http://www.markbula.com/January17.pdf

• Mark's Message: Basically this is a tax abatement. I have in the past been the only council member to vote down a recent tax abatement on another project cause I did not believe it was appropriate for the type of development. However, this brings an additional professional business tenant to downtown in area. An area we as Council hope to revive. It also puts a tenant in office space that has been vacant for some time. The total income tax increase to the city revenues is roughly $7,000. This action provides for an economic grant in the amount of 1/3 of that amount annually. I believe this is important to our plan and desire to re-invigorate downtown area.

• Mark's Message: The action was for an annual appointment of a Council member to the SAJARD Board – a motion was made by President of Council Barbara Sears to replace John Borell (appointed in 2006). Mrs. Sears recommended Keith Haddad as the nominee instead. Mrs. Sears did not want to re-appoint Mr. Borell as she had concerns with Mr. Borell at times recusing himself on certain votes due to concern for conflict of interest and therefore ethics violations. City provides financing to SAJARD – he has fiduciary responsibilities for both entities. Mrs. Sears also suggested breaking the position into two positions, warranting separate appointments for SAJARD and Tam-O-Shanter, recommending me as the representative to Tam-O-Shanter.
  
  Mr. Haynam did not agree with Mrs. Sears’ concern and moved to amend the motion to re-appoint Borell. Mr. Borell acknowledged he wished to continue representing the Council on SAJARD. After lively discussion, Borell suggested that an ethics ruling from Ohio Ethics commission be sought and he would abide by their ruling if re-appointed. That seemed reasonable, I concurred with his suggestion and seconded the amended motion to re-appoint Mr. Borell. The amended motion failed as Sears, Backus, Haddad and Luetke voted to not appoint Borell. The motion then to appoint Haddad came for a vote. I stated that I could not support Mr. Haddad as I felt his non-participation in continued discussions on City Visioning process suggested to me that his schedule is already overloaded. My assumption was that Mr. Haddad would not be able to accommodate the additional work required of an active representative of Council on the SAJARD Board. Mr. Haddad stated that he has not participated in some of the visioning process because he prioritized other issues as higher. Because Mr. Haddad will not give 100% dedication to developing a City Vision, I could not vote for Mr. Haddad since his available time seemed too limited. My vote to not approve the amendment as an emergency measure was matched by Haynam and Borell.
  
  In addition, I chose to not accept the second part of Mrs. Sears recommendation that I be appointed to the Tam-O-Shanter Board – until a ethics ruling is made that would also apply. The position as then rolled back into one Board seat.
  
  This was a fairly complicated situation but it took nearly 20-30 minutes of Council’s time and therefore deserved explanation. Not to mention a split vote.

While I will not try to tackle this complex and multi-faceted issue here, I will begin to suggest that the time has come to seriously evaluate a merger of the Township and City. An independent study by the University of Toledo’s Urban Affairs Office will be presenting financial research findings on the subject over the next 60 days to our community. The first meeting will be at the Senior Center Wednesday February 7th at 7:00 PM. I hope the community gets interested and comes out to hear the information.