Ealvana Ruiz sat on her front porch on Western Avenue Thursday watching a crane lower a brand new modular home across the street from her house in Toledo’s Old South End.

“The lots have been empty for a long time,” said Ms. Ruiz, who has lived in her home since 1999. “There’s a lot of people out there who can’t afford to live in homes. Some are even homeless. So this is really going to help.”

The house is one of two new modular, single-family homes that will be lowered onto their foundations at 326 and 318 Western Ave. Thursday and Friday.  

The homes were trucked into the neighborhood earlier this week. They are expected to be finished and ready for occupancy this fall, said Joe Cordella, vice president of the Historic South Initiative, which is the contractor.

Each home is a single-story ranch with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and about 1,207 square feet, with a covered front porch. They are open to buyers earning between 80 percent and 120 percent of the area median income.

Qualified homebuyers will be from low to moderate-income households. The asking price for each is $145,000. 

The modular houses aren’t the first that the Historic South Initiative has brought to the neighborhood. Two on South Avenue that were also lowered by a crane in November sold in June and July. 

“They sold quicker than we expected,” said Mr. Cordella, adding that they each sold for $160,000. 

They were the first new houses built in the Old South End in years.

“Two years ago you could not buy a new house in the Old South End, because nobody was building one,” Mr. Cordella said. “In the past year we will have done it twice, on two different streets. These are not investor properties and they are not rentals. They are for families who want to own a home in this neighborhood.”

The organization has already received interest from potential buyers in the Western Avenue neighborhood, he said.

The group is partnering with LadderUp Housing to build four more in the neighborhood within the next few months, Mr. Cordella said.

“They will be new builds, not modular houses,” Mr. Cordella said.

Since it was created in 2015, the Historic South Initiative has completed more than 400 home rehabilitations in partnership with the state and the city of Toledo, Mr. Cordella said. It also constructs new infill homes, creating affordable homeownership opportunities.  

Minor house rehabs from the initiative include repairing siding, roofs, and porches. The organization has also done 16 whole house rehab projects in the neighborhood, which includes buying a house, taking it down to the studs, doing all the repairs, and selling it to an eligible owner, Mr. Cordella said. 

“Home ownership is important, but so is home stability,” he said.

The City of Toledo offers home ownership assistance of up to $20,000 for eligible first-time home buyers. Additionally, some banks offer grants of up to $5,000 to help with closing costs. Potential home buyers are encouraged to seek out Realtors and mortgage bankers who are familiar with these programs.

“We have grant funding for new homes, to rehab up to 30, and possibly do some more substantial rehab projects on a couple of specific streets,” Mr. Cordella said.

“We’re focused on Western Avenue and Knower streets right now for which we have grant funding. We also have a backlog of applicants throughout the Old South End that we’re still working on,” he said. “We had our funding cut last year from the Ohio Department of Health, so we had to put some applicants on hold. Now that we have new funding, we’re able to start up those projects again.”

Emily Dellinger, neighborhood development specialist with Toledo, said the Historic South Initiative came to the city for assistance.

“Historic South Initiative has been doing a lot of great work in this neighborhood. We want to support that work,” she said. 

For Tomas Ruiz, who has lived on Western Avenue for more than 20 years, the new housing will help improve property values. 

“I think it’s nice,” he said. “It’s going to help out the neighborhood. The value of the homes are going to go up.” 

A 75-year-old man was seriously injured when he was hit by a vehicle in West Toledo while riding a bicycle near the University of Toledo main campus, police said.

Robert Meeker, of Federman Street, was taken to ProMedica Toledo Hospital with injuries police described as “possible life-threatening.”

Mr. Meeker was southbound on a paved trail on University Hills Boulevard at Bancroft Street about 10:27 a.m. Thursday when he lost control of the bike at the trail-pavement edge, police said in a report.

That caused him to fall onto the roadway, “striking the vehicle” driven by Raymond Foley, police said. The report did not state on which road and in which direction the vehicle was traveling.

Mr. Foley, 77, of Kensington Road, was not injured.

The incident remains under investigation.

The Toledo City Plan Commission has recommended landmark status for two former churches over the objections of the Diocese of Toledo, which owns both properties.

The diocese planned to demolish Sacred Heart and repurpose Good Shepherd, both in East Toledo. But the commission voted 3-1 Thursday to recommend landmark designation for each church.

Commission member Brandon Rehkopf was the only one to vote against both designations, and member Kristopher Ball was absent from Thursday’s meeting.

The plan commission does not make the final decision but makes a recommendation to Toledo City Council, which gets the final say.

If approved, the designations would give the Toledo Historic District Commission authority to oversee any exterior changes, including demolition.

“This will just add a secondary layer of review to any exterior environmental change on the property,” said Bill Harbert, a planner with the city. “So that includes new windows, new signage, new roof, or demolition.”

Sacred Heart, at 509 Oswald St., opened in 1906 and has been slated for demolition since 2023.

A spokesman for the diocese previously said the decision to demolish the church came after a “lengthy and comprehensive due diligence process” that identified several structural damages.

Good Shepherd, at 550 Clark St., was dedicated in 1901 after two years of construction and closed in 2015.

The Diocese is looking at other possible uses for the church, said Thomas Antonini, who serves as general counsel for the Diocese. 

“It’s premature,” Mr. Antonini said of the designation for Good Shepherd. “This makes no sense. This is a solution in search of a problem.”

Mr. Antonini spoke against both landmark designations, and said the Diocese was surprised to learn of the possible local landmark designations.

There are many reasons why the city would want to designate buildings as local landmarks, including as an economic development tool, to stabilize a neighborhood, or communicate a community’s identity, Mr. Harbert said.

