Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025
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Counting the homeless in Lorain County Carissa Woytach The Community Guide
ELYRIA – An Amtrak train whipped past as a group of women walked parallel to the tracks through the snow and slush, over discarded bottles
and windswept mounds of debris. Bags of trash, covered by snow, crunched underfoot. “Hello! Outreach — Is anyone there?” they called, flashlights bouncing through trees
and brush past where the dim streetlights illuminated behind the train station off Elyria’s East River Street. The group peered into an abandoned storage shack, past a makeshift door of bro-
ken plywood with a cardboard sign tacked to it that read “Keep out! Take Shelter Emergency Only” scrawled in black marker. Inside that shelter were piles of pillows and bed sheets, a
plastic tote bin with a bright yellow lid, a black trash bag and other belongings pushed into the tiny space to shield them from the weather. No one was there. Finding that shelter and
Oberlin honing in on new manager
ARTISTIC STATEMENTS Oberlin students artwork on display at FAVA for Black History Month The Community Guide
OBERLIN — Oberlin High School and the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts opened their third annual Black History Month exhibit at the downtown gallery. Students in art classes at Oberlin High School created portraits of Black historical and pop culture figures, from Diana Ross to John Legend and Oprah Winfrey. Students picked the medium and the subject. Local judges awarded first, second and third place prizes with cash awards donated by Oberlin residents and the city’s Heritage Center. Carmen McFarlin, one of this year’s judges, was impressed by the students’ work
and thrilled to see the number of Black women whose portraits filled one of FAVA’s galleries. Lucia Martin won first place this year with her portrait of Diana Ross and Ghost Kaminski won second with their portrait of Ella Fitzgerald. Milou Boonekamp’s portrait of Rihanna and EJ Thomas’ portrait of Rosa Gadsden tied for third place. Rosa Gadsden is the outreach and volunteer coordinator for Oberlin Community Services.
Garrett Looker The Community Guide
HOW TO SEE The students’ art can be seen at FAVA, 39 S. Main St., from 1 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays.
THIRD PLACE (TIE): EJ Thomas’ portrait of Oberlin Community Services’ Rosa Gadsden.
CARISSA WOYTACH / COMMUNITY GUIDE PHOTOS
FIRST PLACE: Lucia Martin’s portrait of Diana Ross.
THIRD PLACE (TIE): Milou Boonekamp’s portrait of Rihanna.
SECOND PLACE: Ghost Kaminski’s portrait of Ella Fitzgerald.
FAVA restarts residency with Oberlin professor Carissa Woytach The Community Guide
OBERLIN — The Firelands Association for the Visual Arts has restarted its winter artist residency. Michael Boyd Roman, an Oberlin College assistant professor, will have his work
on display in one half of the gallery, while completing another body of work in the space beside it. The program, which invites resident artists to create a new body of work or complete works in progress at the gallery while interacting with patrons,
other signs of Elyria’s homeless population throughout the city’s downtown was part of the annual Point-in-Time count, conducted by volunteers from local nonprofits to give a snapSee HOMELESS, A2
has been on hiatus since the pandemic, FAVA gallery director Tirzah Legg said. To kick off his approximately month-long residency, Roman gave an artist talk on Saturday, explaining his process for creating the large-scale charcoal drawings at the center of his
series “Worth a Negus Wait in Gold.” The series used mixed-media and charcoal drawings to combine religious iconography like gold leaf and doves with portraits of Black men in modern hip-hop and pop culture motifs.
See RESIDENCY, A2
Oberlin officials are one step closer to finding a new city manager after meeting to review and evaluate the 18 firms that applied to help the city in its search. Members of the city manager search committee whittled down the list to four search firms they found promising. “The ones we chose, I think really put some more work into it,” said Oberlin Council Vice President Michael McFarlin, regarding the effort put into crafting the proposal “and not just pulling it off, completely off the shelf.” While no official choice has been made s made, “at least three of these have stood out to all of us,” Oberlin Council member Kristin Peterson said. After a firm has been chosen, the committee will present its findings and suggestions to Oberlin City Council members during a special meeting in February. Oberlin interim City Manager Jon Clark said, “I think we ought to take those two weeks to give some thought to it and make a recommendation to Council.” Committee members said the range of quoted prices from the preferred companies was between $20,000 and $50,000. Certain aspects and qualities of the companies that applied to aid the search for a new city manager stood out to members of the committee, such as responsiveness and commitment to searching for diverse candidates. “The RFP (request for proposal) had evaluation criteria in it, and so that’s what a lot of us are looking at,” McFarlin said. During the meeting, McFarlin said that applicants that specifically responded to details in the request for proposal “score highly for me.” Whether a company had previously done work in Ohio or the surrounding region was another quality the committee discussed. Contact Garrett Looker at glooker@chroniclet. com.
INSIDE THIS WEEK Amherst
Wellington
Peace Summit
Januzzi’s Footwear remodels as it turns 100. A3
Elms Retirement Village holds open house. A4
Homicides, unrest are related. A5
SPORTS A6 • CROSSWORD A7 • SUDOKU A7 • KID SCOOP A8