And now the 490 with Gretchen DeBacker, Matt Killum, And Kevin Mullen, oh 419, presented by Whetro Wealth Management and powered by our friends at WGTE.

I'm Kevin Mullen.

Gretchen Debacker might kill him.

It's a mayor Monday edition here of the 419, an opportunity for us to, take a tour around northwest Ohio, get a chance to meet, the different elected officials that lead our great communities here in the region.

And we are going to be joined by the mayor of defiance.

Mayor Mike McCann, for the show today.

Excited to have a conversation with him.

And this is a segment that I, just genuinely enjoy seeing.

We had a chance.

The the first the inaugural, mayor Monday was Tim Pedro.

We sort of deviated a little bit the following week and did a mayor Monday on a Tuesday.

With, with Marcy Kaptur.

An enjoyable conversation with her and, you know, an opportunity for us to dive in.

And for me to get a chance to, to meet a community that I admittedly don't spend a whole lot of time in.

Sure.

And so excited to learn a little bit more about the defiance area and some of the great things that they've got going on.

Also, other the some of the stories have, similar theme to them or thread, but these are people that have chosen to do these largely, either by volunteer or a job on top of a full time daytime job.

And towns that are, you have comparatively maybe a little smaller in size.

So there's no escaping the conversations.

From a community standpoint that you're having at the hardware store, you're having it in the grocery store.

You're being you're having to coach your kids little League games and also talking about it.

Infrastructure challenges.

So, that, that part of it, I think is really a fascinating component.

That idea of the Little League like that.

It just kind of hit hit home, right?

Thinking about the interaction that, you know, we're going to disagree each other at about, you know, yelling about balls and strikes.

And then we're going to show up in the office and, you know, we're going to yell about, you know, sidewalks and roads that train and everything else.

But the reality is, at the end of the day, and this is, you know, some of the maybe one of the underlying themes of this program is this is where we all live.

That's right.

This is ou community.

We're all neighbors.

I agree disagree.

Have the same vision for how we get to the future or not.

It's it's all at the end of the day.

We all have to live next to each other.

And so we might as well get to know each other.

Find out.

You know what makes us tick.

And I think the more I genuinely believe, the more we know each other, the more we like each other.

That's my experiment with you.

To at least I don't know if it's working so far.

Not great.

Yeah.

And also the advertising for DoorDash.

And being a records chef.

Oh my goodness.

It's going to be a great show.

We certainly appreciate, the mayor for making the drive in to join us.

And, we'll talk about, that and more.

Yeah.

Program is available three different ways, of course.

You can catch it, every morning, 7 a.m.

a YouTube channel, 3 p.m.

on FM 91 in Toledo.

Brian Defiance and Lima, and on channel 30.4 connects.

It's also available online at wjct.org.

Slash the 419.

I actually saw that our show is listed on like the PBS website.

Wow.

Yeah, right.

It's a big time.

I mean, you made it.

Yeah.

It's great.

We made it.

That's great.

See, Gretchen, you just, you know, that's great.

You're always bring in just the.

You don't call it the color lady and radio for nothing.

What's the, Why am I blanking on, Ed McMahon?

Right.

It's like the, Yes.

That's right.

Yeah.

That was.

Although he was drunk as a skunk.

Well, that's right.

Oh my goodness.

All right.

That PBR coming up on a mayor Monday edition.

We'll see how drunk Gretchen can get between now and the end of the show.

Goodness gracious, where do you canceled in week four?

We've made it to week four, and we're going to get shut down.

All thanks to Gretchen.

We'll be right back here on a mega Monday edition of the 419.

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Thank you.

Introducing the Local Thread, a community news series uniting voices and storytellers from across the region in partnership with La Prensa, the Toledo Free Press, the Sojourner Truth, Toledo Public Schools, and veteran journalist Jerry Anderson.

The Local Thread brings you stories and conversations that connect our community here at weeknights at seven on FM 91, with early access on podcast platforms each morning.

The local thread only on GTV.

Welcome back into the 419 it's the Mayor Monday edition of the 419.

Here, and we are joined by the Mayor of Defiance, mayor Mike McCann.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thanks for having me here.

Thank you for making the drive.

Well, I, I get an opportunity to talk about our city.

You'll have me.

Okay, great.

How long is the drive into the city?

How far away is the 545 50 minute?

Nothing.

Not.

No.

No.

I mean, I had this company people all the time that, like, you know, you live in a big city, right?

You know, when when my wife and I lived in Dallas.

I mean, 45 minutes is nothing to grocery shop.

That's exactly right.

Right.

And so the reality is, I think, I think we get spoiled by not having to travel too far.

Yeah.

You know, everything I saw, I mean, that said, you know, that, like, quintessential Toledo statement is saying, I'll be there in 20 minutes and literally applying to all of Northwest Ohio.

That's right.

The reality is, I mean, 45 minutes is an it's a once you once you hit the highway, it's a pretty easy, easy drive.

Yeah.

Well, we're trying to get a Chick-Fil-A to come to defiance.

And it's all yours to smile.

To smile and say, well, we have this big area that we draw from, and it's 20, 25 minutes for everybody to get there.

So although, yeah, we're only 17,000 people.

Chick fil A, 250,000 people live within a 35, 30 minute drive.

And they would drive for that.

Yes.

I oversee all wheel drive for chick fil A. Yeah.

You bet.

They drive to Toledo.

I tend to be most hungry for chick fil A on Sundays.

On Sundays?

I knew what you're saying.

Yeah.

But let's let's, talk a little bit about defiance soon, but, American, born and raised.

Where?

Defiance.

All right.

Tell me everything about that growing up.

Neighborhood.

Born April 7th, 1957.

And Huffman of this.

And lived there till I was a freshman in high school.

Moved to a little bigger, bigger home.

Not too far from there.

So I grew up on the south end.

