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Local Politicos Look Ahead
to an Election Season
Up for re-e ciion this year are half of
Athens-Clarke County's 10 county commis
sioners—if they decide to run. Andy Herod
(presently serving out the unfinished term
of States McCarter, who resigned in early
2007) will run again, he says. So will Alice
Kinman. "My constituents have cheerfully
put up with me during my steep climb up the
learning curve," Kinman says. "I think I now
owe them at least one term of 'experienced'
representation."
Carl Jordan told
Flagpole last week that
he's in, too. ("Why
wouldn't I? I'm doing
a good job, aren't I?")
And Jordan may have
an opponent in local
business consultant Red Petrovs. "I'm just
weighing it at this point," Petrovs says. A
co-chair of the OneAthens anti-poverty initia
tive, Petrovs wants to see someone on the
Commission who's deeply committed to that
group's recommendations. And neither Elton
Dodson nor Harry Sims (the Commission's
longest-serving member) have decided about
running again, they say.
And since Mayor Heidi Davison can't run
for a third term as Mayor, that race will
be wide open in 2010. Charlie Maddox ran
against Davison last time, and says he will
run again for mayor next time. Just retired
from 34 years at the Georgia Department of
Labor, Maddox puts economic and educational
concerns above quality-of-life issues. "What
fights poverty is jobs,” he says. "I don't care
what the quality of life is, if somebody has
not a job." At one time, young Athenians
could count on finding industrial jobs that
paid well, Maddox says. "All of those jobs are
gone, but we've got to get some things back
like that—so people that are not going to col
lege, that are not going to UGA... can go and
get those kinds of jobs and raise their family."
To Maddox, "Athens is
a very desirable place"
that can sell itself bet
ter to industry than
it is currently. And he
believes local govern
ment can become "part
ners in education" to
encourage young people to stay in school and
expand their horizons.
Also rumored to be interested in the
Mayor's job: ACC Police Chief Jack Lumpkin,
who grew up in Athens. "I love my job, but
that doesn't mean that I will spend the rest
of my life in it," Lumpkin says. "A number
of people think I have some qualities and
characteristics to offer in the political arena."
While he still has more he wants to accom
plish as police chief, he says, "If I think I can
provide enhanced services to the citizens as
an elected official, then I certainly would con
sider that opportunity."
John Huie iphuie@alhens net
To Maddox, “Athens is a very
desirable place” that can sell
itself better to industry than
it is currently.
Water Restrictions to Ease
Under “Green” Pressure?
Local "green industry" workers packed City
Hall last week, asking ACC Commissioners
to relax watering restrictions they say have
devastated their industry. "We are a largely
fragmented group, who has never been faced
with an issue so dire," said Chris Butts, who
has served on the ACC Water Conservation
Committee and represents the Georgia Urban
Agriculture Council. Butts and a dozen other
speakers—many wearing
green—said the local
landscaping industry has
been singled out to suffer
the worst consequences
of water restrictions,
while restaurants and
car washes conduct business as usual. Under
current drought restrictions, nurseries can
water their own plants, but business is down
because customers can't water plants once
they get them home.
"Outdoor water use is the first place they
look," Butts says, when water must be con
served. "It's the easiest and most visible way
to do that, with probably the least amount of
political flak." He and other landscapers want
commissioners to allow homeowners to "hand
water" their yards (holding a water hose, as
opposed to unattended irrigation) for up to
25 minutes a day, three days a week. Such a
recommendation is under consideration by the
ACC Public Utilities Department, and could be
implemented by Mayor Davison this month.
Counties have been put in something of a bind
by the state, which requires counties to reduce
water use on the one hand, while encouraging
a relaxation of restrictions on the other.
Nursery sales are down
40 to 60 percent, Stuart
Cofer (of Coferis Home and
Garden Center) said last
week. Since all outdoor
watering was banned in
September, local nurseries
have seen "dramatic losses," he said. "We have
until the end of May to have our 'Christmas'
selling season. Athens needs to adopt all
the EPD's outdoor watering exemptions... We
need relief, and we need it now." Cofer added,
"You're looking at an entire industry ready to
go unde: now. We also do not want to go back
into a jan this summer or fall, or else we'll all
be out of business. We must all share a limited
resource like water."
