Hogan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Gary Johnson and Larry Sykes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,17],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[345],"class_list":["post-19259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19259","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=19259"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19268,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19259\/revisions\/19268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19259"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=19259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}