He added that the city council has the ability to designate local landmarks, regardless of the property owner, through the Toledo Municipal Code.

Commissioner Rehkopf said he had financial concerns if the structures are preserved, specifically questioning who pays for it.

“The buildings obviously have historic character,” he said. “But we don’t have a plan.”

Commission member Eric Grosswiler said the designations do not prohibit the Diocese from demolishing the buildings, but rather, it adds oversight before the building could be knocked down.

“The Historic District Commission has granted demolitions in the past,” he noted. 

Several residents from East Toledo attended Thursday’s meeting, mostly in support of the designations.

Toledo City Council initiated the process of designating the two former churches, but the Diocese has called the decision a mistake and threatened legal action if the process continues.

After the vote, Mr. Antonini declined to comment on the diocese’s next steps, referring to a spokesman.

A spokesman for the diocese did not immediately respond.

The council’s zoning and planning committee is expected to review the cases Oct. 21.

In addition to the East Toledo churches, the plan commission also recommended approval of a landmark designation for the Viking Lodge Building in the 1600 block of Broadway Street in the Old South End.

Mosaic Ministries owns the building and sought the designation. The nonprofit plans to redevelop the building into a childhood education center and food pantry to serve the South Toledo community.

Before the Viking Lodge Building can officially be considered a local landmark, the city council will have to vote on the designation.

One item that was not discussed by the Toledo City Plan Commission Thursday was a zoning change for the site of Fulton Elementary School in central Toledo. The item was deferred for 60 days until the plan commission’s November meeting.

The site, which has been vacant since 2012, could become affordable housing units for senior citizens but needs to be rezoned before breaking ground.

The plan staff has recommended the zone change be approved, but during an Aug. 27 neighborhood meeting, some neighbors supported the project, while others had concerns about it fitting in to the neighborhood.

Lisa Cottrell, the city’s plan director, said if the zoning was approved, the city’s plan staff would require the developer to include additional amenities such as outdoor community spaces like a gazebo or walking paths.

A Maumee man has been sent to prison for 36 years after pleading guilty to seven felonies involving sex crimes with two minors, the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office said.

Kenneth Richey, 35, of the 1300 block of Junior Drive, pleaded guilty Aug. 25 in Lucas County Common Pleas Court to six counts of first-degree rape and one count of second-degree pandering obscenity involving a minor.

Judge Gary Cook sentenced Richey to a top sentence of 10 years on Wednesday for one of the rape counts. Three other rape counts and a third-degree count of tampering with evidence were dismissed at sentencing.

Maumee police and Lucas County Children Services began an investigation after one of the two victims reported to her mother that Richey had sexually assaulted her, the prosecutor’s office said. That investigation revealed offenses involving her and a second victim between December, 2021, and March.

Richey’s convictions classify him as an Ohio Tier III sex offender and he is required to register for life, with in-person verification, every 90 days.

“There are no excuses and no justification for sexually abusing a child,” county Prosecutor Julia Bates said. “The defendant repeatedly preyed upon two young victims, and now he will spend decades in prison because of it. I hope this sentence provides these victims and their families some measure of justice as they move forward.”

Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Effler of the Special Victims Unit led the case for Mrs. Bates’ office.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections could hold Richey for up to five additional years if he misbehaves while incarcerated.

COLUMBUS — Increased investment in Toledo and Ohio’s other core cities is necessary to change the state’s downward population trajectory, according to the bipartisan Ohio Mayors Alliance.

Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said the organization’s four-point plan will help grow the Glass City and other municipalities across the state.

“Fundamentally, what this proposal does is it would allow cities to use the resources necessary to grow,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. “In Toledo’s case — as is the case in most of the rest of Ohio — that is building more housing.”

The mayor said studies have shown that people want to live in Toledo, but they can’t move into the city because of the lack of housing.

“It’s great that we know that, but the real challenge is that building housing is so expensive,” he said. “In an environment where the state legislature over 20 years has made massive, crippling cuts to cities across Ohio — even when you manage tax dollars well ... you get to a point where the dam is going to break.”

The mayors’ plan would set aside a portion of the proposed Ohio Core Cities Transformation Fund to pay for infill housing in cities facing vacancy and disinvestment.

“Instead of focusing on the past and focusing on the pain that has been done, we came ... with a bipartisan solution that can provide the resources to help address this problem without raising a tax or redirecting any funding,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. 

Toledo’s mayor joined several other mayors in Columbus for a news conference announcing the proposal on Sept. 3. 

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said Ohio has lost a congressional district in every decade since 1960. 

“That means less influence in Washington, D.C. in terms of investments in infrastructure and investments in our social safety net,” Mr. Bibb said. “That influence matters when it comes to the issues facing not just urban communities across the state but rural communities as well.” 

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said Ohio’s economy is more balanced than other states due to its numerous cities and metro regions.

“This is a unique advantage that makes Ohio more regionally balanced, less dependent on a single urban hub, and better positioned for economic growth across the state,” Mr. Rue said.

Incentivizing growth in cities also protects small towns from unwanted development and preserves Ohio’s farmland, he said. 

“If Ohio wants to grow its population, it must grow the places where people choose to live, growth is welcome, and capacity and infrastructure exist,” Mr. Rue said. “A coordinated strategy to support and revitalize Ohio’s core cities will also benefit the interconnected suburban and rural communities within a metro region.”

In addition to the Ohio Core Cities Transformation Fund, the Ohio Mayors Alliance is proposing a new Public Safety Enhancement Fund.

Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said public safety is a city’s most fundamental responsibility, noting Ohio’s state and local governments employ more than 30,000 emergency responders such as police, firefighters, and EMS medics, among others.

Local governments spent more than $3.2 billion on police and fire services in 2025, Mr. Malik said. 

