ELYRIA — Community Health Partners has scrapped a plan to build a new hospital on Schadden Road in Elyria.

The parent company of Community Regional Medical Center in Lorain, “abandoned” the plan about a year ago, Megan Manahan, vice president of marketing for Community Health Partners, said Thursday.

“We didn’t think it met the needs of the community and our organization’s strategic needs,” she said.

Elyria Mayor Bill Grace said he officially received notification Wednesday that the tentatively named St. Mary’s Community Hospital wasn’t going to happen but that he had been aware that CHP wasn’t going forward with the plan for some time.

“They thought that being closer to Cuyahoga County was a better market position,” he said.

The hospital has been trying to sell parcels of land it purchased in the run-up to announcing the St. Mary’s plan in 2007, both Grace and Manahan said.

CHP also has just paid more than $6 million for about 33 acres of property in Avon near the state Route 611 interchange off Interstate 90.

Manahan said the hospital system is still developing plans for the site, but both doctors and patients have expressed a desire for CHP to have a presence near Avon.

“We’re still finalizing what the plans are for that facility,” Manahan said, adding that what the impact on a nearby physicians’ office and pediatric practice run by CHP has not yet been determined.

She said the Avon area, which already has an EMH Regional Medical Center emergency facility and where the Cleveland Clinic has plans to build a medical office building, is an attractive area because of highway access.

Manahan said the new Avon facility won’t have a negative impact on Community Regional Medical Center, which is located on Kolbe Road.

“We expect the main facility to remain strong,” she said.

The Elyria hospital that CHP was considering had drawn fire from EMH officials, who contended that the Elyria area couldn’t support two hospitals.

CHP will continue to operate its cancer center on Schadden Road and plans to keep much of the property that had been purchased for St. Mary’s to use for future expansion of the cancer center, Manahan said.

Grace said there are already industrial companies interested in the property CHP has put up for sale.
“We had hoped they were going to build the expanded facility,” he said. “But the silver lining is it allows for industrial expansion in that area.”

Grace said he hopes that will eventually mean extending the dead-end Schadden Road to meet Lake Avenue. The best option, he said, would be building an extension off Liberty Court, a small dead-end road near the end of Schadden Road.

That project, which would make the area more accessible, has been under consideration for some time, but the city has never been able to secure the funding to move forward, Grace said.

This isn’t the first time CHP has dropped plans to build facilities. In 2005, the hospital system announced plans to build a facility in North Ridgeville, but that project never left the drawing board.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

OSLO — President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize today for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama’s name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

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“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama’s vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.

“Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play,” the committee said.

Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson won in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, while former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N. panel on climate change.

The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year’s prize.

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel’s death.

The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel’s guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.

Excerpts from the citation

• The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
• Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.
• The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
• Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
• For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

ELYRIA — Two laid-off Lorain County Sheriff’s deputies were back on the streets Thursday, knocking on doors in an effort to convince voters to leave in place a 0.5 percent sales tax hike imposed by county commissioners earlier this year.

Dan Strohsack quickly won the support of Bud Shuster on Pinewood Drive in Elyria after he explained what he and his fellow deputies did for the cities — running the jail, keeping track of sex offenders and serving warrants.

“I think they deserve it,” Shuster said after Strohsack finished his pitch.

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Not everyone has been so easily sold, Strohsack said, but most are willing to listen, and many of those have promised to vote for Issue 4 when they cast their ballots next month.

Citing dwindling revenue, the commissioners slashed $6 million across county government late last year, a move that led to more than 75 county workers, including 12 full-time deputies and eight part-time deputies, losing their jobs.

Two of the laid-off deputies have returned to work thanks to funding from the Lorain County Solid Waste Management District, but others have been forced to take work where they can.

Strohsack is working as a corrections officer in the county jail and picking up a few shifts with Kipton police. Ryan Sayers, another laid-off deputy who was knocking on doors with Strohsack on Thursday afternoon, worked as a Lorain County Metro Parks ranger over the summer and is now working at the jail.

But Strohsack said if the sales tax fails at the polls, a wing at the jail could be closed, and he and Sayers could be out of work again. Besides, he said, he doesn’t want to be a corrections officer, he wants to be a cop.