At that time, we had four elementary schools in the city Anthony, Wayne, Slocum, Spencer and Brickell.

And I was an Anthony Wayne guy.

Which kids did you hate the most?

Of the other ones?

Oh, the one I think our rival was probably Slocum, which was never like those kids.

Yeah, yeah.

Right now, the name Slocum is kind of a big name back in the day and defiance.

But yeah, that was probably our biggest rivalry.

Your folks from defiance grandparents migrated there.

How did the McCanns, put up the first shingle with you?

You know, I, my my grandfather came up from the south to work on the bricklayer farm, which was my dad's mother.

And, they eventually married and they continue to farm on the north side of defiance.

And actually, that farm still exists.

My cousins and their children are farming that now.

And so my dad broke away and for a long time was a salesman with Kraft Foods and then started his own company.

He and my mom and us in the ServiceMaster franchise that actually I went into, and now our son is running that.

So ServiceMaster has been around now for 56 years and may we just.

Yeah, my wife and I have five children.

Three of them still live in defiance with their families.

We have one in Columbus and one in Nashville.

But yeah, it does.

The anarchist.

Yeah, moved away.

But, you know, generations even before that of my family were there, especially on my mom's side, they came down from Canada as furniture makers.

Okay.

Even before defiance was a city.

So.

Yeah.

Where were they?

Farming.

What are they from?

Where they growing?

Yeah.

Land.

You know, corn, soybeans, wheat.

They have some hogs.

So typical growing up in defiance.

You know, we talk about this for folks in Toledo.

There's kind of this desire.

You grew up in the town, and you just think like, I want to, you know, I'm going to move out of here someday.

Was that ever on the radar for you?

I don't think so, because I became interested in the family business.

So I came up here.

I actually went to school at Toledo for a while.

I was sort of interested in engineering, but my heart was really in the family business.

And so my dad kind of encouraged me and my mother discouraged me.

And she didn't want family.

She wanted family to be family.

Not sure.

Working together.

Certainly a reasonable position.

Yeah, yeah.

No doubt.

And so, I left Toledo and went back, went to school at Northwest State and, studied business, obviously in accounting and all that good stuff and continue to work in the business.

And our son Brandon, that runs the company now, he's the youngest of our five children.

So I was actually getting to be in kind of a panic.

Right.

Because nobody seemed to be too interested in the business.

All the kids had gone in a different direction.

And Brandon, was a student at Bowling Green and at one point said to me, dad, if I come back and finish school at Defiance College, can I come to work in the business and absolutely sign up and wait, did you do this?

Did you take a breath in like two excitedly?

Well, we talked about it.

Yeah, absolutely.

No.

So it's it's been great.

And I'll tell you, he's doing a spectacular job.

We're very proud of him.

Yeah, yeah.

What are some of the industries in the defiance area that, that, you know, folks recognize that may not realize is in defiance?

General Motors and GM's been there for 76, 77 years now.

At one time, it was the largest gray iron foundry in the world and employed nearly 6000 people, cranking out cast iron engine blocks and heads and and brake rotors and all that good stuff.

And now there's no iron to be found at that factory.

It's an aluminum foundry, but still casting blocks and heads and other aluminum components, but not employing anywhere near 6000 people.

Probably.

I'm not sure they're back to a thousand yet, but they're growing and they're constantly doing things and adding new products.

So we're real optimistic about our GM plant.

I'll have to say, a few years ago, when GM declared that they were going to be all electric by a certain amount of time, you're thinking, well, what's the future of our GM player when they make internal combustion engine components?

And but, you know, it's sort of that kind of got away and more towards other things.

But we feel good about our GM plant.

And really when I was a kid growing up, John's Manville, which is still part of our city and a real good part of our city, but make they make more pipe insulation and residential insulation.

But when I was a kid, they made parts for the automobile industry.

So I think the long and short of it is, and there were other companies tied to the automobile industry.

When the automobile industry was going well, the science was going well, but when there was a slump or a strike in the automobile industry, it hit the finance hard.

Who is the largest employer in defiance now, today?

Yes, sir.

GM would be right up there.

Johns Manville is right up there.

We have two hospitals, both ProMedica and Mercy.

If you combine the two, the health care industry would be our our major employees.

Mack, who makes parts for larger earthmoving equipment John Deere caterpillar is also big.

And then we're starting to spin off and get all kinds of little companies pretty excited about to send locally a new plant that makes fertilizer.

Yeah.

And they're working hard to make fertilizers that are environmentally sound, environmentally responsible, and, you know, Toledo and Defiance and everything in between.

We respect our rivers.

We we we work hard on our rivers.

You know, you how far you want to get into the weeds here, but something rotary has worked on, Kevin, is water quality.

And 85% of the nutrient loading that flows into Lake Erie flows through defiance, Ohio.

So we say to ourselves, what can we do to help mitigate that and improve the water quality in defiance?

We're working all the time.

You mentioned Marcy Kaptur earlier.

Marcy is pretty engaged on all that.

And, the my day job is with the Metroparks.

Yes.

So water quality, and obviously all ecological and environmental components are top of the pyramid.

So, yeah, I was aware of this company and the leadership in defiance.

I mean, we're all landlocked to some degree, if you think about it, in the negative, but it does present a responsibility and opportunity.

So, I've, I'm proud of, the leadership that your, your, your town is, is led well in clean water is an interesting sort of analogy and like a way to take care of your home.

Right, is that, you know, if, if the Rotary Club at Toledo is going to invest, you know, $25,000 in, you know, planting trees to, you know, serve as filters to, to clean the water.

Planting those in Toledo actually doesn't help Toledo.

Right, right.

Planning goes into finance, does.

And that's where, you know, we've we've made some investments.

And in other communities, there's some really cool partnerships between the rotary clubs in Canada, all around the Great Lakes really looking at how do we follow these tributaries to make sure that, you know, we're getting clean water into.

