Fighting the good fight in battle over Oberlin's housing safety

Throughout the rooming house safety debate, there has been the constant implication that if city officials are coming down on a landlord that their property must be unsafe. As one who has been cited for serious safety hazards and "implicated" in the media lately, I have felt and sensed this directly. In most towns such an implication would be valid. Indeed, a couple of years ago I would have made the same deduction about Oberlin, but after my first hand dealings with the City, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions.

The Board of Building Appeals found that our home, which is also a licensed rooming house, is safe. In fact, our home includes numerous safety features which protect our family and our tenants. We have seventeen smoke detectors and seven fire extinguishers. Since purchasing our home almost five years ago, we have improved wiring, outlets, and fixtures. We have provided the safest oil filled space heaters we could find to use when needed. We have plans for more such safety enhancements, but these have been on hold until we resolve our issues with the City which have been plaguing us for the last year and a half.

A stairway escape may be easier to descend than a ladder escape, but in our house, multiple ladders insure a way out for each of our third floor occupants. A single escape would only invite tragedy. If our primary means of escape were blocked because of a fire, the stairway would act like a chimney. Smoke would fill the third floor hallway, making a common egress impossible to access. It would then become unwise to "just open a door" as the Fire Chief suggests.

Exiting a window and descending a ladder makes sense and is consistent with recommendations from sources as diverse as the National Fire Protection Association, the Shriners, pamphlets on fire extinguisher operation, smoke detector instructions, and The Reader's Digest. Unlike many of the ladders directly below or adjacent to windows in other houses, our egress design allows people to exit and balance before mounting a ladder. For these reasons we have resisted the city's demands that we eliminate a way out of each room. I recall that these facts were not contested when we appealed our serious hazard citation to the State Board.

I challenge the implications of others that we might be "totally reckless about safety," or that ours is a "bad situation." After all, we have been inspected, had plans approved, and have been granted licenses annually by the City. The State Board has ruled in our favor. No doubt there are bad situations, but don't think that because the City tried to make an example of us that we are bad. There are many worse situations in this town, including, I believe, a number of illegal rooming houses. All this suggests that if the college is genuinely "concern(ed) about the state of off-campus housing in the Oberlin community," and "the safety of (its) students" (from a letter to City Council by Charlene Cole-Newkirk) that they may have to investigate and understand the deeper motivations of the City's administration. It would please me greatly if we could also avoid generalizations of the sort that appeared in last Friday's Review.

Fire safety is important, but I do not believe that's what the city has really been talking about. This appears to be much more of a political issue than one of fire safety. The city says that they are "keying on the safety issue," and "We're trying to save lives here." Why, then, did they pick on one of the more safe rooming houses? For one, we drew a line when costs became unreasonable and safety requirements became of questionable or negative value. The City has required compliance with their demands, and we have felt some of their demands are unreasonable. This is more about compliance than safety.

I have worked with the City, and because of increased safety and value, I have performed a considerable amount of work that I do not believe they could legally require. I, along with Nancy Dye, am "completely supportive of the city's code." It is questionable whether the City is following it, however. I will save discussion of this point for future occasions since it is rather involved. Suffice it to say that the City has provided us with many unanswered questions and has not been as forthcoming with answers as it has with citations.

The City's administration has grabbed more power than I believe they are entitled to. The State Board's decision will certainly pave the way in restoring balance and should help in disabling the City's overzealous political motivations. If not, I guess I'll just have to "keep up the good fight."

-Glenn Gall, Oberlin home-owner

School funding: Equity and adequacy will benefit all Ohioans

It has been over two years since the Ohio Supreme Court found the State's education system unconstitutional. Yet, one would have a hard time distinguishing the system of two years ago from that of today - outside of a handful of new and meaningless bills and unfunded mandates from Columbus.

As a result of the State's inaction, far too many of Ohio's children still attend schools that are simply fiscally incapable of providing a quality education. From crumbling buildings erected prior to WWI to molding library books that pre-date man landing on the moon, obstacle after obstacle is placed before Ohio's poorer school kids. These children often leave school unprepared for college, assuming they even graduate at all.

While a change to a-more equitable and adequate system would clearly benefit children in impoverished districts, it is widely feared that such a change would compromise the education provided in more affluent schools. Can Ohio pay for the constitutionally guaranteed "thorough and efficient system of common schools" without taking away from the wealthier districts?

First of all, Ohio is a very prosperous state, and much of the needed change is simply a prioritization of education - over prisons and ballparks, for example. We can afford to raise the lowest funding levels without lowering the highest. "Robin Hood" analogies of stealing from the rich to give to the poor are merely propaganda used to delay meaningful change.

Rather than ask if we can afford an adequate system of schools, perhaps it is time for Ohio to ask if we can afford not to provide such a system. Recent studies suggest that investment in education - especially the education of impoverished children - is imperative for continued economic prosperity.

A study of 123 children published in Preventive Medicine (Barnett, v 27) found that on average an investment of $7,600 in the pre-school education of a poor child yields net returns of over $76,000 to taxpayers by the time the child turns 27. These returns include reduced education, welfare, and crime costs and increased tax revenues.

An investment that pays back ten-fold is incredible by any standard, and well worth the taxpayers' money. The implication of this study on policy-making is a call for increased school funding in impoverished areas for the economic benefit of all.

One aspect of an overall increase in quality of education not included in the above study is economic development. Specifically, businesses locate where there are the most qualified individuals to fill their jobs - whether that is in Ohio, another state, or another country. Moreover, tomorrow's jobs are going to require higher levels of education than ever before.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, professional jobs are projected to grow 37.4 percent between 1992 and 2005, and 71.5 percent of these jobs are currently held by college graduates. On the other hand, farming and forestry jobs are predicted to grow only 3.4 percent over the same time period, and 74.9 percent of these jobs are held by high school graduates or drop-outs.

Equally important is the fact that professionals earn on average $596 a week compared to $258 a week for farming and forestry jobs. It seems rather obvious that Ohio's future is closely tied to the educational attainment of all our children - rich and poor.

Education funding is not a zero-sum game. Where one gains, another does not necessarily lose. In the case of improving the education of our less privileged citizens, where they gain we all gain. We cannot hope for continued prosperity in the 21st century when our education system is stuck in the 19th century. It is time for Ohio to create a truly adequate and equitable system of schools - if not out of a sense of fairness then out of a sense of economic necessity.

-Jeremy Neff, education major at Bowling Green State University