The public schools should steward and make the most of our taxpayer-funded communal resources. School buses sit idle most hours of the day. They could help provide a variety of local transportation, which would help many College students, staff, and faculty get around and be more connected to nearby towns. This would also help people mingle communally rather than rarely seeing people from other age groups or walks of life.

The school buildings have internet connected computers, libraries, and cafeteria spaces. All could be used between 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. They could serve many more age groups and family groups than the schools serve earlier in the day. People could eat supper together in the cafeterias, even chipping away at public- vs. private-school social divides.

The school board spent our money to demolish the Pleasant Street School in 2020 — despite it being structurally sound, centrally located, and a useful resource in a pandemic or any future disaster when many people suddenly need shelter and meeting spaces.

The downtown banks have glassy, spacious areas that are well-heated and cooled, internet-connected, and are right in the center of town. The Apollo could show more than only the most recent Hollywood big budget fare. Churches have multiple large meeting spaces that are stunningly under utilized. The old Prospect School could set up a wonderful bicycle repair space in one classroom right off of the playground.

People driving cars can give 5-minute rides to other people. Rather than “bumming” rides, riders can give their drivers “rider ribbons” that let them earn gas cards and gift certificates at local businesses. Rides for just a few blocks are so helpful when one might be carrying a musical instrument, a gym bag, groceries, etc. in inclement weather. We have more than enough roads, vehicles, and drivers. Normalizing and incentivizing convenient sharing is much cheaper and friendlier than dealing with parking lots.

Keep looking around. Keep noticing the resources all around us. You will surely think of more arrangements that help us not waste what we have; truly appreciate the human effort of tending these spaces, machines, sidewalks, roads, electronics, and long-journeyed foods; and serve the needs of a small human community.

My heart aches reading Badawi’s words, published mere weeks before the rapid and deadly escalation of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. I hope the whole Oberlin community, regardless of faith or political affiliation, is supporting a ceasefire now to save innocent Palestinian lives. 

I am descended from Holocaust survivors. Some lived through horrific atrocities; most did not. My grandmother, Helen, was 14 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland. As I see images and hear the cries of the children of Gaza, I see her pain more clearly than ever before. I am appalled that these war crimes — hospitals and holy places full of civilians bombed, basic needs like water and medicine denied, children deemed animals unfit to live — are being perpetrated in her name and mine. 

Badawi calls upon his Jewish peers to think critically about Israel’s settler-colonial history and current human rights abuses. It is a Jewish cultural value and religious precept to “wrestle with the Almighty.” We have a responsibility to question the racist and Islamophobic narratives the Israeli and United States governments have fed us. 

As Audre Lorde said in her Oberlin commencement address in 1989, “We are citizens of the most powerful country on Earth —  we are also citizens of a country that stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on Earth. Feel what that means.” In Oberlin’s tradition of radically progressive thought and action, let us question. Why have even the most antisemitic presidents championed Israel? Why was the U.S. the only country in the United Nations to oppose humanitarian aid to Gaza on Oct. 18 as thousands lay wounded, dying, and starving? Surely this is not for the safety of the Jewish people, many of whom lay dying as well. What political and economic interests are these governments protecting in the Middle East? 

All of our most sacred Jewish holidays center on rebelling against oppressive regimes. I aim to carry that torch today, as is my birthright, and say unequivocally: Palestine deserves to be free.  

Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past. Let us remember “never again” is a call for global liberation. I hope that the Jewish community of Oberlin supports the cause of Palestinian freedom — and supports their Palestinian peers in this terrible time. We, as Jews, have a deep capacity and responsibility to remember that we are not free until everyone is. 

On the wall of my synagogue when I was a child, there was an engraving that said “I lay before you the blessing and the curse, life and death; therefore, choose life.” When we call our representatives for a ceasefire, march in the streets, and pray for Palestinian liberation, we choose life.

I urge you to cast your vote for Ray English for the sake of our city’s welfare.

Discounted by the Oberlin Planning Commission, Chief Hanmer’s professional assessment of the risks associated with the operation of EDL’s proposed renewable natural gas facility on Hill Creek Drive has proven to be prescient.

On the other hand, according to the revisionist history crafted by Oberlin City Councilman Ray English in the credulous pages of the Review (“Citizens Share Concerns About EDL Plant At City Council Meeting; Unrelated Resolutions Passed,” The Oberlin Review, Sept. 22, 2023):

“English said that the location and functioning of the EDL plant was discussed and approved in numerous public … planning Commission meetings, at which there were opportunities for the public to comment.” The Oberlin Review, Sept. 22, 2023):

In the case of the sole Oberlin Planning Commission public hearing or meeting concerning EDL, Mr. English is patently inaccurate.

I — residing a stone’s throw from Hill Creek Drive in Oberlin for decades — and another member of the public attended, in person, the entire Nov. 3, 2021, Oberlin Planning Commission meeting and incorporated public hearing at the Oberlin Fire Department regarding site plan review for the proposed EDL renewable gas facility in Oberlin. We arrived early and are clearly visible in the official, municipal video of the meeting and incorporated public hearing.

Despite multiple efforts to be recognized, and Rules of Procedure — adopted by the Oberlin Planning Commission May 6, 2020, and approved by the Oberlin City Council July 6, 2020 — requiring the opportunity for public comment at Oberlin Planning Commission meetings, Oberlin Planning Commission Vice Chair Eric Gaines, presiding in the absence of the Chair, neglected to open the Nov. 3, 2021 meeting and incorporate public hearing for public comment at any time.