“You could pay me the same to go dig a ditch, but I want to be back out there doing what I love,” Strohsack told Roger Vanek, another Pinewood Drive resident.

Vanek said he wasn’t convinced. He said he is opposed to the 0.5 percent income tax hike that the city of Elyria is trying to get passed because he fears it will simply lead to city workers taking home more money.

“I have a problem with the police and fire here in town, with this longevity pay,” he said.

Vanek said government workers need to be willing to sacrifice.

“Some of these people had it good for a long time,” he said. “But there’s a lot of people who don’t know where the next slice of bread is coming from.”

Vanek also said he wants to see immediate results if he does vote to keep the county sales tax increase in place, something Strohsack said will definitely happen. If the sales tax does pass, he said, he and his fellow laid-off deputies will be back on the job within a week.

Strohsack said he believes the sales tax is the fairest way to raise money for the county because everyone will end up paying a little to put the deputies back on the road.

“The drug dealer who buys his $200 pair of shoes is going to be paying it,” he told Vanek. “He’s actually going to pay for us to go out and get him.”

Sayers said he’s been telling people that the commissioners aren’t bluffing when they say the county needs the money and more cuts will happen if the sales tax increase doesn’t pass.
“They really need it,” he said. “This is reality.”

Sheriff’s Capt. Dennis Cavanaugh, commander of the Lorain County Drug Task Force, said he has been coordinating the deputies’ door-to-door campaign.

Right now, he said, the deputies are focusing on Elyria and Carlisle and Elyria townships, but they also plan to hit Lorain and other areas of the county in the coming weeks. About 30 deputies are expected to knock on doors Saturday, he said.

And the deputies won’t be alone, Cavanaugh said. Assistant county prosecutors and other county workers who have taken pay cuts or seen coworkers lose their jobs also will be campaigning for the tax over the next month.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

LORAIN — A Lorain man died after a crash involving three cars Wednesday afternoon near St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church.

Larry Durasin, 52, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, which shut down parts of East Erie and Kansas avenues as rescue crews worked to remove the wreckage of three cars.

Andrew Jones, 32, of Huron, was LifeFlighted to a Cleveland hospital, where he was listed in fair condition this morning.

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Matus said Durasin, who was wearing a seat belt and was surrounded by deployed airbags, suffered severe multiple blunt force trauma, including internal injuries.

The accident happened about 2:50 p.m. — roughly 20 minutes after dismissal time for students from St. Anthony School.

Durasin, who was driving a silver Ford Taurus, was stopped at a traffic light at the intersection facing west on East Erie when he was struck from behind by a gray Chevrolet Malibu driven by Jones, according to Lorain police Sgt. Lawrence Meek.

The impact pushed Durasin’s car into a utility pole and sent Jones’ car into the intersection, where it collided with a silver Dodge pickup turning left from Kansas Avenue.

The pickup, which sustained the least amount of damage, came to rest on the church’s front lawn. The pickup’s driver, Dwight Clark, 42, Lorain, was not hurt.

A utility pole was sheared off but remained upright. It caused the power in the neighborhood to flicker off for a few seconds, alerting residents to the nearby collision.

“First I heard the crash, and then the electricity just went off for a quick second,” said Mitch Berlingeri, who lives about a block away from the accident. “But when I looked outside, I just saw a mist of smoke and people coming out of their homes.”

Video Berlingeri took at the scene:

Matus said Durasin had to be removed by Lorain firefighters.

Jones was taken by LifeCare to Community Regional Medical Center in Lorain then transported by medical helicopter to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland.

According to Lorain fire Capt. Jeff Fenn, he was conscious and talking at the scene.

All three men were alone in their vehicles.

No one has been charged, and the accident remains under investigation, Lorain police said this morning.

At about the same time, an accident involving a tractor-trailer shut down state Route 57 southbound in South Lorain.

The driver of the semi hit the brakes and lost control of his load of pipe, according to a Lorain police officer, who was diverting traffic at the scene. Route 57 was shut down between Homewood Drive and East 42nd Street as a crew worked to clear the pipes from the road.

Contact Rona Proudfoot at 329-7124 or rproudfoot@chroniclet.com.

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