Toledo Local Flavor: CITIZEN PROFILE
John Henry Fullen
John Henry Fullen is a fixture in Toledo's thriving downtown scene. He is Executive Director of Toledo Sister Cities International, a former saxaphonist (in Poland), former pizza chef, and one of Toledo's great local advocates. John Henry answers some questions, gives us insight into our city's relationships with the world and tells us the best place to share a beer with our grandmothers.
Tell us about the Sister Cities projects going on right now.
75 years ago, Toledo embarked on the first Sister Cities relationship in the world, by linking with our namesake city, Toledo, Spain. Now over 1,500 U.S. cities are linked with over 2,000 international cities, making Toledo the birthplace of the world's largest citizen diplomacy movement. In the upcoming months, new exchanges with Toledo, Spain in the fields of education, culture and business will be planned in cooperation with the help of local institutions of all kinds. A group of 19 Toledoans, led by Toledo City Council President, Rob Ludeman with representatives of Toledo Sister Cities International and the Association of Two Toledos will travel to Spain for 75th anniversary program in late May. A group from Toledo, Spain is anticipated to visit Toledo, Ohio in September.
In addition to our community's long-standing relationship with Toledo, Spain, our city has Sister Cities relationships with Londrina, Brazil, Qinhuangdao, China, Szeged, Hungary, Poznan, Poland, Toyohashi, Japan, Tanga, Tanzania, Delmenhorst, Germany, in additional to a Sister County relationship with Csongrad County. The 9th Congressional District is linked with the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon.
The goals of Toledo Sister Cities International (TSCI) reach back to a challenge by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, supported by the City of Toledo, the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, ToledoEdison and the Private Industry Council, in 1992 to bring the various Sister Cities committees and programs together to help bring new opportunities for growth and international development to Toledo/Northwestern Ohio.
To link Toledo closer to the economic growth of China, TSCI is initiating a program to link small- and medium-sized businesses with Qinhuangdao, China. In April, TSCI helped organize a TASBA/Chamber of Commerce luncheon forum on building partnerships with China. Interested companies can present their profile, objectives and needs to TSCI to initiate a partnering process with their counterparts in China.
This May, Dr. Joseph Hara is taking a group of university students to our Sister City in Toyohashi, Japan for short-term professional internships and cultural orientation.
This summer, TSCI will host two youth leadership development programs, including LINC from July 9-30 (bringing 16 high school students from Iraq and Egypt) and the International Youth Academy from July 24-August 11 (bringing about 25 students from around the world).
Also, Bowsher High School will be sending about 20 students to Delmenhorst, Germany to improve their German language skills and cultural orientation, led by German language instructor Tony Dodge.
In addition to a continuous stream of professional and educational exchanges between Toledo and her Sister Cities, there are efforts to build new Sister Cities ties with cities in Canada, Mexico, Ukraine, India, and Jamaica.
Everyone is welcomed to join as a member of Toledo Sister Cities International for a fee of $25 per year for individuals. For more information, please visit our website at www.tsci.org.
Are the Sister Cities projects well supported by the Mayor or any other Toledo government offices?
Through a mixture of grants and in-kind contributions, the City of Toledo—through the Mayor and City Council, as well as Lucas County are strong supporters of Toledo Sister Cities International. Without the strong support of local government, local businesses and 100s of volunteers, Toledo would not have hosted the 2002 Sister Cities International Conference with over 650 delegates from 20+ countries. Toledo is recognized nationally as one of the most active cities in the country for Sister Cities programming.
It's commonly recognized that the loss of arts and intellectual scenes in any city coincide with a decline for that city economically, etc. In your opinion how is Toledo doing?
From my experience living north of Boston, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, DC, Krakow, Poland, I have never seen an institution with such strong community support and links, so many community education opportunities and university-ties as The Toledo Museum of Art.
Toledo has pockets of intense artistic and creative expression that seem unfettered by often shallow easterly and westerly coastal tendencies. Toledo's artistic voice will hopefully rise from the underground to greater community awareness through events such as Artomatic 419, dozens of grass-roots efforts and the efforts of the Arts Commission. I hope Toledo's artists will define what makes Toledo unique to the outside world—drawing from her character, from her natural resources, peoples, topography, and historical context and present a real face of Toledo—different from the occasional cheap shots by the national media.
Armchair quarterback Toledoans seem quick to criticize and belittle their own community, perhaps because they don't take the time to experience all that the city has to offer. Coming from Berkeley, CA to Toledo, I never expected the cultural diversity, activist spirit, raw cultural verve that Toledo has to offer. Somehow, Toledo seems divided into too many different camps, suburb and urban, by "all action" or "all talk," not in the middle. Those that do, are fiercely doing all they can do, with great passion and energy. Those who simply talk, seem often to talk about what "could be" or what "used to be," where we should be promoting what is now, and build on the good we largely ignore as a community. We definitely need to market ourselves better to the outside world, not just across the globe but across NW Ohio and SE Michigan.
What could the city of Toledo do to help slow the "brain drain"?
