About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 2011)
"foM f«MoRRoW02OH ...www.thismodemworld.com...twitter.com/tomtomorrow 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
