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Block Grant Money
Maneuverings Continue
Commission Powwows with
Legislators Post-Session
Aftershocks of the Athens-Clarke County
(ACC) Commission's Apr. 1 vote on federal
Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)
funds continued to reverberate through
the local political landscape last week, as
Commissioner Elton Dodson began pushing
for an official reconsideration of the vote and
the two community development corporations
gutted by funding cuts began to consider their
options. Dodson, who voted in the minority
against the funding cuts, also created a blog
last week to express his feelings about the
issue and others that may come up. (See his
op-ed on the topic in this
issue.)
At a quickly-scheduled
meeting of the East Athens
Development Corporation
(EADC) board Apr. 7, board
members and CEO Winston
Heard expressed bafflement and anger at the
commission's actions. According to Heard,
only around $30,000 of the roughly $200,000
of CDBG funds that EADC receives have been
used for housing counseling—the use identi
fied by Commissioner Alice Kinman in her
motion to move the funds elsewhere.
"We're not perfect," board president Dr.
Diane Dunston said at that meeting. "That's
why we partner, and we've always considered
ourselves great partners of the government
through HED [the ACC Human & Economic
Development Department]." And despite
wide agreement among the board that ACC
Commissioners had made a mistake, board
member John Jeffreys spoke of a need to "talk
People with complaints about local cable
TV service may have less recourse since the
cable industry got what it wanted in 2007
from Georgia's legislature, says Sandi Turner
of the ACC Public Information Office. Because
Charter, the only company that has applied
to serve Athens, strings its wires along public
streets (paying the county about $1 million
a year for the privilege), the county has had
some regulatory authority over the company's
local operations.
Turner is the point lady for customer
complaints about cable service—and there
are quite a few, especially about the cable
company's internet service. (The county can't
regulate that, however, nor rates or program
ming either.) And while Charter is required to
answer their complaint lines within 30 sec
onds, those phones ring in South Carolina, and
there's often been "a huge disconnect" with
repair people in Athens, Turner told Flagpole
recently.
In the past, Athens-Clarke has had the
clout to negotiate with Charter over such
issues, but that changed with the law
passed last year. The law doesn't say local
about the willingness of this organization to
take a look at itself."
At the Hancock Community Development
Corporation, director Alvin Sheats argues
S 100,000 of the CDBG funds moving to his
organization merely goes through it to fund
the job-training program known as Job TREC.
which, he says, is administered in HCDC's
facility by the Athens Area Homeless Shelter.
Those first retorts from the two organi
zations, though, hadn't yet received much
response at press time. It was still unclear
last week, also, whether details on the use of
funds at the two agencies
might motivate enough
commissioners to try to
reverse the funding cuts.
(In order for the commis
sion to officially recon
sider the vote, one of the
six commissioners who voted in the majority
the first time around would need to move for
reconsideration at the commission's next vot
ing meeting; then, it would take a majority
vote to take different action on Community
Development Block Grant funds.)
Perhaps less reversible is the damage seem
ingly done to the relationship between some
segments of the local African American com
munity and the ACC government. At the EADC
meeting, board member Evelyn Neeley, a long
time community leader in East Athens, admit
ted, "It's hard for us to trust the city officials
because of things like that."
governments can't negotiate with the com
pany about service complaints, but it takes
away their enforcement ability, she says. "It
includes the same customer service standards
that are in the [old] federal law, but there is
no penalty for violating them," she says. So
far, "I have not had any trouble continuing to
negotiate on citizens' behalf," Turner says.
But "the good side of the legislation is
that it's going to encourage some competition
in the television delivery market," she says.
Heavily lobbied by AT&T (and passed over
whelmingly), the bill means that companies
can provide local TV service without negotiat
ing separately with each local government.
Turner says AT&T plans eventually to offer
internet-based TV service in Athens. And new
TV providers will still have to provide local
government channels—like channel 15, with
UGA's daily programs; channel 16, with school
board meetings; and ACTV Channel 7, which
carries ACC Commission meetings—although
Turner worries that the channels may become
harder to access.
