Toledo’s third district will have a new representative after the November general election, as three candidates vie to replace incumbent Councilman Peter Ujvagi, who announced he wasn’t running for another term.
They’ll first battle in a September primary for the top two spots to advance to the general election.
Mr. Ujvagi, a Democrat, first served as an at-large councilman from 1993 to 2002, before returning to council as a district councilman in 2016. He announced his decision to leave council in June.
The candidates seeking the district’s seat are: 77-year-old Republican Glen Cook, 24-year-old Democrat Robert Worthington, and 39-year-old Democrat Theresa Gadus.
Mr. Cook came within 350 votes of Mr. Ujvagi in the 2015 election and has an endorsement from the Lucas County Republican Party. He says he’s running on a platform that seeks solutions to the city’s crime, an issue he says is pushing families out and needs immediate attention.
‘We’ve got to get the crime out of here,” Mr. Cook said. “The good people that are staying here are being choked out by the violence. We have to get rid of this order of evil that’s taking over our city.”
Mr. Cook, a retired salesman, said he was on the brink of moving out of the city to nearby Oregon after a 16-year-old girl was fatally shot in his East Toledo neighborhood in March. But he says he concluded that “instead of running away from the problem,” he would run for city council and work to fix it.
“There’s no reason for us to live like this,” Mr. Cook added. ”We owe our neighbors a lifestyle that’s not filled with crime and evil. I think it’s an attitude. Everyone is focusing on downtown, but you don’t have a city that’s worthwhile if you have a few districts that are going to hell.”
Both Democratic candidates in the race are newcomers to politics. Ms. Gadus, an educational interpreter for Toledo Public Schools, has the backing from the Lucas County Democratic Party. She said she’s running because she wants to create more opportunities for her district’s youth.
“I’ve always served my county,” Ms. Gadus said. “I’ve served the kids in my county and I felt like running for office was another way I could serve my community.’
Ms. Gadus also says making her district safer is her highest priority. She’s concerned about residents’ fear to live in certain areas.
“We need more youth engagement,” she said. “It’s really just pulling resources we have together and listening to people in the areas that are impacted the most.”
Ms. Gadus says she also wants to create a “full-time professional graffiti crew” that would clean up graffiti to “preserve some of the city’s historic buildings.” She thinks the city needs to improve on some its services such as leaf pickup and snow removal, adding that the “Eastside really struggled” with cleanup efforts this year.
“There are things we could make small adjustments to and improve the quality of life for people,” she added.
Mr. Worthington, the youngest candidate in the race, has wanted to run for office since he was an eighth grader.
He said he’s watched Toledo’s Old South End -— which along with East Toledo makes up District 3 — decline in recent years.
“And I feel like there’s a lack of attention from the city,” he said. “It feels like we’re paid attention to a lot less.”
Mr. Worthington, who is studying law at the University of Toledo, says he often hears of complaints from residents in East Toledo and the Old South End that their neighborhood receives less attention than the other. He wants to bridge that gap.
“I want to unite the district in a way where I communicate with all the residents,” he said. “As a council member I can kind of play liaison. I don’t just go after one issue, I believe I have the ability to multi-task and juggle multiple issues in a way that this council hasn’t seen before.”
He says he also wants to coordinate volunteers to cut lawns and clean up some of the streets.
“It’s about making Toledo a hub for sustainability,” Mr. Worthington added.
The council primary election is on Sept. 10 and is nonpartisan, meaning the top two vote-getting candidates — regardless of party — move on to the general election in November.
First Published August 6, 2019, 6:11 p.m.
