MAYOR DOC RORIDGE
PUBLISHER'S NOTES
NOT JUST A PERSONALITY CLASH
Mayor Doc Eldridge has told Athens-.
Clarke County Manager A1 Crace that he wilt
not recommend his re-appointment. This is
not merely a disagreement between two
strong-minded men over who will run the
government. Eldridge’s action has the
apparent backing of the Commission, where
most of the members fee! left out of the loop
on important actions taken by the Manager.
Crace’s appointment of a permanent head
for the Department of Human and Economic
Development (HED) was the last straw that
Illustrates why the Mayor and the
Commissioners now appear headed toward
replacing Crace.
HED was in a mess, with charges of cor
ruption and investigations by federal agen
cies, when Crace appointed Julie Brunner as
interim head. Ms. Brunner, who is white, by
a)! accounts was instrumental in bringing
organization and legitimacy to the depart
ment. Meanwhile the Manager's office was
conducting a search to pick the permanent
head of the department.
Eldridge, as he recounted in the memo he
sent Crace notifying him that he would not
recommend him for re-appointment, had
repeatedly told Crace that the HED position
should be filled by an African-American.
Eldridge had stated that same conviction
while campaigning for Mayor and after his
election. Eldridge says that a promise was
made to the black community a decade ago
during the unification vote that HED would
be headed by an African-American.
The Manager has the authority to appoint
department heads. The Manager, In turn, is
appointed by the Commission (on the
Mayor's recommendation) and can be
removed at any time by a majority vote of
the Commission. There is no requirement
that the Manager honor the Maycit!* prefer
ence In naming a department head.
In this case, the Manager made the deci
sion to appoint as permanent head the
woman who had done such a good job as
interim director. He announced her appoint
ment at his Friday department heads
meeting; he then met with the Mayor for an
hour or so, and the two parted. Not until he
heard it on the street did the Mayor realize
that the Manager had appointed Ms.
Brunner, leaving the Mayor out on a political
limb with no warning at all.
The Mayor says that this scenario is not
isolated. The Manager and his staff, for
instance, resist removing from the planning
maps an easement for a four-lane road taking
Lumpkin Street through the old Station prop
erty and Pulaski Heights to connect with the
perimeter. They decline to kill the road
although the Mayor and Commission don’t
want it and the Council on Aging is preparing
to build a building in the path of the
expressway. The Mayor and Commission
must field the telephone calls from angry
Council on Aging supporters and Pulaski
Heights residents and try to explain why the
government says it Is going to do something
the' Mayor and Commission don't want.
Athens Regional Medical Center’s new
expansion plans became public last spring
and revealed the intention to demolish
homes along King Avenue to make way for a
large rainwater retention pond. In the midst
of the public outcry over this proposed
destruction of an intown neighborhood, the
Mayor and Commission learned that the
retention pond was put into the plan not by
the hospital but by Manager Crace, thus
implicating the Mayor and Commission in a
controversy they thought was purely a hos
pital matter for which they had no responsi
bility.
Crace is, in the estimation of former
Mayor Gwen O’Looney, “the best Manager in
Georgia, probably in the Southeast,” and the
present Mayor and Commission wouldn’t
argue too much with that assessment. But
those I have talked to, with the exception of
Commissioner Barrow, are tired of learning
about politically sensitive decisions after
they are made and the telephone is ringing.
Al Crace is a fine man whose prodigious
energies extend beyond his job to the civic
and religious life of his community. Typically,
he is not talking about this situation. It may
be that his sense of professionalism
demands that he make the very best deci
sion and let the politicians worry about the
political fallout. It may be part of his job
description that at some jxrlnt those profes
sional decisions create too much heat and
he has to move on. He may feel that if he has
to explain every decision to 10
Commissioners and a Mayor that he won’t
have time to do his job,
Mayor Eldridge, unlike Manager Crace, is
not likely to get out ahead of the
Commission, to take an action without being
pretty sure of Commission support. As mat
ters stand now, the Mayor intends not to rec
ommend the Manager for re-appointment,
and he has the support of the Commission.
Ironically, the one thing that might give
Crace a reprieve would be (or the
Commission to agree to the Overview
Commission’s recommendation to give the
Mayor the power to hire and fire the
Manager. With that power in his pocket,
Eldridge would lie in a position to give Cr&ce
another chance, instead of being limited to
recommending or not recommending the
Manager to another two-year term of office.
How that would affect our government In the
future, with a different mayor and manager
Involved, would remain to be seen.
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| Barnett Shoals at College Station |
MAY 31, 2000 PLAGPOK.E B
