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Downtown Crime
Stick-Ups Start Fall Season
. It's never a surprise when Athens sees a rise
in crime that corresponds with the start of a new
fall semester at UGA: car and house break-ins,
as well as muggings, are more or less to be ex
pected. Still, Athens-Clarke County (ACC) police
and others in town have taken very seriously
the string of late-night downtown muggings at
gunpoint that took place three nights in a row
during the first week of school. AS of press time,
police have arrested one suspect in the string of
robberies, but are still seeking an accomplice.
Information on the four armed robberies
Aug. 15-18 is available online at www.ath-
ensclarkecounty.com/police, including times
and locations of the crimes as well as victim's
descriptions of the suspects. Two of the four rob
beries took place on the west end of downtown
along Hancock Avenue, but one was north of
downtown on College Avenue, and one 1:45 a.m.
incident was closer to the heart of downtown, at
the corner of Lumpkin and Washington streets.
According to police, victims in each of the rob
beries reported that all of the suspects were
African-American men, most of them young, and
that one of the robbers (sometimes alone, some
times in pairs) wielded a pistol in each incident.
What could the string of robberies mean for
downtown? Downtown Development Authority
Director Kathryn lookofsky says downtown
Athens is still on the whole as safe as any other
urban area with a high degree of activity, espe
cially at night. "I don't want people to get the
impression that it's completely unsafe downtown,
but I do want people to be smart and look out
for each other," Lookofsky says, "he says she
hopes people will use "common sense—like not
to be walking alone at 2 a.m., and not to be
overly intoxicated, walking by yourself." While
walking in groups is generally a smart idea, it
bears noting that the Aug. 18 robbery was of a
small group (the other three were of individuals).
"When you look at the big picture, it's remarkably
safe down here," Lookofsky adds.
ACC District 9 Commissioner Kelly Girtz, who
lives near downtown, says the recent spate of
armed robberies fits his expectations for August
in Athens with the significant exceptions that it's
been a "cluster" of similar activity, and that the
suspects have been carrying guns. "Everybody's
become accustomed to a spike in property crimes
at the beginning of the school year," Girtz says,
"but this is the first violent crime spike" in many
years as far as downtown goes.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to suspect that
the recent rash of muggings—to the extent it's
both similar to and different from those of past
years—is related at least in part to the visibly
rising affluence among a seemingly ever-larger
segment of the UGA student body. To would-be
criminals, it may seem more obvious than ever
before that downtown's visitors have plenty of
cash on them—although at least one of the
recent victims had no cash, and the robber went
away empty-handed.
Ben Emanuel ben@flagpole.com
Park-Ride Progress
More Speed Humps, Too
ACC Commissioners also got a look at their
Aug. 14 work session at preliminary plans for a
park-and-ride lot planned for Oconee Street at
the bypass: two parking lots, actually, on op
posite sides of the street. That federally-funded
project wasn't a favorite of commissioners (they
wanted rail-trail funding most of all), but was
supported by U.S. Representative Max Bums.
ACC Transportation and Public Works Director
David Clark told commissioners that a shuttle
could be added between the new lot ana down
town (two buses an hour run there already), and
those buses could be outfitted with electronic
devices to switch traffic lights from red to green.
Eventually, a pedestrian walkover bridge might
be added between the two lots so riders wouldn't
have to cross the street—but that's expensive,
and there's not enough federal money in the S2.7
million project to pay for it, Clark said. "Porous"
concrete pavement (which reduces rainwater run
off) will be used, he said.
Commissioners also heard about a revised
"traffic-management" program to slow traffic in
neighborhoods that vote to participate (and pay
part of the costs) by adding speed humps. For a
neighborhood to participate, 65 percent of the
owner-occupied homes on a street would have to
vote in favor, and all homeowners on the street
would be billed for the resulting costs, said
Clark. The humps cost about S2500 apiece to
install, and the county has already installed them
in about 45 places, butthe popular program was
discontinued when the available money ran out.
Clark said affected neighbors will be charged
all or part of the cost, depending on how much
of the traffic is being generated by people who
actually live in the neighborhood. Commissioners
will likely vote on specifics of the program on
Oct. 2.
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
Watching the Kids
UGH to Step Up?
Gathering steam on campus lately is a request
for greater child care options for faculty, staff
and grad students at UGA. Fed up with a per
ceived lack of attention to the issue from admin
istrators, child care supporters are gearing up for
a big public push on the matter this semester. A
petition is currently circulating on campus asking
President Adams to act on the issue, and orga
nizers are planning a rally at the Tate Student
Center for Sept. 27.
