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Toledo And Lucas County Need To Step Up To Save Public Transportation

It was report­ed in the news this week that the Board of the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA) vot­ed to cut Sunday and Holiday ser­vice due to con­tin­u­ing finan­cial prob­lems. SHoWLE sent an email to the city and coun­ty elect­ed offi­cials to step up and save the only pub­lic trans­porta­tion option in Lucas coun­ty.

Some back­ground:

The ser­vice cut, which, with one excep­tion, will take effect Jan. 6, is expect­ed to cov­er most of a $3‑million-plus bud­get gap that TARTA lead­ers had hoped to fill by switch­ing the agency’s local sub­sidy from prop­er­ty tax­es to a sales tax.

But the sales tax failed — for a third time in eight years — to clear a statu­to­ry process for get­ting on last month’s general-election bal­lot in Lucas County, and the tran­sit author­i­ty had no alter­na­tive rev­enue pro­pos­al ready to go.

That process required all of TARTA’s cur­rent mem­ber com­mu­ni­ties’ leg­isla­tive bod­ies to endorse the admis­sion of Lucas County as a new mem­ber. Sylvania Township’s trustees, as they had done twice before, vot­ed that res­o­lu­tion down in July, and sev­er­al TARTA trustees and Mr. Gee on Thursday blamed them for the tran­sit authority’s cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

Among board mem­bers oppos­ing the ser­vice cut was Daniel Woodcock, who said impos­ing it before see­ing how a fare increase might improve the authority’s finances would do a “major dis­ser­vice” to the com­mu­ni­ty.

But agency admin­is­tra­tors said that with each 25 cents of increase gen­er­at­ing no more than $250,000 in rev­enue, and with TARTA already hav­ing exhaust­ed its mon­e­tary reserves, there was no way to put off the ser­vice cut any fur­ther.

TARTA board approves ser­vice cuts

Here is the email SHoWLE President Douglas Berger sent on behalf of the group:

My name is Douglas Berger and I am President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE), a chap­ter of the American Humanist Association. I am con­tact­ing you today with our con­cern about the cur­rent strug­gles of the TARTA sys­tem and the announced end to Sunday and Holiday ser­vice.

I don’t think I need to say that a strong and vibrant city and coun­ty that is able to be inclu­sive of all socioe­co­nom­ic stra­ta needs to have a strong pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem. Toledo and Lucas coun­ty does not have one and the one we do have seems to be get­ting worse.

Cutting ser­vice impacts the peo­ple less able to have or afford alter­na­tives. They may have to work on Sunday or they want to attend church ser­vices. Cuts in ser­vice also impacts local busi­ness­es by reduc­ing the abil­i­ty of some cus­tomers to vis­it their stores.

I watched again as one stake­hold­er com­mu­ni­ty was able to block a viable plan for TARTA to sur­vive and be the pub­lic trans­porta­tion option we can all be proud of. I’m afraid that the block was due to a lack of com­pas­sion and empa­thy for the work­ers and oth­ers who depend on the ser­vice.

We here at SHoWLE would like to know what are you doing or plan to do to fix TARTA for long term suc­cess? I know pub­lic trans­porta­tion isn’t as flashy as a new employ­er or a ren­o­vat­ed hotel down­town, but many peo­ple who make up the back­bone of the city ride the bus and they vote.

One idea I had is to see if TARTA could be dis­solved and a new author­i­ty agency cre­at­ed to take over the assets and this new author­i­ty would start off fund­ed by a sales tax as most mod­ern pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tems are in this coun­try.

The coun­ty might see if a small per­cent­age of the hotel motel tax could be used to sup­ple­ment TARTA fund­ing until a bet­ter fund­ing source could be used.

The oth­er stake­hold­ers in the TARTA sys­tem need to pres­sure the lone hold out to allow a sales tax mea­sure to take place. A sales tax would be bet­ter than a prop­er­ty tax.

SHoWLE real­ly hopes that all mem­bers of the TARTA author­i­ty can work to solve this issue so Toledo won’t lose out future busi­ness­es who see a bro­ken pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem as a neg­a­tive when con­sid­er­ing where to locate.

