Toledo mayoral candidate Sandy Spang said she couldn’t think of a better place to talk about her vision for a neighborhood investment plan than a sprawling antiques shop in Point Place that not too long ago was a vacant, run-down retail strip.
“This strip was 100 percent empty,” Ms. Spang said Sunday at a news conference inside the Lighthouse Landing Art, Antique, and Craft Mall, 4441 N. Summit St. “What it’s done for this neighborhood is absolutely amazing.”
An independent, Ms. Spang said that if she is elected mayor she would like to foster entrepreneurship by hiring a small business navigator who would see new businesses through from their first contact with the city to their ribbon-cutting.
She would like to see Toledo foster a “maker economy,” rejuvenating its roots in manufacturing and doing that through creative start-ups and neighborhood-based businesses.
“When people come together with a purpose, neighborhoods become stronger and they become safer,” said Ms. Spang, a city councilman who owns Plate 21, a South Toledo coffee shop.
She is one of seven candidates seeking the mayor’s office Nov. 3. Also running are former mayors Mike Bell and Carty Finkbeiner; retired lawyer and widow of mayor D. Michael Collins, Sandy Drabik Collins; Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson; former councilman Mike Ferner; and evangelist Opal Covey.
Ms. Spang said she wants to strengthen neighborhood organizations, create new ones where there aren’t any, and help each neighborhood develop a strategic plan for itself. The idea is to foster home-grown economic development.
“It’s too long that we’ve waited for a white knight developer, white knight investors, to come in to Toledo,” she said. “We need to grow Toledo from the ground up.”
Debbie Speegle, who co-owns Lighthouse Landing with Kellie Schlachter, said that rather than hiring outside consultants to advise businesses or attract new ones, Toledo needs a community panel to work on economic development — people who know what Toledo has to offer.
“We have a strong sense of community, a sense of involvement and pride,” Ms. Speegle said. “We don’t give up. We’re fighters. We’re generous sometimes to a fault. We’ve got a strong workforce here in Toledo, and we’ve got some extremely active youth.”
She said it can be a nightmare for businesses to get off the ground with all the red tape. She’d like to see a simpler guidebook that coverspermits to inspections.
“We’ve got to get away from, ‘We’ve done it this way for 50 years,’” she said. “It’s not working. It’s broken. We do need to fix it.”
Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.
First Published October 19, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
