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M&C Talk Classic
Center Expansion,
Meet Legislators
Expanding the Classic Center's exhibit
hall without permanently closing a block
of Hancock Avenue would be difficult, ACC
commissioners were told last week—and
every public presentation about the expan
sion plan has included closing that street,
county manager Alan Reddish insisted. Voters
approved the SPLOST-funded expansion ear
lier this month, but some commissioners had
voiced skepticism about closing Hancock.
At last week's work session, Commissioner
Ed Robinson offered an eloquent rationale
for expanding the grid of downtown streets
toward the river—but county staffers were
unanimous in saying they didn't see how
Hancock could stay open.
"We have a number of groups we have
already lost" because of space limitations,
Classic Center director Paul Cramer told the
commission. "The moment [the Georgia Green
Industry Association's] trade show grew to
where they had to split the trade show hall,
they were gone," he said. But some groups
will return once the expansion is complete, he
said.
But Robinson argued for extending
Hancock beyond Foundry Street toward the
North Oconee River, to "create more down
town space." The former Armstrong & Dobbs
property should also be "gridded out" with
expanded downtown streets for future devel
opment, he said. "We used to have a bigger
downtown," but urban renewal relocated
Dougherty Street decades ago, he said. "We've
been step-by-step cutting off more and more,
and we need to think how we're going to
expand downtown, and not kill downtown."
Cramer said the Classic Center will
retain the pedestrian corridor at the end
of Washington Street that allows passage
between the Classic Center's buildings, and
will also add street improvements along
Foundry Street "so that the scale is more of
a human scale." And "quite possibly" there
could be retail spaces along Foundry at the
center's rear, he said. Detailed plans for the
expansion have not yet been drawn, but the
project must move forward quickly to be open
by 2013, he said. The center is already bid
ding on conventions out to 2015; and a single
group of conventioneers can spend as much as
$2 million in Athens, he said.
Commissioners also met with the five
Athens-area state legislators, including newly
elected Representative Hank Huckaby and
Senator Frank Ginn—both Republicans, but
perhaps less ideological than their predeces
sors. The county commissioners expressed
'their concerns about state matters that affect
the locals, as they do twice-yearly.
They begged the state men not to cut
social services further. The effects of local
health services, said commissioner Kathy
Hoard, are "far-reaching"—including dis
couraging teenage pregnancies. And the pool
of clinic patients is expanding beyond the
usual unemployed clients, she said, to include
employed people who lack health benefits.
Commissioner Harry Sims (who serves on the
county's Criminal Justice Task Force) said "one
of the biggest problems we're having here is
with mental health." But the budget-cutting
may continue, Sen. Bill Cowsert suggested—
another 10 percent must come from some
where. "Those are vital services for the most
needy among us," he acknowledged. But to
maintain them, "what you're asking us to do
is disproportionately cut higher education"—
UGA, in other words.
Commissioners also asked—not for the
first time—to raise the local hotel/motel tax
from 7 percent to 8 percent, bringing in up to
$250,000 yearly for services that support tour
ism (in the past, such a move was blocked by
Rep. Bob Smith, who has now retired from the
legislature).
John Huie
UGA Faculty Have
Little to Say About
Incarceration Rates
It's not news that America locks up more
of our citizens than any other nation—almost
1 percent of theHJ.S. population is behind
bars. Decades of "tough-on-crime" legisla
tion (Georgia has some of the toughest, with
its "two-strikes-and-you're-out" law) that
legislators can't seem to resist passing, have
taken away sentencing discretion from judges
and made prisons a growth industry. Are the
effects of such policies—on families, on indi
viduals made unproductive and unemployable,
on government budgets—a matter of concern
to people in the legal and criminal-justice
fields?
At the University of Georgia, apparently
not much. Law school faculty contacted by
Flagpole would speak only guardedly on the
subject—or not at all. Flagpole sought com
ments from the dean of UGA's law school,
the director of the School of Public and
International Affairs, and the director of
UGA's Criminal Justice Studies program; all
three declined to respond. Law Professor Dan
Coenen—who serves on a local task force to
streamline criminal justice proceedings—
called the high incarceration rate "extremely
troubling." Among attorneys, he said, "this is
one thing that I think is on people's minds...
I think there's a lot of concern." But for leg
islators, "if you want to get elected, there's
a strong premium to not appearing to be soft
on crime... It's easy to pass criminal laws; it's
hard to repeal them."
Is the extremely high U.S. incarceration
rate discussed in law classes at the univer
sity? "It kind of depends on the class," said
Professor Erica Hashimoto, who teaches crimi
nal law. "We certainly discuss incarceration
rates" in her class on sentencing, she said.
But are the rates too high? "You'd be much
better off asking that question of the legisla
ture," which passed the drug and mandatory
sentencing laws that have driven the rates up,
she said.
To Jenni Austin, director of the Athens
Justice Project (which works with indigent
defendants), there is 'a direct link between
poverty and incarceration." Offenders who
have no money also have little access to legal
representation or bail, she said, "so a lot of
folks are getting locked up." What's more,
Georgia makes it hard to clear an arrest record
(even without a conviction), Austin said,
and employers are slow to hire anyone with a
criminal history. But "if you don't allow access
to employment then what is that individual
going to do?"
John Huie
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