 

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Pastor Protection Act Not Needed And Wrong For Ohio

Testimony giv­en to Ohio Senate com­mit­tee

TOLEDO, November 28, 2018 — Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) sub­mit­ted writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny oppos­ing Ohio House Bill 36, also known as the “Pastor Protection Act”. The bill would repeat 1st amend­ment pro­tec­tion giv­en to faith prac­ti­tion­ers but would also allow reli­gious groups to avoid pub­lic accom­mo­da­tion laws even if a prop­er­ty is used for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es.

“This is a very dan­ger­ous change in our civ­il rights,” SHoWLE President Douglas Berger stat­ed in writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny sub­mit­ted to the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee today. “This bill would allow reli­gious groups to dis­crim­i­nate against ANYONE that they feel doesn’t con­form to their reli­gious beliefs. Do we want to see a church food pantry turn­ing away a needy fam­i­ly because they are Mormon, since this par­tic­u­lar church doesn’t believe Mormons are Christians?”

Churches and prop­er­ty owned by reli­gious groups aren’t nor­mal­ly required to fol­low state or fed­er­al pub­lic accom­mo­da­tion laws when used explic­it­ly for reli­gious pur­pos­es. House Bill 36 does­n’t make such a dis­tinc­tion. The bill as writ­ten also would­n’t just affect same-sex cou­ples. A pas­tor per­form­ing wed­dings at the court house for a fee could decide not to sol­em­nize a mar­riage because the cou­ple in ques­tion are mem­bers of the mil­i­tary or a church fel­low­ship hall might require renters to only allow straight peo­ple to attend the event.

“Religious free­dom should be a shield to pro­tect peo­ple from per­se­cu­tion and not a sword to give spe­cial rights to a favored group that ends up per­se­cut­ing peo­ple not in that favored group, ” Berger wrote.

“This bill is a waste of time and tax­pay­er mon­ey for a prob­lem that doesn’t and will nev­er exist. Instead we would like to see the leg­is­la­ture work to make per­form­ing mar­riages more acces­si­ble by con­sid­er­ing and pass­ing Senate Bill 52 that also amends 3101.08 to allow any­one who reg­is­ters with the state to sol­em­nize a mar­riage.”

A pas­tor or priest will nev­er be forced to per­form a cer­e­mo­ny that does­n’t con­form to their deeply held reli­gious beliefs but HB 36 is being used to dis­crim­i­nate against those who don’t con­form to the favored reli­gion — name­ly LGBTQ peo­ple but the vague­ness of the law will allow all kinds of dis­crim­i­na­tion — with the force of the state.

The Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee is meet­ing this week and the hear­ing for oppo­nents of the bill is Thursday with a pos­si­ble com­mit­tee vote fol­low­ing.

“It’s say­ing some­thing when the major­i­ty par­ty is rush­ing to pro­tect pas­tors and priests from some­thing that will nev­er hap­pen while they con­tin­ue to ignore help­ing the vic­tims of cler­gy abuse,” Berger said.

While SHoWLE does­n’t believe a pas­tor or priest should be forced to do some­thing that vio­lates the 1st amend­ment, reli­gious groups should­n’t be allowed to arbi­trar­i­ly dis­crim­i­nate in the use of prop­er­ty it owns not being used for strict­ly reli­gious pur­pos­es.

Link to the  full writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny

About SHoWLE

The mis­sion of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is to pro­vide a sup­port­ive local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing an eth­i­cal, rea­son­able, and sec­u­lar approach to life through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

SHoWLE meets on the 2nd Saturday of each month and all gen­er­al meet­ings are free and open to the pub­lic. The web­site is humanistswle.org

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

Shawn Meagley — co-Founder
419–266-7945

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We Are Disappointed Ohio House Passed ‘Heartbeat’ Anti-Abortion Bill

Toledo, Ohio, November 15, 2018 — The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed that the Ohio House passed the so-called “Heartbeat” anti-abortion law, HB 258, on Thursday.

The Republican par­ty claims to be about pro­tect­ing our rights but it seems they want to deny basic bod­i­ly auton­o­my to the women of Ohio, a right that seems to be the default for male cit­i­zens of Ohio. There are no laws restrict­ing men’s acces­si­bil­i­ty to health care.