“We are putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to supporting public safety,” he said. “We are proposing that the state help create a long-term, consistent, sustainable funding source that helps strengthen our ability to recruit and retain police officers, firefighters, and all of our safety personnel.” 

The Ohio Mayors Alliance’s proposal would provide state dollars equal to 10 percent of the amount local governments spent on annual police and fire payroll. Using 2025’s numbers, local governments would receive around $320 million in state funding. 

“This is a lot of money, but it is less money than we would still be receiving if the Local Government Fund had not been cut,” Mr. Malik said. “We think that it is fair, and we think that budgets are moral documents.” 

The new fund would allocate money from the state General Revenue Fund directly to a city, village, or township. Eligible entities would register to receive the funds through the Ohio Office of Budget and Management or the Ohio Department of Public Safety on an annual basis, and they may be required to meet certain best-practices or professional policing standards.

Lucas County residents can bring their agricultural tires for free disposal at the Lucas County Recreation Center on Sept. 15.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2901 Key St., in Maumee.

The event is for industrial tires only, such as semi-truck tires and larger. No regular car tires will be accepted, officials said.

No more than 10 tires per load are allowed. Tires may be on or off the rim.

A Holland woman reported missing Tuesday was matched Wednesday to a body railroad workers found last week on top of a freight car in a railroad yard in Elkhart, Ind.

Brittany Ritter, 37, had been reported missing Tuesday to the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office by her family, which had been unable to reach her for nearly a week. She had last been seen late on Sept. 1 or early the following morning, the sheriff’s office said in a missing-person report posted Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Elkhart Police Department determined that a woman found dead Sept. 3 atop a freight car at the Norfolk Southern rail yard in Elkhart was the subject of the missing-person report.

The sheriff’s office said late Wednesday it was working with authorities in Elkhart to determine the circumstances of Ms. Ritter’s death.

“Because this remains an active investigation, no additional details are available for release at this time,” a social media post said.

“Our thoughts are with Brittany’s family, friends, and all those who knew and cared about her,” the sheriff’s office post said. “We recognize the tremendous grief that comes with news like this and extend our deepest sympathy to everyone affected by this heartbreaking loss.”

The sheriff’s office said Tuesday that Ms. Ritter might have been traveling on a bicycle when she vanished.

Elkhart is along the same main railroad line that passes through Holland on its route between Toledo and Chicago and is about 125 miles west of Holland. The Elkhart police statement said the train where Ms. Ritter’s body was found had arrived there from the east.

The Elkhart police said an autopsy had yet to be completed and further investigation of Ms. Ritter’s death had been handed off to the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office.

A 31-year-old man was shot while riding his bike in the central city Wednesday night, police reported. 

Police officers responded to a call at 10:32 p.m. of a person shot in the intersection of West Woodruff Avenue and North Detroit Avenue. The victim was riding in the intersection when he was shot by an unknown individual, police said. 

He was taken to ProMedica Toledo Hospital. 

Three Toledo streets will close Saturday for special events, the Toledo Department of Transportation announced.

Fire Safety Day will close Sylvania Avenue between Peak and Walker avenues from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. Traffic will be detoured via Seiss and Phillips avenues.

The Connecting Kids to Meals event in the UpTown neighborhood will close 16th Street between Monroe and Washington streets from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., with no detour route posted.

And an event at the Toledo Farmers’ Market Night Market will close Market Street between Superior Street and the alley west of Superior from 2:30 to 11 p.m., with no detour route posted.

A 20-year-old pedestrian was gravely injured Wednesday evening when struck in a crosswalk by an SUV on Glendale Avenue in front of the South Toledo Walmart store.

The woman, who was not identified in a police report, was walking north in the crosswalk toward Oak Hill Court when the SUV, driven by Randi Givens, 31, of the 3100 block of Glanzman Road, made a left turn from the Walmart entrance. The pedestrian became trapped under the vehicle after being struck, Toledo police said.

Police said the pedestrian was in critical condition after being extricated and was taken to nearby University of Toledo Medical Center.

The driver told investigators she was distracted by her autistic son as she entered the intersection and did not see the pedestrian. No charges were immediately filed.

In May, 2001, a Federal Aviation Administration van dropped me at the Oklahoma City airport just 30 minutes before my flight home.

I had been attending an FAA seminar for reporters on how plane crashes are investigated. After a quick breeze through a metal detector at the security checkpoint, I had no trouble making it to the gate on time.

Four months later, four teams of al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked cross-country jetliners from the East Coast and crashed three into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. A fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back.

Air travel would never be the same. The notion of showing up at the airport 30 minutes before departure immediately became a historical relic.

And over time, security screenings became pervasive in other large public places, particularly sporting events, concert venues, government offices, and courthouses.

“I don’t think when it happened we understood how much it would affect daily life,” said Ronald Theis, the University of Toledo’s police chief and associate vice president for public safety, who recalled traveling with a UT lieutenant to Ground Zero on Sept. 12, 2001, to deliver relief supplies and assist with recovery efforts for a day.

The fundamental change, Chief Theis said, was that security for aviation, public facilities, and large events shifted from response readiness to prevention, largely using intelligence and technology.

“We are no longer just responding,” he said. “... The plan is to mitigate threats before they affect public safety.”

At UT, police conduct bag checks and, at selected events, use metal-detector wands to screen spectators at Savage Arena, the Glass Bowl, and various large gatherings, Chief Theis said.

Most Mid-America Conference schools do not routinely use metal detectors at football and basketball games, he said, but that could change.

“It’s been talked about at the conference level for the past couple of years. It’s something we may eventually get,” the chief said.

And beyond the checkpoints people see at events, detailed planning occurs beforehand, while access-control technology, vehicle barriers, and surveillance systems restrict where people can go and flag those who do venture where they don’t belong, Chief Theis said.

