For what it's worth, I endorsed former Toledo Fire Chief and State Fire Marshall Michael Bell in this year's mayoral election. Bell, a Democrat, ran as an Independent against endorsed Democrat and former City Councilman Kevin Wilkowski.

I have disliked Wilkowski since he conspired to unseat my City Councilman as Council President with presiding mayor Carlton Finkbeiner (there is a Trivial Pursuit question that asks the question: "The mayor of what city wanted to move all the deaf people by the airport?" and the answer is Toledo because Mayor Finkbeiner actually suggested this during one of his previous TWO terms!).

Mayor Elect Bell has experience supervising a large city department with a $500 million budget. Wilkowski, on the other hand, as Bell's TV ads pointed out, has never supervised ANYthing. Wilkowski also left his position as County Commissioner and as School Board member.

A future Jeopardy question under "Midwestern Mayors" might be: "Called King Kong by The Mayor of Toledo While He Served As the City's Fire Chief.' Answer: "Who is Michael Bell?" Shortly after that happened, Bell retired and accepted the position as State Fire Marshall.

Wilkowski's biggest mistake during the campaign was to accuse Bell of wanting to raise taxes, opening the door for Bell's campaign to bring up tax rises Wilkkowski voted for as County Commisioner. I also didn't  like Wilkowski using his wife, Barbara, as a shield during the campaign.

However, he never once had the presiding mayor campaign for him due to Finkbeiner's current unpopularity, although it's very certain that he is securely in Finkbeiner's pocket and a vote for Wilkowski would have guaranteed four more years of "Carty" running Toledo.

Bell had the support of the police and fire departments, not just because he was former fire chief, but also because Finkbeiner laid off a number of police officers and firefighers to balance the budget and campaigned to prevent money set aside for road repair to be used to pay the salaries of police officers and firefighters City Council wanted to bring back on the job.

That was voted down in September and I part of the majority that voted against it. The State of Ohio passed all three statewide issues: one to support veterans of the Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars; one to  change the state consitution and allow casino gambling in a state that voted against it in four previous elections;  and an issue to allow huge agribusiness corporations to control the quality of food in the state.

I voted for the first two and agains the last one. Locally, we passed an issue to re-fund the Area Office on Aging, which I may be needing soon. We also voted for six City Council members and three School Board members this year. Three of the people I voted for won City Council seats and ALL THREE of my picks for School Board won.

So this election was a good one for me. Much better than last years's when I was left feeling out of synch with the rest of the country celebrating the election of Barack Obama. I voted for Green Party Candidate Cynthia McKinney.

This year, all but three of my candidates won; and the most important, Toledo's mayor elect, was the one I personally endorsed.  What a difference a year makes!