January 6, 2011
CAC zoning chair
Simbro: ‘Clintonville has an identity crisis’ By KEVIN PARKS ThisWeek Community Newspapers
At the end of the October meeting of the Clintonville Area Commission, zoning committee chairwoman Sandy Simbro announced that she had heard enough of the bickering that had been going on among members of the advisory panel. She’s heard a good deal more, since.
And if Simbro, who has been involved with the area commission in one form or another for four decades, has a wish for the New Year, it would be an answer to the question she posed back in October: “Where’s the civility?” Last week, Simbro said that in her experience the accusations and in-fighting that went on between commission mem-
bers last year is unprecedented. “I don’t ever remember it being so public,” She said. “There have always been personality differences. Three have always been differences of opinion, but I don’t ever remember it being so public and mean-spirited. Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words will never harm you, but once a word is spoken, you can’t take it back. Once the dam-
age is done, the damage is done, and I think a lot of damage has been done.” None of the unpleasantness about community representation on various CAC committees or the reversal in late October of an earlier position supporting a turn lane at East North Broadway and North High Street has served the community well, in the view of the zoning committee chairwoman.
“Clintonville has an identity crisis,” Simbro said. “Clintonville needs to be a team player and acknowledge and recognize they are part of the city of Columbus. They need to learn to get along. At the same time, their responsibility is to represent the community and to always act in the best interests of the communiSee SIMBRO:, page A2
CAC election panel works to complete rules By KEVIN PARKS ThisWeek Community Newspapers
A mail-in ballot procedure being put forward by members of the Clintonville Area Commission’s election committee became the focus of some controversy last week. It was also the one thing that committee members felt they didn’t need to discuss further when the panel met in the Whetstone Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library. Instead, chairwoman Mary Rodgers convened her committee again to go over everything else pertaining to the area commission’s election rules. Still, e-mail chatter and a few people on hand for the session did not want to go over details pertaining to the proposal to allow shut-ins and others unable to get to the polling places on election day, or days as was being considered, to use the U.S. Postal Service to cast their votes in the upcoming CAC election. “Certainly perfection just doesn’t exist,” Rodgers told one resident who attempted to steer discussion of last week’s meeting to the mail-in concept at the outset. Rodgers appeared before the
“
Certainly perfection just doesn’t exist.
”
MARY RODGERS
— election committee chairwoman
area commission members at the December meeting in order to sound them out about the proposal for having mail-in balloting essentially replace absentee voting, which became the source of some dismay because employees at the library branch, who handled the requests for people unable to vote in person the day of the election, photocopied driver’s licenses and other personal identification information for verification purposes. Subsequently, some community members expressed grave concern that these documents would be considered public property and open those who participated in the election by absentee ballot up to possible identity theft. However, Rodgers was told the CAC’s December meeting was too full to take up the mail-in concept, and instead it would be re-
By Laurie Stevenson/ThisWeek
(Above) Clintonville residents Shaune Skinner (right), president, and her business partner Elsie Immel-Blei run the Northlandbased ASC Group Inc., a cultural and environmental consulting firm. (Below) Skinner stands by some of the artifacts collected by her staff from the field.
Women-owned firm offers CAC members cultural, environmental services look back, ahead See CAC ELECTION, page A4
By KEVIN PARKS
By KEVIN PARKS ThisWeek Community Newspapers
Commission, the events of 2010 were unprecedented, not only in my CAC tenure, but maybe within living Mike memory,” Dis- McLaughlin trict 1 representative Mike McLaughlin wrote. He didn’t mean it in a good way. “In some ways, I think the spring and summer for us were a preview of trends that later affected the public discourse at state and national levels,” McLaughlin continued. “In past years, the CAC has worked hard, and effectively, in building consensus among the districts of Clintonville to achieve enhancements for the area as a whole. “This year, I have seen a movement away from that area-wide focus. Clintonville residents may understandably be reflecting influences at work on the national level. In a recession, people often turn inward, become less global in their thinking, more protective and more suspicious about ex-
Members of the Clintonville Area Commission, offered the opportunity look back on the year just past and ahead to the one just dawned, had typically different takes on both. “Being a commissioner and Realtor, I want to focus on the positive accomplishments of 2010 and look for- John ward to what DeFourny the future has in store,” chairman John DeFourny wrote. “It is an honor to serve my neighbors and the community and a privilege to sell their homes. Both go hand in hand. It is all about promoting our Beechwold-Clintonville community as one of the best places to live, work, play. “Most noteworthy for Clintonville 2010-2011 is the thousands of hours of dedication to Clintonville by all community volunteers, residents, commissioners and business owners.” “For the Clintonville Area See CAC MEMBERS, page A4
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What started out as two archeologists scrambling to fill a void has burgeoned into a 45-employee Northland-based company with offices in four states offering services dealing with ancient history as well as completely modern issues and problems. What is today the ASC Group Inc. Cultural and Environmental Consultants, with headquarters on Freeway Drive North, was founded by business partners and Clintonville residents Shaune M. Skinner and Elsie Immel-Blei on April 1, 1986, as simply Archeological Services Consultants. “ASC Group Inc. is a certified, womenowned cultural and environmental resources management company,” according to its website. The cultural part provided the underpinnings for the enterprise when the Ohio Historical Society, as a result of a potential conflict of interest, was forced to drop archeological surveys as a service offered. Skinner and Immel-Blei, archeologists for the society, faced losing their jobs so, with the blessing of the director, started their own firm to provide the surveys, which are required by federal regulations for many types of development and land use. It was a propitious time to get into the field, so to speak, according to Skinner, now president of the company; business partner Immel-Blei is more involved in the financial end of things.
In about 1986, Skinner said, the federal Office of Surface Mining had just been sued for failing to comply with a requirement to conduct archeological surveys before mining operations started. As a result, coal companies were lined up waiting for a whole backlog of these surveys to be conducted. For the first two years of the company’s existence, all Skinner and Immel-Blei did was surveys for mining companies, to permit operations to begin where nothing or archeological significance was found or
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halted where there was. “All we needed were shovels,” Skinner recalled “Back then, people wrote reports on typewriters. We didn’t have to go out and buy a building. We didn’t have to buy a lot of expensive equipment.” With the expansion of services over the years since, ASC Group Inc. has had to buy a building, lots of expensive equipment and has expanded to have offices in not only See FIRM OFFERS, page A2
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