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GUEST COLUMN By Dr. William A. Bloodworth Jr.
Legislature and governor appear at
odds in asbestos-classroom crisis
t the moment, Augusta State
M University appears tobe caught
¢ between several efforts to solve
% A a serious facilities problem.
@ @1 The problem is well under
stood. Approximately 75 percent of the
university’s classes are now conducted in
six buildings originally constructed as
warchouses for the federal arsenal in
Augusta. These buildings have roof pan
els containing asbestos and they suffer
from a variety of other problems that
render them substandard, inefficient, and
costly for classroom purposes.
The general solution is also well under
stood. New classroom facilities must be
built so that the six adapted warehouses
can be demolished. Doing this will not
only eliminate the problems in those
buildings but will make available addi
tional space on campus for the university
to develop in the future.
Last Junc in its requests for new capi
tal projects, the university requested as
its top priority a single new classroom
building to replace the six adapted ware
houses. Thisrequest was not acted on by
the Board of Regents because the Board
wished to obtain funding first for all
previous requests from institutions in
the University System of Georgia. In
fact, no new major capital funding item
from any institution was added to the
Board’s budget recommendations that
were submitted to Governor Miller in
September 1996.
Although the Board did not place Au
gusta State’s request for a large new
classroom building in its budget recom
mendations, it did take two significant
related actions.
First, it provided funds to encapsulate
the roof surfaces of the ex-warehouses.
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani
Fair elections are part of the black agenda
s regular readers of this col
umn know, I ran for President
ofthe United States twiceasan
independent, becoming (in
1988) the first woman and first
African American to appear on the ballot
in all 50 states. One of the things that I
demonstrated in that campaign (and the
many other independent campaigns I
have run or supported) is that the cards
are stacked against independent cam
paigns and independent parties. The
American electoral system has a struc
tural bias in favor of the two major par
ties. And as third party options become
more important to the evolution of Black
politics, eliminating these biases becomes
an important part of the Black Agenda.
State legislatures, controlled by Demo
crats and Republicans, have passed laws
that erect incredible barriers to indepen
dents. Take ballot access, for example.
Independents have to collect many more
signatures, in a shorter period of time
and face many more hyper-technical re
quirements than do major party candi
dates running for the same office. When
Black and Latino insurgent candidates
for public office are thrown off the ballot
by the party machine, they often turn to
independent candidacies. This often
means having to negotiate prohibitive
ballot access requirements.
The Fair Elections Bill was originally
Entrepreneur profits from government perks
ATLANTA
(AP) Charles “Chip” Dickens struggled
financially for several years as he at
tempted to sell landfills, open a softball
complex and promote a street-vending
festival during the Olympics.
Then he used his relationship with a
city councilwoman to build a sizeable
business selling and trading free event
tickets given to local government offi
cials as perks, The Atlanta Journal-Con
stitution reported Sunday (April 27).
“All I was trying to do was open other
doors,” Dickens said. ’
Dickens hobnobbed with local politi
cians, took City Council members on
casino trips and enjoyed VIP parking
beneath Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
Each year, the Recreation Authority,
the 19-member City Council, the seven
member Fulton County Commission and
Atlanta’smayor receive free tickets worth
thousands of dollars and access to luxury
boxes to Atlanta Braves and Hawks home
games and other events.
Some of those officials, the newspaper
A Closer Look
This project will provide temporary pro
tection — for about five years — against
further deterioration of the roof panels
and release of asbestos into the environ
ment. The cost of this project is about
$400,000.
Second, at its October 1996 meeting,
the Board approved a special request to
Governor Miller for $300,000 to develop
plans to permanently solve the facilities
problem at Augusta State. The intent of
these funds was to determine how many
new buildings should be built, how they
might be phased in, where they should be
located, and what their basic architec
tural concepts should be. These funds
would not, however, produce the actual
architectural design and construction
documents for any buildings. Design
funds would have to be appropriatedlater.
When the legislative session convened,
according to Rep. Jack Connell, there
was some concern about spending money
to study a problem that seemed to many
to have a relatively obvious solution. He
explained to me that the state could both
save both money and time by appropriat
ing enough design funds to allow the
Board of Regents to hire an architectural
firm to begin the lengthy process of de
signing a building.
In the end, this was what the legisla
ture did. Instead of approving $300,000
for additional master planning at Au
gusta State, the legislature approved bond
funding of $1.28 million that would have
been used to hire an architectural firm to
design a new classroom building and de
velop the architectural concepts for one
or two other buildings, all of which would
replace the six adapted warehouses.
Construction funds for the new build
ings would, of course, depend upon a
written by Ballot Access News publisher
Richard Winner and Gary Sinawski, my
national elections attorney and one of
the foremost ballot access lawyers in the
country. Congressional Black Caucus
member John Conyers (D-Michigan) was
the first to introduce the bill in 1985.
Former Congressman Tim Penny (DFL-
Minnesota), a good friend of the indepen
dent political movement, sponsored and
championed the bill in the 101st and
102nd Congress (1989-93). I applaud
Ron Paul for carrying the banner this
year.