Mr. English, the Oberlin City Council liaison to the Oberlin Planning Commission — who repeatedly proffered unsolicited comments at the November 3, 2021, Oberlin Planning Commission public hearing — has, in the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, “such a great respect for the truth that he uses it sparingly.”

The College, which has left its top eco-accountability officer position unfilled for a long time definitively needs to stop promoting car culture. It also needs to start supporting its bike culture, stop promoting its garbage in-the-name-of-food culture, and start promoting the culture of sharing food, housing, and vehicle transportation with the town. Sell meal tickets, offer meal plans, and make a space where all overestimated, overproduced, or “leftover” pans of food go, so that the College’s own employees, outsourced employees, and town residents may pick up the food in a convenient, timely way.

Oberlin College has staff maintaining dozens of motorized vehicles, so it can afford to staff a bicycle and tricycle maintenance garage where, of course, students can learn bike maintenance, too. The College can provide covered bike parking. It can share its shuttle and golf-cart-esque transit not only with its students, but with its faculty and staff, so that faculty and staff cars do not crowd the middle of town. This means it can share this local transit with town residents, too. Parking and housing issues are not the problems but symptoms of not sharing the abundance of resources we actually have.

Do not forget that Oberlin College demolished — yes, paid your good money to demolish — houses on many streets as opposed to selling these houses to those who would invest in them. They had previously demolished many homes on Woodland and Union Streets. They took over the entire Firelands apartment building from the town in 2003. If the College rented rooms and apartments to non-students, as well as selling meal plans to anybody, then they would have a revenue stream that would take at least some of the pressure off of student families to pay so much for tuition, room, and board.

Such arrangements that share the Earth’s resources in small human communities will offer, in Moak’s words, “a better vision for the broader world.”

This new parking will not be a positive addition to our campus. Asphalt is an impermeable surface, worsening flooding and surface water pollution. Pavement also reflects the sun’s heat, increasing air temperatures on hot days. Aesthetically, the new lots will make campus a grayer, duller space. Fortunately, these parking requirements can be waived. Provision 1349.01(e) allows for the college to receive a variance if it can demonstrate to the Planning Commission that “the nature of the [building’s] use requires fewer spaces than required herein.” 

That is surely the case. Oberlin is a small town that is easily traversed by foot or bicycle. Most students do not need — and should not be encouraged — to bring cars to campus. The City and College’s EV CarShare program and the College’s newly launched Obie Express are viable and cheap ways to get out of Oberlin. The ideal car-to-student ratio is far lower than what the City’s parking minimums suggest. 

At a larger scale, Oberlin College should not contribute to a culture of car dependency. The College must offer a better vision for the broader world. Oberlin’s pedestrian and bicycle friendly campus demonstrates that staggering crash fatalities and emission rates do not need to be inherent to modern life. The planned parking lots, however, would send the opposite message. The College should seek a zoning variance to avoid their construction. The City of Oberlin, for its part, should join a growing wave of American cities and repeal its parking minimums. Oberlin is a rare place in America where our urban structure broadly privileges people over cars. Let’s keep it that way.

There are, at the same time, other issues that contribute to housing problems in town.  For one, there are numerous unoccupied homes in Oberlin that are available only for short-term rentals using Airbnb. That takes off the market what would otherwise be suitable starter homes — or affordable rental homes — for working families. 

The biggest problem, however, is that Oberlin simply does have enough housing. That’s true at all levels. We need more affordable homes for working families to both own and rent, we need more housing for seniors, and we need more housing for faculty and staff who want to live in town. 

I’m pleased that the City is beginning to make some progress on these issues. In terms of affordable housing, Oberlin City Council has authorized the transfer of several lots to a housing developer who will use federal and state subsidies to create rent-to-own homes for moderate- to lower-income families. In addition, the City has transferred lots to the Oberlin Community Land Trust, which will lead to construction of two affordable homes that follow a land trust model where the occupant owns the home while the trust owns and leases out the land on which it sits. 

I’m especially pleased that surveys of the community for the City’s comprehensive planning and social equity planning processes indicate very clearly that the community wants more housing of all kinds. Our challenge will be to make that happen in ways that are smart and sustainable, ensuring that people at all income levels who want to reside in Oberlin can live comfortably in our town.

Ohio public education is under threat. Public education is one of the hallmarks of democracy, and it ensures all citizens have the opportunity to learn and to build stable lives. Through many legislative maneuvers, our state legislators aim to move public education and our tax dollars into the hands of private and religious schools. This will especially affect children from hardworking rural communities and lower-income families. Here is a sampling of the legislative bills now being considered:

Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 12 strip the State Board of Education of its powers and transfer them to a new department controlled by the governor and the Senate.

Senate Bill 11 and House Bill 11 propose a universal voucher program that will take state funding from public schools and give the funding to non-chartered, non-public schools and home schools.  

House Bill 1 proposes a flat income tax and ends graduated taxes according to income and the rollback of local property taxes, making it more difficult for communities to fund public education, libraries, and local government.

The League of Women Voters of the Oberlin Area, a nonpartisan organization that studies public issues, encourages you to contact your legislators and urge them to support public education and oppose these bills.

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