With plenty of support on hand, including his wife, Amy, former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner formally declared his candidacy for the Nov. 3 special election ballot to fill a vacant two-year term today.

Mr. Finkbeiner, 76, who has been mayor three times before, promised to pave 40 miles of street per year and to hire five of the best-qualified drinking water experts in the country to advise Toledo on its water supply.

Mr. Finkbeiner is one of seven people hoping to be on the ballot for the election to serve the last two years of the late Mayor D. Michael Collins’ term. The unendorsed Democrat had two Toledo city councilmen and the representatives of three union organizations on hand.

“During the next two years, I intend to focus on the critical needs of our neighborhoods. They must be cleaned up and neighbors must work daily, with the city, to make that happen,” Mr. Finkbeiner said.

He said his proudest action as mayor was taking his directors on tours of the city in a van every Wednesday afternoon.

He said that during the remaining weeks of the campaign he’ll be riding his bike into neighborhoods, in part to demonstrate the importance of physical fitness.

The mayor made his announcement in his headquarters on Laskey Road near Douglas Road.

A former city councilman who once ran unsuccessfully for Congress, Mr. Finkbeiner was elected mayor in 1993 and re-elected in 1997. He could not seek a third consecutive term in 2001 because of term limits. In 2005 he ran against and defeated the incumbent mayor, fellow Democrat Jack Ford, but he did not seek a fourth term in 2009.

The deadline to file for the special mayoral election ballot is Sept. 4. 

The other declared or potential candidates are endorsed Democratic Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson; political independents Sandy Drabik Collins, Sandy Spang, Mike Bell, and Mike Ferner, and Republican Opal Covey.

First Published August 29, 2015, 3:47 p.m.