About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2011)
ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS STATE WINS AND Boom! Boom!: It seems lightning may not have been the only force of nature blowing things up around AthFest this year. Jeffrey Abramsky. a senior VP at UGL Services, which is managing construction at the new Biotest Plasma facility downtown, alleged in a letter to Mayor Nancy Denson dated June 22 that Commissioner Jared Bailey, who is also AthFest director, threatened Abramsky with political retribution against him and his client during a dispute over the use of a parking lot on the Biotest site. The letter, which was also copied to Chamber of Commerce prez Doc Eldridge and Ken Daniel of Athens First Bank & Trust and has since been circulated to ACC Manager Alan Reddish, ACC Attorney Bill Berryman. Bailey and goodness knows who else, states that at the end of a contentious phone conversation during which Abramsky told Bailey that UGL's liability insurer would not allow the company to let AthFest use the Biotest lot for "servic ing the festival.” Bailey "called me something derogatory and then announced 'I am a city commissioner and I can make your client's life miserable.'” Abramsky assures the Dope that's a direct quote: that he wrote it down while on the phone. Abramsky also claims in the letter that at a later, face-to-face meeting with him and two other construction managers, Bailey said, "I am talking to 6C.000 people this weekend... remember that.” Abramsky says he and the others took that as a clearly implied threat. Bailey disputes the substance of the first attribution, and the context of the second. He says he never threatened Abramsky or his client; that Abramsky was unnecessarily rais ing his voice over the phone, prompting him to say, "I am a county commissioner and I am not used to being yelled at like this." Bailey doesn't deny the second quote, but says he meant that UGL was missing an opportunity for some "positive P.R." with festival attend ees. He admits there was a disagreement over the parking lot. but says, "there was no retribution" against UGL or Biotest. "I haven't talked to anyone there or done anything in any way to hurt this com pany," he says. Two AthFest interns who were within earshot of Bailey’s side of the phone conversation both tell the Dope they never heard him threaten Abramsky or his client. Being essentially a "he said/ he said" situ ation, it doesn’t seem likely this dust-up will 90 anywhere, except into the grudge files of the participants. But that's probably bad enough. Abramsky adamantly stands by his story as recounted in the letter, but even if Bailey's version of the events is completely true, his handling of the situation was less than appropriate for an electtd official, which he is (as he admits pointing out to Abramsky) even when he's conducting the business of his other job. And against a backdrop of commis sioners attempting to insert themselves into the mechanism of the Economic Development Foundation in the name of making it operate more effectively, Bailey's pointless tussle with a representative of a company that's poised to bring 50 jobs to the community seems espe cially ill-advised. Of course, there’s also the fact that both Denson and Eldridge responded by email to Abramsky's letter on June 27—each assuring him that the episode he described wasn't rep resentative of the way Athens or its govern ment do business—three days before Bailey says he heard of the letter's existence. Why in the world the mayor and the president of the Chamber of Commerce would respond to allegations of this seriousness against an elected commissioner without first consulting him is anyone's guess, but it's safe to say the fractured politics between progressive com missioners and the more conservative guard represented by Denson and Eldridge weren't an insignificant factor. Seems like everyone involved in this dysfunctional drama has a bit of growing up to do before any of them can claim the high ground. Dave Marr news - flagpole com Krazy Korner Conservatives in Washington have begun using the protests in Greece to gin up fear over our own country's debt problem. We must drastically cut spending, they say. so that we don’t face the scenario that is bringing chaos to Athens' streets. Congressman Broun’s BFFs over at Freedomworks, an organization begun by the infamous Koch brothers (Google those shits), has made the dire Greece-in-Amertca warning into a mantra Ironically, though, it is this same crowd which is all but inviting Greek- style unrest here in the U S. The people of Greece are not protesting their fiscal crisis in the abstract, but protesting a particular way of responding to the fiscal crisis—a response which effectively places the burden and the blame on those who had nothing to do with the crisis in the first place This has been the conventional response of many of the world's governments, including dur own: cuts to schools, hos pitals. aid and retirement programs, while the wealthy elite go on accumulating more wealth. The bankers who caused the crisis continue in their unimaginable luxury, and Broun even fights to have their taxes significantly lowered. The corporations who have shipped the jobs overseas continue to enjoy tax breaks and preferential treatment. In a recent op*ed in The Hill, Broun explains his latest budget-cutting priorities.