Tuesday October 4, 2011 year: 132 No. 12 the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
thelantern Overpaid players ruled ineligible
sports
Alex Antonetz and Thomas Bradley Arts editor and Campus editor antonetz.3@osu.edu and bradley.321@osu.edu
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Climbing Crew
The Columbus Crew rose to second-place in the Eastern Conference after a tie game against Philadelphia Union.
arts & life
Five Ohio State football players were paid by a Cleveland-area booster for work they did not do, and as a result, three of the five players are suspended from Saturday’s game at Nebraska. OSU athletic director Gene Smith announced Monday that senior wide receiver DeVier Posey, senior running back Dan Herron and offensive lineman Marcus Hall will be suspended for Saturday’s game at Nebraska as part of the NCAA’s investigation of the program. Melvin Fellows and Etienne Sabino were also involved, though Fellows is no longer playing due to a career-ending injury and Sabino has already been reinstated. The employment violation involves the wages the players were paid relative to the hours they worked under Robert DiGeronimo. DiGeronimo is a former booster from Independence, Ohio. The university sent a letter of disassociation to DiGeronimo on Sept. 20. “Bobby DiGeronimo has been disassociated from the institution,” Smith said. “Publicly it’s looked at as taken so long (to disassociate him), but there is a process of procedures and a strategy.” DiGeronimo is the same Cleveland-area booster who paid junior running back Jordan Hall, junior defensive back Travis Howard and sophomore defensive back Corey Brown at a charitable event in February. DiGeronimo did respond to phone calls for comment from The Lantern. In an interview with The Columbus Dispatch, DiGeronimo said he felt he did nothing wrong. “There were no irregularities,” he told the
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THOMAS BRADLEY / Campus editor
Gene Smith spoke at a press conference on Oct. 3, 2011, announcing that football players Boom Herron, DeVier Posey and Marcus Hall would be suspended for Saturday’s game at Nebraska.
Printer company files lawsuit against OSU
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Do Good Bus rolls out
Foster the People collaborated with the Do Good Bus, a community service project on wheels, and helped out at a local park in Columbus on Sunday.
campus
Solar decathlon team finished 5th globally
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weather high 71 low 50 partly cloudy
W 75/52 TH 74/52 F 77/51 SA 78/54
sunny sunny sunny sunny www.weather.com
Sarah Stemen Oller reporter stemen.66@osu.edu An office-company filed a lawsuit against Ohio State, saying the university wrongly awarded a potential $24 million printer and copier contract to a competitor. Modern Office Methods filed the lawsuit on Sept. 26 in the Court of Claims, requesting that OSU set aside its recently awarded contract with ComDoc, Inc. and rebid it. According to the documents, Modern Office Methods said a ComDoc employee met with an OSU employee, unknowingly to the other top-two competitors, Modern Office Methods and Gordon Flesch Co. “Bill Matthews, a ComDoc representative, held unapproved closed-door meetings with OSU’s Debie Gill-Parks during the Request for Proposal process, which should have disqualified ComDoc from the RFP,” according to the lawsuit claim. An RFP is a request for proposal.
Everyone got to submit bids for apples, but only the winner got to price oranges. Charles M. Miller lawyer for Modern Office Methods Gill-Parks did not respond to The Lantern’s emails. OSU began taking proposals Jan. 19 and gave the 40-month-long contract to ComDoc on Aug. 31. Charles M. Miller, Modern Office Methods’ lawyer, said the contract is worth $4 million per year, and $12 million for the initial three-year contract. The contract could be renewed after that, for three years totaling $24 million. “Copier contracts are subject to periodic renewal or rebidding,” Miller said. “In the suit, MOM alleges that the latest round of rebidding was not a truly competitive process because OSU was holding improper discussions with the winning bidder that resulted in a contractor very different from the bids.”
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Hooligans fundraise for bigger, better pub Colleen Carey Lantern reporter carey.259@osu.edu The Hudson Street Hooligans are in the process of opening their superfan pub on Summit Street after it was shut down after a failed inspection. The Hooligans are a Columbus Crew fan group that sits in the “Nordecke,” which is German for “north corner,” at Crew games to celebrate Columbus’ German heritage. Hudson Street Hooligans is also the name of the group’s members-only club that opens for both the Crew and the United States’ men’s and women’s national teams’ matches at Crew Stadium. The establishment also hosts viewing parties for the Crew’s road games, national team games and other popular international fixtures. During the off season, the Hooligans expanded their existing pub into a vacant space next door to make room for ticket and merchandise sales. The problem arose during an inspection by the City of Columbus, after which the pub’s certificate
of occupancy was revoked on July 28. The Hooligans were using the space for “assembly” but the building was zoned for “mercantile use,” according to Blake Compton, the Hudson Street Hooligans’ pub administrator. “We operated basically illegally for a year, not knowing we were doing anything wrong,” Compton said. The inspection ruled that the building needed to be rezoned in order to operate with a liquor license, as well as come up to code on fire regulations and create a parking variance. Currently, the pub can operate on home game days as long as the occupancy remains less than 100, Compton said. “We are going through the review process on our building permit right now so the occupancy is undefined,” Compton said. All of this rezoning and construction comes with a hefty price tag. “Renovations alone will probably be around $45,000-$55,000,” Compton said. In addition to the renovations, there are city fees, such as permit application fees
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CODY COUSINO / Photo editor
Fans cheer during a Columbus Crew game on Nov. 6, 2010.
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 5:00-7:00pm FREE dental exams and two free dental x-rays, provided by students under faculty supervision.
Dental Exams & X-rays BRUTUS D.D.S.
Miller said that Modern Office Methods just wants the chance to rebid the actual contract. “Everyone got to submit bids for apples, but only the winner got to price oranges,” Miller said. The main differences, Miller said, between the proposed bid and the actual contract OSU agreed to with ComDoc are: • The contract now requires that all OSU schools, campuses and departments participate where, under the bid, each could opt out • OSU now guarantees a minimum 12-month placement for each copier (under the bid, there was no guarantee) • OSU now guarantees a minimum cash flow per machine (also no guarantee under bid) • The contract is now 40 months instead of 36 months “These changes make the contract more attractive to the vendor, and thus vendors would be willing to submit lower bids,” Miller said. Miller said Gordon Flesch also filed a formal
STUDENT BOARD SCREENING DAY
No appointments are necessary, and no fees will be charged
1st floor dental clinic (room 1038 A) Postle Hall, 305 W.12th Avenue (Columbus, OH)
THIS EVENT IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! Questions? Call 614.450.0018 Go to www.dent.osu.edu for directions and parking information.
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