A result of these efforts, the chief said, is that first responders are better prepared for a wide range of situations because of the coordination they have implemented.

Multiagency unified command, communication, common terminology, and modern crowd-management techniques all were developed in the wake of 9/11, he said, and those are applicable even when the threat is just a lightning storm.

Government offices, courthouses

At Toledo’s One Government Center, visitors who once barely glanced at the security desk soon had to sign in and show identification. More recently, public access through a rear set of doors near the building’s parking garage was shut off, with all visitors directed to a new metal-detector station and bag scanner at the main entrance.

Holly Kemler, a Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority spokesman, said that after her agency took over One Government Center’s management in 2019, building security was identified as one of its tenants’ top priorities.

“Over the years, in consultation with the entities who occupy the building, we have implemented additional safety measures, which include a more secure visitor check-in process,” Ms. Kemler said. “The safety of our tenants and partners remains a top priority for the Port Authority at all port-owned and managed facilities.”

Entering any of the area’s courthouses also requires clearing a metal detector and bag X-ray. In pre-9/11 days, the courthouses had security officers but no screening.

“Before 9/11, I don’t remember there being any security [checks],” said David Klucas, a veteran Toledo defense lawyer. “Post-9/11, it has evolved somewhat. Before 9/11, you just walked into the courtroom.”

Setting up two checkpoints at the Lucas County courthouse required directing all visitors through what had been side entrances on the Erie and Michigan street faces, while the much grander main entrances on the Adams and Jackson street sides are restricted to emergency exits only.

“It’s a bit of a bottleneck at times. It’s a problem for a lawyer running late,” Mr. Klucas remarked.

A checkpoint with a metal detector and bag X-ray caused all public access to the U.S. District Court in Toledo to be directed to its Spielbusch Avenue entrance. Visitors there are directed to remove even their belts, and often shoes, and run them through the scanner, and the federal courthouse also shares the airport protocol of requiring laptops and cell phones to run through separately.

Got your clear plastic bag?

And attending a Toledo Mud Hens or Toledo Walleye game now also requires passing through a metal detector, and anyone carrying a bag much bigger than a wallet has to open it for an inspection.

Such bag inspections have sparked the popularity of clear plastic bags for sports fans bringing baby supplies or other personal items to the games, to the point that the Walleye distributed clear bags to ticket-plan holders last season.

The front office for the Mud Hens and Walleye declined to comment for this story.

But the biggest post-9/11 security apparatus remains at airports.

While flights resumed within two to three days after the Sept. 11 attacks, passengers were immediately forbidden to have anything with a blade or otherwise suitable for use as a weapon in their carry-on bags. More thorough pat-down screenings were immediately instituted, causing hours-long delays at checkpoints until the process became more systematized.

Before the attacks, anyone could clear the checkpoint and go to the boarding gates, either to accompany departing travelers or greet those arriving on flights.

Now only people with boarding passes and identification to match were allowed into the secured area, with exceptions allowed only for people delivering minors or people with profound medical needs or cognitive disabilities to the gate.

Airport security’s evolution

But not all of the measures now familiar to air travelers were consequences of the 9/11 hijackings.

Shoe removal and full-body scans were introduced in response to later terrorist attempts to detonate explosives in-flight that were hidden in one man’s shoes and in another’s underwear. Restrictions on passengers bringing drinks or toiletries into plane cabins similarly arose in 2006 from a terrorist plot to hide explosives in brand-name soda bottles.

Yet one change that just took effect Monday allows more people to resume accompanying friends or family to airport boarding gates, meeting inbound travelers there, or meeting an out-of-town friend for a drink or meal during an airport layover.

Under the Transportation Security Administration’s Gateside by PreCheck program, gate access for nontravelers is now allowed at 13 airports for people who have already registered with the agency’s PreCheck trusted-traveler program.

Among those 13 airports are Detroit Metropolitan-Wayne County Airport and John Glenn Columbus International Airport.

Besides having Known Traveler Numbers, those wishing to obtain gate access through the program must register their intent on the TSA website one to three days in advance. They may also bring children with them if they list them on their reservations.

The TSA said more airports will be added to the program in the near future.

Blade City Editor Jim Wilhelm thought he had an ordinary workday ahead of him at the newspaper’s iconic building in downtown Toledo as he prepared to leave his Perrysburg Township home on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. 

Instead, he got stopped by a phone call he’ll never forget from Mike Bartell, The Blade’s night city editor.

He told Mr. Wilhelm to turn on his television.

A plane had just struck the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center.

Could it have possibly been a repeat of what happened on July 28, 1945, when an Air Force B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building in heavy fog?

That seemed implausible to the two veteran newsmen, and not just because the sky over the World Trade Center was clear that day.

Yet even television networks were hesitant to call it a terrorist attack until more was known.

Fearing the worst, Mr. Wilhelm’s adrenaline kicked in.

He raced up I-75 to The Blade’s newsroom. He arrived just in time to see the second plane strike the South Tower.

“Bartell was right,” said Mr. Wilhelm, now an assistant managing editor at the Columbus Dispatch. “This wasn’t an accident. This was terrorism.”

Convinced that a terrorist attack was unfolding, Mr. Wilhelm scrambled to get all of the reporters he could find to work the phones.

His first order of business was trying to reach people with Toledo connections in New York. Reporters had about 30 phone numbers to work with, but most went unanswered.

Other journalists, including me, fanned out across the metropolitan area seeking comment.

I was sent to the University of Toledo’s Lancelot Thompson Student Union to interview students, faculty, and staff as they watched tragedies in New York, Washington, and western Pennsylvania in disbelief.