But based on the metric system, the Canadian output is much less.

Yep, yep.

Those goofy buggers up there.

Yeah.

Yes.

How did you first decide that you wanted to invest in politics?

Why are you doing this to yourself?

Yeah, we're here on behalf of your family.

In the 1990s, you know, I was just a businessman, a dad, a husband, working in defiance and Mayor Rita Kisner at the time, who is probably my mentor.

Rita was mayor, and she asked me to serve on the city's park board.

So I start to serve on the park board.

And at one point I was elected chairman of the park board, which gave me a seat in planning commission.

And so I watched Rita and then the next mayor and the next mayor, and you'd sit there and I would say to myself, you know, if I was mayor, I think I'd do this.

I was mayor, I think I do that is to tell my mom.

I said, you know, one of these days I, I'm going to be mayor.

And she'd take a long drag on her cigaret and blow smoke in my face and say, you just do that, Michael.

So just to see you be mayor.

She did not.

My dad did not.

Yeah.

I'm sure she's very proud.

Well, some days that's sure.

But, you know, I, I just at some point, I felt like the city needed to go in a new direction.

And the only way I was going to do that was run for mayor.

So I think it was 2011.

If I get my years right.

I ran for mayor, against mayor Bob Armstrong, who was a good guy.

And, he, Bob, Bob beat me.

And so I lost.

And I thought, well, guys, I maybe this isn't for me.

And the city didn't want me.

And and so my wife and I actually went to Florida and bought a home and we were going to work back and forth and, Florida, Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte.

Yeah, it was all Allegiant flies out of Toledo on Fort Wayne.

Makes it pretty convenient.

But, I don't have time to go anymore.

But.

So how little time rolled around and a seat opened up as city council president.

I ran for that.

I won that in a landslide.

Because I was unopposed.

Yeah.

Makes a good stretch.

Yeah.

So the only two ways to run right is, scared or unopposed.

Yeah, sure.

And I ran again against Mayor Armstrong then in 2015, and, and I, I didn't know what I was doing in 2011 as far as running a campaign.

And you don't get a lot of help.

But, in 2015, I think I was a little smarter.

And running a campaign spent a whole lot more money and got elected and then went to work.

I had a good team at that time, although they've all retired.

And, now you exhausted him, I did, yes, sir.

Yeah.

So you're in your third.

I'm in the.

Yeah, I'm just starting the third year of my third term.

Okay, great.

So I've got one more, you know, I've got one more year left.

And then how do you plan on running again?

At least that's the plan for now.

But, you know, I am 69 years old and I'm not, you know, I don't know what God's plan.

So are you still working in the business?

Oh, my.

Nope nope nope nope.

Our son's taking that over.

How long have you been full time mayor?

Not splitting the difference between work and this.

Never.

Never.

Okay, the the day I went in June 1st, 2016, when I went into the city hall, I walked out of service.

Master, I patted my son on the head and say, don't mess, don't mess it up.

Yeah, yeah.

And, Greg, grandpa and I've got a good thing going here.

And, so how many council members are there in defiance?

There's seven council members.

What's your least favorite say right into that camera?

That you just, you know, it varies.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Same with the show.

So my my, my my wife lied to the city council meetings on Tuesday night.

And if you ever watch once in a while you'll see me texting.

And that's my wife.

Yeah.

Commenting on something a city councilman I'll say a she also help us read.

It's just, No, not very often.

She she's just very supportive, a supporter.

She's very she's a wonderful first lady.

Yeah.

Wonderful, wonderful.

A lot of things.

But, she's very involved in the community.

She's still working at mercy.

She's works at mercy, and she's been there 51 years.

Why did you meet her?

Through work.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Well, you're a workaholic.

Yeah.

You have a choice.

I mean, myself, so, you know, we we work hard, and but we we we have fun, we play hard.

And, this is all been.

It's been kind of a dream.

And, you know, we were having some success and defiance.

Yeah.

I'm sure we'll talk about here, but it's, it's it's been it's fun.

I work with great people.

Defiance.

City of defiance.

Employees by 185 people.

I'm just going to ask, you know, they're wonderful.

No.

She wasn't.

Yeah.

They're just they're just wonderful.

Yeah.

That's great.

Well, if you don't ask, I'm going to tell you.

Yeah, sure.

Well, you're you're an effective elected official, but the question is only a small piece of the answer.

Well, you ask a question and I give a really long answer, and that limits the number of questions you can ask.

Wait a minute.

And I sometimes you hear politicians like Enid Armstrong.

Oh my goodness.

He is defiance Mayor Mike McCann.

Joining us here on the 419 for a mayor Monday.

When we come back, I want to dive in a little bit more and talk about some of those successes in defiance.

I know you and I had a conversation about some of the great people that are making, that community better.

Brian Keller with Kelly Logistics, just one of them.

So we'll talk about some of those folks as well.

So we'll be right back with mayor Mike McCann on the Mayor Monday edition of the 419.

To me, community means connecting to others.

What will it really take to bring peace to Toledo's neighborhoods?

I love it here.

Yeah, we're a community committed to education.

Discover new ideas, dive into exciting subject and engage with the world around you.

It's all chapters in a book.

I would send them personally a t shirt Crime Doesn't Pay in the Old West and pass it on.

That's how we cleaned up the neighborhood.

Bring it back.

Memories that you don't think are there.

You know, DC Public Media invites you to get out and play day.

The people of Toledo have really become family.

You know, they walk in and it was just like, hey, it's so good to see you.

Hello there, and welcome to a public media town hall meeting.

The where you come to watch.

Listen, welcome back into the 419.

It's the mayor Monday edition.

We're joined by Defiance Mayor Mike McCann.

Mayor, appreciate you being here.

I'm curious, I think about, there was a TV show that's probably a little over ten years ago, entitled defiance.

But, like, there's different times when I see kind of reference to.