The political balance of power is begin
ning to shift in American politics, as new
independent parties come onto the scene
and begin to impact. The Reform Party,
for example, whica ran Ross Perot for
President last year garnered enough votes
to win ballot lines in over 30 states. I am
active in the Reform Party, along with an
expanding network of Black activists
around the country who are finding that
the independent option adds a new di
mension to Black empowerment dynam
ics at the local level. Here are some
recent examples. When three African
Americans in Union County, Arkansas
wanted to serve on the County Board of
Directors, they ran on the Reform Party
line and won. And in 1994 in Alabama,
Nate Roberson became the nation’s first
reported, gave their tickets to Dickens,
whoin turn sold them for profit or traded
them for services.
City officials said the tickets are for
them to use as they please and see noth
ingwrongwith givingthem away ifthey’re
not going to use them.
Councilwoman Sheila Martin Brown
acknowledges giving Dickens hundreds
of tickets — mainly Braves tickets — she
received as a councilwoman and member
of the Recreation Authority. .
They were for Dickens’ personal use or
for “people we are interested in terms of
business opportunities,” she said. “Then
he entertains them on our behalf in the
box.” She said she did not receive money
in exchange for the tickets.
Roy Warren, a local mortgage broker
who wanted A:o mmhm in the
Recreation 's twasa
mmmmmnmwm
and dine real estate agents.
Initially, Warren paid Dickens directly
for Braves box seats, theungjnpu- re
ported. Dickens also supplied him with
request from the Board of Regents and
approval by the governor and the legisla
turein 1998. Had the design money been
approved thisyear (1997), however, a full
year would have been gained in solving a
serious facilities problem.
In regard to the Augusta State prob
lem, Governor Miller’s sense of how best
to use state resources to solve the prob
lem conflicts, at present, with the
legislature’s sense of how to do the same
thing.
The governor would prefer that a mas
ter planning process be completed before
fundsare appropriated directly for a class
room building. Thisis a reasonable pref
erence.
The legislature, I believe, has also
shown a concern abcut cost and, in its
recommendation of design funds, a de
sire to see the project at Augusta State
move forward as quickly as possible. This
is also reasonable.
The university itself will, of course, con
tinue to press for replacement classroom
facilities and a campus master plan in
keeping with its mission as a comprehen
sive university whose top priority, as al
ways, istheeducational needsofthegreater
Augusta area.
Theuniversity is now selecting an archi
tectural firm to develop a revised master
plan for facilities, with special attention to
the placement of new classroom facilities
and the best possible use of space and
buildingsby non-residential students. The
top priority in requests for capital funds
remains replacement facilities for the six
ex-warehousesand thedemolition of those
six buildings as soon as the replacement
facilities can be occupied.
Dr. Bloodworth is president of Augusta
State University.
elected official of the Patriot Party, the
independent party that is now a part of
the Reform Party coalition, with his suc
cessful run for County Commissioner in
Green County. *
The Fair Elections Bill, like many other
structural democratic reforms such as
term limits, equal access to delegates and
campaign finance reform, are very im
portant for the Black community. Ata
time when the Democratic Party is in
creasingly unresponsive to our agenda,
the independent route opens up new po
litical avenues for us. And at atime when
independent political parties are grow
ing throughout the country, non-major
party candidates can impact on, and even
win, elections.
We need a level playing field in the
electoral arena to allow independents to
impact. Write your Congressman. Tell
her or him to co-sponsor and work for the
passage of the Fair Elections Bill.
Lenora B. Fulani twice ran for Presi
dent of the U.S. as an independent, mak
ing history in 1988 when she became the
first woman and African American to get
on the ballot in all 50 states. Dr. Fulani
is currently a leading activist in the Re
form Party and chairs the Committee for
a Unified Independent Party. She can be
reached at 800-288-3201 or at
www.fulani.org.
Ms. Brown’s tickets to Chastain Park
concerts and other events.
Later, Warren said he put Dickens on
his payroll, primarily in exchange for
City Council and Recreation Authority
tickets. Warren paid Dickens SBOO a
month, bought him a used Volvo for
SIO,OOO and paid for health insurance
benefits, he told the newspaper.
Dickens, a 36-year-old college dropout
who lives in Alpharetta, also swapped
some of Ms. Brown'’s tickets with a tele
phone executive for free cellular phone
service, the newspaper said. The execu
tive then used the box to entertain his
clients and employees.
Ms. Brown said she was unaware that
Dickens traded her tickets. Dickens con
firmad Ms. Brown was not aware of the
arrangement. {
But she did benell"i:.efrom Difikens’ link
to Americapital, w main business is
brokering home loans in the Southeast.
Through Dickens, the company paid
$3,600 toward Ms. Brown’s trip to Zim
babwe for the All Africa Games in 1995.
Letters
The Woods-Zoeller fuss:
much ado about nothing?
Now foe yawl rabid™gawf phans git
angri, mah name is “Fuzzy” — oops!
Mah name is Fodder Bowluh and Ahm
jest jokin’.
