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ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS
Good Tidings: Readers may or may not have
seen the story in City Pages last month about
the October day spent in court by lawyers
for Null's Space and the ACC Board of Tax
Assessors, but late last week Superior Court
Judge Lawton Stephens ruled in favor of Nug's
Space in the matter. In a nutshell, the Board
of Tax Assessors had appealed a decision of
the Board of Equalization (you got all that?),
and had argued that the nature of the uses of
Nug's Space didn't justify the property tax
exemption entitled to charities (whose activi
ties on-site must entirely support their chari
table purposes). City Dope is glad to get this
news of a positive ruling for the Space, which
is easily as deserving of the community's
support as just about any organization one
can think of. [Ben Emanuel]
As Seen Last Week in the National News:
Market prices for recyclables (like scrap
paper, glass and metals) have dropped dra
matically, and in the short term Athens-Clarke
County may even find itself losing money
when it resells paper, plastic and metals,
county recycling coor
dinator Suki Janssen
says. That shouldn't
concern residents,
though: the county will
continue to pick up
recyclables, but it won't
make as much reselling
them as it did a year
ago when prices were
unusually high.
What Happened: In
October, China stopped
buying recyclables
from the United States,
Janssen says. That
flooded domestic mar
kets, and scrap prices
dropped steeply as a
result. A similar price
drop occurred in the
1990s, but the current
drop follows a period
of unusually high scrap
prices. Cardboard has
dropped the most
dramatically—from
around $130 per ton a year ago to under $30
now. "The markets over the last two years
were unsustainably high, due to China, and we
were enjoying—and reaping the benefits of—
pretty unrealistic markets. And so we probably
will never get back to those same highs that
we had the last two years, but certainly we
will get back to where we are making money
again." Athens-Clarke processes over 1,000
tons of recycled material a month; in October
it cleared $39,000 over sorting costs. That
figure may go negative next month, she says.
Experts expect prices to drop farther, and then
rebound, perhaps in the spring.
But Don't Worry: Janssen says there's been no
interruption in processing. "Some of the bales
may sit on our yard here more than they have
in a while," but "it's going to be something
that we can weather." Scrap paper is re-used
by Georgia paper plants, plastic by the carpet
industry. "Most of our material stays in the
state, or the southeastern United States," she
says. Athens-Clarke is committed to recycling
and will remain so, she adds. And reselling
recyclables, even at low prices, still keeps
them out of the landfill: "It would cost us
more to landfill it than recycle it right now."
In Other News, Bio-Lab or No Bio-Lab: City
Dope can't help being impressed with the
sensible and optimistic recommendations
of the task force on regional job-creation
made by local officials and businesspeople
appointed by Mayor Heidi Davison and Oconee
County Chairman Melvin Davis. That task
force confirms that the region hasn't been
trying hard enough—or at least not very
effectively—to bring new jobs to the Athens
area, and lays out a road map for doing better.
To the task force, that means having a single
"one-stop shop" for businesses who are
interested in locating to our area. They even
suggest who might run that shop: the Athens
Area Chamber of Commerce.
Okay...: But does the Chamber want that
role? "We're ready to jump into any role that
group would see fit," says outgoing chamber
board chair Sean Hogan. "We feel like [the
report] was done well, and it's right on tar
get." (The report says
"it is critical that the
private sector be the
leader in economic
development efforts"—
that's what works in
other communities,
it says.) But Hogan
offers no specifics on
an expanded involve
ment by the Athens
Area chamber, and tells
Flagpole the two county
governments must first
set up a framework for
the regional effort.
That effort seems to
be moving forward to
the satisfaction of most
participants, despite
some reluctance on
the part of Oconee
County to abandon its
own economic develop
ment efforts in favor of
a cooperative approach.
But the suggested
framework for eventu
ally involving additional counties (beyond
Clarke and Oconee) has been abandoned
for now, based on concerns voiced by ACC
Commissioners David Lynn and George Maxwell
that Clarke County would be shouldering too
much of the financial burden, but without
equivalent representation.
Put Simply: "Say it's a 10-member board,
and each county gets the same [number] of
representatives, and Clarke's paying for the
majority of it," Lynn says. "That just doesn't
sound like a regional effort that I want to
get involved in." Mayor Davison told Flagpole
recently that most other ACC Commissioners
favor the task force's suggested framework—
which would give multiple counties equal
representation, while paying based on their
populations—but that she was willing to take
it off the table "to achieve what I believe will
be a unanimous vote" for a combined effort by
Clarke and Oconee.
John Huie
Send your city dope to ben@flagpole.com.
Athens-Clarke is seeing a small pile-up in recy
clables as the market for them takes a dive, but
recycling coordinator Suki Janssen is emphatic:
Don’t quit recycling!
r.
1
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DECEMBER 17, 2008 ■ FLAGPOLE.COM 5