And I don't think it was actually defiance, Ohio, but I've seen defiance referenced in media at various times.

Toledo gets referenced in media and and rarely is it the way we want to Lito to be depicted.

But I'm curious, you know, if you kind of see TV shows and see that differently, what you're reaction or am I doing right now?

My wife has, for whatever reason, gotten into the West Wing, the TV show The West Wing, which I'd never watched, I sit there might be one of the greatest shows sometimes in the evening, but I tell her, I said, honey, this is too much like work for me.

I'm sure I watch that show without.

I'm.

You're not tuning.

I watch it almost uninterruptedly.

It is my default.

I think it we had seven seasons and it closed in 2000, and it's got to be 20 years old.

8 or 9.

It is for sure.

Yeah.

What would what season are you on?

You know what's happening?

I think it's about the fourth season.

He just got reelected.

Okay, okay.

So yeah I think that's where we're at.

I don't pay real close attention, but I, I tried to and it you know it's entertaining and that's all good.

You know I think the show TV show scandal you remember scandal.

And you know what the scandal was voting fraud and Defiance County, Ohio.

So for a long time, yeah, it was.

And, you know, it's a it's a very small part of them.

Yeah.

So but that's what it was.

And they show the Board of Elections, which is and our Board of elections.

But they show some of the board.

Yeah.

Somewhere you know TV works.

And so that was, that was part of it.

And then but when I didn't it didn't make a difference.

I remember actually, we were somewhere on vacation with our kids in, in, in the Caribbean, and we were scuba divers was the one thing that I got older that I could still do with my kids.

So we scuba dive.

And the funny thing is, is now our kids are scuba diving with our grandchildren.

So but we were getting on an elevator and somebody heard me saying that we were from defiance.

All our kids had a hat on or something, said defiance.

The lady said, scandal?

Yeah.

And the people yell at that at you all the time, though.

Oh, sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Still to this day.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, it it's, bred a lot of contempt in people's thinking.

Sure.

Yeah.

And doubt.

But, you know, I, I, it that's also an enjoyable show.

And then there was the movie the the, prize winner of defiance about lady, back in the 50s that entered a lot of different prizes.

And I think Woody Harrelson was in the movies, and I can't I should know these things.

That's all right.

But, you know, ended up the.

She was kind of scamming, wasn't it?

No no no no no no, it was, it was all good.

It was.

Yeah.

The dad was an alcoholic.

And yes, the book of course, is better than the movie.

Yeah.

And so it's it's all good.

I haven't so good.

So, so how does that you know, the, the national kind of stereotypical perception of defiance.

How does that differ from tell you a picture of defiance?

The, scandal part is nowhere close.

I mean, I, I will tell you, our elections, at least in Defiance County, are extremely well run.

And I try to work at the polls in the primary and the general, except when I'm on the ballot.

Well, I still work in the polls.

I just work in the county where my name is not on the ballot.

So.

But they're extremely well run, and we do what we're supposed to do, and the two ladies that head that up, they they they're both are very sensitive about election fraud.

But the rest of it, it it pictures defines in a fairly good light, and defiance.

Our tagline is a great place to live.

And I truly believe that it is.

Well, tell me about that.

A little bit more when you think of the people that make up defiance, who do you think of?

Oh, well, you know, the rank and file folks, the folks that go to work and which we desperately need.

Yes, sir.

That in our in our manufacturing facilities, defiance is a pretty diverse economy.

We have a very strong manufacturing base.

I mentioned those earlier, GM Jim Manville, which is a Berkshire Hathaway company and very well run.

Mac.

Yeah, we've ventured into the plastics side of things, which we never had in defiance, but we have a couple B and B molded products and a packaging group, which a packaging group makes pumps for the cosmetics industry.

You know how you do foaming hand soap.

They make those pumps.

They make like 350 million pumps a year.

You've never seen machines go so fast to make 350, you gotta, but they make these pumps.

It's fascinating to watch.

And they're actually they're in a facility now and they're building another facility in defiance.

Kevin, you've always been the anti handwashing.

Do you want to talk a little bit about your position.

Yeah I actually when he said pump for the soap I was like, I have no idea what this.

Just understand.

I shook his hand at first and then you two.

Yeah, well, we will be at Urgent Care and Defiance.

The best urgent care is in the.

Yeah, yeah, but, you know, so we've got the manufacturing side of things.

But if you don't want to be in manufacturing, we've got great retail operations.

Supermarkets, Lowe's, menards, all that stuff.

Tractor supply.

And then of course, there's the whole service sector or hospitality and, where's the best place to get ice cream or pizza in defiance?

Well, you know, just because of my affection for the group family, I'd have to say Marco's.

Who?

Or because the group's own Marco's.

Sure.

They also own a lot of B dubs.

Not the one in defiance, but they own a lot of B dub franchises.

I think they're the largest privately held B dubs restaurant.

They own 6070 pickups and growing.

Yeah.

So good a wonderful family.

Yeah.

One of the Buffaloes in their yard.

They're not okay.

No they're not.

They're wild and they have wings.

Matt.

Their office is right.

Downtown defiance.

They bring a lot of people downtown.

Takes a lot to run an organization that size.

Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with the county, with Defiance County and the elected leadership there?

Well, I you know, I that's a great question, Gretchen, because I think in a lot of times, a lot of places that can be contentious.

It's not in defiance.

We're all kind of working together and, and, three county commissioners, one new one, Matt Castor, just came on board.

But we work well together because I think we have common goals.

Government.

Now, I will say that county government runs differently than city government.

So there's some times where I get frustrated because they can't see things my way.

Well, they can't see things my way not used to doing things my way, but I will.

I also say probably close to three years ago, when my city administrator, Jeff Leonard, retired, who I went to school with Jeff.

So we'd been friends for a very, very long time, but he retired and, well earned retirement.

