Tom DeLay is not the leader of your

By Myndi Milliken Toledo Free Press Managing Editor mmillken@toledofreepress.com

A poll of 300 Toledo residents likely to vote in this year’s primary election supported former Mayor Carty Finkbeiner as the front runner in a three-way race between Mayor Jack Ford and Toledo Councilman Rob Ludeman.

Ludeman and Ford have announced their intentions to run for mayor; Finkbeiner has alluded to a formal announcement in June.

The poll, commissisoned by WTOL-11, was executed by Stanford H. Odesky and Associates. Odesky has been a staple on the Toledo political scene for years, calling races for WTOL and WTVG-13 since the 1960s.

When asked, half of those polled disapprove of the job Ford is doing as Mayor, and nearly half cited unemployment, jobs and businesses leaving downtown as major concerns for the next mayor to

Despite the Bush administration’s resistance to the Kyoto global warming pact, more than 130 U.S. mayors have applied the agreement’s standards in a bid to reduce America’s carbon dioxide emissions, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said Monday.

Toledo Mayor Jack Ford was listed on the Seattle mayor’s Web site, www.seattle. com, amongst those joining the coalition and he was listed with other signees in a May 14 article in the NY Times.

Megan Vahey, spokesperson for the Mayor, confi rmed Ford signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in April.

“The city has already begun to take steps,” Vahey said. “We are committed to reducing sprawl by having smart growth agreements with regional neighbors in terms of water sharing, we endorse TMACOG’s efforts on biking to work, bicycle trails. We have building code energy effi ciency policies, and have made serious efforts to increase recycling rates.”

Vehey said Ford will attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ summer meeting this June in Chicago, where other mayors will share support of the agreement.

The coalition is also supported by three other Ohio mayors: Kenneth Patton of Brooklyn, Rhine McLin of Dayton, and Thomas Longo of Garfi eld Heights.

address. Of least concern, with 3.3 percent, was a new sports arena.

“It’s May, the primary is in September, the general election in November,” Megan Vahey, spokesperson for the Mayor, said. “Mayor’s Ford’s campaign is focusing on the many accomplishments he’s achieved in a tough economy. He’s going to continue providing constituent services and we look forward to that opportunity.”

Finkbeiner, despite not having made a formal announcement to run, has a high percentage of potential voters believing he will, and leads the preference in all categories except African Americans.

Finkbeiner told Toledo Free Press that the 34.3 percent selecting him as likely to win the mayor’s seat is a consistent number with other polls he has seen, including three he has commissioned himself. Finkbeiner noted the undecided 33.7 percent seemed higher than previous polls and Ludeman’s 10.3 percent was lower. Ford was about the same.

“My experience with polls is to take them with a respectful grain of salt,” Finkbeiner said. “I was once behind seventeen points nine days before the mayoral election of 1993, and I won.”

While Ludeman falls short in a three-way race, in a head-to-head competition with Ford, he comes out on top by a slight margin, 37.7 percent to 32 percent, with 30.3 percent undecided. Ford leads among African Americans and Democrats, while Ludeman picks up the 35-54 year olds, males, white voters, and Republicans and Independents.

Ludeman, said he has not yet done any polls on his chances in the fall primary.

“It’s very early,” Ludeman said. “This was all done prior to the formal announcement that O-I is leaving Toledo and prior to my announcement I would be running.”

Ludeman said not to rule out the undecided vote.

“The undecideds tend to be the ones that determine the elections.”

Odesky noted the race is still in its early stages. “Carty’s doing a lot better now because he’s a former mayor. Remember Kest was ahead of Ford early on. If the election were tomorrow, the Mayor wouldn’t make it, but there’s a large subset of the population up for grabs.” ��������������������������������