Mayor snubs Marines, irks many

Veterans flooded Toledo’s offices with complaints.

TOLEDO (AP) — Turning away a squad of U.S. Marine Corps reservists planning a weekend of training downtown has put the city’s mayor in the crossfire of veterans.

Even some supporters wonder what he was thinking.

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner told the Marine unit, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., to turn around when they arrived in town Friday. He said he didn’t want them downtown where they could scare unsuspecting visitors and office workers.

City council members have sent an apology to the Marines, and the local visitors bureau offered the unit’s 200 members a free hotel stay, restaurant gift certificates and a visit to the zoo.

“I’m shaking I’m so upset,” said Ron Hernandez, a former Marine who served in Vietnam. “It’s a slap in the face.”

Still, Finkbeiner said he’d do it again.

The three-term mayor has a history of embarrassing gaffes, including pondering years ago whether to move deaf people near the airport to quiet noise complaints. He later offered a tearful apology. His temper and decision making sometimes gets the best of him, too.

The mayor said he didn’t know the city’s police department had approved the latest urban warfare training until a few hours before the Marines arrived. He said he didn’t mean to inconvenience the unit, which had to cancel the exercise and return home.

A similar training exercise two years ago caught people off guard when they saw soldiers in camouflage running down sidewalks, crouching behind buildings and aiming their weapons, he said.

Maj. Dan Whisnant, the battalion’s commander, said the training is vital to the unit, which was deployed to Iraq twice in the past two years. They’ve trained in the city four times since 2004.

Finkbeiner insisted that he’s not unpatriotic, saying anyone questioning his loyalty was a “baboon” after taking on criticism from bloggers and talk show hosts nationwide.

He also offered this week to allow the battalion’s Marines to return for training outside of downtown.

None of that appeased veterans who flooded city offices with complaints, some saying they’d never step foot in the town again.

“The timing of this was horrible, to do it when they got here,” said Jerry Knapp, a former Marine whose son is serving in Iraq.

City Councilman D. Michael Collins, a former Marine, said the mayor’s banishment has “given us an image that is not accurate or fair.”

Collins, though, doesn’t think Finkbeiner meant any disrespect toward the Marines. He said the city should have told downtown business owners and residents about the training and let it continue.

“The mayor was in a bad situation,” Collins said. “He was surprised there was going to be a military operation.”

Finkbeiner’s string of memorable missteps goes back to 1994 when he was first elected mayor of the state’s fourth-largest city whose most famous soldier — Cpl. Max Klinger — was portrayed by Toledo native Jamie Farr on television’s “M*A*S*H.”

Finkbeiner once settled a lawsuit against the city with a former employee who accused him of hitting her with a mug, and he asked for a boycott of a pizza chain because he said it didn’t support the city. Stores responded by offering “Crazy Carty Bread.”

Not everyone thinks his stand against the Marines’ plan to simulate firefights and ambushes, and fire blank ammunition downtown was a mistake.

“This isn’t about being for or against our military,” said Jan Moore, a lifelong resident. “This is about avoiding potential danger.”

She and her husband were downtown three years ago during a training exercise when a soldier in fatigues sprinted past their car with his gun drawn. Other soldiers then surrounded a building, she said.

“We didn’t know what the heck was going on,” she said. “My mind was going crazy.”

Five minutes of panic passed before they figured out the city wasn’t under siege. “Our first thought wasn’t that this was just training,” she said.