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PUBLISHER’S NOTES DUKES UP, ATHENS! Oconee County leaders bray that they’ll eat our sales tax for lunch and wash it down with our water while the 316/Epps Bridge Parkway/Perimeter intersection grows to rival Banks Crossing as a retail magnet. Thank God for Oconee County! The> can have the sales tax and the grinding gridlock that pays it. Instead of bemoaning the loss of a super Wal-Mart to Oconee, we need leaders who understand what we have here in Athens-Clarke and will commit to preserving and enhancing it. What we have here is infinitely more valuable than an automobile-driven, bicycle and pedes trian-annihilating, concrete jungle of chain behemoths. Our leaders always appear to be straining along in the mode of trying to get more retail and more industry for Athens, regardless of what it might be. Several years ago, our government and our chamber of commerce were out on the trail of the new Mercedes plant that eventually went to Alabama for more tax credits and free land, etc. than we could offer. But nobody here stopped to think or ask us, the citi zens, whether we want to be suddenly transformed to a company town for a German SUV manufacturer. Athens is a unique oasis in Georgia. We exist because the Trustees plopped the University of Georgia down in the middle of a forest and the town grew up to nro- vide rock and roll for the college kids. Later, the governor snaked Interstate 85— which follows U.S. 29 all the way down the Eastern seaboard and should have come through Athens—and diverted it to the north of us so that it could run through his hometown. Were it not for that act of statesmanship, the J & J Flea Market would be Banks Crossing. For that matter, Home Depot ‘n Lowe’s ‘n them are where they are, not because of Oconee’s salu brious climate or Athens-Clarke’s irate neighborhoods, but because 316 to Atlanta hits the Athens perimeter pre cisely on that spot, which happens to be in Oconee County. Athens-Clarke is a very small are?. We simply can’t handle any more Super Wal- Marts and keep the kind of quality of life that makes people want to live here—and we don’t have to. What we, especially our leaders, need to do is to recognize what we have here and work to enhance and protect it. We are, thank God, a town that still has some chance of preserving the kind of lifestyle that is increasingly rare and in demand all over the country. It makes per fectly good economic sense to put our resources and our energy to work making Athens-Clarke a better place to live and work, and once and for all stop chasing the automobile-driven, suburban sprawl model. Those who think Oconee County is paradise can live there, and they can fight their increasingly traffic-choked roads to and from Athens twice a day. If it gets to the point where they’re starvirg us on sales tax while living off the jobs in Athens-Clarke, we can just slap a payroll tax on then, to even things up. Right now, though, we are very much in danger of losing not only the super Wal- Marts but our quality of life as well. Only by protecting Athens as a livable urban area can we survive. We’ve got to have leaders who understand what that means who understand how Athens must be dif ferent from Oconee. Stable neighborhoods safe from infringement, bicycle paths, walk to work and to entertainment, rails-to-trails— these things may sound like some kind of hippy pie in the sky to our Mayor and our Commissioners, but they are solid gold to the people looking to escape suburbia, the people who want a sophisticated, user-friendly urban environment. We’ve got a sort of rudimentary urban environment like that right now, but it needs a lot of enhancement to get us up there where we’re competi tive against other “good living” locales. Instead, we frequently seem to be going backward. That's why the recent trestle debacle is so alarming. It demonstrated that nobody in our government under stood what a usable treasure those tres tles were. Nobody. And nobody seems to understand what bike paths are for, either. There’s plenty of good development to be done, like the present retrofitting of the old Coca Cola plant into an upscale village, ?.nd all the other in-town improvements in that area. We’ve got entrepreneurs building rental empires out of people's desire to live in close to town. We’ve got an incredibly thriving, happening concen tration of restau rants, bars and music clubs that gives our town a tremendous eco nomic boost and lots of pizzazz. We’ve got a univer sity that hums with activities open to all. Still, our tired leadership on the Commission allows every new threat to this burgeoning town’s life to kick up a controversy that tests the citizens’ ability to turn up enough heat and make the Commission come to its senses. A land use plan that would build in some safeguards to our way of life lan guishes while developers rush to turn every available parcel into Oconee-like sprawl. A greenbelt that would protect us from sprawl slowly dwindles to nothing. Setbacks that would protect our streams are likewise whittled away. Ten years ago, we had a City Council that understood the importance of pro tecting our urban environment. That una nimity was watered down by unification. We need to get back to a local government that will protect Athens-Clarke. We need to elect Commissioners who understand all this, people like Carl Jordan and States McCarter, for instance. Athens-Clarke is not Oconee and should not be. Pete McCommGns editor@flagpole.com Those who think Oconee County is paradise can live there... 3S9-1010 www.capstoneFdev.com UNIVERSITY • re IMMONS- L ► -4 no 1 —1—1 fully furnished 2&4 bedroom FEATURING: • Private bedroom:, • Individual leases • Alarm systems • Reserved parking • Fully eouipped kitchen • WASHER a DRYER • Fitness center • Rtv ROOM • Swimming pool • Tennis, volleyball a basketball courts • Computer lab. copier a fax available APARTMENTS 1000 LAKESIDE DR. CALL FOR SPECIALS! NORMRLITY BITES! That's why the only thing normal about us is our name! Come check out our newly renovated properties all located in Normahown and available for the Fall! 546-1899 Nov AUGUST 2, 2000 FLAGPOLE B