Commissioners OK Toni Morrison Day

Lorain County commissioners proclaimed Feb. 18 as Toni Morrison day in the county.

The proclamation came during their Aug. 21 meeting and is meant to commemorate the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning Lorain author who died Aug. 5 at the age of 88. She was born Feb. 18, 1931.

Lorain Public Library System Director Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz and Librarian Cheri Campbell were on hand to accept the proclamation and speak briefly about the writer’s importance not only to the county, but to the world.

“I’ve said it before, she’s Lorain’s gift, and we’ve had other gifts to the world, but she is very much still our particular literary gift to the world,” Campbell said. “She was a writer, a professor, an educator. She never forgot Lorain.”

Campbell said she believes that Morrison’s family will be pleased by the proclamation and the Library System is grateful to accept it on their behalf.

Diamond-Ortiz said some people might not be aware Morrison, who was born Chloe Anthony Wofford, was a page at the library.

“To me, it’s a wonderful testament to the power of libraries,” she said. “Someone just being around all those books and exposing themselves to all that great literature goes on to do something so great.”

The Library System will hold several events between now and the first Toni Morrison Day, and a big event on the day.

Jail upgrades

Later in the meeting, during County Administrator James Cordes’ report to the commissioners, he said the Lorain County Jail will receive $900,000 in security upgrades.

The commissioners previously had approved the grant from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, but Cordes said the commissioners still need to sign the applications.

Commissioner Matt Lundy said despite the commissioners passing a tax increase to fund the jail years ago, the county still pays about $4 million a year to supplement those funds.

“It was always known that .25 percent was going to be wholly inadequate to support jail operations,” Cordes said. “It did for a while, but there will always be a need for general fund subsidies for the jail.

“The folks out there do a really good job of keeping costs down,” Cordes said, “but the security system down there was antiquated years ago.”

COURTESY OF RIAN BROWN-ORSO AND GEOFF PINGREE From left, novelist Edwidge Danticat, Oberlin College Professor Geoff Pingree, author Toni Morrison and Oberlin College Professor Rian Brown-Orso pose for a photograph at Morrison’s home in upstate New York. On Aug. 5, 2019, Morrison died at age 88. Pingree and Brown-Orso worked with Morrison to create “The Foreigner’s Home,” a documentary film about groups blaming others for social ills.