I brought on Ryan Mack, who was a county commissioner at the time.

I heard him, so he had a much better understanding of how that worked.

He had a good relationship with the commissioners that were on board at that time, and so that helps as well.

And sometimes when I get frustrated with the county, it's calm down.

Like, you know, we need to see things from their perspective.

And, you know, any time you look at something from another person's perspective, it sort of helps bring clarity.

And I think certainly.

Yeah.

And wise to bring him in underneath the tent.

So we were good.

Yeah.

We do.

You know, we're probably the biggest news in defiance right now is, the fact that, first quality paper is going to be building a new plant.

They're starting it now, out.

They just bought 1300 acres west of defiance in Delaware, in Defiance Township.

So they're putting pilings in the ground.

And we met yesterday trying to figure out, I don't want to say try to figure out.

It's just we know how to do it to get water and sewer out of the plant and that sort of thing.

But we're excited about that because a couple of years before they get open be 400 jobs or so, but they make all kinds of paper products for all kinds of places.

That's great.

Frontier jobs is a big deal.

It is good for you.

Forgive me if I if I don't know this or if it's too controversial, but defiance been approached has been involved in any this data center controversy that some of the other cities are facing.

Yes.

That's that pizza.

Yeah.

Tell me what your favorite ingredients are.

There's not a lot I can say, but of course we have.

And you know, Gretchen, what really upsets me about that, what sets me about how we get our news today?

Yes, sir.

I'm like I said, I if I say I'm 69, I'll be 69 in April.

But I just kind of round up, you know, at this point.

But I just say 70 social media drives me crazy.

And there was so much misinformation on social media, and there's been rumblings about a data center, and people have come to me and talked about while their water rates are going to go up and the electricity rates are going to go up.

No, they're not that those those two items that concern people the most are not going to be impacted by a data center because we've we've met with these data center folks.

Now, I'm not saying it's going to happen.

Right.

They're still doing their due diligence on things, but it would be a huge investment for our area.

They're going to employ a couple hundred people or a lot of construction workers, but then once they're up and running, maybe they would employ a couple hundred people.

And it's a completely different type of person than we currently have in our city.

So they're not going to poach generally folks from the plastics plant or the foundry or johns Manville or anywhere else for that matter, because these people, they might take my IT guy from the city, but I, I just think it diversifies our local employment much more, which is what we need.

As I said earlier, let me take your tie.

Let me take you out of the hot seat.

You know, my day job is with Metro parks.

As I think you know, and obviously, we're a conservation agency.

And the component that you just said, indiscriminate of the subject matter.

That's so true is, be very careful to jump on the first piece of information that you get through your own cellular device or wherever you get it.

Right.

It is.

There's a lot of sides to every story.

And where you get your facts from, the facts should be highly scrutinized to your point.

So we'll take you off the hot seat.

But I think what I've heard from you and other leaders is let's listen.

Right, right.

And that's let's look at it right, right.

And I and I heard something in that conversation.

I'm curious kind of how it plays in from an economic development standpoint for, for defiance, you know, the idea of diversifying the, the available jobs from an attraction standpoint.

Right.

How much does that play in as you're looking at opportunities or, you know, your shopping businesses to come to defiance or to businesses or shopping, whether or not they come to defiance?

How much of that do you look at to say, is this a workforce that we currently have or don't have?

Because, quite frankly, if they're going to hire 200 jobs that don't exist in defiance, that probably means people have to move to defiance.

That's exactly right.

As of almost the first place, my mind goes is how does that fit in with everything else that we have?

And and we can get very, very aggressive when it's something we really, really want.

And you're absolutely correct.

But you know what?

We've struggled with, if you want to go there is, you say, bringing people to defiance.

And that's great.

We needed to do that because workforce has not been as plentiful as our local employers would like.

There's no place to live that's housing, right?

Right, right.

But we've had a breakthrough.

One of our local businessmen has invested a lot of money.

And what he's now developing is, Corey Baden has developed three new subdivisions in defiance and for affordable workforce type housing, going to be nice homes is, partnered with, with, a national builder.

And he's working really, really hard.

We've broken ground on a few of those, but Mother Nature is not cooperating.

Right now to get, those things moving a little farther.

But we're going to have three new locations, plus an apartment complex that's similar to what's out by Waterville.

And so it'll be nice apartments and, again, market rate stuff.

So we're excited a really big deal.

Yes, we're going to have probably.

But all by the end of 27, the potential is there to have about 800 new housing units.

Well this is going to air in 2028 okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So yeah.

Yeah I'll be right there.

Mayor.

What's the what's the thing.

You know, mayors are responsible for obviously police fire safety, snow water.

Right.

What's the thing that keeps you up at night?

What's the thing that you worry the most about?

As your other than this interview safety.

Safety first and foremost.

And, you know, when I go out and talk to kids in the elementary school.

Yeah.

So one of the things I really want to stress to them is my number one job is your safety, and you are safe.

And we have great school systems in and around defiance.

And we're thankful for that great leadership in our schools.

And we're thankful for that.

What keeps me up probably is always budgetary issues.

And you have a pot of money.

And how do you want to spend that money?

What's best for the community?

We aren't focused on any.

I tell people we're not very focused in the city of defiance, and that may sound bad, but there's so many things that we needed to do in our community.

You are acting parks, right?

The quality of life, the people that live in our city and attracting people to our part.

They want to see a great park system.

And we've worked hard.

We've worked with the Metro parks.

Yes, they've been very helpful and we appreciate that.

And so our parks system, our streets, our we have streets that need paved.

I have pipes underground that move water and sewer that are 100 years old and some of those are, frankly, better than what we put in the ground today.

Still, the old brick sewers, man, those things really work.

But nonetheless, you just wonder when something big like that is going to fail.

And so the infrastructure keeps me up a little bit, you know, current events right now.

