On the Sheriff Kelly case
In case you haven’t noticed, temporary and permanent Athenians, our sheriff has been in the news recently.
Following a yearlong investigation by the Ohio Attorney General’s office, Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly was charged with 23 felonies and two misdemeanors. As reported in the article on today’s front page, Kelly pleaded not guilty to each one Monday.
While he was in court, Ohio University students were among the demonstrators outside the courthouse who encouraged the sheriff to step down.
Of course, Kelly is presumed innocent until proven guilty of the crimes alleged against him. During that time, we will report diligently on the trial. But the effects of the drama will not go unnoticed beyond the courtroom walls.
We believe Kelly is entitled to his day in court, but both he and the people of Athens County must seriously consider the ramifications the trial will bring, regardless of his innocence or guilt.
Whether you’ll be in Athens the rest of your life or just the next few months, we encourage you to stay updated on this developing story. It’s in your best interest to understand what your peers are screaming about.
On the fieldhouse construction
There’s the Walter Fieldhouse, there’s a steam pipe and there’s a five-foot screw-up between the two. We don’t know how it happened, but we do know fixing the error might end up costing an amount worth more than two years of in-state undergraduate tuition.
The mistake, which could cost as much as $25,000, is the latest in a series of setbacks for the $13 million fieldhouse. Meanwhile, the School of Music is fundraising $100,000 to replace a nearly 100-year-old grand piano. Priorities, eh?
$822,000 in student fees have already gone into the fieldhouse this academic year, even though it won’t be open to students (who aren’t athletes) until fall.
It’s not yet clear whose pocket that $25,000 for the construction fumble will come out of, but we would be — to put it delicately — disgruntled if the university tapped into student funds to cover the cost. The building is a headache and an eyesore, and we hope it doesn’t become even more of a student-fee leech than it already is.
On a Michigan student paper
In January, the editorially-independent student newspaper at the University of Michigan broke a big story. The Michigan Daily found that the football team’s starting kicker was “permanently separated” from the university in December 2013 for violating a sexual misconduct policy in 2009.
When the university held a news conference with head football coach Brady Hoke to address the report, the Daily was not in attendance. Daily sports writer Matt Slovin, who co-authored the story, confirmed on Twitter that the university shut the paper out of the event.
The university selected only five news outlets that were able to attend the news conference last week, and we believe the Daily should have been one of them. It proved with its breakthrough story that it belonged as a serious university watchdog, and barring it from being able to follow up firsthand with Hoke further shrouds the topic in suspicion.
As we’ve written before, we believe student newspapers — especially those that are independent of their universities — are a vital piece of the communities they cover. If anything, the Daily should be commended for bringing this story to light. Instead, the university chose to leave it in the dark.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
