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WHAT'S UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
Why doesn't our community look like we want it to? Why are
we so far behind comparable communities in the country and
the region? Why is there so little opportunity here, the poor
est county in the nation? As we burrow deeper into issues that
often manifest themselves outwardly as design and planning
questions, the answers become more and more fundamental to
what Athens is. At the center of the whole series of Russian
dolls, though, there's that old tension between city and
county, rural and urban. Is Athens merely a small urban blip
of a college town on the otherwise rural and suburban radar of
Northeast Georgia? Or is Athens the center of a growing met
ropolitan region whose population, when including adjacent
counties, could easily comprise a half-million citizens in the
next five to 10 years?
I can't help but scratch my head at some of the recent
"talk" trumpeted by the Athens Banner-Herald about eliminat
ing the position of mayor in Athens-Clarke County. That the
ABH chose the day after the Fourth of July to suggest eliminat
ing our local executive branch just seems a bit un-American.
It's an interesting issue to bring up, but ultimately, it touches
on a conversation that we often dance around here in Athens,
but can never quite seem to discuss openly.
It's not that the position of mayor is vestigial, as the folks
at the Banner-Herald suggest. The whole commission-manager
system of government, with its figurehead mayor, is what's
no longer working for us. The relationship between the three
players (mayor, commission and manager) is at odds with the
community's scale and its vision for itself. The suggestion
that the position of the mayor is vestigial and unnecessary
only works if you view the job of a mayor as a legislative
one; around here, we sort of assume that's how it is, with the
mayor's primary role being to set the commission's agenda,
sort of like the majority leader or speaker of the house in the
upper and lower chambers of Congress. But a mayor tradition
ally isn't a legislative role; it's an executive one, and what
we really need to be talking about is whether executive power
in this county should continue to be wielded by an unelected
manager, or whether the community's chief executive should be
held accountable to the people in regular elections.
Other aspects of the ABH editorial bring the central and
unspoken tensions into clearer focus, citing concerns about
rural and suburban representation, and a desire to focus on
those sorts of issues. Of course, suburban issues are really
issues of bad urban planning, and in regard to rural concerns;
well, there just aren't that many people "out there" in what's
left of our hinterlands to warrant much more representation.
This is an urban place, and we need to confront that.
Unfortunately, our local government's structure still reflects
our rural heritage, with a commission-manager form that is
ineffective, and produces a lot of friction. While 20
years ago during unification, an apolitical manager
dealing with the ins and outs of a small county
might have made sense, today's reality is much dif
ferent. Athens is becoming a big, diverse city, with
complex problems, like the highest urban poverty
rate in the country. It's time to acknowledge we're
in the big leagues, and modify our government to
look more like the mayor-council system that is
common for communities of a larger size.
In suggesting the elimination of the role of
mayor, proponents may be reading the narrative
backwards. In 2006, we finally acknowledged the
importance of the mayor by making it a full-time
job. The next step is to invest some executive
power in the position, and to fund it in a way that
makes sense. Another idea thrown out in the ABH
editorial was to eliminate the two superdistrict
commissioners. Maybe that's a good idea, and
maybe it isn't, but if it were a budget-neutral way
to put a competitive salary on the table to attract
higher-quality mayoral candidates, it would
certainly help. The fact that the Mayor of Athens-
Clarke County only makes about a third as much as
Manager Alan Reddish—her employee—is just silly.
We ought to be paying the mayor the type of salary
that will draw the attention of local professionals
who are actively getting things done, rather than
offering a salary so low as to be attractive mainly
to retirees like current Mayor Nancy Denson. The
commissioners are a busy bunch, too, and the work
those folks do approaches being a full-time job;
if we want serving on the county commission to
become more than an extra-curricular activity, we
need to look at their salaries, too. You get what
you pay for.
Many of the current conflicts in our government
seem to come from those remnant rural-county
government structures being applied to a highly
urban city. The types of decisions which might
have seemed like relatively minor concerns in a less
populated and more homogenous rural county have
become major political issues in our more complex and urban
environment. Recent examples include planning questions
like those regarding the Sandy Creek sewer line, management
decisions like the breakup of the Natural Resources Division of
Leisure Services, and most recently, the design of the Classic
Center expansion. The role of the manager's office has hardly
been without political agenda in these recent situations, with
the significant influence of that position used to shape policy
in ways that are wholly unaccountable to voters.
If anything, it's the Strong Manager, not the Weak Mayor,
that is obsolete in Athens-Clarke County. We need people who
are accountable running our local government, and the way to
achieve that is to put more of the day-to-day executive deci
sions in the hands of an elected mayor. Getting there might
require tweaking our charter, but it's something that we've got
to consider if we want a responsive government that's serious
about the problems facing the community. Of course, we've got
to be willing to pay competitive salaries that attract innova
tive leaders to elected positions, too. We can't afford not to.
Kevan Williams alhensrising@flagpole.com
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JULY 13, 2011 • FLAGPOLE.COM 7