The thing that's probably keeping me up the most is this movement, which I understand, to eliminate property taxes in the state of Ohio and that constitutional amendment would be devastating for many layers of government.

And we're talking with Mike McCann, the mayor of defiance.

Mayor, I'm curious if if you know somebody, you know, watching or listening to this program in Toledo, is interested in spending a day in defiance, right?

What what is, you know, day trip to defiance.

Spend the day.

What do we do?

Well, you know, you come to defiance, and we have several small mom and pop restaurants that are known for their breakfasts.

So you can start out, have breakfast at at Kissinger's or the pancake House or Bud's.

But if you go to budge, you're going to want to circle back and have pie at lunch.

And you know what?

You can have pie for breakfast.

I should have brought you guys a pie from Bud's.

And when we get together again.

Yes, I will bring you.

Or you can come to defiance.

Okay?

For sure.

And, but a piece of pie from Bud's.

What's your favorite pie?

But probably my favorite pie.

Is it for any time of the year you can get coconut cream, and then it's.

It's marvelous.

So good.

But then he has seasonal pies.

So he has red raspberry, fresh peach.

Georgia peaches.

In early summer, our spectacular Ohio apple pie is good.

But he makes a pretty good peanut butter pie and pretty good chocolate cream pie.

Now we're talking.

Yeah, yeah.

And now I'm hungry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

So.

So, buds for breakfast, circle back and have a pie for lunch.

You know, outside of restaurants, what?

You know, parks kind of other activities are parks are good festivals.

Fairs.

What what what's that?

You know, some point when I leave the mayor's office, somebody's going to say, well, what what what was your greatest accomplishment?

That would be hard to answer, but the thing that I talk about frequently that brings kind of tears to my eyes almost is, we build a splash pad.

So coming out of the cleaning business, one of the things I did put a lot of emphasis on when I got the mayor's office, clean up our city.

So we had a lot of blighted homes, a lot of blighted buildings.

And, we got very active in, tearing down buildings and homes and some point I recognize on the south end of defiance, where I grew up, we had Bronson Park that had Bronson Pool and Bronson Pool been closed for a decade.

The infrastructure was shot, the pool was cracked and, and trees growing in it, and it was unsightly.

And I said, hold it.

I'm asking everybody else to get their properties cleaned up.

We have to clean up our own.

So we we demolished that that, pool.

We left the bathhouse, fortunately.

And then later that year, I was actually in Atlanta, Georgia, and I was walking from my hotel over to the Atlanta Aquarium.

And I walked through the Olympic Village, and there were little kids playing.

Water was squirting out of the ground.

I had no idea what it was.

I took a couple pictures, took it back to officer, what is this th Because the kids were having a ball.

Yeah, and our parents were off to the side, actually talking to one another.

Yeah.

They didn't have their phones out.

Yeah, they were talking.

And so this is really cool.

And so somebody said, well that's the splash pad.

I said, that's what I want to do at Bronson.

Cool.

So we went to work and we got a lot of help from a lot of different people, and we built a splash pad.

And still today, when you go out to that splash pad and you look at the stickers on the license plates, it's not unusual to see people there from 6 or 7 different counties.

Yeah.

So they're visiting.

They're having a good time.

It's free.

It doesn't cost anything to get in.

And all demographics are out there.

The seniors go out.

Sometimes the developmentally disabled go out there sometimes.

And everybody has a ball and they're all having pie and, and and they're all having pie.

We're talking with mayor Mike McCann, the mayor of defiance.

When we come back, I want to talk about legacy and talk about the future of defiance, what some of your goals are, for the rest of your term and potentially the next one.

And then also, we're going to give you a shot to tackle Gretchen's wacky quiz.

All right.

And that and more on a mayor Monday edition of the 419.

We'll be right back.

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Welcome back into the 419.

It's a mayor Monday edition, and we're talking with the mayor of defiance, Mike McCann.

As we were getting ready for this program, Mike, I had the opportunity to talk to, Erica from, economic development, with defiance.

I talked with the team at the Chamber.

I talked to the, director of the Defiance Community Foundation prep.

I talked to folks from Defiance College.

And every single one of them resigned after that.

So every single one of them said the same thing.

You're going to love talking to mayor McCann.

And so there must be two is.

Yeah.

Is there a different one?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've got a great team.

Not just within the city, but but it's kind of surrounding you in the community.

What are the things that you're, as you look to the future of defiance?

What are the things, you know, next year, the year after that, you're you're most excited about that, that you're working on?

We have spectacular people in our community.

And all those folks you just outlined are people.

At any time I can pick up the phone or or my assistant can make an arrangement for me to go sit down and say, hey, I've got this idea or this idea.

I should say this idea was presented to me.

They in all my ideas, there's a lot of people and, you know, you just the good ones.

Yeah.

You plagiarize, you visit a city and you say, that's pretty cool.

We need to do that.

And I want to hear about things, but they all are good.

And, you know, I got to go in there.

I forgot what the question was.

What you're most excited about, things that are coming down the pike that, you guys are working on.

Yeah.

So we completed a, a, comprehensive plan for our city a few years ago.

That comprehensive plan called for us.

And you're going to like this.

Matt called for us to do a parks and riverfront master plan.

So we have three rivers in defiance.

The me, the All Lays, which is the council on for Anthony Wayne build for it.

And then we have the tiffin that comes down from the north.

So we have those three rivers and we've done nothing to capitalize on those rivers.

Nothing.

They're just there.

In fact, since I've been mayor, we cleaned off the riverbanks a little bit.

So people, when they're going down the road, can can see the rivers and they're going, wow, that's pretty cool.

I didn't even know there was a river there.

Yeah.

So, we've completed a parks and riverfront master plan.

It was almost a two year deal and a lot of input from the community, which I really appreciated people input.

And when I say the community, I think, Kevin, it's important to to note that we encourage people from around the city, the suburbs, if you will, to to offer input because they're there.

