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Sustainability Talk in
Commish Committees
Turmoil at
With its fifth-in-a-row school superinten
dent apparently leaving his job—and board
of education members resigning, or threaten
ing to—Clarke County's nine-member school
board has proven (at the very least) that it
can't pick a super it can work with. Since Carol
Purvis resigned in 1991 (he was convicted,
then acquitted on appeal, of stealing money),
three other superintendents have either
been fired or (according to a knowledgeable
observer) pressed to leave. According to the
Athens Banner-Herald, two board members
said they might resign in the wake of interim
Superintendent James Simms' resignation
earlier this month—and a third, Sidney Anne
Waters, says she won't run again.
Simms, widely seen as an approachable
but no-nonsense administrator, resigned after
the school board rejected his recommenda
tion to transfer an assistant principal. "I
am extremely dismayed by the meddling of
some board members in personnel matters,"
Simms later wrote. That "meddling" appar
ently included an attempt by an unnamed
board member to influence the process of
hiring a middle school principal. (Simms' let
ter left open the possibility that he and the
board might "sit down and try to resolve these
issues"—a meeting that, at press time, was
being scheduled for Monday, June 23.)
Knowledgeable observers tell Flagpole that
school board members have repeatedly tried
to influence hiring decisions based on friend
ship, race or family ties. Simms' resignation
letter said a board member had recently asked
him to circumvent the normal selection pro
cess to hire a certain person as Coile Middle
School principal. And the job hopes of a board
member's relative may have contributed to
the controversial firing of Cedar Shoals High
School Principal Tommy Craft, sources say.
It's been almost 10 months since Athens-
Clarke County (ACC) Commissioners approved
a complicated set of revisions to local alcohol
ordinances, but some downtown bar owners
are chafing under new rules that take effect
with the start of the new fiscal year on July
1. Some regulations approved by commission
ers last year have already taken effect, like
requirements for online employee-responsi
bility training for bartenders, doormen and
all other bar employees. But some have been
hanging in the air, waiting to take effect until
now. These include a prohibition on employees
having any alcohol to drink during their shifts,
as well as a more controversial (to some) pro
hibition on any bar employees being under the
age of 21.
"We still feel like there was not a whole
lot of equality in the decision-making pro
cess that happened last year," says Daniel
Simmons, co-owner of the City Bar and General
Beauregard's. Restaurants and stores that sell
alcohol are not affected by the age restriction.
Simmons says he'll be losing two 20-year-old
bartenders whom he hired when they were 19.
John Chen, a co-owner of the Buddha Bar and
Sandbar, says that of the 30-plus employees
at the two bars, between a quarter and half
are under 21—though most of them will turn
School Board
Racial sympathies are issues, too, with some
board members.
"A big part of a lot of personnel disagree
ments has been race," a knowledgeable source
said—often involving hiring or transfer of
African-American employees. "Some of the
African-American board members feel very
passionately that the district is not reflective
of the community—especially not reflective
of the student population—and has not made
a significant effort to recruit minority admin
istrators... It goes way back. And I don't
think it's unique to Clarke County, either." The
district last month paid a former employee
$600,000 to settle her accusation that the
reason she was rejected to continue leading a
minority-achievement program was that she is
white. "But more important, it destroyed that
program," Flagpole s source added.
And the school board has gone "way
beyond what a board ought to be doing" in
second-guessing the super's decisions, said
the source. Nor do all Georgia school systems
require the board to vote on hiring decisions,
school district spokesman Mike Wooten told
Flagpole. "That's been the practice here,"
Wooten said. The Clarke County school board's
own policy says that "legislation of and adop
tion of policies is the most important function
of a school board, and that the execution of
the policies should be the function of the
Superintendent."
Qualifying ends Friday, June 27 for the
four school-board seats up for re-election in
November. Chinami Goodie, an involved par
ent of two at Barnett ShGals Elementary, had
already announced her intention this spring to
seek the seat of Sidney Anne Waters, who now
says she won't run for her seat again.
21 later this year and will, he hopes, return to
work for him then. Many bar owners are less
concerned: "In 11 years, I think we've had
two people under 21 working for me," says
Tasty World owner Murphy Wolford. "I think
it's pretty common at bars, but I've always
just wanted to employ older people."
