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Steve Herwat, Toledo deputy mayor of operations, told council more than half of that money should be used to keep the city’s 2010 general fund in the black.

The city must divide the money into two funds – $654,743 will go into Toledo’s capital improvement budget and $383,870 will go into an account commonly known as “2-percent money.”

“We set aside 2 percent of our water and sewer revenue for a fund to support [water] infrastructure for development,” Mr. Herwat said.

Penn National, based in Wyomissing, Pa., plans to tear up a $1 million road, storm sewer line, and a public bicycle path, paid for by the city of Toledo, in order to build its planned casino and parking structure on former industrial riverfront land on Miami Street near I-75.

The city must deposit the reimbursement money back into the accounts from which it was taken to build the road and sewer. But since voters last year gave the city more leeway over how capital improvement money can be spent, the city can redirect that capital improvement into the general fund, Mr. Herwat said.

“We passed the 2010 budget assuming we would use $7 million in [capital improvement] money to balance the budget,” Mr. Herwat said.

Council could vote next week at its regular meeting to accept the $1.03 million.

During yesterday’s agenda review meeting, Councilman Joe McNamara suggested some of the 2-percent money be directed toward housing.

“A portion used to be set aside for housing and that was changed a long time ago,” Mr. McNamara said.

Council yesterday also forwarded proposed changes of regulations for dogs and their owners in the city of Toledo to one of its committees for review.

Council’s law and criminal justice committee will on Aug. 5 review a nine-page “dog ordinance” from the Lucas County’s Dog Warden Advisory Committee that would replace and significantly expand the policies that have existed in the city’s “vicious-dogs law,” which is four paragraphs long.

Members of the committee have worked since February to write the ordinance proposal at the request of Mayor Mike Bell, who sought a replacement for the existing dog law after a judge struck it down in January.

Toledo Municipal Court Judge Michael Goulding found the law’s restrictions on “pit bulls” and “pit bull” mixes to be unconstitutional, including the one-only limit and the requirement that “pit bulls” be leashed and muzzled when off owners’ property.

The new proposal would apply a set of various restrictions to misbehaving dogs of any breed – not just “pit bulls.” Ohio is the only state that deems “pit bulls” inherently vicious.

Other features of the proposal include an escalating scale of fines for unprovoked dog bites; restrictions against leaving a dog unattended for more than 24 hours, and mandatory spay or neuter surgery at owners’ expense for dogs caught running at large more than once.

Contact Ignazio Messina at:
imessina@theblade.com
or 419-724-6171.