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he. heads a small office cleaning company.
One of his clients is the building owned by
Lewis Scruggs and Mike Gautreaux, the old
Elks Club building in Five Points at the comer
of Milledge Avenue and Milledge Terrace.
Hamby’s company cleans the offices of four
different businesses in that building. One of
those businesses is Athens Insurers, of which
the principle owner is Doc Eldridge,
Democratic candidate for mayor. Eldridge
used to be in business with Scruggs and
Gautreaux.
Hamby was until this weekend chairman
of the local Republican Party executive com-
mitree. Hamby also represented the party in
1994 as its mayoral candidate and came
close to defeating Gwen O’Looney.
Although Hamby was instrumental in
recruiting Victoria Pate as the party’s may-
oral candidate this year, he has decided that
Doc Eldridge is the better candidate, and he
is now supporting Eldridge. Friday, Hamby
announced his resignation as Republican
chairman so that the party could have a
chairman who supports the Republican can
didates.
Victoria Pate called in to the John Breffle
radio show on WRFC Monday morning to
accuse Hamby of supporting Eldridge
because “Doc signs his paycheck.” Other
Pate supporters have put a similar spin on
the Hamby resignation.
The local GOP web site puts it this way:
“Mike Hamby, who cleans the toilet of Doc
Eldridge, Democrat candidate for mayor, has
resigned as Republican Committee Chairman
so that he may carry Doc’s water as well.”
Who said the mayoral campaign lacks
important issues? (PMc)
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Panic given keys to the city
Athens Mayor Gwen O’Looney was run
ning a little late last Friday as she dashed
into the Widespread Panic headquarters on
Foundry Street with a mouthful of kind
words and a sack full of official government
gifts for the veteran local band. It was ges
ture that further
bridged the gap
between local arts
and local govern
ment in Athens, and
one that the band
probably deserved.
In the cas :al cere
mony in a front office
room, drummer
Todd Nance, percus
sionist Domingo S.
Ortiz, bassist Dave
Schools, and gui
tarists John Bell and
Michael Houser
(John Hermann was
absent) stood
humbly in front of a
small group of fami
ly, friends and local
media types as
O’Looney presented them each with a key to
the city of Athens in appreciation for their
various contributions to the city.
O’Looney described Panic as part of “the
key to what makes Athens great,” and spoke
of the crucial partnership between the music
scene and the city. She thanked the band and
their management for their cooperation in
last April’s outdoor Panic concert (an event
that drew over 100,000 folks into downtown,
according to O’Looney) and rambled on
about their contributions to local historic
preservation (their beautifully restored
offices are in a historic warehouse).
O’Loonev — who announced she is leav-
; ng her post early (Nov. 3) for a job at the
state Department of Family and Children
Services — expressed her love for Panic’s
music, or “the music you represent,” as she
put it. The thought of O’Looney jamming out
in her office with Panic cranked on the stereo
seems unlikely, but the band nodded and
smiled, nonetheless.
At one point, singer/guitarist John Bell
remarked “Well, it makes us feel just a little
more respectable.”
Documentation of the April concert will
be available this week on a new video titled
Panic In The Streets, which includes extraor
dinary footage of the band, the crowds... and
O’Looney herself. (Ballard Lesemann)
ON THE RIVER
The concerns about Athens’
Greenway
How expensive is :t to buy and develop
riverfront property in Athens these days? For
the Oconee River Greenway Commission the
price tag is $1,403,743.32 a mile, give or take
a few cents.
The Commission last week unveiled its
nearly final draft of a nature-walk project that
will stretch from Sandy Creek Nature Center
to the University and then pick back up again
at College Station Road and continue to
Whitehall Dam.
Those in attendance at the Wednesday
night meeting al the Classic Center voiced
concern about both the social and environ
mental impacts the Greenway will have.
“My challenge is who’s going to oversee
this and make sure the river area isn’t
destroyed," said Sander Heilig, whose home
rests on the Oconee River.
The disgruntled voices divided along two
lines — (a) the path will invite rapists, drug
users find general hoodlums to flood through
the neighborhoods (b) the path will invite all
manners of beer-can
throwing inbreeds
who, in a short
amount of time, will
destroy wildlife,
fauna and everything
else that God may
have put on the
banks of the Oconee.
Dick Field, the
commission’s chair
man, responded that
the project, funded
by local and federal
funds, will be man
aged in a responsible
way by not only the
county, but by those
who make the
Greenway a part of
their lives. Field also
assured the crowd
that while the county will have the power to
condemn property along the path’s route,
the commission will not pursue such heavy-
handed tactics.
The largest source of revenue for the ini
tiative comes from a countywide special pur
pose local option sales tax vote allocating
SPLOST money — $2.8 million — to this
attempt at beautifying and personalizing
Athens’ natural resources. (Tom Lasseter)
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