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
“We have until the end
of May to have our
‘Christmas’ selling season.”
Demolition Doesn’t Win
Kappa Alpha Any Friends
The demolition on Feb. 29 of two cen
tury-old houses on Reese Street by Gamma
Partners, LLC—the corporation that owns the
future home of the Kappa Alpha fraternity
chapter at UGA, one of a handful of fraterni
ties losing their current home on Lumpkin
Street to campus development plans—didn’t
necessarily come as much of a surprise to
some neighborhood residents who've now had
two years to get used to (or not) the idea of
having KA for a neighbor. On the other hand,
the bulldozer's presence that Friday came as
a rude shock to some of the people working
to protect what's left of the Reese Street-
Hancock Avenue neighborhood.
It became apparent to preservationists the
last week in February that Gamma Partners
was considering demolishing the two houses
on Reese Street. The group had bought the
neighboring houses (one was on the corner,
fronting Church Street) from rental-property
magnate Richard Hathaway not long after it
purchased the Cobb Hill Apartments in late
2005. Owning those three parcels gave them
control of almost the entire square block
between Church, Reese and Harris streets and
Hancock Avenue. The exception was, and is,
an owner-occupied house on Church Street,
owned by the family of neighborhood activist
Hope Iglehart.
Iglehart has been working closely with
Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation Director
Amy Kissane to spearhead the area's historic-
district designation effort. When she noticed
in January that the two houses' tenants had
moved out, she checked with city officials to
learn if Gamma Partners had pulled a demoli
tion permit. They hadn't yet.
ALTERNATIVES IN PLAY
As it turned out, Gamma Partners received
demolition permits in mid-February. As the
month neared its close, Kissane and current
ACHF board President David Kidd met repeat
edly with Jones and Gamma Partners agent
Mark Cross to discuss options that would
enable the two houses to remain standing.
Among them was the possibility of donating
the houses to ACHF—an outside-the-box idea,
Kissane admits, but one that would have fit in
with KA's attempts to show its neighborliness
in the time since it first announced its move
to the area. (An example: KA has donated
furnishings from two of the now-demolished
apartment buildings it bought to Habitat for
Humanity.) In the wake of the demolition,
though, much of that hoped-for goodwill has
quickly dissipated.
The complexity of Gamma Partner' plans
for the block, especially as they relate to ACC
regulations, appears to have precluded the
kinds of creative solutions Kissane and Kidd
were working for. Several weeks ago. Gamma
submitted a plat to ACC Planning staff to
recombine its three lots on the block. Now,
there are two lots total: one holding just the
new fraternity house (and a smaller separate
building with meeting space), and the other
holding the two apartment buildings and the
two Reese Street lots. According to Cross,
Gamma Partners will retain ownership of the
latter lot as a 'standalone investment," but
lease it to property-management firm Parker
& Associates, which owned the Cobb Hill
Apartments until Gamma bought them. The
intention as of now is to keep the former
house sites as greenspace, Cross says, though
Gamma may ask ACC officials for "a couple" of
parking spaces there. The other lot, containing
the new fraternity house, will be transferred
from Gamma to the KA housing corporation for
members to move in this fall.
A REGULATORY NIGHTMARE?
Tied up in the recombination and demo
lition is the corporation's need to meet
Athens-Clarke County density and zoning
requirements and, Cross says, to do so under
a changing regulatory system. After KA and
Sigma Nu announced intentions to move into
the same neighborhood in early 2006, ACC
Commissioners instituted a moratorium on
Greek house construction, which later that
year morphed into a new "special use" zon
ing category for Greek houses. If not for that
changing legal landscape, Cross says, "We
would have configured the lot and our build
ings entirely differently." In other words, he
says, "Our plans have evolved as the rules
have changed."
The group's original development proposal
involved removing eight bedrooms from the
apartment buildings, in order to increase the
allowable density in the new fraternity house
to 20 bedrooms. The lot recombination meant
that, in order to regain seven of the eight
6 FLAGPOLE.COM • MARCH 12, 2008
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