Tue, Nov 10 2009
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Published June 25, 2008 06:42 pm - Eavesdrop on conversations at the lunch counter, in the aisles of Wal-Mart on a Friday evening or around the sports bar on a Sunday afternoon, and you’re likely to hear some pretty disparaging remarks about the old hometown. Bad vibes: Lack of opportunities, progress make for sour attitudes By CARL E. FEATHER - Lifestyle Editor - cfeather@starbeacon.com Star Beacon Eavesdrop on conversations at the lunch counter, in the aisles of Wal-Mart on a Friday evening or around the sports bar on a Sunday afternoon, and you’re likely to hear some pretty disparaging remarks about the old hometown.
Bashing Ashtabula County and its institutions is a favorite community pastime, perhaps exceeded only by the city’s passion for high school sports and following favorite bickering politicians. Young people like to bash the community’s lack of entertainment and shopping experiences, young adults criticize the community’s lack of opportunities and jobs, and those over 40 engage in bashing the media, political leaders and pothole-rich roads. City council members bash each other and school board members. Back and forth it goes, and year after year, the county under-achieves its potential. “There’s no doubt about it: We have been down so long; there are far too many people here who think we cannot rise again,” says Steve Sargent, executive director of the Samaritan House homeless shelter and a board member of several city and county-wide nonprofit organizations. Sargent feels our attitudes about ourselves and community stems from a chronic lack of hope and paucity of innovative leadership with vision. And it’s an attitude that’s showing. “I have found as I walk around in other counties and other states, that I see people walking with their heads up,” says Ron Clutter, entrepreneur and owner of Nordic Air in Harpersfield Township. “I walk in Ashtabula County, and I see a lot of heads down. I think we lack pride in ourselves; I think we lack vision. I certainly think we lean more toward this idea of entitlement, that (the) government owes me a living.” Jim Timonere, Ashtabula Area Chamber of Commerce president, says he’s had visitors come into his office and tell them it was the first place they’ve heard locals say anything good about the area. “We can be our biggest cheerleader or worst enemy,” he says. Help, I’ve fallen and ... Susan Stocker, dean of Kent State University-Ashtabula campus, says the attitude she encounters most often in the county is one of “helplessness.” “It is not just related to education,” she says. “On the other boards I serve on, it’s reflected in other sectors: health care, business. There is a sense, a kind of culture, that we don’t deserve something better.” Even in unguarded, off-the-record moments, public-sector leadership officials have been known to make comments resigned to the idea things are just the way they are because, after all, this is Ashtabula County, and it will never change. Generations of entitlement dependency have created a culture that thrives on negativity and status quo, at least in the minds of many who live here. But what do those who don’t live in the county think of us? Stocker, who meets with faculty and leadership from other Kent State branches and the main campus, says one perception is “Snow Belt.” “After you get past the jokes about snow, they really don’t know a whole lot about Ashtabula County. They understand it as being rural and depressed. On the flip side, people also are starting to learn about our wineries, lake and tourism.” Unfortunately, even with all the county’s quality-of-life amenities, KSUA faculty members who live outside the county prefer to commute, due in part to the dearth of cultural attractions in the county, says Stocker. 
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