Whatever it takes, I thought to myself. This was our generation’s Pearl Harbor moment, and I felt a commitment to do my part to document history.

One of my many interviews when I got back to the office was with U.S. Rep. Mike Oxley (R., Findlay), who told me what he saw as he was driving away from a Georgetown hotel where he’d just given a breakfast speech.

“I looked in my rearview mirror, and I could see the Pentagon on fire,” Mr. Oxley said.

There was fire everywhere, at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and in that vacant field near Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after passengers and crew fought back against al-Qaeda hijackers.

An Extra edition

Amid the chaos across the country, The Blade made the rare decision to publish a special Extra edition in the early afternoon.

The internet wasn’t as developed back then, and everyone knew this was news that couldn’t wait until the normal morning edition came out on Sept. 12, 2001.

That special publication had a three-word banner headline in heavy bold letters that said it all: DAY OF HELL.

Below it were photographs of the World Trade Center on fire.

The headline was written by Patrick O’Gara.

Mr. O’Gara, who has since moved to Spain, recalled in a 2017 column titled “The day the world changed” that he proposed those three words and got approval for them because that’s what everyone was feeling at the time. Mr. O’Gara could not be reached for this article.

Kim Bates, The Blade’s executive editor, was a staff writer involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, breaking news coverage.

“I remember how quickly the entire newspaper staff mobilized to respond,” she said. “Everyone contributed on an extremely tight deadline after we decided to publish a special print edition that afternoon. We immediately understood this was a historic tragedy — one we would reflect on and continue to cover every year.”

A city disrupted

Tom Troy, now The Blade’s editorial page editor, was a reporter covering the City Hall beat back then.

He said he remembers there was some talk about postponing the city’s primary election scheduled for Sept. 11, 2001, but that election officials ultimately decided to let voters cast their ballots.

According to an article by Fritz Wenzel, The Blade’s politics writer back then, that election drew a 25 percent voter turnout. The two mayoral candidates who advanced to the Nov. 6, 2001, general election were Jack Ford and Ray Kest.

Mr. Ford prevailed in November. 

He replaced Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, whom Mr. Troy credited for calming down tensions on Sept. 11, 2001, by calling upon faith leaders to have an ecumenical service outside One Government Center.

“Carty got right to business,” Mr. Troy said of the immediate planning of that event in response to the terrorist attacks. 

Staff writer David Patch, who has been The Blade’s transportation writer since late 1993, recalls hearing about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center on his car radio after getting a tire fixed at a shop on Monroe Street.

“The detail was thin enough that I presumed it was an accident involving a small, private plane,” Mr. Patch said. “But when I got to the newsroom and learned the other tower had been hit and commercial airliners were involved, I knew immediately it was a deliberate act.”

A fellow staff writer, Clyde Hughes, was sent out to Toledo Express Airport, now known as Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport, once The Blade learned that the government had ordered flights to land at nearby airports.

“I was initially asked to do that, but I was very concerned about relatives who worked in New York and wanted to be able to confirm their safety,” Mr. Patch said. “So editors agreed to send Clyde to interview the stranded travelers while I picked up the role of phone calls to confirm or deny that any more hijacked planes were heading across Ohio.”

Toledo connections

I was tasked for days with cobbling together anecdotes from any people we could find with connections to the terrorist attacks, either as witnesses or in mobilizing post-tragedy assistance.

For example, I interviewed two hairdressers from Toledo who were in New York for a convention.

One of them was Madonna Fong, who sold her business and retired a couple of years ago. She described the extraordinary empathy she witnessed and efforts she made to help. The other was the late David Broadway, who appeared a bit shell-shocked by the chaos. He ducked into an apartment building where he had stayed, a block from the World Trade Center, just as the first tower collapsed and filled lower Manhattan with soot and flying debris.

“When you see it in person, it looks like nuclear winter. It looked like the Towering Inferno,” Mr. Broadway said at the time, referring to the 1974 disaster movie. He added that he hailed a cab and got out of New York as soon as he could.

I got a vivid description of what happened from Aria Hendricks, daughter of Toledo jazz icon Jon Hendricks, who described what it was like to have flying debris coming through the window of her father’s high-rise apartment building near the World Trade Center.

In addition to interviewing first responders going to New York to help sift through rubble, I even interviewed a team of massage therapists going there to provide comfort to New York City firefighters and others.

What seemed like kind of an odd story was really a heartwarming one when those therapists told me they considered it an honor to bring relief — even if just for a few seconds — to the aching muscles of men and women on the front lines there.

The story that stayed with me

But the interview that made the biggest impression on me was with a woman named Beth Miller, who grew up in a little house in Maumee about a mile from my family’s house. It is across the street from Maumee United Methodist Church, where my wife, Jordie Henry, and I taught Sunday School for seven years.

Ms. Miller was a 31-year-old marketing communications associate for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter back then.

Her office was on the 61st floor of the 110-story South Tower, the second tower that was struck.

On that particular morning, she was overseeing 20 trainees.

When the first plane hit the North Tower, there was an unmistakable thud she and others felt inside their bones.

She told me about a message that went out over the intercom system, telling everyone to return to their desks.

The only thing they were told was that there was a fire in the tower next door.

Ms. Miller didn’t know it was a terrorist attack at that point, either.

But something in her clicked.

“We could smell smoke and did not heed that announcement” to return to Morgan Stanley’s 61st floor offices, Ms. Miller said.

She knew that she had to get those 20 trainees outside. 

So rather than return them to her office, she led them down a stairwell, one floor after another and another.

The elevators weren’t working.

By the time they reached the 29th or 30th floor, Ms. Miller felt “two extremely violent shakes of the building, especially the staircase. I thought the floors above us were starting to come down. People started screaming,” she recalled during our 2001 interview.

