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The game of campaign
musical chairs has begun in earnest, as the City of Toledo
will hold elections for mayor and six at-large city council
seats on November 7. A primary election will take place on
September 12, 2017.
With voters tired of the
same ole-same ole and looking for fresh perspectives, this
current high stakes game of elimination could bring
monumental change to city government.
I had a conversation with
Gary Johnson, business owner and candidate for one of the
at-large council seats.
Perryman:
Let’s talk about some of Gary Johnson’s favorite things.
What are your favorite Toledo landmarks?
Johnson:
The lighthouse on Summit Street over in Point Place is my
newest favorite. I recently spent some time there doing a
photo shoot and just really enjoyed the history. They’ve
got the World War I, II and Vietnam War and the Iraq War
monuments.
Then, the courthouse has
always been a favorite because I heard the story of the war
that never took place right down there at the courthouse,
and so that’s some good history. And finally, Dorr Street,
knowing that that’s where the landmark African-American
community really was a mecca for social and economic life
where blacks were able to establish businesses and put black
small businesses on the map.
Perryman:
How about your favorite ethnic foods?
Johnson:
Favorite ethnic foods would have to be Mexican food. I love
my soul food and I don’t get enough of it because my wife
doesn’t cook soul food, so every now and then when somebody
tells me they got collard greens and cornbread and candied
yams, then I’m there. And if you put the chicken with it,
I’m in there. I also like Greek food.
Perryman:
What particular dishes? You mentioned from soul food you
like the collard greens and cornbread and chicken. What
about Mexican food?
Johnson:
For Mexican food, it’s the rice, beans, chorizo, it’s a good
breakfast food, and then getting some quesadillas is always
good and I especially love seafood tacos. If you go to San
Marcos on Broadway right down from the High Level Bridge,
they sell the fish tacos and they’re just fantastic.
Perryman:
Who are your favorite Civil Rights figures, past or present,
local or national?
Johnson:
I would say that Dr. Martin Luther King has to be my
favorite because when I was in elementary school in
Cleveland, I actually had the opportunity to meet him. He
and his convoy, and it was just three or four cars, and I
remember the old black Cadillacs that they had and they
pulled up right in front of school, and Dr. King came out
and the teachers had us all lined up in a semi-circle and he
came in through the school, right through the main doors and
we were all there, spoke to us for about 10 minutes and that
was my first exposure to him and civil rights.
And as I got older in
1965, ’66, I was living in Chicago with my mom and I
actually got to go down and be a part of the SCLC (Southern
Christian Leadership Conference) on 47th and South Park
Drive, it’s called Martin Luther King Drive now. But we
were licking and stuffing envelopes and doing things to just
keep that movement going. And then, obviously hanging around
with my mom’s family I got to understand a little bit more
of my Hispanic heritage, which was good for me so I just
started learning more about things like that, and also Cesar
Chavez.
Chaves was a phenomenal
leader. He actually starved himself and got the attention
needed so that Mexican people would start getting some civil
rights, and they were really being treated like second class
citizens for a long, long time and he kind of brought that
to the forefront and made sure that people understood that
they had human rights that they were entitled to that they
were not getting, so I kind of took him on as another hero.
Perryman:
So you have dual heritage?
Johnson:
Yes. My great-grandmother was Puerto Rican and I grew up in
an African-American neighborhood, grew up in the
African-American culture, and never really knew much about
the Hispanic culture and so when I moved to Toledo and
started doing things in the Hispanic community, I started
getting back in touch with some of those roots and it was
just neat to kind of see some of the things and that, and I
can remember my grandmother, but I really was too young to
have a whole lot of contact or get to know that culture, so
it was kind of neat getting to know it in a later age in
life.
Perryman:
So your grandmother was Puerto Rican and your parents were?
Johnson:
My mom was African American and Puerto Rican and my dad was
African American and he was Irish and Indian.
Perryman:
So who is Gary Johnson? What is the “soul” of Gary Johnson?
Johnson:
Gary Johnson likes to think of himself as Gary Johnson,
first and foremost. I’m not the type of person that likes
to be pigeonholed one way or the other. I believe in trying
to help those that need the help the most and that’s why I
spend a lot of my time in the African-American community.
I’ve kind of taken on the task of working with the Frederick
Douglass Center any chance that I get and I support the
initiatives that they do.
I also spend a lot of time
over at the Sofia Quintero Center, I’m a member of Latins
United, and so I try to give back to both communities. I
feel that I’m a better person for it, and rather than having
somebody label me as being black or Hispanic, I’m Gary. I’m
going to continue to work to try to make life better for the
people in Toledo. I moved my business here. I’m going to
continue to grow my business here in Toledo and I want to
try to help other people and I try to identify people that I
think would ever get an opportunity to do anything and try
to show them the way to get it done, try to give them
opportunities that they wouldn’t have gotten.
Perryman:
Please tell us a little about your business.
Johnson:
It’s called AFI Contractors, which stands for American
Flooring Installers and it is a flooring company and also a
painting company.
So we try to tackle
commercial jobs and right now we are having some really good
fortune. We got the contract to do ProMedica’s downtown
facility. We are also doing the towers out at Toledo
Hospital. We’re doing the Dana Facility, and so we’ve got
some real high profile projects, but we’ve also got some
smaller projects that we’re doing. We work for a lot of
different direct contractors. We do a lot of work at the
University of Toledo. We do a lot of work with a company
called Ridgestone, which is actually a residential builder,
but he does a lot of commercial storefronts. And so we’ll do
anything as small as $1500 and we’ve gotten contracts for
over $1 million dollars.
Perryman:
How long have you been in business?
Johnson:
We started in 2005 and then moved from Sylvania Township to
Toledo in 2008, and have been here ever since. We have 50
employees.
Perryman:
So please tell us why Toledo voters should elect Gary
Johnson to City Council?
Johnson:
I think City Council and Toledo in general needs someone who
realizes that it takes money to administer a lot of the
programs that we all desire. I want to make sure that we
have programs that address the poverty situation. I want to
make sure that the City of Toledo addresses the opiate
situation, crime and things like that, but it takes money.
You can’t do these things if you haven’t got money and so
you when you sit there and want to pass laws, nobody asks
where the money’s coming from. And I think if you put some
people that have some business acumen, put some people that
have some leadership acumen in there to start asking some of
these questions, we’ll go a lot further.
And I have a plan that I’d
like to introduce to Toledo and work with the mayor to bring
more small business to the City of Toledo by making Toledo a
city that is friendlier to small businesses. And if we do
that, then we can attract more small businesses to come into
the underserved areas, open up in the empty storefronts, and
that’s going to create job opportunities in those
underserved neighborhoods, and will invigorate our economy.
If we only build a great downtown and don’t push upward to
try to help the underserved neighborhoods, then we will just
be a city that has a great downtown. And then people will
continue to bypass the underserved areas to get there and
then go back out to the suburbs, and we’re not really going
to be that strong, friendly city that we wanna be.
And I’ve seen this happen
in Cleveland, I’ve seen it happen in Detroit, I’ve seen it
happen in Boston and Dallas, where when they work in these
underserved neighborhoods and build them back up, that their
city is very, very invigorated and there’s just a lot more
activity going on in the cities. I mean, look what we’re
doing on Adams Street. How many more young people could we
attract to the downtown area if we make it a little safer,
we light up the neighborhoods, we work with the landlords to
make affordable housing available to people who want to move
down here, but can’t afford to live at Tower on the Maumee.
So I just see an
opportunity to take advantage of the momentum and the
synergy that we’ve got going by building our way out instead
of trying to work our way in from the suburbs.
Perryman:
Thank you for your time.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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