Tiger Woods, the clean-cut boy who
doesn’t wear his “good” hair in braids, or
don dark glasses when it’s overcast: Ti
ger aracist? Aren’t we mingling him up
with some other pro who foretold days of
wine and roses (i.e., fried gizzards, col
lards and pot licker?) Apparently Mistuh
Woods am de possum. Afterall, didn’t he
pronounce himselfa “Cablinasian” —an
All-American concoction of Caucasian,
black (small “b,” please), Indian and
Asian? That places him dead center with
“rednecks” of yore who opined dat 1/16th
(approximately one drop) of “Negro
blood” constituted fool proof, 100 per
Hats off to the Augusta
Adult Society, Inc.
Many of us in the CSRA had the plea
sure of attending the 32nd Cotillion of
the Rosa T. Beard Debutante Club pre
sented by The Augusta Adult Society,
Inc. this past weekend. Some of us were
there because we had daughters or sons,
relatives, or friends participating and
some of us just came to see what it was all
about. No matter what the reason, we
witnessed an event that will be difficult
toduplicate again in Augusta. I was lucky
to be the father of a debutante. I was
lucky that many hours of learning the
waltz brought me closer to my daughter.
I was lucky that my daughter was given
the opportunity to meet and interact
with over 100 young ladies of different
backgrounds from all over the CSRA. I
was lucky that my daughter was able to
spend time with The Augusta Adult Soci
ety, Inc. Once you meet these ladies, you
know there’s something really special:
they can and will instill in your child.
As many of us know, the 32nd Cotillion
was not without it’s time of crisis. I am
glad that reason overruled emotion. I am
Hazing charges
From page one
members say does not exist.
Ms. Gaines, who tried to get into the
sorority in late 1995, said the threats
began almost as soon as she expressed
interest in the group.
Ledondria Hunter, the student judi
ciary defender representing the sorority,
Celebrate your special
occasions with a fine meal.
Visit BL’s Restaurant, 1117
Laney-Walker Blvd. Call
828-7799 to make your
- arrangements.
Ms. Brown said shedoesn’t recall whether
she knew then that the money came from
Americapital.
The newspaper said that Ms. Brown
and City Council members Jared Samples
and Cleta Winslow also helped Dickens
by-using their special access to buy more
than SIO,OOO worth of Olympic tickets,
most of which he paid for with
Americapital’s money.
A few months after the Olympic ticket
orders were placed, Dickens and Ms.
Brown invited other City Council mem
bers to join them on a free trip to a New
Orleans casino, the newspaper said. Al
though several declined, Samples and
Ms. Winslow went on the trip in October
1995 which included $125-a-night hotel
rooms for two or three nights and concert
Happy National Postcard
Week, May 4 - 10, 1997.
AUGUSTA FOCUS MAY 11,1997
cent Negro (‘cept rednecks — ‘scuse me,
Suh! — “Pekka Woods!” — misspelled
“Negro.”)
So the wheel goes round ‘n round;
blacks and Italians claimed segments of
football pro, Franco Harris, and Roy
Campanella, former baseball great.
Conclusion: right on, Tiger, you're
slicing through more barriers than (those)
OUR forefathers erected at the Augusta
(Georgia) National! Soon, scared white
folks won’t fear a “mixed thing” their
son/daughter may wed. We'll all simply
marry people. Morally speaking, it beats
shacking up with them. Only joking.
Excuse me! Jes’ jestin’!
Fr. Lewis P. Bohler Jr., Vicar
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
sure that out of crisis came a better
Augusta Adult Society. As we witnessed
the excitement on the faces of our young
adults Saturday, it confirmed that we
made the correct decision. We were as
sured that with God’s help, this great
experience will not be denied future
daughters and sons.
To Mrs. Rosa T. Beard, the dedication
and support you receive from Mrs. EllaS.
Jones and the Adult Society would make
President Bill Clinton and Rep. Newt.
Gingrich jealous! You have some secrets
you need to share! i
To Mrs. Millicent Bowman, you’re
great! '
Mrs. Ella Jones, The Ms. Jones, you
weathered the storm, but we knew you
would. You saw the sun rise on a bright
er, better day, but we knew it would.
Next April, the 33rd Cotillion of The
Rosa T. Beard Debutantes Club will be
center stage at the Bell Auditorium again
and you'll be there. God bless you! |
Dennis & Bettie McClendon
Evans, Ga. |
said Ms. Gaines filed the complaint as a -
means of getting into the sorority with- ..
out going through initiation, which in- ~
cludeslearningthe sorority’s history and
ceremonies. L
“Angela Gaines wanted membership. -
That’s what thisisall about,” Ms. Hunter -
said. ~
Thejudiciary panel is expected to make -
a ruling within a week. '
tickets, Dickens said.
Ms. Winslow said she didn’t know who
paid her way.
“Sheila assured me it didn’t have any
thing to do with city government,” she ;
said. f
In Georgia, selling tickets for more |
than their face value is a crime. Dickens |
declined tocomment on whether he broke |
any laws. )
Dickens said he mastered the art of |
networking and doing favors for people |
who might someday help him turn a |
profit. Having access to choice tickets |
was one way to accomplish that. .:
“In any kind of businese, tickets are a |
good bonusand incentive,” hesaid. “Tick- |
ets are a good door-opener.” X
9A