* “Much of what I proposed to cut came from the WIC auxiliary welfare program and foreign food aid.” WIC is a program which feeds the most needy children in our coun try. those ‘‘found to be at nutritional risk." Instead of raising taxes, even moderately, on the rich or reducing our fantastically bloated and expensive global military, Broun finds the answer to our budget crisis in cutting food aid for the very poorest children. The money saved by these measures would then find its way to the wealthy through the unbelievably generous tax cuts Broun has proposed. It’s not that there isn’t money to go around; it’s that it is being redistnbuted into the hands of the elite, with the help of Broun and the GOP. IMatthew Pulver] In the courtroom, as on the playing field, the rules of competition are the same: you win some, you lose some. We got a reminder of that last week when the attorneys who rep resent the state of Georgia were slapped down by a federal judge in Atlanta, then received a lot of loving just a day later from another group of federal judges in the same city. The legal maneuverings began when U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Thrash presided over the lawsuit that had been filed by the ACLU and other civil rights groups against the state's new immigration control law. Gov. Nathan Deal and the legislative sponsors of the immigration law had assured their constit uents that the new statute was painstak ingly written so that it would survive any objections that might be raised in court. "We believe that the provi sions of the bill will be vindi cated when put to scrutiny in the court system." said Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City). Ramsey may have been a little premature. Judge Thrash ruled in favor of the groups challenging the constitutionality of the law and threw out two of the law's major provisions: autho rizing police to detain and question suspects about their immigration status and making it a crime to harbor or transport an illegal immigrant. "Seventy years ago the United States Supreme Court declared that the federal gov ernment had the exclusive right to legislate the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation," Thrash wrote. "That remains the law of the land." While Deal was displeased with the judge's ruling, the attorneys who challenged the immigration law were happy with the result. "There should be no doubt in the minds of Georgia citizens that this was. from the beginning, a bad law that could never pass constitutional muster," said Keegan Federal, a former judge who was part of the legal team representing Georgia's immigrant community. It was a bad start for the state's lawyers, but it was a week that would soon get better. On the day after the Thrash decision, a panel of judges from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a ruling that forti fied Georgia in its lengthy water dispute with Alabama and Florida. The appellate court judges reversed a decision that would have cut off most of Metro Atlanta's access to the water in Lake Lanier by 2012. Federal Judge Paul Magriuson ruled two years ago that Congress had supposedly not authorized the use of Lanier as a water source for Atlanta, a deci sion that threatened the future of the state's most populous region. Magnuson was wrong, the appeals court said. The congressio nal act passed in 1946 to develop the Lanier reservoir "clearly indi cates Congress' intent to include water supply as an authorized purpose," the judges ruled. This ruling was seen by the state's lawyers and elected officials as a major victory. Of course, in our American legal system, it's never over until it's over. The states' attorneys for Alabama and Florida will appeal the latest decision in the water wars to the full Circuit Court of Appeals in the hope that a different set of judges will rule in their favor. You can also rest assured that both the water litigation and the immigration lawsuit will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court at some point, and no one can predict with any certainty what will happen then. Who will be the ultimate winners? I say it will be the attorneys. For the water litigation alone, Georgia has been billed for more than $8.5 million in fees and expenses by the pri vate lawyers retained to help argue the state's case. For that kind of money, I wouldn't even care if the judge ruled against me. Tom Crawford lcrawford@gaieport com THIS MMfcKU WMLB holographic teaching INTERFACE activated: GOOD morning, CHILDREN.' TOD AT WELL CONTINUE OUR STUDY Of YOUR ll*’ CENTURY ANCESTORS - - KNOWN TO HISTORIANS WANKIEST YOUR ANCESTORS WERE DEFINED 8Y THREE PRI MARY characteristics: THEIR UNSHAKABLE AD DICTION to oil...their irrational subservience TO THE RICH...and. of COURSE, their ALL-CON SUMING, ENDlESS LIKE TYPICAL ADDICTS, THEY REFUSED TO ADMIT THEY EVEN HAD A prob lem: For instance, they INSISTED that ThEiR mul tiple, endless wars, in ONE OF the PLANET'S PRIMARY OIL-PRODUCING REGIONS, ACTUALLY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH oil: TOM TOMORROW they WERE SPENDING AT LEAST TWO BILLION DOLLARS a WEEK ON THESE WARS--WHICH WOULD BE about $700 HATRILLION IN TO DAY S currency: and YET, THEY SlMULTREMOUSLY DECIDED that what TmEY REALLY NEEDED AS A SOCIETY...WE RE LARGE TAX CUTS FOR THE wealthy: YOU SEE. YOUR ANCESTORS APPRENTVY BELIEVED THAT th£ PRIMARY PURPOSE of SOCIETY WAS TO RE DISTRIBUTE THEiR NATION'S WEALTH--TO THOSE WHO already posse ssed most Of IT.' ALL OTHER CON SIDERATIONS were se condary: YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW WELL THAT WORKED OUT. Finally, we mustn't OVERLOOK THEIR OVER WHELMING, CONSTANT, INCHOATE FEAR-- THAT SOME bad thing MIGHT happen someday: in RETROSPECT, IT'S CLEAR THAT CIVIL LIBERTIES AND the RULE Of LAW NEVER STOOD A CHANCE AGAINST their collective, societal ANXIETY disorder: the ultimate legacy Of THEIR malignant STEWARDSHIP OF THIS ONCE-THRIVING nation WAS, of COURSE, A HELLISH AND DYSFUNC TIONAL POST-APOCALYPTIC NIGHTMARE--OH, AS YOU BlOLOGlCALS CALL IT. DAILY LIFEr AND THAT'S ALL OUR TIME FOR today: WE LL CONTINUE NEXT WEEK-- AT LEAST, WITH THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T BEEN CAPTURED BY ORGAN HARVESTERS OR SOLD To MUTANT slavers: 4 FLAGPOLE.COM JULY 6.2011 1*M*Rft*W020ll ...www.thiamo<Jem»for1d.com...twit1ef.com/tomtomorrovv