John Huie jphuieOathens net
The twice-yearly meeting of Athens'
state legislators with ACC Commissioners—
occasionally confrontational in the past—was
merely lively last week. State Senators Ralph
Hudgens and Bill Cowsert (both Republicans,
although representing Georgia's perhaps most
Democratic city), Watkinsville Representative
Bob Smith (also Republican), and Democratic
Rep. Doug McKillip discussed legislation of
interest to the local commissioners for about
an hour at their Apr. 8 work session (Rep.
Keith Heard did not attend). The gold-dome
session had ended only a few days before.
"We really didn't get much done," McKillip
told commissioners, echoing a widespread per
ception of the session. With a much-criticized
tax proposal on the table, getting nothing
done might have satisfied some local officials.
"I thought it was an awful tax plan,"
ACC Commissioner Andy Herod admitted.
Commissioners asked about several bills of
interest, but Mayor Heidi
Davison (traveling in China)
wasn't there with her usual
checklist. Herod went on
to thank two legislators—
Cowsert and McKillip—for
actually answering his emails
during the legislative session (he did not men
tion Hudgens or Smith).
Nor was it a do-nothing session, both
senators said.
"Some of the issues that didn't get resolved
are really hard issues," said Sen. Cowsert.
Revamping the tax system is "not something
to take lightly," he added. To Sen. Hudgens,
"the Lieutenant Governor's personal agenda
and the IHouse] Speaker's personal agenda
clashed" on tax policies. Proposed elimina
tion of the car-tag tax "was not a tax cut,"
Hudgens said, but was "just shifting the taxes
around." But Hudgens said he supported a
sales tax—wanted by local commissioners—
that (if approved by local voters) would have
helped fund public transit.
A new medical-school campus for Athens
seems likely, Sen. Cowsert said. A state-funded
consultant's plan that appears to have been
embraced by the General Assembly called
for a satellite campus of the Medical College
of Georgia in Athens, he said. The rivalry
between Augusta and Athens is no longer an
issue, added Sen. Hudgens, because the plan
calls for expansion of the Augusta campus
as well. And Cowsert touted $120 million for
planning new water-supply reservoirs that
regional water councils—set up under the new
statewide water plan—may decide to build.
"The emphasis will be on regional-type
projects, and we are the poster child for
how you should go about doing it," he said,
referring to the Bear Creek reservoir. "We're
going to actively try to increase our water
resources." The state is also looking at "con
servation lakes"—existing state-maintained
lakes on private land—that could serve as
back-up water sources, said Rep. Smith.
And Smith—who in the past has refused
support for some local initiatives because
they'd raise taxes—said he was tired of hear
ing complaints from local governments about
"unfunded mandates." or requirements that
are imposed by the state but without its pay
ing the resulting costs.
"Every time we turn around," Smith said,
"we can't pass [some] piece of legislation
because 'it's an unfunded mandate'" opposed
by the Georgia Municipal
Association or other lobby
ists for local governments.
Smith asked for a list of
such mandates. "I'd just
like to see it," he said. The
local commissioners quickly
offered examples: cuts in school funding,
underpayment for keeping state prisoners in
local jails. Commissioner Herod, meanwhile,
seemed skeptical of the legislators' enthusiasm
for "local control."
"I'm very heartened to hear Sen. Hudgens
say that he's very much in favor of encourag
ing local control. So I have to tell you—from
our point of view in the trenches here—it
seems that that was not on the agenda of
the assembly this year. In fact it seemed that
was completely opposite from the assembly's
agenda," Herod said.
And for next year? "Everybody's looking at
re-election right now," said Sen. Hudgens. But
tax reform, transportation issues and water
issues will likely come up, said Cowsert. And
"we need to make certain that we’re ade
quately funding eddtation—and fairly funding
it across all areas of the state," he added.
A do-nothing session? But there was the
dogfighting bill. "I got a million emails on
dogfighting," said Cowsert. "We did tighten
up on that, which I think will make a lot of
people happy."
Next political powwow: Nov. 11.
John Hule jphuie@alhens.nel
“It’s hard for us to trust
the city officials because
of things like that.”
Ben Emanuel ben@flagpoie com
Cable TV Regs, Changed
Last Year, Still In Flux
A do-nothing session?
But there was the
dogfighting bill.
6 FLAGPOLE.COM-APRIL 16, 2008 NEWS & FEATURES I CALENDAR I MOVIES I A&E I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS