<i>Vote “No” on Big Tobacco</i>, other letters

To the Editors:

I’m writing to urge Oberlin community members to vote “No” on Issue 4 and “Yes” on Issue 5 in the upcoming election. Backed by Big Tobacco, Issue 4 keeps smoke in many public places, including restaurants. It leaves 500,000 hospitality workers and their customers exposed to dangerous secondhand smoke and overturns 21 local smoke-free laws already in place. At the same time, it prevents cities and towns from passing future restrictions on smoking. Issue 5, however, is a proposed state law that will ban smoking in all restaurants, workplaces and indoor public places. Issue 5 is supported by the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association and the American Heart Association. Unfortunately, Issue 4 will trump Issue 5 if both initiatives pass because Issue 4 is a constitutional amendment.

A lifelong asthmatic, I’ve lost family members to smoking-related illness, and watched in anguished disbelief as my brother’s cigarette addiction intensified, nearly consuming his life. Although many Obies have neither experienced nor witnessed the consequences of smoking that I have, they can limit this pointless destruction by voting “No” on Issue 4 and “Yes” on Issue 5 on Nov. 7.

–Brendan Morris
College Junior

To the Editors:

Nice work, Big Tobacco! The scam that is Issue 4 is nothing short of genius.

Issue 4 markets itself as a “Common Sense” smoking ban. The true brilliance lies in the exemption for restaurants whose sales in alcohol account for more than 40 percent of their receipts. All a restaurant would have to do is say they sell that much alcohol and they would be allowed to have smoking. The only thing that could challenge them is a government audit which has a zero percent chance of taking place, thus making smoking ban enforcement impossible.

Issue 4 is supported and funded by “Smoke Less Ohio,” which consists of R.J. Reynolds, Cigar Association of America, Lorillard Tobacco Company, National Association of Tobacco Outlets and the Retail Tobacco Dealers Association. Get it? These tobacco companies want you “smoke less.”

The pro-Issue 4 commercial proclaims that Issue 4 would ban smoking in places like “government offices, libraries, hospitals and daycare centers” while exempting bars and restaurants. Great! Now we won’t be overwhelmed by secondhand smoke in the public library or watch cigarette smoke billow out of area hospitals! I guess banning smoking in places where it is already banned is just good “common sense.”

If voters pass Issue 4 on Nov. 7, get ready for some smoke-filled rooms, Oberlin.

–Adam Gibbs
Upper Arlington, Ohio

To the Editors:

A friendly public service announcement from the Center for Service and Learning: IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO APPLY FOR A COMMUNITY SERVICE WINTER TERM INTERNSHIP! This year, we’re offering over 60 internships at over 30 community partner organizations.

Oh, the things you could do this Winter Term: organize a re-enactment of the infamous Dred Scott decision for Juneteenth Oberlin, Inc; compile the visual and written history of Community Share of Greater Cleveland the nation’s second largest fundraising federation for social justice non-profit organizations; assist the Firelands Land Conservancy in their mission to conserve natural land in perpetuity; compile demographic and funder data at the Lorain County Free Clinic; co-star with local teens in MAD* Factory’s Traveling Show; coach youth at the Oberlin City Schools; and much, much more.

Find out more and apply through our website: www.oberlin.edu/csl. Please e-mail, call or drop by with any questions (csl@oberlin.edu, 440-775-8055, 68 S. Professor St.).

The deadline to apply for Community Service Winter Term Internships is Monday, Nov. 13, 2006.

–Avery Book, OC04
Community Service Program Coordinator

To the Editors:

The Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Committee at Oberlin College (ATOD) has established an ad hoc group called the Non-Medical Use of Prescription Drugs which will begin to explore the growing phenomena of the abuse of prescription drugs by students in higher education.

The misuse of drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin for “studying” and the misuse of prescription drugs for “partying” (often in combination with alcohol and sometimes called “Pharming”) are becoming a problem at colleges and universities nationally.

This committee hopes to address this challenge by working with health care providers, health educators, judicial coordinators, honor code committee members, faculty, staff and students to develop a plan of action.

This plan will include public health education covering issues such as individual health risks, legality, ethics and personal safety.

If you have suggestions or would like to learn more, please email life.skills@oberlin.edu.

–Lori Morgan Flood
Assistant Dean/Director of the Center for Leadership in Health Promotion
–Joanne Erwin
Associate Professor of Music Education/ Director
–Shozo Kawaguchi,
Associate Dean of Community Life/ Dean for the Class of 2010
–John Harshbarger Psychologist, Counseling Center
–Dr. Cristal Tomblin
Medical Provider, Student Health Services
–Wendy Sepponen
Resident Director, Burton, East, Barnard Halls
–Hannah Neprash
College senior
–Brendan Morris
College junior
–Serena Hsin
College junior, Student AOD Prevention Coordinator, CLHP
–Benjamin Crystal
College sophomore

To the Editors:

During the weekend of Oct. 6-7, 2006, the Oberlin Alumni Association of African Ancestry (OA4) sponsored a special reunion for black alumni. The reunion was titled: “And We Rise! Celebrating 170 Years of the Black Presence at Oberlin College,” and it was quite a celebration! Over 175 alumni returned to campus for what turned out to be one of the largest special reunions in Oberlin’s history.

In putting on this reunion, it was the hope of the planners that we would be able to convince many black alumni who have been disconnected from Oberlin since their graduation to re-engage with their alma mater. We wanted people to be aware that many of the things that they fought for as students, things like the African American Studies Department, the African Heritage House and various student organizations, continue on with each new generation of students. We also wanted people to know that these institutions and the current generation of students could benefit from their support. Current students can be empowered by knowing that folks from backgrounds just like theirs have successfully navigated Oberlin and black alumni mentors and role models are great resources to aid in their success.