According to a document put together last
year by two faculty members helping lead the ef
fort, Janet Frick (in the psychology department)
and Susan Mattem-Parkes (in history), three sur
veys conducted from 1997 to 2001 demonstrated
the need for expanded child care options on
campus, but nothing has been done to respond
BIO DEFENSE INFO
UGA administrators will meet on
Thursday, Aug. 30 with local environmental
groups and the public to answer questions
about the proposed National Bio and Agro-
Defense Facility (NBAF), for which Athens
is on a short list of five possible sites.
The meeting is at the Georgia Center far
Continuing Education (Room K-L) at 7 p.m.
Also, Athens Rotary Club has its own
NBAF meeting scheduled Sept 5, and the
Department of Homeland Security will
be coming to town for a "public scoping
meeting" on Sept 20. More information at
www.uga.edu/nbaf.
to the need. UGA's McPhaul Center, a research lab
school run by the Department of Child and Family
Development, always has a very long waiting list
for the 56 spots available to UGA employees for
their children ranging from infancy up to three
years of age. (There are also small pre-K and
Head Start programs at McPhaul, funded by the
state and not limited to UGA employees.)
Frick, who is one of the lucky few with her
two kids at McPhaul, says she and others under
stand that pressures on the University's budget
are high, but that other schools run child care
centers under various funding mechanisms,
whether student co-ops, outside grants, or slid
ing scales or tuition subsidies to take into ac
count low-wage employees, too. "There's many
different models," Frick says. "We're not saying
there's one right way to go forward."
The issue is being framed partly in terms
of UGA's role in the Partners for a Prosperous
Athens/ OneAthens anti-poverty effort, one goal
of which is to provide access to quality child care
and other school-readiness programs for all chil
dren up to five years old by August 2010. Frick
points out that lessening the burden of stress
involved with finding adequate child care for
UGA families would have ripple effects through
out Athens.
"I particularly feel for graduate students and
staff who frankly can't afford good quality care,"
she says. There are, she points out, undergradu
ate students to consider, too, as not all of them
fit the 18-22 years old and single demographic.
In part, a lack of better child care options "con
tributes to a lack of diversity in our student
body," Frick says.
Along those lines, Kim Kelly, a Ph.D sociology
student, tells Flagpole that the $14,500 teaching
salary she and many grad students make is cut
almost in half by child care expenses. Eventually,
she says, single mothers like herself could be
"sort of systematically weeded out" of both the
graduate and undergraduate student bodies with
out more support from the University. "It's not
that we think the University is obligated to meet
every need that we have," Frick says, "but it's
part of being a good employer."
UGA Public Affairs Vice President Tom Jackson
tells Flagpole that top administrators realize that
much of the frustration about the issue on cam
pus comes from a perception that they haven't
been paying it any mind. That's about to change,
he says, and a meeting of administrators with
leading faculty is scheduled for the first week in
September. "We're ready and willing and able to
talk about it," Jackson says.
"We're open to the idea of bringing in a con
sultant," Jackson adds, as a matter of gauging
the need on campus. Only later would questions
about what type of child care model—and who
on campus it could serve, or how many faculty,
staff and student families—come into play. But
administrators want to make one thing clear,
which is that finding money for any model would
be paramount. "The University's not in a position
to subsidize a service like that," Jackson says.
Ben Emanuel ben@tlagpole.com
mm mb
ATHENS AREA HUMANE SOCIETY'S Adoption Location ^
is inside Hi Supplies Plus at the Alps Shopping Center
Very pretty calico with
a cute made is fun and
Her name is
: and she steals
hearts. Smart and
chatty girl.
Need fun? Below we have the tag team duo of Boots
and Joshua. They are big pals, currently rooming
together and hoping for a new life where they can
continue and add you to their friendship. Boots, the
handsome black and white guy is the brains, and
Joshua is the happy-go-lucky Irfe of the party.
i
SCHOONER
W
There are a lot of
sweet and well-
socialized kittens
available right now
and Schooner is a
wide eyed
representative of all
they have to offer.
Very affectionate and
lively fella.
From
ACC ANIMAL
CONTROL
23 Dogs Received
26 Dogs Placed
ATHENS AREA HUMANE SOCIETY
22 Total Cats Received
24 Cats Placed
0 Adoptable Cats Euthanized
NEW HOURS
Adoption Outreach Center (Cats)
Monday-Fnday lpm-7pm
Saturday 10-5 • Sunday 1-5
6 FLAGPOLE.COM - AUGUST 29, 2007 NEWS & FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS