toledoblade.com --

Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner says city residents have stepped up and "done the right thing" in the past, and he believes they will do so again on Tuesday when they vote on a 0.75 percent income tax.

The city is seeking renewal of the tax, which raises $57.7 million a year and helps to fund police, fire, and trash pickup. If the tax is defeated, Mr. Finkbeiner said the city could have to lay off 735 employees. Among them would be a combined 456 police officers and firefighters.

He asked people to ignore efforts to defeat the tax.

The Rev. Floyd Rose, a former Toledo civil-rights activist who moved to Georgia in 1995, has urged the newly organized chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to defeat the payroll tax as an act of civil disobedience.

He wants to use the tax to strong-arm the city but has declined to reveal his demands.

Mr. Rose told about 150 people in Toledo in January to defeat the tax because of a series of what he called affronts to blacks.

Those include the firing of Perlean Griffin last year as the city's affirmative-action director and the demotion of the office to a division of the Department of Human Resources.

Meanwhile, Karen Shanahan, a former candidate for Toledo City Council, sued the city last week, demanding that the nearly year-old garbage-collection fee be reversed and residents be reimbursed.

Some have concluded that voters could bring their dissatisfaction over the fee to the polls.

"Here is Toledo, Ohio, for over a quarter of a century whose people have been wise enough to recognize the importance of this three-quarters of one percent," Mr. Finkbeiner said. "A twice-defeated council candidate, apparently getting ready to launch a campaign for a third try, takes an action she could take any time … she does this on the eve of the election."

The controversial $5.50 monthly trash fee was enacted last year as part of the 2007 general operating fund budget. It will expire April 30 unless council renews it.

Mr. Finkbeiner also criticized Mr. Rose's motives.

"A gentle man who moved consciously and purposely from Toledo to Georgia a decade ago, on the eve of the election - they are working to defeat a tax that's been in place for a quarter of a century," he said.

Mrs. Shanahan said she does not plan to run for council again but declined to say if she supports the tax renewal.

She said eliminating the trash fee would increase the chances of passage for the tax renewal. "My concern was that if we brought [the trash fee] up that it would be more likely to pass because the voters would feel they would not have to pay a refuse fee."

She filed her lawsuit in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, claiming the city enacted "wrongful taxation" when the Finkbeiner administration imposed "an additional tax to collect refuse without the approval of Toledo City Council and without the approval of voters."

If the income tax is defeated this week, the city would have another chance in November to get the tax approved.

Council President Mark Sobczak said he was optimistic about passage of the income tax.

"I believe people realize how vital this is to city operations," he said.

The proposed 2008 general fund budget for the city is $251,789,259. The money from the 0.75 percent tax renewal would be allocated equally to police, fire, and other safety departments; the general operating fund, and the capital improvements fund. If approved, the tax would run through Dec. 31, 2012.

Mr. Rose has claimed city leaders exaggerated the need to lay off safety workers because the tax could be passed in November.

He promised that once the "issues were resolved," he and his supporters would "enthusiastically campaign for the renewal of the tax in November."

"We will rally the people to vote against the tax, and we will be talking about where we will go from here once that tax is defeated," he said Friday.

Mr. Rose is joined in his sentiment by Ms. Griffin, who is serving as president of a new local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that Mr. Rose returned to Toledo temporarily to establish.

Voters approved a 1 percent payroll income tax in 1946, an increase to 1.5 percent in 1966, and a temporary increase of 0.75 percent in June, 1982 - bringing the total to 2.25 percent.

Mr. Finkbeiner on Friday again recalled the state of Toledo in 1982 - before the tax was approved - when city parks were not cared for and police officers and firefighters were laid off.

Contact Ignazio Messina at: imessina@theblade.com or 419-724-6171.

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