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A TIME TO SETTLE SCORES
Legislators will tell you that they have to
redraw the boundaries of Georgia's election
districts every 10 years to account for shifts
in population. There are times when these new
boundary lines will force an incumbent politi
cian c ji of office, but lawmakers will tell you
that is just one of those unfortunate things
they can't do anything about.
"It's not political. It's not personal," House
Majority Whip Edward Lindsey (R-Atlanta) said
during the special session on redistricting.
"It's simple math."
Lindsey is a smart lawyer, so he knows that
what he's saying is bogus. When it comes to
deciding which officeholder will be allowed to
keep a safe district and which one will
be thrown to the wolves, it's almost
always personal and political.
Redistricting is a time when
the folks in power at the General
Assembly use that power to
punish their enemies and settle
some personal scores. That's the
way the game is played.
Ten years ago, House Speaker
Tom Murphy detested Rep. Bobby
Franklin, a nutcase from Marietta
who taunted the old man at every
opportunity. Murphy had Franklin's district
redrawn so that Franklin was shoved into a
new district with another Republican law
maker. The expectation was that Franklin
would lose the primary and depart from the
Legislature. Franklin upset that scenario by
winning the Republican primary and continu
ing to serve in the House for another decade.
Two incumbents who found themselves
on the outs with the legislative leadership
this time around were a pair of Republicans
from southeast Georgia, Rep. Mark Hatfield of
Waycross and Rep. Jason Spencer of Woodbine.
Hatfield supposedly caused some embarrass
ment for the House leadership by introducing
a bill that would have thrown Barack Obama
off the election ballot next year unless the
president could "prove" he was a natural-born
citizen. House leaders decided to deal with
the problem by putting Hatfield in the same
district with Spencer, a Tea Party activist from
Camden County.
The real sin committed by Hatfield and
Spencer was this: they opposed a sweetheart
bill that slid through the House last session
and will mean millions of dollars in tax rebates
to some influential developers. When the
sponsors of that tax rebate tried to sneak it
through the House by hiding it inside another
piece of legislation, Hatfield and Spencer
loudly objected to the maneuver. Hatfield
called the proposed tax giveaway "legalized
extortion" during the floor debate. Spencer
said: "I don't think it is the government's
role to be essentially a bank. Once we
start butting into the free market like
this and complicate our tax code,
it is usually not a good thing for
the free market." Hatfield and
Spencer very nearly succeeded
in killing the tax bill. For endan
gering the interests of wealthy
developers, they were put in the
same district.
Then there was the case of
Rep. Pedro Marin (D-Duluth), one
of the first Latinos elected to the
Legislature back in 2002. Marin spoke out
strongly against the passage of the state's
controversial immigration law, which he said
discriminated against persons of Hispanic
descent. You could bet that Marin would be
punished for going against the leadership on
such a sensitive issue, and he was. When the
lines were redrawn, a House district was cre
ated in Gwinnett County that had a majority
Latino population. Marin's residence was not
included in that district, however. Instead,
he was placed in a district that is predomi
nantly Republican, where he probably will be
defeated if he runs for reelection in 2012.
Marin is the not the first to find himself
on the wrong end of redistricting. He won't be
the last. That's how the game is played.
Tom Crawford tcrawford ^gareport com
THIS MtllKU W#KS.*
by TOM TOMORROW
THIS week: another mystery
from THE CASEFILES of conser
vative jomes, boy detective!
COME IN, MOONS AT.' YOU'RE JUST
IN TIME.' I AM ATTEMPTING TO
SOLVE THE ENIGMA OF RECENT
LIBERAL BEHAVIOR.'
FOR INSTANCE--mtn ERIC cantor
QUITE REASONABLY SUGGE5TS THAT
DISASTER RELIEF SHOULD BE CON
TINGENT upon BUDGET CUTS—
WHY DO LIBERALS OBJECT?
1 i
UM--BECAUSE
OH, M00N8AT.'
IT IS HEART-
how I ENVY
LESS AND TONE
YOUR BLISSFUL
DEAF?
DETATCHMENT
==== \
FROM REALITY.'
\ IT
— /
BUT TO C0NTINUE--1HE MYSTERY
IS COMPOUNDED BY THE LEFT'S
RESPONSE TO RON PAUL--WHO
SIMPLY POINTED OUT THAT THEY
DIDN'T NEED FEMA DURING THE
GREAT HURRICANE OF 1900.'
YOU MEAN WHEN THOU
SANDS DIED AND MEN
WERE CONSCRIPTED TO
BURN THE CORPSES PILED
UP ROTTING ON THE
BEACHES OF GALVESTON?
MOON8AT, YOUR FLAIR FOR THE
DRAMATIC IS MATCHED only BY
THE SLAVISHNESS OF YOUR DEVOTION
TO GOVERNMENT SPENDING! WHICH
BRINGS US TO OUR FINAL DATA
POINT—
--THE INEXPLICABLE LIBERAL RE
SISTANCE to SIMPLY DEFUNDING
THE NATIONAL WEATHER
SERVICE!