This same Republican dom­i­nat­ed state house, in the name of rights, stripped away reg­u­la­tions on the 2nd amend­ment, end­ed Ohio cities abil­i­ty to use Red Light cam­eras for traf­fic enforce­ment, and sup­port­ed the Reagan Tokes Act and “Sierah’s Law.”

Yet instead of work­ing to bet­ter the lives of all Ohioans equal­ly, the Republican lead­er­ship decid­ed to waste tax­pay­er mon­ey to pass a law that lacks any ratio­nal sci­en­tif­ic basis and most like­ly vio­lates pre­vi­ous fed­er­al court rul­ings. It is a law that would restrict the rights of at least half the pop­u­la­tion.

Humanists believe that pub­lic laws and poli­cies should not be based on reli­gious ide­ol­o­gy but should be based on sound objec­tive rea­sons.

SHoWLE has trou­ble rec­on­cil­ing a polit­i­cal par­ty that claims it wants to “make America great again” with the con­stant effort to inject them­selves into the med­ical deci­sions of women and their Doctors.

This needs to stop.

SHoWLE will con­tin­ue to sup­port women in Ohio who want to make their own med­ical deci­sions with­out reli­gious inter­ces­sion.

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
419–356-8568

Shawn Meagley — Vice President
419–266-7945

About SHoWLE:

The mis­sion of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is to pro­vide a sup­port­ive local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing an eth­i­cal, rea­son­able, and sec­u­lar approach to life through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

We envi­sion a Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan where sec­u­lar peo­ple are respect­ed and inte­grat­ed in broad­er soci­ety, live val­ues of rea­son and com­pas­sion, and enjoy a friend­ly human­ist com­mu­ni­ty.

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You Can Be A Lobbyist

At our November gen­er­al meet­ing, our guest Monette Richards, pres­i­dent of  CFI Northeast Ohio, gave us some tips and ideas on how to become cit­i­zen lob­by­ists after the recent elec­tion.

Richards explained that you real­ly only need to call the local office of your elect­ed offi­cials and make an appoint­ment to speak to them. Some rep­re­se­n­a­tives hold office hours where they meet peo­ple with­out a for­mal appoint­ment. When you go to the appoint­ment have some talk­ing points to give to the offi­cial or their staff.

The thing she stressed is to do it. Big donor mon­ey gets a lot of atten­tion and our only way to get through that noise is to per­son­al­ly speak to the elect­ed peo­ple or their staffs and let them know what you think.

Richards also said it is good to find estab­lished groups that are work­ing on a issue you feel strong­ly about and join them so you aren’t rein­vent­ing the wheel.

She also sug­gest­ed a book, The Citizen Lobbyist by Amanda Knief and Rev. Barry W. Lynn, as a good primer. And if you need to invent the wheel because there isn’t an estab­lished group, the Skeptical Activism Campaign Manual will help start the ball rolling.

SHoWLE mem­ber Peggy C. also sug­gest­ed a web­site called  5 Calls.

Our next gen­er­al meet­ing is December 8th.

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We Strongly Condemn The Tree Of Life Synagogue Terrorist Attack

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie strong­ly con­demns the ter­ror­ist attack that hap­pened at the Tree of Life Synagogue this past Saturday.

Our con­do­lences go out to the friends and fam­i­ly of the vic­tims and wish a speedy recov­ery of those injured.

No one should be sin­gled out, harassed, dis­crim­i­nat­ed against, or sub­ject­ed to any vio­lence because of their reli­gious beliefs, lack of reli­gious beliefs, or polit­i­cal views.

The mur­ders on Saturday are a prime exam­ple why our cur­rent polit­i­cal lead­ers must stop try­ing to scape­goat a group of peo­ple to score cheap polit­i­cal points for their base.

When some­one like our President of the United States sin­gles out peo­ple he does­n’t like with base­less accu­sa­tions, it gives cov­er for oth­ers to actu­al­ly act against mem­bers of that same group.

The mur­ders on Saturday, the shoot­ing in Kentucky, and ser­i­al mail bomb­ings in recent days shows the ter­ri­ble side of some in this coun­try. Humanists will con­tin­ue to work on reduc­ing tox­ic trib­al­ism and angry nation­al­ism. All of us need to work togeth­er to let those who want to do harm know that they will not be wel­come and will be resist­ed.

