Toledo Free Press

28/12/2025

Letter to the editor: Consumer Financial Data Rule Misses the Mark

By Mark Sobczak

As a former member of both the Toledo City Council and Teamsters Local 20, I understand firsthand how oppressive federal rulemakings can hurt working families. I am particularly concerned about the direction of the rulemaking for Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and its potential impact on Ohioans.

While the Dodd-Frank Act aims to protect consumers from bad actors, the rule implementing Section 1033 puts consumer data at risk. It hands Big Tech too much power over consumer data, allowing this data to be shared with aggregators who can monetize and profit from it.

Read more: https://toledofreepress.com/letter-to-the-editor-consumer-financial-data-rule-misses-the-mark/

28/12/2025

Agriculture and livestock production touch every county in Ohio. In Lucas County, urban sprawl continues to press against the remaining farmland, yet agriculture does persist—livestock farms, too.

Summer county fairs fuel 4-H livestock projects. Local butchers depend on local meat, and an increasing share of consumers seek to buy directly from producers.

The county’s 364 farms, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, remain foundational to the region, producing meat, milk, eggs, and fiber. It also supports a thriving community of hobby farmers. While livestock numbers aren’t the highest in Lucas County, larger livestock operations bordering Toledo keep grocery shelves stocked.

Read more: https://toledofreepress.com/producing-livestock-in-toledos-backyard/

23/12/2025

There’s symbolism in the colors of Christmas, symbolism that’s rooted in nature and reaches back centuries. Symbolic or not, the mere sight of a bright red male cardinal against a backdrop of pure, white falling snow is simply stunning.

It’s easy enough to attract cardinals to your home with a basic bird feeder, or head to one of the six “Windows on Wildlife” in your Metroparks Toledo to enjoy watching them and a host of other native wildlife. Look for them at Wildwood Preserve, Pearson, Swan Creek Preserve, Side Cut, Oak Openings Preserve, and Secor Metroparks.

📸 Photo by Metroparks Toledo Nature Photographer Art Weber.

22/12/2025

Each Toledo City Council member said their closing remarks for the last meeting of the year. Most notable of the bunch were Komives’s closing remarks, where he said he had observed Toledo Police chasing the UHaul truck through the streets on Dec. 10 and was displeased with the response.

Komives said he was stopped at Monroe and Central when the U-Haul sped past him.

“I do have some real concerns about the experience,” he said. “All these things cost money and it was chaotic…It was not okay.”

The At-Large Council Member said he had asked the mayor to address the police department concerning the chase.

Read more: https://toledofreepress.com/inside-toledo-city-council-funding-for-cold-weather-response/

22/12/2025

Letter to the editor: Why we protest

I have lived a good part of my life in Toledo, and in Tucson, where I presently live with my wife, Mitch. Our two sons graduated from Maumee Valley Country Day School, a wonderful school that I headed from 1994-2005.

I have always been an activist. I have supported civil rights and human rights in America. I campaigned to reduce nuclear weapons and eliminate female ge***al mutilation around the world. I have spent most of 2025 organizing protests against President Trump in Tucson, as others have in Toledo.

It has been a noteworthy year of protests in our country. It started with the TESLA protests, then HANDS OFF (3 million protesters), NO KINGS 1 (5 million) and NO KINGS 2 (7 million in 2,700 locations). NO KINGS 2 was the largest one-day demonstration in U.S. history.

People ask why are we, Mitch at 78 and me at nearly 84, organizing protests at our ages.

Our two fathers and one mother volunteered to serve in World War II. My mother, an actress, entertained troops at USO clubs and in particular, the Hollywood Canteen. They took great pride in defending the world’s oldest continuous democracy and, like our parents, we will fight to preserve it.

It is our belief that Donald Trump is moving at a rapid pace to change our democracy to an autocracy, “a system of government ruled by one person with absolute power.”

At this time, the legislative branch does his bidding. The rubber-stamping Republicans control both houses of Congress and their members on the whole (Marjorie Taylor Greene is a recent exception) have yet to challenge his most egregious and, some say, corrupt actions.

Extraordinarily, the Supreme Court, the interpreters of our U.S. Constitution, has held that the president is above the law, giving Trump a free rein. Fortunately, the district and appeal courts have issued more than 200 rulings or orders that have partly or wholly blocked Trump’s initiatives and executive orders.

Read more: https://toledofreepress.com/letter-to-the-editor-why-we-protest/

22/12/2025

Local business owner Stacy Jurich was recognized during the last Toledo City Council Meeting of the year, on Tuesday.

The owner of Boochy Mama’s Kombucha addressed the council with her arms wrapped around her five-year-old son, Isaiah Cohen.

Jurich said that, as a business owner “in the trenches,” it has taken years to grow the business, and she did feel honored by the council recognizing her.

“I started in my home kitchen,” she said, adding that she grew the business out of a church basement in the Old West End. “That’s about as Toledo as you can get.”

Read more: https://toledofreepress.com/inside-toledo-city-council-funding-for-cold-weather-response/

19/12/2025

Waterville Township OKs 12-Month Data Center Moratorium

Citing concerns about the drain on the electrical grid and water supply, as well as the impact on quality of life, Waterville Township trustees voted unanimously on Dec. 17 to impose a 12-month moratorium on issuing permits for data centers.

“We don’t want to be behind the eight ball, scrambling to come up with conditions,” explained trustee Julie Theroux, who introduced the moratorium language as written by the Columbus law firm hired by trustees.

Read more: https://toledofreepress.com/waterville-township-passes-12-month-moratorium-on-data-centers/

18/12/2025

18/12/2025

While you’re out and about enjoying our winter wonderland, keep your eyes open for the flowers. Yep, the flowers. You’re looking for the late-season blooms on witchhazel, a large shrub found in our Metroparks Toledo woodlands.

The bright yellow scraggly-looking blooms are small but distinctive, a welcome sight for any of our insect pollinators that might emerge with an occasional warm snap and be on the hunt for something to nectar on.

Witchhazel has many practical uses, mostly in ways that benefit our skin. It’s also the “witch” in water witching, a folksy and largely debunked method of dowsing to detect underground water.

📸 Art Weber

18/12/2025

In this episode of Make It Happen, Mike Vanderpool sits down with Gary Thompson from the Regional Growth Partnership to unpack one of the most talked-about topics in Northwest Ohio right now: data centers. What are they? Why are they being proposed here? Do they help or hurt electricity prices, water usage, and local communities? And what should residents actually know?

This conversation breaks down power grids, zoning, pipelines, job growth, water usage, tax agreements, and regional development in a way the public rarely gets to hear — directly from someone who has been at the center of negotiations for years.

In this episode of Make It Happen, Mike sits down with Gary Thompson from the Regional Growth Partnership to unpack one of the most talked-about topics in No...

16/12/2025

Thank you to everyone who has donated so far during our NewsMatch campaign! We are so close to meeting our $16,000 goal by December 31st. Right now, your donations are doubled, and if you become a Patreon subscriber, your monthly membership fee counts x12! Learn more at toledofreepress.com/support

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16/12/2025

Waterville City Council passed a six-month moratorium on data centers while Monclova Township trustees continue to answer questions from residents concerned that such a development will go in around the Shops at Fallen Timbers. These are just a few of the updates from December meetings in the Anthony Wayne area.

Read more here: https://toledofreepress.com/anthony-wayne-news-waterville-approves-6-month-moratorium/.