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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.

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First Humanist Nooner A Success

Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie(SHoWLE) plans to have many activ­i­ties that don’t fit into the clas­sic gen­er­al meet­ing for­mat. Doug Berger, SHoWLE President, start­ed off the non-meeting pro­gram­ing by host­ing a lunch get togeth­er at a local restau­rant.

The first Humanist Nooner, as it is called, took place at the Panera Bread in Maumee. Even though only four peo­ple showed up, Doug con­sid­ers it a suc­cess.

“Even if one per­son shows up I would mark it as a win,” Doug said. “You can’t start some­thing from scratch and expect a hun­dred peo­ple to show up. I knew that when start­ing up SHoWLE itself.”

Those that attend­ed were hap­py with the good ser­vice and the con­ver­sa­tion includ­ed pol­i­tics, reli­gion, and why Sylvania Township hates TARTA.

Doug will host these lunch­es each month on the 3rd Wednesday. He is open to sug­ges­tions for the next loca­tion to check out.

If you want to host your own event, use our con­tact form to send a mes­sage to Doug. The more events there are the bet­ter for the group.

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SHoWLE Will Not Take St. Anthony Land Bank Pledge

screenshot of Toledo officials and Rep. Marcy Kaptur at a press conference demanding the Diocese of Toledo save St. Anthony church

*For Immediate Release*

Toledo, Ohio, June 22, 2018 — The Lucas County Land Bank, a coun­ty agency, vot­ed to accept the dona­tion of St. Anthony Church from the Diocese of Toledo con­tin­gent on an engi­neer­ing inspec­tion and a call for writ­ten pledges to help in rede­vel­op­ing the build­ing. At this time the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) has decid­ed NOT to make a pledge.

“Although the church and state issues we were con­cerned about seem to be abat­ed. We are still trou­bled with the city and coun­ty tak­ing on this project with­out any con­crete plans,” said SHoWLE President Doug Berger.

“We do feel that the Padua Center and the neigh­bor­hood should not only have a seat at the table but should be tak­ing the lead in any plans for the build­ing. We did­n’t feel it was appro­pri­ate telling them how to reuse the build­ing.”

Berger added that SHoWLE will be mon­i­tor­ing the issue and should it look like out­siders are min­i­miz­ing or ignor­ing neigh­bor­hood input then it is pre­pared to sup­port the neigh­bor­hood.

“Whatever is done with the build­ing has to ben­e­fit the whole neigh­bor­hood and not just the out­siders who ‘saved’ it,” Berger said.

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

Shawn Meagley — co-founder
419–266-7945

 

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We Are Now Offically A Chapter Of The American Humanist Association!!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is now an offi­cial chap­ter of the American Humanist Association

(Toledo, Ohio, June 7, 2018) — The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) had their chap­ter appli­ca­tion approved by the American Humanist Association.

Founded in 1941 and head­quar­tered in Washington, D.C., the American Humanist Association (AHA) works to pro­tect the rights of human­ists, athe­ists, and oth­er non­the­is­tic Americans. The AHA advances the eth­i­cal and life-affirming world­view of human­ism, which—without beliefs in any gods or oth­er super­nat­ur­al forces—encourages indi­vid­u­als to live informed and mean­ing­ful lives that aspire to the greater good of human­i­ty.

“This is a major foun­da­tion­al stone we need­ed for SHoWLE to have a chance at a strong start and become a sus­tain­able long term active group in north­west Ohio and south­east Michigan,” SHoWLE President Doug Berger said. “The AHA does a great job sup­port­ing their local chap­ters and it will be a great asset for Humanists in Toledo.”

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

Shawn Meagley — co-founder
419–266-7945

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Humanists Ask Toledo Officials Not To Insert Themselves In Saving St. Anthony

screenshot of Toledo officials and Rep. Marcy Kaptur at a press conference demanding the Diocese of Toledo save St. Anthony church

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) urge Toledo city offi­cials and US Rep. Marcy Kaptur not to insert them­selves in the effort to save St. Anthony Catholic Church on Nebraska Avenue.

“Seeing Rep. Kaptur and cur­rent and past Toledo elect­ed offi­cials stand­ing at a podi­um with the city of Toledo seal, demand­ing the Diocese of Toledo not tear down St. Anthony is trou­bling,” Doug Berger, President of SHoWLE said.

The sep­a­ra­tion of church and state not only pro­tects the gov­ern­ment from reli­gious intru­sion but also pro­tects reli­gion from some intru­sion by the gov­ern­ment.

