Toledo Does The Right Thing

Without discussion, the Toledo, Ohio City Council has apologized to the United States Marine Corps. Mayor Carty Finkbeiner refused to say whether he would sign the resolution.

How to explain Lucas County . . .

Fight Over Toledo Marine Maneuvers Isn't Over

Lucas County, in northwestern Ohio, is somewhat of an island surrounded by sanity. Besides being the home of a one-woman anti-gun advocacy "group," Toledo has an interesting place in history. It was the hub of a "war between the states" back in the early 1800s.

Both Michigan and Ohio claimed the narrow strip of ground running west to east. Ohio officials snuck in in the middle of the night, established and operated a court for a few hours. Citizen militias from both states were headed for a possible showdown. Ohio had even adopted as its flag a "burgee" -- a pennant shaped banner similar to those used to commemorate military campaigns. This prompted Michigan officials to fear Ohio was going to be a somewhat militaristic state in the future.

Eventually, the parties stood down after federal authorities ruled that Ohio had first "governed" that area (due to holding a court on one night). The strip was awarded to Ohio, and "that state up north" was compensated for its loss with what is now the "U.P." -- more commonly known as Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Why the history lesson? Because a new battle over Toledo is being waged between its mayor, Carty Finkbeiner, and a U.S. Marines reservist unit that was supposed to train in the city's downtown. Mr. Finkbeiner isn't backing down from his original orders, but other city officials are sending out apologies.

Toledo Mayor Finkbeiner Doesn't Like The Marines

Updated: Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008, 1:32 pm -- The guys over at Black Five have a couple of thoughts about Mayor Finkbeiner.

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The Blade newspaper has the details. For my entire life, I have been over-the-top pro-military. As my regular readers know, I have three nephews in the Army -- two in SF. But I have always had mixed feelings about uniformed military holding exercises in the middle of our downtown areas. My concern is with the civilian populace getting too used to seeing this. Becoming desensitized to any kind of regular military presence on our streets.

Still, our military plays a very important role and does need to train. And many soldiers, marines and SF personnel have noted that real-life training helped them deal with urban warfare in Iraq and Afganistan.

Mayor Finkbeiner has several control issues, though, that he is dealing with. I can only imagine that there are a handful of ex-military among Toledo's police department, and that when the order went out to set up a roadblock to keep the Marines out, there were some raised eyebrows at police HQ. His other control issue is an irrational fear of firearms, but that is a post for another day.