The second plane had hit their tower.

They picked up their pace — and got out safely.

Her gut instinct got her and all 20 trainees safely out of the South Tower. I wrote about her back in 2001 and in a column for the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, titled “Here’s to the unsung heroes down the street from us.”

“I thought she was dead. I thought there was no way she could have escaped this,” her father, the Rev. Melvin “Bud” Miller, told me back then. “I just went hysterical. I saw where that plane hit and knew if she hadn’t gotten out there was no way she could have survived.”

But she did.

I’ve never met Beth Miller in person. But I think of her often, even today, when I drive by her old house in Maumee.

I look at that house and think to myself: Good for you, Beth. You did the right thing.

Births

Mercy Health

St. Vincent Medical Center

Bethany and Matthew Rowland, of Defiance, boy, Sept. 1.

Ariel Morris, of Toledo, boy, Sept. 2.

Lindsey Spitnah-Slattman and Matthew Slattman, of Continental, Ohio, boy, Sept. 2.

Kylee Fuller, of Toledo, boy, Sept. 3.

Chelsea and Nicholas Truesdale, of Lima, Ohio, girl, Sept. 3.

Cynthia and Joshua Beaudoin, of Luckey, girl, Sept. 5.

ProMedica Bay Park Hospital

Jamie and Jacob Dubbert, of Port Clinton, girl, Sept. 6.

Alyssa Kolinski, of Toledo, girl, Sept. 8.

Marriage licenses

Sept. 3, 2026

Alex Regan and Jessica Hoyt, both of Ohio.

Herville Haynes III and Lisa Morris, both of Ohio.

Dalan Smith and Kacey Wright, both of Ohio.

Jonathan Earley and Hailey Wood, both of Michigan.

Jeremiah Williams and Angelic Fowler, both of Ohio.

Doncor Archie and Lashelle Taylor, both of Michigan.

Bryan Costello and Olivia Moore, both of Michigan.

Kyle Robinson and Ja-Lynn Taylor, both of Michigan.

Noah Schoenberger and Janessa Burk, both of Michigan.

Eric Snyder and Judith Novak, both of Ohio.

Jeremy Orme and Holly Galvin, both of Ohio.

Sept. 4, 2026

Stephen Braithwaite and Kimberly Bunce, both of Ohio.

Preston Dunn and Fabienne Celestino Cervantes, both of Ohio.

Zachary Jastal and Veronica Atwood, both of Ohio.

Matthew Epstein and Sophia Perricone, both of Ohio.

Brandon Karsten and Tessa Kleparek, both of Ohio.

Andrew Nasta and Kalynn Holmes, both of Ohio.

William Lipson and Jacqueline Bumpus-Norton, both of Michigan.

Antony Bazina and Meadow Whitney, both of Michigan.

Daniel Cufr and Ally Madison, both of Ohio.

Marquis Mattox II and Stacey Steffel, both of Ohio.

Nathan Doty and Melissa Vecchio, both of Ohio.

Adrian Hicks and Veonca Pimpleton, both of Michigan.

Jonathan Wallace, of New York and Cammy Kirsteins, of Ohio.

Patrick Butts and Tiffanie Sprouse, both of Ohio.

Logan Tsouris and Haylee Nagy, both of Michigan.

Collin Kitchen and Dasha Hannum, both of Ohio.

Seth Hursh and Katrina Reynolds, both of Ohio.

Keith Ermakov, of Michigan and Ashley Hottmann, of Ohio.

Robert Tober and Michaela Brewer, both of Ohio.

Rodney Quick and Catherine Tousignant, both of Michigan.

David Lombardo and Roberta Nopper, both of Ohio.

Sept. 8, 2026

Ricky Wilson and LaToya Whitworth-Morris, both of Michigan.

Zachary Matthews and Megan Nolan, both of Ohio.

Aaron Ewing, of Ohio, and Mikeal Rombach, of Michigan.

Samuel Salyer and Brittnee Dile, both of Ohio.

Bryson Oppermann and Alyssa Plotts, both of Ohio.

Jacob Wise and Shannon Gates, both of Ohio.

Bryce Waldo and Elizabeth Treat, both of Michigan.

Ronald Cook and Susan Allen, both of Michigan.

Brandon Herrera and Mariah Morris, both of Ohio.

Roger Williams II and Minyon Burnette, both of Michigan.

Brandon Henry and Brigitte Schultz, both of Ohio.

David Dye and Jayme Ramey, both of Ohio.

Jacob Cairl and Rachael Wittich, both of Ohio.

Arturo Gutierrez and Brittany Ennis, both of Ohio.

Christopher Thompson and Devin Carrion, both of Ohio.

Nicholas Bollin and Madison Wobser, both of Ohio.

Click on icons in the map to find details of reported crimes. For a full list of all reported crimes in Toledo this week, consult the table below.

COLUMBUS — The state of Ohio was awarded a $50 million federal Talent Search Grant to support low-income and aspiring first-generation college students, Gov. Mike DeWine announced Wednesday.

The state will receive $10 million per year for five years to assist 20,000 students annually across 130 schools, according to the governor’s office and the Ohio Department of Higher Education. 

“It’s designed to support middle and high school students who have the potential to succeed in post-secondary education but face barriers like income, first-generation status, or limited access to college planning and career planning resources,” Mr. DeWine said during his remarks at the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s Trustees Conference in Columbus.

“Ohio is one of only two states to get this award,” the governor said. “Our award is the largest in the country.”

Mr. DeWine said the grant will help students discover what is possible for their future.

“This is another step toward making sure all students are able to find a subject they are passionate about and can turn into a great career,” he said. 

Ohio Department of Higher Education Chancellor Mike Duffey said the grant helps fulfill U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s goal of “returning education to the states.”