And Wolford says he's sympathetic with
those bar owners who've raised concerns about
even higher employee turnover under the
new rules, as staffers graduate from college
and leave town. Damon Krebs, a partner in
Allgood, the Pub at Gameday, and more, says
"I think it's more about the people—good,
qualified people—who can't get jobs."
And while Simmons says bar owners felt
"bamboozled" after last year's process of
negotiating with ACC Commissioners and the
Community/Campus Coalition on Alcohol and
Other Drug Abuse, one bright spot may be that
ACC Solicitor General C.R. Chisholm has been
talking lately about reviving the "Hospitality
Resource Panel" that once provided a venue
for bar owners, police, the coalition and other
groups to at least discuss problems before
they come to a head in a legislative setting,
as happened last year.
Ben Emanuel ben@llagpole.com
Mayor Heidi Davison is taking the "Growing
Sustainably" report—issued by a coalition of
local environmental groups—seriously enough
to assign the report's recommendations to
both committees of the county commission for
consideration. The two standing committees—
Government Operations
and the Legislative
Review Committee,
which considers changes
in county ordinances—
began looking over
the report's 11 pages
of recommendations
last week. Those recommendations include
better enforcement of pedestrian rights and
speed limits; more energy-efficient buildings
(including "requirements and incentives" for
private developers); encouraging businesses
to include bicycle parking; and simplifying
the building of infill development and afford
able homes, among others. They suggest an
audit of energy use and greenhouse-gas emis
sions for the entire county, and also passing
an ordinance covering reuse of "grey water."
(The report is online at www.athensgrowgreen.
com.)
Some recommendations are
already in progress
within the county gov
ernment, which now
builds new govern
ment buildings to
strict standards of
energy efficiency,
and has adopted
a "conservation"
rate for water bills
to reduce water demand.
Also underway is an "internal"
lighting policy to reduce electricity
use in county buildings. Commissioners on
the legislative committee discussed limiting
leaf-blower use—a "significant source" of
air pollution, the report said. (And besides,
some users just illegally blow the leaves into
the street, where they may stop up the storm
sewers.)
And should the county's "mass grading"
ordinance be extended beyond single-family
zoning districts? To limit land-flattening on
projects like new apartments, "phased" con
struction could be required, rather than allow
ing wholesale flattening, Commissioner Elton
Dodson suggested in the Legislative Review
Committee's meeting. Should the county
inspect grease traps used by restaurants and
others to keep grease out of sewer lines? And,
Dodson asked, "Do we want to tackle septic
[tank] systems?" Though it might require
inspections, he said, "The environmental
consequences of this could be big, if we have
failing septic systems
and we don't know it."
But it would likely be
unpopular with fTom-
eowners, Dodson said,
and could require a lot
of staffers.
And the Government
Operations Committee last week discussed
public representation on MACORTS, the local
transportation board that proposes projects to
to the Georgia Department of Transportation.
The ACC Planning Commission is represented,
but nonprofit BikeAthens has in the past
requested representation (and so far been
ignored). "Our [MACORTS] policy board isn't
constituted in a very representative way,"
Commissioner Carl Jordan said.
That committee also discussed broaden
ing the use of "Neighborhood Notification
Initiative" (NNI) emails that go to interested
citizens. Initially they
only covered proposed
rezonings, but have
also included alerts
on stormwater proj
ects and road work.
"There's been a lot
of interest in having
NNI be the conduit for
all the departments,"
Commissioner Alice
Kinman said. "Should
NNI become a county
wide bulletin board, or
should we use the website
for that purpose?" asked
Jordan.
Also proposed: a policy for routinely evalu
ating future sewer-line easements for possible
use as recreational trails. And Commissioner
Kelly Girtz suggested a "sustainability round-
table" (like one in Bloomington, IN) for
broad public participation in studying social
and environmental issues—like downtown
development, energy, extending transit across
county lines—or perhaps "what to do about
plastic bags," added Jordan.
John Huie jphuie@athens net
John Huie jphuie@alhens.nel
Bars Chafe Under New Regs
“The environmental
consequences of this could be
big if we have failing septic
systems and we don’t know it.
Commissioners on the
legislative committee
discussed limiting
leaf-blower use—a
“significant source” of
air pollution.
6 . FLAGPOLE.COM : JUNE 25,2008
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