Progress and opportunity. Probably two of the most popular words in a politician’s vocabulary. They were prominently used in last year’s State of the City address. But one year later, those words feel hollow — replaced by signs of deficiency, stagnation, and decay.

Here’s why. It was touted that Toledo is a safer city. So why in this most-recent budget, did the city cut funds to the police force? The city slashed the police budget so much that they won’t be able to put a police class together, despite near-record retirements.

The mayor touts another 43 lane miles of roadway being paved. We like that. Unfortunately, we’re swimming up stream with a deteriorating infrastructure when we have 200 lane miles in the city.

We love Toledo. We feel for the challenges it faces. And despite the powder and blush that the mayor puts on the Glass City, it is a cracking goblet with no real plan for economic development for an aging city and exiting population.

And there is one common thread. Toledo and the county are run by a monarchy of Democrats who have no solution to stopping the bleeding. Now there’s a real “No Kings” rally we can get behind. Our solution is to introduce independent performance audits and public scorecards for city leadership tied to economic, population, and fiscal outcomes.

Here are some other examples with SOLUTIONS we feel should be implemented.

1) Downtown Investment Without Measurable Return: Over the last decade, an estimated $200–$250 million in combined public, institutional, and philanthropic capital has been directed into the Uptown corridor and surrounding downtown redevelopment, alongside more than $180 million in federal funding in recent years. Despite this level of investment, there has not been proportional private-sector job growth or meaningful tax base expansion.

SOLUTION: Tie all future public and institutional funding to measurable private-sector job creation and tax base growth benchmarks, with claw backs if not met.

2) Downtown Office Vacancy: Nearly 700,000 square feet of office space sits inside One Seagate, much of it underutilized after major corporate departures. Downtown vacancy remains high, and the central business district has shifted toward government, healthcare, and nonprofit occupancy instead of private-sector growth. Aggressive leasing concessions are now common — a sign of a struggling commercial core.

SOLUTION: Launch a targeted downtown conversion and recruitment program to reposition vacant office space into residential, tech, and small business hubs with performance-based incentives.

3) Population Decline: Population trends are moving in the wrong direction. The City of Toledo’s population declined from 270,871 in 2020 to an estimated 265,000 today, continuing a long-term downward trend. In 2025, Lucas County saw some of the largest population losses in Ohio. The city has yet to present a clear, executable plan to reverse that trajectory and retain talent.

SOLUTION: Create a talent retention and attraction initiative that directly links university graduates and skilled workers to local employers with financial and career incentives to stay.

4) Income and Housing Pressure: Median household income in Toledo is approximately $49,700, more than $30,000 below the national average, and housing pressures are increasing, with rents rising over 40% since 2021. This is not the profile of a city building upward economic momentum.

SOLUTION: Aggressively recruit and incentivize high-growth industries such as defense, aerospace, energy, and advanced manufacturing to rebalance the regional economy.

5) Lack of Venture Capital and Growth Strategy: We are also still not hearing a serious plan to attract venture capital, scale high-growth industries, or reposition Toledo into sectors that are actually expanding faster than inflation. Current regional industry growth rates in manufacturing-heavy sectors are often in the 0.8% to 1.5% range, which is below long-term inflation. Without shifting that mix, the region will continue to lose relative economic ground.

SOLUTION: Establish a public-private venture fund and investor network to deploy early stage capital into local high-growth companies and attract outside capital.

6) Eliminating Waste: Finally, eliminate waste. This, too, is something everyone talks about, but no one seems to be able to do. For example, last year the city eliminated their Diversity Equity and Inclusion department (thank goodness). But they gave all eight employees other jobs in the city and failed to save the nearly $1.5 million that accompanied those positions.

SOLUTION: Conduct a full departmental cost audit and reallocate all non-essential administrative spend directly into economic development and public safety outcomes.

Closing:

Toledo is not lacking potential. It is lacking accountability, measurable goals, and leadership willing to confront hard realities. Progress and opportunity are not slogans. They are outcomes that must be measured, tracked, and delivered. The people of Toledo deserve transparency, responsible stewardship, and a real plan to stop the bleeding and rebuild the Glass City for the next generation.