“It puts federal dollars in the state of Ohio’s hands to help 20,000 students per year,” Mr. Duffey said. “We are excited to lead the way and to set an example for other states to follow.”

Wisconsin is the other state that received a Talent Search Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. 

The proposal submitted as part of the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s grant application included partnerships with several education organizations including Toledo Tomorrow, College Now, ESC of Central Ohio, Sinclair Community College, the Growing Rural Independence Together Project, Junior Achievement, and the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative.

Toledo Tomorrow is the only organization from northwest Ohio that will receive funding from the grant. 

The organization, which focuses on educational attainment in northwest Ohio, was also recently selected as one of the state’s 12 leaders of the Regional Education Partnerships Program.

Toledo Tomorrow 

Toledo Tomorrow and the other participating education organizations are expected to embed advisers in middle and high schools to connect students to a variety of resources such as tutoring, career exploration, college application assistance, and apprenticeships.

Bob Savage, founder of Toledo Tomorrow, said the goals of the Talent Search Grant program align directly with his organization’s core mission.

“This fits in our direct services area,” Mr. Savage said. “Whereas in the Regional Education Partnership we are just convening and catalyzing occasionally but not getting too hands-on, the Talent Search was directly in our lane of college and career access which is where we started nine years ago.” 

He said the grant will allow the organization to expand its services into area middle schools. 

“Quite frankly, we just weren’t resourced to do that before even though that’s always been on our roadmap,” Mr. Savage said. “The state has become more active in early exposure — which is a great thing for the students and quite frankly a great thing for the companies here as well, so the young people have more of an opportunity to see what goes on in these buildings that they drive by or take a bus by.” 

He said the grant could possibly allow the organization to provide services in more high schools, but it will definitely ensure that the high schools already being supported receive increased services.

“In the schools where we’re active, we work with a majority of the kids but we don’t work with all of the kids. All of the kids is our goal,” Mr. Savage said. 

Overworked guidance counselors

During his remarks announcing the grant, Mr. DeWine said guidance counselors are often expected to provide college and career services despite being overworked in other areas.

Mr. Savage said the governor is correct.

“The guidance counselors in the high schools where we’re active all have caseloads of at least 200 kids a year — and especially given the cuts that the various public school districts have had, for a growing number of them it’s 300 or more,” Mr. Savage said. “The counselors are swamped and have way more on their desk than they could do.”

Guidance counselors help students with a variety of issues, including helping children navigate the health-care system or address a family crisis, he said.

“We have a lot more teenagers in this community who are dealing with a lot more things at home than people might realize or might like to think about,” Mr. Savage said. 

Mr. Savage said college and career readiness services help students perform better in school.

“We all work harder when we think something is actually possible,” he said. “The earlier that the students hear that things after graduation are possible —regardless of whether that’s college or not — that does incent them to perform better in school and in some cases go to school every day.”

Clarence Singleton, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and retired firefighter, carries the physical and emotional scars of responding to both the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

He will speak Saturday at the Oregon Branch library about his experiences and his book The Heart of a Hero.

“From the jungles of Vietnam, where he was awarded a Purple Heart, to the ash of that unspeakable day in our history ... Singleton never quits, never gives up,” a library release said of his emotional journey. “Even facing post-traumatic stress disorder, where every crowded mall or sound of a helicopter sends his body signals that it’s time to ‘fight or take flight,’ Clarence still puts one foot in front of the other, through his deep faith and abiding sense of duty, to move forward to a miracle.”

Copies of the book will be available for purchase during the 1 to 3 p.m. event. The library is at 3340 Dustin Rd., Oregon.

Mr. Singleton’s appearance is sponsored by the city of Oregon.

To reserve a free seat, register at events.toledolibrary.org.

"An 18-year-old died Tuesday night following a Friday morning crash in West Toledo, police reported. 

Just before 10 a.m. Friday, Jaden Jones of Toledo was westbound on West Alexis Road when he crossed the centerline and struck a concrete island near Whitmer High School. His vehicle drifted to the right into a grassy area at 2820 W. Alexis Rd. and struck a tree. 

Mr. Jones was taken to ProMedica Toledo Hospital for treatment. He was pronounced dead at 11:22 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

Mr. Jones was a 2026 Whitmer graduate and running back for the football team, according to the team’s Facebook.

“Words cannot express the sorrow felt by the Whitmer Football program over the loss of one of their own,” a post states. “Jaden’s impact went far beyond the football field. He made all of us better for knowing him.”

Court officials are planning for possible sequestration of the jury for the capital murder trial of Darnell Jones, accused of killing his teenage daughter Kei’mani Latigue last year.

Tim Lubbe, administrator at Lucas County Common Pleas Court, told Judge Michael Goulding a discussion had been held with a local Hilton Garden Inn about a room block and security to handle the jury.

How long a jury might be sequestered remained to be estimated. Prosecutors told the judge they are still finalizing their witness list, and its length depends in part on whether Jones’ defense team is willing to waive testimony about the chain of custody for DNA evidence in the case.

Kei’mani, 13, disappeared from her custodial grandmother’s home on March 18, 2025, and her brutalized body was found six days later in an abandoned East Toledo house.

Jones, 35, of the 600 block of Willard Street, was arrested in Columbus on March 25, 2025, and later indicted for aggravated murder with four capital specifications along with kidnapping, rape, and other counts.

New indictments handed up early last month by a Lucas County grand jury charged him with additional rape and kidnapping counts relating to three other victims, including two juveniles, but those charges are not part of the capital case against him, for which a trial is currently slated to start Oct. 19.