For many of the attendees, it was their first time back to campus in many years. All were impressed by how good the campus looked and the new buildings, and new uses of old buildings were delightful things for alumni to explore. The return also brought about healing for some alumni whose experiences at Oberlin had left bittersweet memories. In seeing old friends, making new friends, seeing the accomplishments of generations of black alumni and seeing the talent and promise of the current students, the alumni were able to see the good that Oberlin continues to do and the case was made as to why the institution is worthy of their support.

At the celebration dinner on Saturday evening, I encouraged all the alumni to get involved with their affiliate group and with the Alumni Association and to lend their support to the College’s efforts to recruit talented black students in a highly competitive marketplace for such students.

A new award was established and named after the North Star: the Polaris Award. Harriet Tubman used the North Star as a guide on 19 journeys to guide fugitive slaves north to freedom. The program noted that the award recipients have provided direction and assistance to several generations of African-American students and “we honor and thank them for their work, guidance, love and support over the years. They are truly our ‘guiding stars.’” The Polaris Award was given to the following persons:

Mrs. Pearlena Chaney, retired cook at African Heritage House after over 34 years of service to the College; Mrs. Elizabeth B. Herod, retired after 40 years of service as an Administrative Assistant, mostly in the Registrar’s Office; Professor James C. Millette, Professor Wendell Logan; Associate Professor Booker C. Peek; and Emeritus Professor of Pianoforte Frances Walker Slocum OC ’45.

Hopefully, the attendees at this special reunion finished their weekend having had a wonderful time and feeling good about Oberlin and her future. The affiliate groups within the Alumni Association can help to bring alumni closer to Oberlin. Through support of their special interests, affiliate group members can also be drawn into the work of the larger Alumni Association. So hats off to our fellow alumni within the OA4 affiliate group for putting together a wonderful alumni event that brought back so many alumni to reconnect with Oberlin!

–Wendell P. Russell, Jr. OC ’71
President, Oberlin College Alumni Association

To the Editors:

The proverbial embodiment of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s “shell game without a pea,” Sustainable Community Associates’ (SCA) indolent principals have flouted a cornucopia of environmental statutes redolent of New England’s deep-sixed Dickey-Lincoln dam. Capping an intensive, multi-state hazardous waste investigation, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined, in a Sept. 28, 2006, certified letter addressed to SCA president Josh Rosen, that SCA had violated Ohio Revised Code Section 3734.02, subsections (E) and (F), by operating a hazardous waste facility without a permit. According to the Ohio EPA, genuine “facility-wide cleanup” remains a regulatory option.

SCA was apprised more than two years ago of Ohio EPA’s rigorous hazardous waste mandates. SCA environmental consultant John Pardee’s incriminating Sept. 16, 2004, ex post facto e-mail to Ohio EPA administrator Dan Sowry — posted online by the EPA — specifically manifests “reactive cyanide/sulfide” in a laundry list of lethal, carcinogenic compounds partially excavated and illicitly stored at 43 East College Street from mid-Aug. to mid-Nov. 2004. As Ohio EPA’s Dan Sowry contemporaneously reproached: ”Your client would also be subject to the requirements for owners and operators of a permitted treatment, storage and disposal (TSD) facility.”

Navigating an elaborate vetting process, Ohio TSD hazardous waste application clearance typically spans two years. In his query, consultant John Pardee, an Oberlin News-Tribune columnist, failed to identify his clients or their contaminated site, postdated the toxic waste tank’s removal, and studiously ignored Sowry’s cogent, professional advice. Barred by bureaucratic fiat from pursuing the disturbing disclosure, the unsolicited communique left the veteran EPA administrator unnerved.

A week after a negligent, catastrophic solvent spill on the grounds of the former Schubert Buick dealership, SCA president Josh Rosen, an environmental studies major, coyly recorded in his copious, public LiveJournal diary (Aug. 23, 2004, 1:29 P.M.), “The tanks got pulled today. No problems from the EPA.”

Despite two Ohio EPA notices of large-scale environmental violations, SCA failed to file a 2004 Hazardous Waste Report until Feb. 21, 2006 — almost a year after the regulatory deadline — just weeks after requesting an unorthodox, emergency tax increment package from the Oberlin City Council. The radically elevated benzene levels — “at only .0002 ppm below the regulatory limit” — registered by the sub rosa SCA monitoring well closest to Plum Creek, adjacent to the Oberlin Public Library, in the literal shadow of Oberlin College’s Firelands Dormitory, pose an unacceptable, endemic risk to public health.

In a tacit concession of decades-old industrial indiscretions, Pardee ruefully acknowledged: “The former presence of a photography studio and darkroom at 49 East College Street suggests the possibility that photograph development chemicals were poured down the sanitary sewer drain. The possibility of contamination of the sanitary sewer pipe and immediately surrounding soils should be assessed.”

Disclosed to SCA principals in early Jan. 2005, the corroborating minefield of damaging, arsenic-encrusted data was revealed to municipal officials on Armistice Day 2005, eleven months after a precipitous, jurisdictionally flawed, Ohio Bureau of Underground Storage Tanks perfunctory filing.

Charles Martin Hall may have anodized aluminum in a laboratory across the street, but arsenic-laced lattes and benzene inhalation are still widely considered to be an acquired taste. In a Nov. 9, 2005, Cleveland Scene article, SCA’s pedigreed officers professed to be toiling for the nominal wages of non-union janitors. According to United States Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department records obtained under a federal Freedom of Information Act request, these impoverished custodians have received $39,500 in HUD EDI remuneration billed at the rate of $75/hr.

It’s time these gentrified janitors cleaned up their unpolished act.

–Mark Chesler
Oberlin, OH