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SHoWLE Board of Directors Elect Officers for 2018–2019

The Board of Directors held their first meet­ing on October 16th and the first thing on the agen­da was elect­ing offi­cers for the year.

President: Doug Berger
Vice President: Shawn Meagley
Secretary: Margarette Webster
Treasurer: Larry Brach

Minutes of the meet­ing and oth­er news will be shared soon.

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Humanists Ask Lucas County To Get Something In Return For Rec Center

Earlier this week it was report­ed in the news that the Lucas County Board of Commissioners and the City of Maumee were talk­ing about the coun­ty giv­ing the Lucas County Recreation Center to Maumee. If a sale or trans­fer takes place, the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie thinks the coun­ty should get some­thing in return­like afford­able hous­ing.

President Douglas Berger sent a note to the Commissioners and copy to the Mayor of Maumee urge the coun­ty to add some con­di­tions to any sale or trans­fer.

Here is the full text of the note:

I am writ­ing to you on behalf of the mem­bers of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) con­cern­ing the plan to give the city of Maumee the Lucas County Recreation Center prop­er­ty at 2901 Key Street.

We are con­cerned that the coun­ty is con­sid­er­ing giv­ing away this valu­able piece of prop­er­ty so that the city of Maumee can sell it to the high­est bid­der for high end homes and con­dos.

We believe this is unfair to the cit­i­zens of Lucas coun­ty. Large sums of coun­ty tax dol­lars were spent and have been spent on the struc­tures and oth­er ameni­ties on the prop­er­ty.

We do agree that if the coun­ty does­n’t have the funds to con­tin­ue the upkeep then the Commissioners should con­sid­er dis­pos­ing of the prop­er­ty, but we feel that Lucas coun­ty cit­i­zens should get some­thing in return.

SHoWLE has some sug­ges­tions on any dis­pos­al of the prop­er­ty:

1. Any sale or trans­fer should include a require­ment that there be some afford­able hous­ing in the devel­op­ment mix. The coun­ty needs afford­able hous­ing and the Commissioners should do what they can to cre­ate more afford­able hous­ing.

2. Any dis­pos­al should be done at the mar­ket rate. Why should the city of Maumee make a prof­it off the coun­ty giv­ing the land away? If they build hous­es on the land the city will gain tax dol­lars.

3. It would be bet­ter for the cit­i­zens of Lucas coun­ty that the coun­ty sells the land direct­ly to a developer(s) at mar­ket rates, so the peo­ple of the coun­ty get back some of the mon­ey invest­ed in the prop­er­ty over the years.

4. The coun­ty could con­sid­er putting the new jail on the Rec Center prop­er­ty.

SHoWLE hopes the coun­ty will take our ideas and con­cerns into con­sid­er­a­tion espe­cial­ly about includ­ing afford­able hous­ing in any sale or trans­fer.

 

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We Achieved GuideStar Bronze Level

Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) was recent­ly rec­og­nized for our trans­paren­cy with a 2018 Bronze Seal on our GuideStar Nonprofit Profile!

GuideStar is the world’s largest source of infor­ma­tion on non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions. More than 8 mil­lion vis­i­tors per year and a net­work of 200+ part­ners use GuideStar data to grow sup­port for non­prof­its.

In order to get the 2018 Bronze Seal, SHoWLE shared impor­tant infor­ma­tion with the pub­lic using our pro­file on www.guidestar.org. Now our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and poten­tial donors can find out more about our mis­sion and pro­grams.

Check out our GuideStar Nonprofit Profile and tell us what you think:

Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie GuideStar Profile

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Our Pride Booth Introduced The Group To Many New People

Our booth at Toledo Pride festival

SHoWLE had our first infor­ma­tion­al booth at the Toledo Pride Festival on August 18th. Doug, Shawn, Margarette, and Larry had over 50 peo­ple show inter­est in the group.

It was a beau­ti­ful day with a large crowd vis­it­ing all the booths in Promenade Park in Downtown Toledo.

“Having a booth takes a lot of time and effort to pull off,” SHoWLE President Doug Berger explained. “For our first time, we did a great job. I have a lot ideas on how to improve our booth for the future.”

If you be inter­est­ed in help­ing staff our booth at oth­er events let Doug or Shawn know.