The Ohio Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) will hold their biennial reaffirmation drive next week. Over Nov. 4 and 5, OPIRG hopes to reach its goal of soliciting the 1,700 student signatures needed to keep the Oberlin chapter of OPIRG going.
The chapter is required to have over half the student body sign in appoval of the fee every two years.
OPIRG's method of funding is a $6 fee tacked onto the student activity fee. Students have the option of waiving the fee by signing a waiver form available at enrollment. Three to seven percent of students waive the fee.
OPIRG has been funded in this way since 1974, when a group of colleges formed the student-run PIRG chapters.
"It's funded this way because we are directly accountable to the student body," said sophomore Marnie Urso said. "We hire professional staff who are integral to what PIRG chapter is."
OPIRG currently works to get out the vote, raise awareness of hunger and homelessness and champion environmental causes.
"We do far-reaching things that have impacts on larger levels," Urso said.
Slightly under one ounce of crack cocaine was seized during an arrest at 197 Groveland Street on Oct. 9.
Police, acting on a tip, went to the home of Ezekial Allen Chaney, 18, of Washington, D.C., who was staying on the couch, and arrested him. When police returned to search the home they found 72 individually wrapped rocks of crack. Seven additional rocks were found on Chaney at the time of his arrest.
Police valued the drugs at between $2,500 and $3,000.
"These were nice rocks," Police Detective David Jasinski said.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 127, Number 7, October 30, 1998
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