County officials sent out more than 700 special summonses to potential jurors for the capital trial. During the pre-trial conference Wednesday, defense lawyer David Klucas said 135 of those people had responded with requests to be excused because they could not appear at the courthouse Oct. 8 or 9 to fill out questionnaires about their backgrounds, familiarity with the case, and other basic elements for preliminary selection.

But many of them said they would be available the following week, Mr. Klucas said.

In response, the judge and lawyers agreed that an additional questionnaire session could be scheduled for Oct. 13, the day they already planned to meet to review excuse requests from those who attend the sessions Oct. 8 and 9.

Jury-pool members who remain after a first cull based on the questionnaires will then be interviewed individually when the trial starts.

Mr. Lubbe said the plans discussed with the Hilton hotel call for jurors to be sequestered in rooms with no outside communication: no phones, televisions, radios, or personal electronics. The rooms will be in a single block suitable for monitoring by court security.

Two additional rooms would be reserved for the jurors’ dining, and the court would transport them between the hotel and the courthouse each day in vans.

Jones’ next court appearance is set for Sept. 23, when both an initial “excuses” hearing for jury-pool members and a pre-trial conference regarding his August indictments are scheduled.

BOWLING GREEN — For Middleton Township resident Beth Cole, this November election is a “true Ohio hold my beer, or coffee, kind of moment.”

“I implore everyone to look past party lines and vote out the people that have wronged us and our way of life,” Ms. Cole said. “Voting is the highest priority on Nov. 3.”

Although Ms. Cole encouraged voters to look past party lines, she stood with Democratic voters and candidates Wednesday to criticize Republican support for data centers. The news conference was put on by the Ohio Democratic Party.

The issue of data centers is personal for Ms. Cole. She lives next door to a hyperscale data center being built by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and she is frustrated by the lack of transparency surrounding the project.

She said she was supporting former Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown as he attempts to make a comeback to the U.S. Senate. He faces incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R., Ohio), who was appointed to the seat last year.

Mr. Brown has been a staunch critic of data center developments, saying big corporations are treating Ohio’s electric grid “like a game” and labeling his opponent “the face of data centers in Ohio.”

But Amy Natoce, a spokesman for Mr. Husted’s campaign, said the senator feels the developments should remain a local decision.

“Many communities welcome data centers for the tax revenue they generate for schools and public services, property tax relief, and thousands of good-paying jobs for Ohio’s skilled tradespeople,” she said. “Other communities have different focus areas, or legitimate questions and concerns, and those local decisions should be respected.”

Mr. Husted has championed past data-center projects.

In 2024, Google announced it would invest $2.3 billion in its Ohio operations. “Data centers are essential to our digital lives,” then-Lt. Gov. Husted said. 

At the time, Google and other companies were eligible for sales tax exemptions of up to 100 percent for as long as 40 years if they met certain investment thresholds under incentives established during Gov. John Kasich’s administration. The exemptions have cost Ohio more than $1.5 billion.

There was also a rare exception to Mr. Brown’s criticism in 2015, when he welcomed a new Amazon data center to New Albany, Ohio. In a news release, Mr. Brown called the data center “great news for New Albany and central Ohio.”

However, in March, Mr. Husted stood alongside President Trump as he signed an executive order requiring data center companies to fund their own power and return excess electricity to the grid. He also introduced a companion bill in the Senate that would require states to consider establishing standards when connecting large electricity users, like hyperscale data centers, to the grid.

Democratic candidate for Wood County Auditor Mark Wongrowski, a Bowling Green resident, said the county auditor should be transparent about what companies are looking to develop in the county, and the cost tax abatements could have on the community.

In 2023, the Wood County commissioners approved a 75 percent tax abatement for 15 years, with additional school pilot payments to the Eastwood and Otsego school districts.

Mr. Wongrowski faces the Republican incumbent, Wood County Auditor Matthew Oestreich, who was first elected in 2018. Mr. Oestreich said the county auditor has no role in determining who gets a tax abatement and how much the company receives, but rather, the auditor estimates the value of the new potential structure.

Mr. Wongrowski said he worries tax abatements will come at the expense of schools and public safety that rely on property taxes. While they can be a tool for economic development, he said tax abatements need to be calculated against the long-term benefit.

“At the end of this, we have a very small, long-term work force that’s intended to be at that facility,” he said. “So that benefit that we have over the next 15 years, over the next 40 years, isn’t going to benefit our community or any worker because we don’t have enough of those positions.”

Mr. Oestreich said if it was up to him, he probably wouldn’t offer tax abatements to companies, but added the county has protocols to ensure companies that are getting a break are following through on their promises.

“We have a tax incentive review committee,” he said. “Every year the auditor sits on that with some community members, and we go over every tax abatement in the county ... to see what’s remaining on them, see what’s being paid, see what job creation was promised, whether the companies are meeting that or not.”

Mr. Oestreich said the county has rescinded tax abatements in the past for companies that do not follow through on their end of the deal.

The Meta data center is expected to be completed in 2027.

September is Hunger Action Month, and Connecting Kids to Meals is calling on “Hunger Action Heroes” to help fight child hunger in Lucas County.

The Toledo-based nonprofit, which provides free hot, healthy meals to kids 18 and under during out-of-school time, will host an outdoor packing event Saturday, where volunteers will assemble 3,500 weekend bags for children and 3,500 family meal bags.

The Outdoor Power Pack runs from 10 a.m. to noon at the warehouse, 1501 Monroe St. There will also be music and a kids’ zone

Visit connectingkidstomeals.org to register to volunteer.

Connecting Kids to Meals has secured $125,000 in match funding from corporate partners, so any monetary donation made in September will be doubled.

Wendi Huntley, the group’s president and CEO, said the goal is to raise $250,000 overall to “help us in our efforts to feed kids in our community.”