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Crime and Homeless
“Dumping” in Athens-Clarke
According to Athens-Clarke County (ACC)
Police Chief Jack Lumpkin, "police and sher
iff's cars" from outlying counties have been
bringing homeless people to Athens—and
dumping them here. "They pick them up and
they bring them to dump them either at the
mall, downtown, Hawthorne Avenue," Lumpkin
told the Federation of Neighborhoods ear
lier this month. "It's no secret that because
we have services... social service agencies
throughout the.region encourage their clients
to move to Athens," added Associate Juvenile
Court Judge Robin Shearer.
"They drop them here," Chief Lumpkin said.
"Our cameras on our building there at the mall
have captured them... They're just getting
rid of, in my opinion, what they perceive as
a problem." Lumpkin said Barrow County and
the city of Winder "are the two that we know
of," and he thinks there have been others.
Commissioner Carl Jordan was in the audience
and pressed for details. "There are 10 other
commissioners I think will be interested," he
said (presumably that includes the mayor).
Mayor Davison recalls that she spoke with *
the mayor of a local city—she believes it was
Winder—a year or two ago about such an inci
dent. "The officer who dropped that person off
[said] that he was instructed by the mayor...
to take this individual to Athens," Davison
said. She does not recall other incidents.
"It happens in a lot of urban cities,"
Lumpkin said. "Their excuse is that we have
more services for the homeless... In reality,
they're just trying to get rid of the people."
Athens has had a "significant increase"
in crimes committed by homeless people
recently, he said.
John Huie jphuie@alhens net
Commish Looks at Sewer
Easements, Energy Plan
ACC Commissioners pressed county Manager
Alan Reddish last week to consider if county
sewer lines might be used for public walk
ing trails. An Eastside sewer line south of
Lexington Road is "already being used as an
unofficial bike trail," Commissioner David
Lynn said at the commission's agenda-setting
meeting Apr. 17. That sewer line will soon be
expanded, and some commissioners think it
would make a great trail—if only permission
can be gained from property owners whose
land it crosses. "We don't have a road con
nection between Lexington Road and Barnett
Shoals Road," said Commissioner Carl Jordan.
"It'd be great to have
a trail connection, and
then take it on down to
the Greenway."
Other commission
ers agreed that sewer
lines in general—and
the Barnett Shoals line
in particular—should be considered for rec
reational trails. But many landowners don't
want a public trail across their land, Reddish
replied, and the county would have to get
their permission, either by buying an ease
ment or forcing them to sell. (An easement is
a legal right to use another person's land for
a certain purpose.) "The kind of easements
that we have do not give us permission to
use these easements for anything other than
sewer use," Reddish said. "So that would mean
we need to go back and negotiate different
use of these easements with the property
owners." Several commissioners thought that
was worth exploring, and Reddish agreed to
"begin looking at the concept."
Also at the meeting, commissioners con
sidered an evolving plan for reducing energy
consumption within the county government.
A committee of interested county staffers
(representing the six government departments
that use the most energy) has met often to
find energy savings. Every department will
appoint an "energy champion" to promote
conservation, and lights will be kept off in
"unoccupied non-public spaces" (like offices
and restrooms), the plan says. Office machines
will be turned off at day's end, and air-condi
tioning cannot be set below 73 degrees, nor
heating above 74.
While new ACC buildings will meet "LEED"
standards for energy conservation, plans to
"retro-commission" existing buildings to
operate more efficiently are on hold, Central
Services Director David
Fluck said. Also, a target
15 percent reduction
in energy use (set two
years ago) likely won't
be met as planned
this year, he said. Just
determining how much
electricity the ACC government uses is proving
"very labor intensive," he said, because it has
over 280 different electricity accounts.
