Right Voices

Toledo mayor; city council respond to Alpha Company decision
Marines react to Toledo banishment

UPDATE II: Roger Kimball, Instapundit, and Michelle Malkin are covering this. Tons more blog reacts at Memeorandum.

Cao has more details with a must read here.

UPDATE: Heartfelt appreciation goes out to Cao who provided this link that actually offers more questions than answers, unless I am to believe that the Mayor is just lying through his teeth. This has been going on since 2004. This isn’t a new mayor, nor a new training exercise. It appears that the only thing new here is the fight this mayor will get for his stupidity:

Toledo police knew days in advance about their plans for a three-day exercise. Yet somehow the memo never made it to Mayor Finkbeiner, who ordered the Marines out yesterday afternoon just minutes before their buses were to arrive.

“The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people,” said Brian Schwartz, the mayor’s spokesman.

“He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area.”

The mission of 1/24 4th Marine Division is to provide trained combat and combat support personnel and units to augment and reinforce the active component in time of war, national emergency, and at other times as national security requires; and have the capability to reconstitute the Division, if required.

The Reservists’ visit was no surprise to Toledo police, who Tuesday issued a news release to media outlets on behalf of the Marines that asked Toledoans not to be startled by the sight of camouflaged soldiers toting M16 rifles.

Police officers were awaiting the Marines’ arrival yesterday afternoon and had set up a roadblock at Madison Avenue and Huron Street.
“There was apparently a break in communication somewhere between the mayor and the police department,” Mr. Schwartz said.

“Where that break was, we don’t know yet.”

Maj. Jeffrey O’Neill, the company’s commanding officer, said he was disappointed by how events played out yesterday, especially because Toledo had been a gracious host for Marine exercises in the past.

“You can go to military ranges for live fire [exercises], but there’s no way to duplicate the urban jungle unless you actually train inside a city,” Major O’Neill said.

Mr. Schwartz said the Marines declined Mayor Finkbeiner’s alternative offer for them to practice their urban patrol tactics inside the former Jones Junior High School, 550 Walbridge Ave.

Major O’Neill said he was not aware of such an offer.

Southern Sass and The Voice have more commentary

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This is the only info I can find at this point. I will follow up when I have more info:

Marines reservists from Grand Rapids were forced to cut short their training exercise in Toledo Friday.

The Company A 1st Battalion 24th Marines were conducting an urban warfare exercise at the Madison Building and Promenade Park. Then someone from the mayor’s office told the 200 Marines that the training area was no longer available and to leave the city.

The group was supposed to continue the training on Saturday as well.

So Alpha Company packed up its gear and headed back to Michigan without a reason for the departure. 24 Hour News 8 was at their base in Grand Rapids when five busloads of reservists returned around 9 p.m.

This from a Toledo affiliate of Fox News:

FOX Toledo News has learned a City of Toledo official has told Company A, 1st Battalion 24th Marines reservists of Grand Rapids, Mich., who were conducting an urban warfare exercise Friday in Downtown Toledo, to leave.

The Toledo Police Department has confirmed that the weekend military exercise, conducted by a weapons company detachment from Grand Rapids, Mich., in Toledo’s downtown streets, has been cancelled.

Police tell FOX Toledo News that an unnamed city official told the Marines to pack up what they were doing and leave the city.

Two sources tell FOX Toledo News that Mayor Carty Finkbeiner made the decision. Brian Schwartz, the mayor’s spokesperson, had no comment.

Major Dan Whisnant, an officer with the reserve unit conducting the exercise downtown, confirms it was the Office of the Mayor of Toledo who told the Marines to stop and leave the city.

Right before 5 p.m., “Alpha Company” packed up their stuff near the Madison Avenue, Huron and Erie streets corridor and Promenade Park, and headed back to their camp in Michigan.

While driving back, the reservists were told that their training area in Downtown Toledo was “no longer available.”

Major Jeffrey T. Brooks, 1 24th Marines Weapons Company’s commanding officer in Perrysburg, tells FOX Toledo News that the reserve battalion unit is looking into why the city asked them to leave.

About 200 Grand Rapids, Mich., reservists from Company A, 1 24th Marines were using the Madison Building and Promenade Park for military exercises Friday. They were set to continue their urban warfare exercise Saturday.

A section of Madison Avenue, between Huron and Erie streets, was blocked off by Toledo Police for the Marines’ training purposes, forcing motorists to seek alternate routes downtown during the afternoon rush.

According to its website Alpha Company’s mission is “to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy’s assault by fire and close combat.”

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner seems to have a behavioral problems that seem to be coming back, and it appears that there was at least one Marine that he couldn’t stand..I will be following up as more becomes available:

Meanwhile, News 11 spoke with several city council members Tuesday — Frank Szollosi, Michael Ashford, Mike Craig, and Rob Ludeman — all of whom expressed concern that Mayor Finkbeiner is returning to the behavior that made him controversial in the past.

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