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WHAT’S UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
At the very (east, the intensity of the
politics over the last year has revealed most
of the major faults that this community has
been dancing around. We've seen a county
commissioner chew out unelected managers
over the use or alleged abuse of their power.
We've seen the working relationship between
the mayor and the commission stretched
thin. We've seen what a commission with no
leadership looks like. There's also the dust-up
over redistricting and superdistncts, which
raises some big questions about the shape of
our government, and then there are the many
issues surrounding economic development that
continue to plod along In particular, there's
that old fault between those who want good
corporate neighbors and those who champion
business-friendliness.
And don't forget some big questions about
transportation via T-SPLOST, the future of
downtown via the Classic Center, and many
sparring matches over the importance of com
munity natural resources like Sandy Creek.
We've even been forced to consider what many
around town might
call a worst-case
scenario: rumors of
Walmart, a symbol
of the destruction
of Main Street busi
nesses, looming on
the edge of our down
town jewel.
Now, more than
ever, we need to get
past the reaction
ary cycle we find
ourselves caught in,
and put a real vision
for our community on
paper. It caught my
eye recently that one
of the few news sto
ries related to ail our
local political intrigue
to make it into the
Atlanta media market
was the one about a
development morato
rium in downtown Athens. That move by the
ACC Commission, to some degree a reaction
to rumors of the aforementioned Walmart,
is an instance of the reactionary approach
that contributes to our "business-unfriendly"
reputation, and it's what the outside world is
hearing about us. Taking this one issue as an
example, if one end of the community thinks
that planning by moratorium is running off
potential businesses, and the other end only
wants businesses that have a strong culture
of working with a community, then those two
sides must come together to identify and
attract the right kinds of businesses.
If the folks who've been soaking the wicks
on their torches and sharpening their pitch-
forks in anticipation of a knock-down-drag-out
campaign against Walmart are really serious
about protecting this community, they should
be storming City Hall and demanding a proper
vision and master plan. Same goes for the
"business-unfriendliness" whiners who would
rather take our community back to the laissez-
faire days of the Industrial Revolution, when
they could build factories on top of streams,
unencumbered by city-mandated bike racks.
There's an easy solution here, and it's to look
forward for once. If the leadership, elected
or appointed, isn't smart enough to recognize
that and get started, then it's on us for not
giving them the support they need to move in
that direction.
We know what our local assets are. The
most creative city in the region has all the
resources in place to kickstart this effort on
a shoestring budget. It would cost almost
nothing to pull a committee together to
start talking about what we want. We can go
through consultant after consultant, but the
story will always be the same: we have a
strong university, a strong medical industry
and a great arts community; now we must
decide on our values, pick a strategy and run
with it. Unfortunately, these simple facts, so
often repeated, are being ignored again. The
Athens Economic Development Foundation,
after backing off the River District concept, is
back to studying a more generalized approach
of developing incentives Tor the county, ignor- j
ing these obvious assets and looking for a new
consultant to tell us what we already know. It
certainly begs the question of what the EDF
is there for. and what it's done for the last
decade, if only now is it asking someone from
outside (apparently
lacking the expertise
or ability internally)
to come up with ideas
for incentives to
attract businesses to
the county.
Of course, the
EDF doesn't seem to
have much interest
in being accountable
to the community
(see last week's City
Dope for details
regarding the illegal
closed meeting the
EDF recently held),
governed as it is by a
mayor more content
to keep secrets for
out-of-town develop
ers than driven to
steer the community
forward, and a trans
parency-championing
commissioner who is just along for the ride,
among others. Do the EDF and its non-Athens-
resident director Matt Forshee really know
this community and what sorts of jobs it
wants for itself? Or is the EDF just another
entrenched faction, unwilling to reach a hand
out and perform the type of multi-constitu
ency coordination that modern-day projects
require?
Smokestack chasing isn't the way of the
future, but neither is NIMBYism or planning
by moratorium, or any of the usual traps that
this community seems to fall into. Athens has
been stuck for a long time, and it's clear that
the people in charge, given ample time to try
something different, haven't had the follow-
through to do so. It seems that it's on the
citizenry to drag our leaders forward into the
21st century, or at least to make enough noise
about articulating a proactive and proscriptive
approach that those leaders feel like they've
got the mandate to do so. If the business
community hasn't reached out to the folks
who are running off their businesses, and the
reactionary folks haven't reached out to the
business community, then everyone has only
themselves to blame. It's pretty clear that no
one will do this for us,
Kevan Williams
Cohesive, forward-thinking development strategies
for Athens are being held hostage by aversion to ac
tion and stubborn factionalism
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OCTOBER 19, 2011 • FLAGP0LE.COM 7
