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State
Representative Louise McBee has
condemned two "hard-core porn"
channels on the Charter Communication pay-per-
view lineup.
The Hot Network and
The Hot Zone show films
with titles like Wanna
Play Doctor? and Big,
Black Beautiful Butts 2.
As a preview of its offer
ings, the Hot Network
website features topless
women in suggestive positions, with links to
movie descriptions such as this one for Emerald
Ram: "A macho mogul heads straight to the rain
forest to prove his own sexy theory based on pure
water that flows freely."
Alerted Dy a June 2 Athens Banner-Herald edi
torial column (which refers to Charter as "the
Athens area's new 800-pound gorilla of porn"),
McBee sent a letter on House of Representatives
stationery to Bill Porter, manager of Charter's
Athens office.
"How can you do this?" McBee wrote. "How
can you expect support from a caring public to
this kind of irresponsibility? Do you realize the
possible long term social outcomes?"
McBee tells Flagpole she respects Charter's first
amendment right to offer adult content, but says
she's concerned with the effects of pornography
on the community, particularly as it relates to
domestic violence.
"I think all of these things have a way of tying
together," she says. "So that I guess was where I
came from on it."
Sending the letter on House letterhead wasn't
a conscious decision, McBee says, but adds, "I
“I think as an elected official I would
also have the right to oppose
something like that if I thought it
was wrong.”
think as an elected official I would also have the
right to oppose something like that if I thought it
was wrong."
Flagpole called Porter
about McBee's letter,
but the message was
returned by Bill Ferry, a
PR man in Charter's
Birmingham, AL, office.
Ferry notes that adult
channels have long been
available in Athens from
different cable companies, and says Charter's local
office receives few customer complaints about
them.
Ferry says his
company offers
adult content to
keep subscribers
who would
otherwise
switch
to satellite TV service, where
such material is more prevalent.
Charter adult content "has to be
really sought out," he says, as it isn't
advertised. "We've typically found
that people who are interested
in that will find it"
A visit to the Charter website,
at least, bears that out. The only reference
Flagpole could find to either channel was in the
"Channel Lineup" section. A site search for "Hot
Zone" yielded links to order up the "hottest" NBA
games.
The company offers free parental lockout con
trols, and pay-per-view channels require a code
number for access. Otherwise, Ferry says, there is
no signal—as opposed to other systems where the
audio and video are discernible on "scrambled"
channels. McBee agrees that it is the responsi
bility of parents to keep adult material away from
children, but wonders why "we put these kinds of
things (on TV]. Even for pay."
As far as the ill effects of pornography on
society, Ferry says television "is not necessarily
the cause of the problem."
"It's an overall situation that I think I have
certainly seen, as well as I'm sure other commu
nity leaders have seen, you know, “What are we
I watching on our television, and how does that
affect us?' From that standpoint we try very hard
to give viewers all the tools ... so that they can
control it"
McBee, who says she once prompted the
I editor of a national tennis magazine to apolo
gize in print for a cover blurb that read "Pete
Sampras Pissed Off," doesn't seem as clear on the
idea of who should control what.
"I would be the last to want us to give up any
of our freedom or anything that has made our
country great," she says. "But also it was founded
on principles of character and morality. If that
was ever the case in a country, it was the case in
ours. They put it on our money, they put it in our
Constitution. And those are the same kinds of
things I'm trying to protect at the same time you
protect your freedom."
Ferry says he plans to write a response to
McBee's letter.
Brad Aaron
THE FOX IN THE HENHOUSE
A quibble between develuper Brian Kemp and
ACC Commissioner John Barrow has served
to highlight Kemp's conflict of interest in
shaping ACC land use policies.
Shortly after the controversial new develop
ment ordinance was passed by the Commission in
December of Z000, Mayor Doc Eldridge appointed
an eight member "Citizens Transition Advisory
Committee" (CTAC) to aid in adopting the regula
tions, and to help work through any
kinks in the new code Kemp, owner of
Kemp Development and Construction,
and now a Republican candidate for
Doug Haines State Senate seat, was
among the appointees.
Also named to the CTAC were Rex
Gonnven, of Beall Gonnsen & Co., a
landscape architecture firm; Hank Joiner,
of Joiner Management, a real estate
management company; neighborhood
representative Scottie Atkinson;
Planning Commissioner Lucy Rowland;
ACC Commissioner Linda Ford; Planning
Department Director Brad Gnffin; and
now interim ACC Attorney Holly Hilton.
That breaks down to three members—
Kemp. Gonnsen and Joiner—with a
direct financial interest in development, one
County Commissioner with a near-100 percent pro-
development voting record; one Planning
Commissioner with a solid "smart growth" voting
record, one member representing the interests of
the community at large; and two ACC employees
At last month's Mayor and Commission business
session. Commissioner Barrow claimed that Kemp s
new apartment complex on Barnett Shoals Road
exploits the type of loophole in the development
code that the CTAC n charged with correcting
Now neanng completion, Kemp's "Shoal Creek"
development n designed so that the apartment
buildings closest to Barnett Shoals are perpendic
ular to the street, not facing the street, as Barrow
said the new county design standards intend.
Originally, Kemp's plan called for the backs of
his apartment buildings to face Barnett Shoals.
Unhappy with that design, ACC planning staff
worked with Kemp to orient the sides of the build
ings toward the street. They are adorned with fake
windows and shutters.
Barrow said planning staff was forced into an
"unacceptable compromise" by accepting a
"design standard that we (Commissioners]
thought we'd outlawed " As a member of the CTAC,
Kemp should have helped fix the language of the
code, not take advantage of it, Barrow said.
Kemp soon fired off a tersely worded letter to
Barrow Characterizing the Commissioner's criti
cisms as "personal accusations and blatant polit
teal attacks." Kemp claimed that turning the
building fronts toward Barnett Shoals "would have
led to severe design flaws."
"The ordinance was designed to provide
better-looking buildings that face our streets,"
Kemp wrote. "It was never my intent to find a
loophole in the system."
However, as Barrow pointed out in a written
response to Kemp, the Shoal Creek buildings don't
face the street. Whether or not Kemp intended to
find a loophole, his apartment complex as built
violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the ordi
nance. Kemp's statement—"The ordinance was
designed to provide better-looking
buildings that face our streets"—shows
he understands that.
Kemp is not only a member of the
CTAC, but also served on the develop
ment ordinance steering committee,
which helped shape the code in the first
place. So if anyone should be familiar
with the intent of ACC design regula
tions. it's him.
The Shoal Creek development doesn't
represent the first instance of Kemp
making the most of his insider status.
As a member of the aforementioned
steering committee, Kemp sat at the
table with the Commission as it stripped
the development ordinance of many of
the "smart growth" provisions pre
sented by the guiding pnnciples of the county
land use plan.
In October of Z000, Kemp went so far as to
publicly lobby the Commission for 50-foot devel
opment buffers on county waterways, instead of a
more protective 75-foot standard. But after a tie
breaking vote from Mayor Eldndge, the
Commission approved the 75-fbot option.
Among the Commissioners voting against the
larger buffer; Kemp's fellow CTAC member Linda
Ford.
Brad Aaron
BRIAN KEMP H was never my intent to fmd a loophole in the system *
ATHENS
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JUNE 19, 2002 • FLAGPOLE COM 7