They may not live in the city, but they're part of our city.

They shop there, they work there, and they do all those things.

So there are there are contributor and they deserve some input.

So we really want to get going on this Parks and Riverfront master plan.

But as I mentioned a minute ago, we're sort of pausing things right now until this property tax deal works its way through.

We just it would be irresponsible for us to do anything, out of the budget or why would you go for a property tax levy to help do things in your parks if property taxes are going to be eliminated?

So until we work through that in November, not to mention that devastating effect you would have to your police fire all of those 911 Sheriff's office, library, public school.

That's exactly right.

And the city would lose eight $900,000 in in property tax inside millage ourselves.

That's not devastating.

We can overcome that.

But while we don't dominates 911 right.

So who's going to answer the phone.

When do you need fire rescue.

All those things so that that that's one of the that's really what keeps me up worrying about that.

And I think it'll work out because I have to say, when people stop me in the grocery store or wherever and say, Mr.

McCann, would you explain to me this property tax thing and the impact and you, you talk through it with him.

They go, oh, I don't want that.

You're a traitor.

Nobody likes paying those taxes.

Nobody does.

Yeah, but you're going to pay for it.

They want the police to come when they when they're called Lucas County defiance and a lot.

I, I one of these days I'm gonna get a map out all the all the counties that border another state Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, you know, all around the state.

You live in a border state, and we raise sales tax to 17% or whatever, right?

I'm gonna go to Fort Wayne.

Right.

And other people are gonna do the same thing.

You know, to run across the border to buy whatever and get that break on taxes.

So speaking of the of that issue in particular, and, and, and working with our, our friends and in the Ohio Legislature, what what do you do with your neighbor mayors to, to approach the legislature?

Are you involved in the U.S.

Conference of Mayors?

Is there a local Ohio mayor group, like how how do you guys all coordinate, what your messages and, and lobbying on issues like Ohio municipally?

Oh, ML has great groups for mayors.

They have great groups for law directors, they have great group for administrators.

And they they you go to them and you talk.

And, you know, we've got good legislators from our area, not only the ones that that I vote for that are in our area, but even the ones that are around us.

You can talk to them even though they don't represent you, you can talk to them.

I think we all get it.

We do.

If if it makes it to the ballot, we're just going to have to talk more about it like we're talking today.

And I'll talk to the Rotary Club and, and different things like that.

It is about and it was harking back to our conversation about facts.

Information is at the core of it.

People don't have an understanding of what all of this funds.

And there isn't.

Okay.

Then what?

Right, right.

There isn't a cogent plan replacement of it.

And, you know, I think everybody is it doesn't want to pay more taxes.

We've got we've got an old school building in defiance, right, right at the end of Main Street, 1918 building built in 1980.

And it was going to get torn down.

And it I didn't want to see that happen, at least not now.

And so we took ownership of it, which I don't know that maybe it would be a little bit of a Seward's Folly type thing, but but that all worked out.

I guess.

So it might work out, but I just say that people say, Mike, why don't you just tear it down?

And I say, okay, then what?

Come after we tear that building down?

What are we going to do.

Because too often and I've seen where things have gone away and you say to yourself man I wish we had that back this way, that back.

Yeah.

We desperately need more hotel space in the city.

The more hospitality that school would make.

A neat little boutique hotel.

We just got to find the right developer.

We we trying to do that during Covid, which was, I like that thought process, though.

Like, if you needed that land for something, right, then let's use it.

Right.

If the thing we're going to do with it is better than what we have.

But if we don't have a plan for it, just getting rid of it for the sake of getting rid of it, right.

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

We don't need it.

We know the cost to maintain.

It's minimal.

We have to mow.

We have to shovel sidewalks.

But we don't have to do that.

Whether the building was there or not, I don't do that.

My house.

Don't think that's a mess.

Mayor, talk to me a little about the college.

Defiance College?

I, a 400 students is my understanding, you know, a little over that, you know, struggling, like a lot of small schools.

Great leadership present.

Maggie.

She and I actually took office on the same day.

Oh.

You're kidding.

No, no.

So she's become a good friend.

I'm actually on the board of trustees at the college.

I suppose in the interest of full disclosure, we'll brag about what Defiance College is known for.

I know about a little bit.

Well, you know what?

They've always produced great school teachers.

Many of them taught me when I was in school and taught our kids and now are teaching our grandkids, and they're not to blame for what you become.

No.

Absolutely not.

I, I credit I credit them for all the good things.

That's just.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

But so I this this year, not last year.

2025 was my 50th high school.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For that ten year.

Two years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, you know, so great school teachers, law enforcement.

That's right.

They, they, they produce people in law enforcement.

They're there to look, accountants.

They, social workers.

And we need social workers.

Yes, sir.

And so, that's what they do.

And it's a great liberal arts school, and people can all hair on fire when they hear the word liberal.

But that's not what a liberal arts school is necessarily.

So they they do a great job educating young people out there.

It's a it's a wonderful, safe campus.

It's fun to go on campus.

It is because it's such a neat environment and all the young folks are enthusiastic.

I love taking a college kid, with my wife to lunch or dinner and just talk to them about their experience and that liberal arts.

Obviously, it means a full, pantheon of, of courses and things that you have to take.

So there is a, there's a law enforcement, part that is something somebody part of, and there is a good music theater component of a to so truly a spectrum of things.

And one of my favorite Defiance College alums, keeps a little looks kind of beautiful is Adam.

Cassie.

Yeah.

That's right.

How about that?

There you go.

All right, we've got, about five minutes left.

Perfect time.

Which means it's the perfect time for us to launch into Gretchen's wacky quiz.

That's not the name that we're.

We're looking.

Not the man.

I don't know why they saying that.

Yeah, that's that's happening.

We've tried to workshop several other names.

Workshop is generous.

Oh, that's that's the one that.

See?

There we go.