Since the question comes with a little "c" in the word city, I'm assuming the issue in question is what we can do as a community, as opposed to the municipal authorities of the City of Toledo. When I moved to Toledo from Berkeley, I was stunned by the common refrain "when are they going to do something about downtown?" and "when are they going to get more jobs here," with the constant emphasis on the omnipotent yet anonymous "they"—who every "they" may be. Everyone has to feel empowered to contribute to the solutions for Toledo's turn around. Support local innovation, creativity through the arts and culture. Create a new service, product, consider how to take advantage of the global markets. Support locally-owned stores, restaurants, the arts community. Entrepreneurship and innovation, which made Toledo in the period around 1900 a dynamic city, has to be supported, encouraged and championed.
Encouraging the younger generation to take responsibility, welcoming them in positions of authority, policy making and community leadership would help give a stronger sense of identity. Focusing development into a concentrated area in downtown to create a sense of real energy, density and delight—taking a cue from Lincoln Park, Chicago would go along way in giving a reason for people to stay in Toledo. I remember Clifford Murphy saying once that usually there is one main street in every big city with all the restaurants, shops, music spots, and we need that street for Toledo.
If all the different ethnic communities of Toledo reached back to their homelands to bring the next wave of immigration to Toledo, through small businesses, students, and investment, we can expect to see a flowering of new ideas, new perspectives, and new entrepreneurial energies.
We should also build some kind of alliance between the city and suburbs to respond to the challenges from global competition as a team, and not a fractious, petty, divided community. Discourage suburban sprawl, urban disinvestment, more shopping centers and wasteful expenditures in extending water lines, roads, and housing subdivisions into farmland and green open spaces. If the figures are true that 1/3 of the people living in the inner city are living in poverty and if it is true that only 40% of students in some high schools are graduating, then our systems are failing, and we need dramatic innovation and refocus of our efforts.
Return all downtown streets into 2-way streets, to encourage ease of use and calming of traffic (to help the small street front businesses get noticed and successfully attract business).
Build a strategic alliance bringing modern transit, increased cooperation and development planning between Toledo, Ann Arbor and Detroit to attract international investment, tourism, and population.
What's in store for Toledo in 2006; anything in particular you're looking forward to?
As the 75th anniversary of the relationship with Toledo, Spain, I'm looking forward to helping link as many businesses, cultural and educational institutions between the two Toledos. Also, I'm looking forward to learning from the perspectives of the visiting Iraqi and Egyptians students coming to Toledo this summer. Finally, I'm looking forward to the new Glass Center at TMA and seeing visiting glass blowers make magic happen with hot glass.
If you had a visitor in town who had never been to Toledo and you had 24 hours to show them the city, where would you take them?
- a sail down the Maumee River on a beautiful summer day—catching a breeze with seagulls floating above the sails
- Toledo zoo—maybe a Paul Simon Concert as a plus
- Toledo Museum of Art / CVA—the Great Gallery
- Glass Studios at TMA—to see Toledo's Glass Studio Movement in action
- A walk through Old West End—to gawk at the beautiful architecture
- University of Toledo—walking across the quad, an international student's event
- Downtown Latte—the friendliness of an open and welcoming community with Connie and Pam
- Leslie Adams Gallery—for one of Joe's amazing receptions
- Mancy's Steak—a taste of Toledo's history, none of that straw fed dry beef served in the West, but good corn feed beef of the Midwest.
- Toledo Sister Cities International (nice view of downtown from One Government Center, and an interesting international resource center)
- Murphy's—jazz to reconnect with life's rhythm
- Jeep Tour—to pick out the Liberty of choice
- Libby Glass Factory Tour—a ballet of dark steel mammoth robots spinning and twisting, shooting out fire and throwing flowing glass every split second
- The Polish Festival on LaGrange Street
- The Greek Festival
- The GAF Festival—Oak Shade Grove
- The Toledo School for the Arts—for a performance or two
- A tour of a few downtown lofts—RiverWest, Bartley
- A moonlit canoe ride from Side Cut Metropark
- Put-in-Bay, Windsor, and why not Toronto if we can squeeze the trip in...
- Dragon Boat Festival
- Art Tatum Jazz Festival
- Smuckers for pie
- Flying Rhino for Chocolates
- Roman's Deli for fatoosh and falafel
- The maritime simulator at One Maritime Plaza
- Maumee Bay State Park
You've been in Toledo for quite a while. Exactly how long and what do you miss most about the "good old days"?
Since I came to Toledo in 1990, I'm quite satisfied about missing a totally dead downtown, an empty waterfront (no waterfront dining), a shuttered Portside, the semi-abandoned one-way streets of St. Clair, Adams and Monroe, a small and outdated downtown library, no downtown baseball, and a lack of downtown living...Some of our Sister Cities are over 1,000 years old. Who's to say the Golden Years of Toledo are starting now through the year 3006?
Your favorite drink and where in Toledo to get it...
Gunpowder Green Tea at Downtown Latte, a six-pack of Milwaukee's Best with my Grandma and friends at Rudy's Hot Dogs at Five Points, a toast of Wyborowa at Midnight on New Year's at Georgio's.
