Stop fighting, celebrate

With the East College Street Project well under construction, detractors have apparently begun to fight those associated with it. After city council withdrew its request for a hearing on the application for a liquor license based on questions of whether the precinct is wet or dry, the Division of Liquor Control received a complaint that the Slow Train Cafe, to be located in the East College Street Project, is within 500 feet of Park Street Park.

We have no doubt the objection was raised by one of two very public opponents of the mixed-use residential and commercial development on the corner of East College and South Pleasant streets. One of them made two typical sesquipedalian, incoherently-rapid ramblings at the Jan. 4 meeting of city council, attacking Albino Squirrel LLC and the East College Street Project.

To borrow from this detractor's oft-repeated imagery, it's time to stop trying to bail water with a thimble from the listing Titanic and let your objections sink to the depths. The East College Street will be completed, and it's opening heralded on "Josh Rosen's copious online journal" (another pet phrase).

For all the trouble Rosen, Ben Ezinga, and Naomi Sabel have endured in the years since they first proposed their development, we sometimes wonder why they keep going.

They raised awareness in Oberlin of sustainable development and LEED certification to the point the city and Oberlin College have jumped on the bandwagon. Their reward has been to have their motives, their process, and their characters called into question from the council dais and from the audience at city council meetings.

The trio were young, inexperienced Oberlin College graduates when they began their quest. Now, as they approach their 30th birthdays, they have accomplished more than many people twice their ages.

They have negotiated public and private financing deals that would have withered more seasoned developers who have been limited by stunted imaginations. They have held up under the scrutiny of the Environmental Protection Agency, and endured questioning during long night council meetings to hammer out a tax increment financing agreement.

Their goal has been to build a sustainable development that will draw national attention to Oberlin and residents and jobs to downtown. They only came to Oberlin in the late 1990s, but they have more of the Oberlin spirit than the detractors who have lived here for decades.

It's time to stop fighting the East College Street Project and celebrate it for the achievement it is, both for Ezinga, Rosen, and Sabel, and for Oberlin.