“It sets a bad prece­dent, espe­cial­ly as orga­nized reli­gion con­tin­ues to lose mem­bers,” Berger said. “The City of Toledo can’t save all the old church­es in the city and when it choos­es not to then that is going to be a no win sit­u­a­tion.”

The Diocese of Toledo, in a state­ment, won­dered where the calls to save the build­ing were for the past 13 years after it closed and as the build­ing con­tin­ued to dete­ri­o­rate.

“The gov­ern­ment offi­cials demand­ing the build­ing not be torn down will stick the Diocese with the repair bills should they pre­vail. The only way for tax dol­lars to be spent on a ren­o­va­tion and/or reuse would require the prop­er­ty be sold to a non-religious enti­ty at a fair mar­ket price,” Berger said.

The mis­lead­ing state­ment by a com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber that demo­li­tion would be a health and safe­ty issue is also a prob­lem.

“If the build­ing were kept, it would still need any asbestos and lead paint removed and it would have to meet mod­ern build­ing stan­dards. I don’t think the Diocese hired a fly by night demo­li­tion com­pa­ny who would­n’t take the required pre­cau­tions in tear­ing down such an old build­ing.”

The build­ing is his­tor­i­cal and sig­nif­i­cant to many peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty but there has­n’t been any spe­cif­ic plans from the peo­ple want­i­ng to keep it.

SHoWLE believes that Rep. Kaptur and the city of Toledo should­n’t pick sides in the issue and they should stay neu­tral as called for in the 1st amend­ment.

Related sto­ry:

Kaptur, Kapszukiewicz call on dio­cese to halt St. Anthony demo­li­tion

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Secular Humanists Make The Newspaper

screenshot Front of the Religion section Toledo Blade 06/02/2018

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie had a nice write up in the reli­gion sec­tion of the Toledo Blade. The print ver­sion took up near­ly half a page and was above the fold. We could nev­er afford adver­tis­ing that good.

To ques­tion whether morals and val­ues can exist apart from the­ol­o­gy cuts to the heart of sec­u­lar human­ism. While athe­ism sim­ply denotes that an indi­vid­ual does not believe in God, sec­u­lar human­ism “kind of takes that a step fur­ther,” Ms. Meagley said; it answers the “now what” ques­tion that, for some, fol­lows when a per­son comes to terms with a dis­be­lief in God.

Secular humanism’s affir­ma­tion of an eth­i­cal life sug­gests par­al­lels between the ways that a con­sci­en­tious reli­gious adher­ent and a con­sci­en­tious human­ist would live. But a human­ist, sig­nif­i­cant­ly, would do so with­out tying these views and val­ues to the­ism or the super­nat­ur­al.

“Good Without God”

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First Meeting A Success

Nice Crowd at first meeting

Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) met for the first time offi­cial­ly on May 5th. We had a dozen human­ists inter­est­ed in the group and mov­ing for­ward.

The inter­est was so great that we were able to have enough AHA mem­bers to sign our chap­ter appli­ca­tion and we had sev­er­al peo­ple inter­est­ed in serv­ing on the steer­ing com­mit­tee. This com­mit­tee will help devel­op the for­mal struc­ture of the group as we become a chap­ter.

“I think it shows how need­ed a group like this is in Toledo and our PR cam­paign helped get the word out,” Co-founder Doug Berger said. “I am over the moon at the num­ber who attend­ed today with­out any pre­vi­ous his­to­ry.”

Berger led the meet­ing and gave a pre­sen­ta­tion about the group and what he would like to see hap­pen in the future. There was a good dis­cus­sion peri­od where the con­sen­sus was that there needs to be a group that can help pro­tect the 1st amend­ment and con­cern that our group is too small to be effec­tive.

“I under­stand the con­cern,” Berger said lat­er. “We need to start small and grow into some of the ideas I have for the group. I have no prob­lem with that.”

The next meet­ing will be on June 16th 2018 at 11 am at The 577 Foundation 577 East Front St.  Perrysburg, Ohio 43551 (just west of East Boundary St.)

Berger will also being doing a pre­sen­ta­tion about church and state issues in the Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan area.

All meet­ings of SHoWLE are free and open to the pub­lic.

Here is a clip from the Toledo Blade on May 5th:

Meeting announcement in the Blade
Religion Section Toledo Blade 05/05/2018