Yeah.

You got an endorsement from the mayor.

We'll take it.

All right.

All right, I'm going to fire four rapid fire questions at you.

Okay.

Gretchen's going to ask you for your favorite thing.

And we say in the region, but we're talking about defiance.

What's your favorite thing in defiance.

And then Matt is going to ask you to describe your community in nine words.

You can just list them off, but I'll work with you.

Don't panic.

Or you could do a haiku.

Whatever.

That's right.

All right.

You don't have to do that.

For rapid fire questions.

What's a word that you have a hard time pronouncing?

You know, I didn't used to, But just yesterday.

What was it?

We were in a meeting talking about water and sewer.

Exciting meeting.

I don't know.

You know, I don't do too bad.

All right.

Well, I can't pronounce it.

Yeah, so we'll skip that one.

Okay.

So, where will you be one year from today?

At work in the mayor's office.

Usually get there about seven.

Meet with Ryan Mack, city administrator Kim Sprague, the finance director.

Law director comes in a little bit later.

Yeah.

All right.

Enjoying every minute of it.

If you could be any superhero, who would you be and why?

Buck Rogers, Buck Rogers.

Great answer.

I read a lot of his those comic books when I was in school.

So, yeah, that's the one I remember.

I mean, Spider-Man's cool, super cool.

That's cool.

Yeah, yeah.

And what's the last question?

What's the one thing you've always wanted to do?

You know, everything I've ever wanted to do, I've always tried to do.

I. When I was a young kid, I used to go out to the airport and clean air, clean airplanes.

And, I always wanted to learn to fly one.

So I did.

I've never had a desire to jump out of one skydive my granddaughter did recently, and I was a mess until it was over.

But she had fun.

Yeah, sure.

Not been to Europe yet?

Italy.

Some of our kids have gone, and they rave about it.

We did go to Ireland once, and, had a had a Guinness at McCann pub, although they pronounce McCann McCann over there.

And we didn't bring that up.

No.

Yeah, yeah.

What's your number one favorite thing or most special thing about defiance.

Just the fact that I know, you know everybody and everybody knows you, and they're not afraid to come up and talk to me.

And, you know, sometimes they don't always have the greatest things to talk about.

But that's my job to deal with the bad, with the good.

But it's mostly good.

Good.

All right.

Nine words.

Great place to live.

There's five right there.

Yeah.

Work.

Play, raise a family.

Then we'll take them all.

Take them all.

Yeah.

Yep.

Well done.

You know what a place.

So great you had to give it ten.

That's right.

Nine is not a nine.

Gretchen, you know, has has had a, some, some work in the political space.

And cosmetic surgery.

I noticed that she scribbled down what I did.

Make a note.

Needs to be your next.

This is your slogan.

I would be interested to know what your campaign slogan was, but mine is Mike McCann.

Can.

My first campaign was McCann.

Can.

McCann will see.

And that's the one that didn't work.

No, that.

No, I didn't have anything.

Matt.

I mean, I like I said, nobody told me about yard signs.

Yeah.

You just think, well, you throw your name out there and you say, yeah, I know that guy.

We'll vote for him.

But it didn't work when I ran for student government in college at mine was D back or back her I like that.

So this is this was all this has been working on for 30 years.

Show that was my first one.

I don't know what my second.

Oh goodness gracious third I don't I don't remember.

This is winning.

You got so much.

Thank you I appreciate the time.

Everybody who said we'd enjoy the time with you was I was really right.

Oh, yeah.

Anyway, thank you.

Mike McCann, the mayor of defiance.

When we come back, we will wrap up this Mayor Monday edition of the 419.

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I really enjoyed the time with Yes We Can.

Yeah.

I don't want to act, surprised.

Right.

But, you know, we are meeting these people for the first time and being introduced to, their beloved hometowns.

But that guy was really charming.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is, I mean, there's not a intentionally there's not a, like, filtration process to get them on, like, it's legitimately.

I am reaching out to.

Yeah.

The, the cities that surround northwest Ohio and say, well, I have a maron.

And it's not like, hey, let's do, a qualifying call to see if I can tolerate you or let me understand your politics.

Or maybe he came by himself.

He didn't have like 50 handlers with him.

He didn't have talking points.

I mean, he just as a guy that is served his community and and seemingly his family and his business well and, and a cool chance to learn about another community that is, you know, literally in our, in our backyard.

Yes, you know, 45 minutes away the same way that we would you know, take a 45 minute trip to go, you know, go to a restaurant or do something unique in Ann Arbor.

But you're doing the same thing in, in the past.

And now we know where to go to get Pi, man.

So buds, but that's exactly the kind of thing, you know, I'm interested in.

In that they talked about the growth, bring new jobs and talked about some of the things that were challenges.

Right.

But at the core of it, there are still places to go to get pi.

The splash pad is of all the wins, I'm sure, in a long lineage of being the mayor is splash pad where kids and families can see it is the highlight.

Like that's that's the kind of person a man or woman that you want.

Maybe.

Maybe you need Metro Parks Defiance.

You can implement their plan.

Yeah.

Gretchen, thanks for letting us know.

You know, this is the reason why the campaign slogan wasn't Gretchen Debacker.

No, it's Mike McKee.

It was your campaign successful?

You never mentioned.

No.

Okay, well, measure success.

But I do still have the button.

If you missed any portion of the conversation with mayor Mike McCann, you can catch it three different times.

7 a.m.

on its YouTube channel, 3 p.m.

on FM 91 in Toledo, Brian Defiance and Lima, and 6 p.m.

on Wjct connects channel 30.4.

Of course, all of our episodes are available online at gt.org.

Slash the 419.

Huge thanks to mayor Mike McCann for joining us on the program today.

And thanks to you for joining us as well here on the 419.

When we come back tomorrow, we're going to talk about Destination Toledo and a huge announcement from the Community Foundation.

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