Perennial Toledo mayoral candidate Opal Covey was remembered on Friday for her ambitious ideas and outspoken personality and as someone who truly wanted to improve the city.

Ms. Covey’s body was discovered in her home in the 2200 block of Broadway Street Thursday afternoon by Toledo police.

The coroner’s office confirmed her death and said no foul play is suspected. She was 84 years old.

The self-described prophetess and evangelistic minister first ran for mayor in 2001, earning 0.9 percent of the vote in the September primary, according to Lucas County Board of Elections data. She continued to run in every mayoral election until 2021, never getting more than 1 percent of the vote; however, her name still appears in election results as a write-in candidate for various local offices, whether she was running or not.

“I feel she truly loved the city, and and she thought of some way-out-of-the-norm ideas to make the city better,” said Ed Beczynski, owner of the Blarney Irish Pub & Grill in downtown Toledo. “When I think of her, it actually puts a smile on my face thinking about what a great lady she was, and she had nothing to lose, and she just loved the city.

“She was a lady that she thought out of the box and thought of some, some may say, crazy ideas,” Mr. Beczynski said while overseeing the restaurant’s operations Friday evening. “But I say we need new, different ideas. I’m not saying that her ideas were right, but she was a great lady I think people will always remember.”

Although Toledo’s mayor’s race is nonpartisan, Ms. Covey ran as a Republican. She previously had been registered as a Democrat.

According to previous reporting by The Blade, she campaigned on the “pot of gold” Toledo was sitting on, referring to the untapped tourism industry, and her campaign signs said she was a “miracle worker,” telling voters that she was “sent by God.”

“She went up against the establishment,” said Pam Young of Toledo, who was having dinner Friday evening at the Downtown Johnny’s bar. “She stood for her beliefs. And she spoke her mind.”

Ms. Covey was always campaigning, even when there wasn’t a mayor’s race on the ballot, from the signs promoting her platform stationed outside her home or the signs fastened to her silver van she drove through Toledo.

“She was strong-willed, because she kept running for mayor,” said Karen Paprocki of Perrysburg and formerly of Toledo, who was having a meal Friday evening at Huntington Center before the start of the Rascal Flatts show. Ms. Covey could also be described as an eccentric and a colorful person, she said. 

Jennifer Phillips of Walbridge, who dined a few tables away, agreed with that assessment.

“I give her props for running for mayor,” Ms. Phillips said. “Everything was against her. But she still ran.”

During her 2015 run for mayor to fill the two years remaining in the term of the late Mayor Michael Collins, Ms. Covey maintained that the 2013 election was stolen from her.

“I have to run until I become mayor,” Ms. Covey told The Blade in 2015. “This is God’s plan, for me to be here and to be mayor.”

Sandy Spang, the executive director of the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, ran against Ms. Covey in 2015 and got to know her beyond the campaign trail.

“Being together so much, I got to experience some of the more down-to-Earth moments with her,” Ms. Spang said of the campaign season that year. “She talked about her childhood and growing up. It was a very rare connection I was able to have with her.”

Ms. Spang said, as a mother, she shared part of her life with Ms. Covey, like her kids and personal stories. Ms. Spang said after that campaign season, she continued to see Ms. Covey at the Kroger on South Detroit Avenue.

“She always recognized me, and we’d stop to say a few words with each other,” Ms. Spang said.

Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz met Ms. Covey during his 2017 mayoral campaign, where he won the general election in November. Although they were once political opponents, Mr. Kapszukiewicz called Ms. Covey a “Toledo original.”

“She always struck me as a kind-hearted person with a genuine love for our city,” he said. “Her ideas for the riverfront were ahead of her time, and even though a roller coaster was never built there, the entertainment attractions that are now a part of the new Glass City Metropark aren’t too different from some of the amusement park concepts that Opal long proposed.”

A consistent platform of her mayoral campaigns was a proposed amusement park to be built in Promenade Park along the Maumee River in downtown Toledo. Ms. Covey campaigned on the idea that the theme park would provide jobs, tourism dollars, and economic benefits for the city.

“I could see what she was talking about,” former Toledo Mayor Mike Bell said of the idea. “At least she was trying to come up with something creative. Like I said, she cared.”

Mr. Bell ran against Ms. Covey in the 2009 mayoral election, where he ended up victorious. As an opponent, Mr. Bell said, “she always came at you with fire,” but she made the campaign trail fun.

“There’s a lot of people that poke fun [of Toledo], but they stand on the sidelines,” Mr. Bell said. “She was willing to get into the game. She wasn’t talking it, she was walking it.”

In addition to politics, Ms. Covey also enjoyed animals. She used to own Opal’s Country Store & Thrift Shop, which contained many pets like dogs, cats, birds, and fish.

In the late 1990s, cruelty investigators raided the store and confiscated 477 animals in what at the time was the biggest neglect case ever handled by the Toledo Area Humane Society, according to previous reporting by The Blade. Ms. Covey was convicted of 14 animal-cruelty charges and spent 10 days in the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio. She told The Blade years later that she thought the whole ordeal was “a conspiracy to get her precious animals.”

Although Ms. Covey seemed relentless with her ambitious ideas, some of her political opponents saw a different side of her.

“From my experience, she was a sweet woman with a gentle soul,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. “There will never be another person quite like Opal.”

State Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson said “Opal was a fighter for what she believed.”

Ms. Hicks-Hudson ran against Ms. Covey in the 2015 mayoral election and the 2017 primary election for mayor.

“Some people laughed and ridiculed her about her idea for the river development,” Senator Hicks-Hudson said. “She envisioned a Ferris wheel, similar to the one in Chicago on Navy Pier. Instead of a Ferris wheel, we have the Ribbon. Rest in peace.”

First Published March 7, 2025, 1:43 p.m.