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LORAIN COUNTY
AMHERST NEWS-TIMES • OBERLIN NEWS-TRIBUNE • WELLINGTON ENTERPRISE Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022
Golden Acres coming down
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Volume 9, Issue 41
Anger boils over
JASON HAWK EDITOR
AMHERST TWP. — No more delays. After months of setbacks, demolition has finally started at the former Golden Acres Nursing Home even though it’s not yet easy for the public to see. While the building looks sound from Route 58, excavators are tearing away on the far side. Gaping holes in the exterior are visible only from a narrow angle on North Ridge Road. “We did it so people can’t see the ugly eyesore while we work,” said J.J. Janson, president and CEO of A1 Land Development. His four-person crew plans to have the entire building down by mid-December. The face of the old nursing home and tuberculosis clinic could start being razed this week. As of Monday, the entrance was still intact, but debris was piled against the outside walls and thick dust clung to everything. Daylight shone through the windows where rear walls have already been eviscerated. After Lorain County commissioners signed a $238,500 contract in May, the original plan was to start demolition June 1. GOLDEN ACRES PAGE A2
Photos by Jason Hawk | Oberlin News-Tribune
An estimated 300 people gathered last Thursday afternoon on Wilder Bowl, including professors, union reps, other employees and students. Many held signs like the one below, defending the involvement of faculty in operational and strategic decisions about the college’s future.
Protesters rally for Oberlin College profs JASON HAWK EDITOR
Bruce Bishop | Amherst News-Times
Demolition crews have begun tearing down the exterior of the former Golden Acres Nursing Home in Amherst.
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OBERLIN — Hoping to halt a vote that would end a nearly twocentury-old agreement with Oberlin College faculty, hundreds of protesters gathered Thursday evening in front of Wilder Hall. Their frustrations quickly boiled over into anger. The crowd of students and employees turned on members of the Board of Trustees who had congregated outside the nearby Mudd Center. “F--- the trustees,” the protesters roared in unison. Christina Neilsen, chair of art history and a member of the local American Association of University Professors chapter, stood under a homecoming banner on Wilder’s
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PROTEST PAGE A2
‘You are hurting the businesses’ Main Street Wellington board president takes aim at Village Council JASON HAWK EDITOR
WELLINGTON — Frustrated by parking tickets and vacant storefronts downtown, Main Street Wellington board President Rich Saccardi blasted Village Council last week. In a report that Mayor
Hans Schneider later labeled “more of an attack,” Saccardi said elected officials have shown indifference to the direction the historic shopping district is heading. “If you do nothing, it will continue to disintegrate. It’s not a nice look, any of this,” he said. While it is an independent nonprofit, Main Street is given time for a report during Village Council’s bimonthly meetings. Saccardi used that time to ask
Council to draft an ordinance requiring downtown building owners to seek tenants. Other Ohio towns levy fines against owners whose buildings sit vacant for years at a time, he said. More businesses attract more shoppers. “You’re allowing people to sit on their properties for 5, 10, 20, 30 years and not fine them,” he said. “You are hurting the businesses of downtown Wellington by protecting landlords
who sit on their properties.” No response was offered by Council members or administrators during the meeting. Council has several times in recent years discussed whether to penalize the owners of commercial spaces that sit empty for years on end, but no ordinance has resulted. There “just hasn’t been an agreement on how to do HURTING PAGE A3
INSIDE THIS WEEK
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steps. Over it was taped a cardboard sign that said, “Abolish the trustees.” Neilsen said the board planned to strip faculty of the right to manage the internal affairs of the college. Known as the Finney Compact, the arrangement was first made with college President Charles Finney in 1835. The vote would limit professors to decisions strictly related to curriculum. Neilsen said that cuts them out of decisions about student well-being and mental health, as well as staffing and contracts for key services. Protesters railed against the 2020 layoffs of unionized dining and custodial workers and the recent decision to replace campus health workers with Bon Secours Mercy
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25-year Halloween parade tradition is saved • B1
Indigenous People’s Day celebrated on Tappan • B1
Star Wars fans come out for intergalactic fun • B1
OBITUARIES A2 • CLASSIFIEDS A4 • BULLETIN BOARD A6 • PUZZLES B2 • KID SCOOP B6