Toledo, Ohio, Has a New State in Mind

Add Toledo to the list of places where there’s talk of dissolving old political bonds to form a more perfect union.

Frank Semersky, a plastics industry consultant, recently wrote a letter to The Blade newspaper suggesting that Toledo secede from Ohio and become “Michigan’s second largest city.”

He suggested that Toledo, a struggling northwest Ohio city of 330,000 on Lake Erie--and on the Michigan border--has more in common with Detroit, about 45 miles to the north, than with Columbus, Ohio’s capital 130 miles to the south.

Detroit and Toledo are both dependent on the auto industry. There’s also a natural affinity between the two cities among sports fans. The Toledo Mud Hens is a farm team for the Detroit Tigers in baseball, and the Toledo Storm is a farm team for the Detroit Red Wings in hockey.

Next to Semersky’s letter was an editorial, in which the newspaper complained that the state capital has ignored northwest Ohio, especially when it comes to sharing tax dollars.

Semersky’s tongue-in-cheek proposal, in an Aug. 30 letter to the editor, hardly constitutes a secessionist movement. But he said people are talking about it.

All this has come up before. The area was the object of a border dispute between Michigan and Ohio in 1835 known as the Toledo War.

“Toledo, Mich., sounds pretty good,” said John Truscotte, spokesman for Michigan Gov. John Engler.

Toledo Mayor John McHugh said he believes the city has been neglected, but he said secession isn’t the answer.

Secession is a hot topic elsewhere in the country. In California, 27 of the state’s 58 counties in June approved advisory proposals to divide the state in two; the Legislature could consider a division bill next year.

Residents of southwestern Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle have suggested forming a new state. Residents of the borough of Staten Island are to vote in 1993 on whether to secede from New York City.

And North Slope Borough in Alaska, which spans northern Alaska and includes the bulk of the state’s known oil reserves, is thinking about forming its own state.

Toledo would need approval from the Ohio and Michigan legislatures and Congress before being allowed to secede and join Michigan, said Steven Ludd, a political science professor at Bowling Green State University.

Frustration at federal and state government has led to all this talk of secession, Ludd said.

“There are people across the country who feel that their interests are not being served,” he said. “So like we’ve experienced across our history, people are attempting to find a way to unite to develop and protect their own self-interests.”