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ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS
WHAT’S UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
FYI on FY11: The new fiscal year began last
Thursday, and the Dope made a few calls to
folks at the University of Georgia to see if
anybody felt like talking about where those
sticky old budget cuts were going to be
applied. Since Michael Adams announced a
month and a half ago that UGA's cuts wouldn't
be as bad as initially feared, and that those
reductions would be handled by the various
deans and department heads, and that there
would be no further elaboration on the mat
ter from his office... he's pretty much been
true to that promise.
One of the main worries has been that a
disproportionate share of the budget cuts'
impact could be borne by UGA's ever-vul-
nerable custodial staff, but that scenario
appears to have-been avoided. According to
Ralph Johnson, the associate vice president in
charge of the UGA Physical Plant under which
most custodial staff are employed,_his depart
ment's budget was cut by 2 percent or about
$509,000. That will be absorbed through
reductions in materials and projects, as well as
through attrition: nine open positions won't
“Road 2 Redempshun," a theatrical production presented by LandMindz, Inc., will
come to the Morton Theatre Saturday, July 17.
be refilled. But importantly and thankfully,
according to Johnson, no one working for the
Physical Plant will be laid off.
WUGA, too, appears not only to have sur
vived the budget storm, but to have come
through it essentially intact. The station
manager, Steve BelL says they aren't los
ing any positions or taking any salary cuts.
A source in the Franklin College of Arts and
Sciences reports that it will deal with the
same 2 percent reduction as the Physical Plant
(in Franklin's case, about $1.4 million), and
that no one will lose their job.
Senior Associate Vice President for Finance
. and Administration Ryan Nesbit says that 2
percent slice is being taken from all of the
university's resident instruction units—
those under the "A* budget, which are sup
ported by tuition. Of about $44.6 million in
reductions to that budget from FY10, Nesbit
says, all but a littte over $4 million should
be mitigated by increased tuition and fees.
Units under the "R" budget (those funded
by line-item appropriations from the state,
like the Agricultural Experiment Stations and
Cooperative Extension) can't use that tuition
money and will have to absorb $10,7 mil
lion in arts; Nesbit says about 200 faculty
and staff positions under that budget will be
eliminated through attrition.
StiU, these numbers are a lot le^s grave
than the $40 million or so we dt Flagpole
calculated would have to be cut based on
the information Adams threw at us during his
budget forum in May. What happened? It's
tough to fathom at this point, as this stuff
has been all along. We'll let you know if we
figure it out.
Business is Business: Numerous and reliable
sources report (and by the time this hits the
streets after the holiday weekend, it may have
been officially announced) that Bruce Burch,
Keith Perissi and Heather Malcom—the direc
tor and top staff of UGA's Music Business
Certificate Program—are leaving the univer
sity to begin a similar program at Kennesaw
State Unive r 'iy A Kennesaw State press
release last Monday announced the launching
of that university's "Entertainment and Music
Management Certificate Program" through a
"significant and undisclosed contribution"
from Atlanta entertainment lawyer Joel A.
Katz, whose gigantic firm lists among its cli
ents "Michael Jackson/the estate of Michael
Jackson." Oamn, Joel A. Katz! Word is, the
Terry College will continue the program; let's
hope they see fit to do
it in such a way as to
avoid losing Burch and
Co.'s replacements to a
neighboring school half
our size.
< Redemption
Through Art: The
charitable organiza
tion LandMindz, Inc,
based in the Richmond
area since 2005, has
this year extended its
services to Northeast
Georgia. Those services
consist of assistance to
people in "transition,"
either from homeless
ness or incarceration,
and one prominent
component of that
assistance is its focus on art therapy: involv
ing clients in drawing and painting, music,
writing and theatrical productions. One of
those productions, "Road 2 Redempshun,"
is coming to the Morton Theatre July 17.
The play, which "highlights the mental and
emotional effects of shifting from prison to
society," begins at 1 p.m., preceded by an
"empowerment rally* beginning at 11 a.m.
Tickets are on sale now at www.mortontheatre.
com; you can learn more there or at www.
landmindz.org. *
The Race Is On: With qualifying over, it's time
for the Athens mayoral hopefuls to hit the
ground running at the third of four candidate
forums hosted by Common Ground Athens.
The "town hall'-style forum, devoted to issues
of food and food security, will bt held at Gn6,
234 W. Hancock St, from 1 to 3 p.m Saturday,
July 10. Nancy Denson, Spencer Frye, Charlie
Maddox, Gwen O'Looney and Glenn Stegall
are all scheduled to participate, with Olivia
Sargeant of Farm 255 serving as moderator. An
initial round of questions will come from local
nonprofits, businesses and leaders in local
food organizations, after which the floor will
be opened to the audience. You should go.