• Specifics of the energy plan include install
ing more efficient light bulbs and insulation
blankets on water heaters (over 50 blankets
have already been installed, each saving about
S90 a year). The county already uses a blend
of biodiesel fuel in 224 vehicles (including
most garbage trucks and all buses), and aims
to substitute alternative fuels for a tenth of
its fuel consumption by 2012. Although pro
posing some changes, Commissioner Jordan
called the energy plan "an excellent strategy."
Mayor Davison said she'd described the plan at
a "Greenprints" conference recently in Atlanta,
and "people were pretty well impressed with
what we're doing."
John Huie jphuie@alhens.net
Although proposing some
changes, Commissioner
Jordan called the energy
plan “an excellent strategy.”
On the Street with the
Kappa Alpha Parade
For those involved, it was an historic occa
sion last Wednesday, Apr. 16, when members
of the Kappa Alpha fraternity at UGA set out
for their annual Old South-themed spring
parade—the last parade setting out from
the fraternity's longtime house on Lumpkin
Street just south of downtown. For a majority
of passersby, it seemed, the scene of young
men riding horseback in khakis, white shirts,
boots and wide-brimmed hats was more of
an unexplained oddity. Before the parade got
underway, while horses were being saddled
for upperclassmen and hay bales arranged as
seating on flatbed trailers for lowerclassmen,
a UGA student walk
ing by could be heard £
to ask her cell phone, 5
"What's up with all §
the cowboys and
horses?" There was a
pause, while someone
on the other end of
the line responded.
Then, "Huh?" On West
Broad Street near the
Gameday building,
fraternity members
astride their horses
shouted "How y'all
doin'?" to a group
of young women,
possibly high school
students, standing
on the sidewalk and
watching the parade
pass. "Heyyy," some of the women meekly
responded.
Further west on Broad, near Finley
and Pope streets, a member on horseback
explained, when asked, that (as reported in
the news at the time) KA had not held its
parade two years ago, when controversy had
just broken out about its plans to move into
a new house on Hancock Avenue. (That con
troversy was renewed early this spring when
KA's housing corporation demolished two old
houses along Reese Street near the future fra
ternity house.) The parade was held in 2007,
though, he said; that year, members wore
historical "suits" rather than the traditional
Confederate army uniforms. In 2008, there was
no uniform or suit whatsoever, no Confederate
flag, either. Although the flag was sometimes
present at past parades, the men's clothes still
matched, and a lit cigar was nearly a uniform
accessory.
A block further west, near Church Street,
a group of mostly sophomores seated on hay
bales didn't have firm answers to questions
about future parades when they’ll be living on
Hancock, but when asked about this being the
last parade departing from Lumpkin Street,
one young man replied, "Yeah, they're makin'
us leave."
They, of course, are UGA officials, who
seek all of Lumpkin Street between Broad and
Baxter for new academic buildings, a special
collections library and more.
That UGA policy encouraged KA to find its
own home in Athens despite the University's
later offer for a spot
in a new fraternity
"park" on River Road.
It has now been
just over two years
since KA announced
its intentions to
buy a large parcel—
formerly the Cobb
Hill Apartments—on
Hancock Avenue.
.The parade's
ascent toward
Milledge Avenue
saw a middle-aged
African-American
man walking briskly
on the sidewalk along
with this reporter.
Informed that this
was the annual Old
South parade, he replied, "Old rednecks, young
rednecks... ! just don't believe in that flag,
man, but it's alright for them to. It's their
right."
Whether that was a reference to past KA
parades or merely to Confederate sentimental
ity in general was a question left unanswered,
as the man continued west on Broad Street
and the parade turned south onto Milledge
Avenue, where sorority sisters in hoop skirts
awaited. Turning north on Milledge and leav
ing the parade to detour just a couple of
blocks past KA's future home on the way back
downtown, said reporter encountered a woman
coming out of a restaurant near the Milledge/
Broad intersection. She heard the hooting and
hollering from across the way and said, "They
sure look like they're havin' a good time over
there, huh?"
Ben Emanuel ben@flagpole com
6 FLAGPOLE.COM-APRIL 23,2008
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