AFTER ALL—WHY SHOULD TAX
PAYERS BE FORCED TO FOOT THE
BILL For a SERVICE WHICH PRI
VATE SECTOR COMPANIES SUCH AS
ACCUWEATHER CAN provide?
BUT--THOSE
COMPANIES
USE N.W.S.
DATA-! M
QUIET, MOON8AT'
THROUGH A RIGOROUS
PROCESS OF DEDUCTION,
I HAVE ARRIVED AT
THE SOLUTION--
-AND IT IS THAT... LIBERALS
ARE JUST IRRATIONAL!
BY GOD,
next: WHY ARE LIBERALS So OB
SESSED WITH GLOBAL WARMING?
THEY IGNORE
EXPERTS SUCH
AS RUSH
LIMBAUGH!
fed
IT
MAKES
NO
SENSE!
WHAT’S UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
Normaltown is on its way to being a very
different place, heralded by those new UGA
Health Sciences Campus signs that have
popped up in the area. There are plenty of
commercial ramifications, as large-scale medi
cal businesses cluster in the area, like the
complex going up between West Broad and
Old Epps Bridge. One study from 2007 predicts
that 10 or so years after the campus is up
and running, 1,350 people will work on the
campus with another 1000 private jobs cre
ated. The pressures of shifting demographics
on housing in the area are the focus of this
column, though. That same study predicts that
the community's housing demand will increase
seeming so modest from the outside. Even
though they are quite well-scaled, they aren't
without detail, and Holman Avenue has a
particularly eclectic and unusually crafted
collection of stone and brick homes mixed in
with the repeated floor plans more common
to the neighborhood. The only point against
these structures in my mind is the low ceiling
height, which arrived along with central air
conditioning.
The same principles which drove the design
of these starter homes for returning soldiers
(the nests in which the baby boomers were
hatched) are especially relevant now, as we
have our first opportunity to contemplate
Low-slung ranch houses nestle behind an allee of water oaks on Holman Avenue.
by around 2,400 households as a result.
Already, the area is becoming a haven for
student rentals, as rents and property values
go up in Boulevard, Pulaski Heights, Cobbham
and other areas west of Downtown.
Residents in the historic Buena Vista
neighborhood (one of the oldest in the area,
predating better known Boulevard) have antic
ipated some of these changes and recently
completed a historic structures inventory,
with the hope of designating a local historic
district. Postwar neighborhoods south of
Prince are starting to hit the right age for
considering their historicity, and the fate of
these GI starter suburbs is one worth con
templating. Typically, the age of 50 years is a
benchmark for considering whether an area is
historic, and neighborhoods built in the '40s
and '50s are well past that mark.
So, what exactly can we expect in the area
as the Med School ramps up? Portions of Five
Points may be a good comparison, with its
similar neighborhoods of small cottages on
fairly generous lots. Tear-downs became a big
concern there, as those small houses were
replaced by much larger craftsman cottages
out of scale with their neighbors. If the area
shifts too rapidly, could we see a pattern of
well financed medical professionals taking
down these cottages on fairly affordable lots
and putting up Neo-Craftsman behemoths? It's
already happened across the street in Buena
Vista in several spots. Areas like Sunset-
Holman could be next as the market returns
and employment in the area increases.
Those efficient little ranches of the area
ought to be a lesson in times when sustain
ability is on everyone's mind. Living in a
house of this vintage, and having visited
many others, I'm always amazed at the
sense of spaciousness that they offer, while
whether this architecture is historically signif
icant. Figuring out how to do more with less
is a lot easier if we retain effective examples.
While these ranch bungalows do have many
endearing qualities, they can't stay exactly as
they areTand tearing down is one solution to
adapting life in that neighborhood to modern
concerns. It's worth investigating how the
houses might be enlarged, extended and oth
erwise altered to provide a more contemporary
experience, while retaining the integral scale
and character of the architecture.
The ranch as we know it is a simplifica
tion of courtyard structures of the Southwest:
pushing wings out from these house in similar
fashion might be a good way to retain their
character while taking advantage of the deep
lots common in the area. One last point worth
mentioning is the greater historic landscape
into which these homes are nested. Allees
of water oaks along the northern blocks of
both Holman Avenue and Sunset Drive rival
Boulevard in terms of the scale and grandeur
of the tree canopy. Those oaks are slowly
dying out, and that distinctive landscape will
be gone forever if we don't consider its future
now. The corner of Best Drive and Holman
is home to Oak Point Park; one resident told
me that the mini-park used to be a gathering
spot in the days when the neighborhood was
home to many young GI families. A few blocks
away on Millard, between Sunset and Clover,
is a house which used to be a neighborhood
grocery.
The attention that the med school and
affiliated efforts will bring to the area may
have some unintended consequences, but
it will also open up some new and old design
and planning questions to consider.
Kevan Williams athensrising^llagpole com
6 FLAGPOLE.COM-SEPTEMBER 7. 2011
KEVAN WILLIAMS