For more information, email Johanna Nkol at
jo@commongroundathens.org.
DmMHTnewsdfiagpole.com
4 FLAGPOLE.COM ■ JULY 7,2010
As part of UGA's development of its
"Northwest Precinct" an area roughly bounded
by Waddell, Lumpkin, Baxter and Newton, a
leg of Hull Street is now up for closure. The
proposal has been around since 2000, being
of the same vintage as the initial ideas to
rework Lumpkin from four lanes to three. The
big question, though, is whether this street
closing is a negligible loss, or part of a "death
by 1000 cuts" for the Athens street grid, along
with another proposal by the Classic Center to
close the easternmost block of Hancock.
The Hull Street section to be closed runs
from Waddell Street south to Florida Avenue,
forming one leg of the triangle bounding the
Special Collections Library construction site.
That route may seem like a rather redundant
version of Lumpkin these days, serving only
to access commuter parking lots and provide
a shortcut to those who would like to beat
a few traffic lights. The result of the closing
would be a new super-block for UGA, with
intra-campus pedestrian connectivity servic
ing inward-facing buildings rather than public
streets.
But both this corridor and the Hancock leg
are remnants of a much lacger fabric that has
been whittled away not only by large-scale
postwar urban renewal, but also by a general
carelessness over time. Hull once connected
to Lumpkin in several other places beyond
the single point at Wray Street which is the
for current Athens residents, as the changes
to this street ripple out to surrounding
neighborhoods. Newton Street is a residen
tial street, lined with one- and two-story
structures and already impacted by student
parking and speedy traffic; things will likely
only get worse in the short term for the
street's residents as more cars are pushed that
way. Lumpkin Street will also pick up some
of the traffic, and congestion at its intersec
tions with Baldwin and Baxter will likely grow
to some extent due to the loss of Hull's
capacity.
Although a new pedestrian path extending
west from Baldwin Street's terminus to the
Hull Street deck will probably help to regulate
some of the rampant jaywalking in the area,
the introduction of even more cars into these
crowded intersections should at the least be
interesting. Another issue is whether or not
the community that would be giving up this
street—and the significant land area in the
right-of-way—is being adequately compen
sated. Streets are valuable things and we
ought to be sure we don't give away some
thing for nothing. Pedestrian pathways may be
all well and good for getting students to class,
and even encouraging biking to take some
cars off the road, but they don't necessarily
do much to facilitate the flow of goods and
services into and out of our nearby central
business district.
Hull Street will be redirected onto this section of Florida Avenue. Campus greenspace will replace the closed
right-of-way.
sole surviving link. Lost streets in the area
include Becker Street White Avenue and
Baldwin Alley. (Check back to the June 23 edi
tion of Pub Notes to learn about the demise
of White Avenue.) This corridor isn't the only
neighborhood to have been hit by an expand
ing campus: the grid of Bloorefield-Midtown
was also significantly compromised with the
construction of high-rise dormitories and com
muter parking lots.
A new network of wide pedestrian path
ways wiU provide connectivity for cyclists
and pedestrians through the super-block,
which wiU one day be occupied by many new
buildings, including a new Terry College of
Business. The intent is to nriak the character
of historic North Campus, though the paths
will be quite wide to accommodate fire trucks,
and the buildings will be twice as tall as the
modest structures tike Old College or the Law
School from which they thaw inspiration.
Regardless of how pleasant a walk through
this quad might be for as yet unborn account
ing students, its effects will be quite real
Isolated as this area is by a hiU to the west
and UGA to the east and south, it may be
worth conceding it to campus, if only to spare
another, more intact portion of downtown,
like the area around the Town Spring (UGAs
Northeast Precinct). The bigger question is
whether the current model of campus plan
ning at UGA is appropriate or simply uncre-
athre? If the logic behind the street dosing
is that it is necessary in order to make the
area more like North Campus (tenuous as that
interpretation is), perhaps we should revisit
the condusfon that North Campus is an appro
priate model The significant pieces of that
landscape were built for a college of no more
than a few hundred students, a hundred years
before the car became widespread, likewise,
the current master plan which calls for this
street's closing is over a decade old. Now
Ideas are ntaded, which address the reali
ties of a modern-day campus in a lively city.
Nostalgia j«»st 'won’t do any more.
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KEVAN WILLIAMS