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ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS
Racial politics in Athens are a mess,
despite the best efforts of hard-working,
well-meaning people in all segments of the
community. Why is that? This is a progressive-
minded city, for the most part, and whatever
your position on what that's worth, a big part
of what it entails is a serious intent to correct
the harms brought about by racial injustice,
our nation's—and especially, our region's—
original sin.
But despite the seriousness of that intent,
we're continually ranked among the United
States' most impoverished and economically
unequal counties. That poverty is concen
trated in Athens' minority communities, and
contrasts starkly with the mostly white, UGA-
centered upper middle class that unsurpris
ingly dominates local politics. And however
much all those politically active white people
may want to help improve the situation for
black people in poverty, that awful contrast is
always there, which makes for some pretty raw
relations. It creates divisions in places where
unity is needed, and exacerbates divisions in
plates where they already exist. A couple of
events here last week shot some light into
that divide.
Some white residents of the now par
tially gentrified but once almost exclusively
black neighborhood that stretches eastward
from the tract of land that will soon be
developed by the Atlanta firm Selig—with a
94,000-square-foot Walmart as the project's
"anchor," as currently planned—had organized
a neighborhood meeting at the East Athens
Community Center. It was envisioned, in
part, as a chance to get members of the East
Athens African-American community, whose
interests had been so much discussed in terms
of the development, actually involved in the
conversation—a good goal. But early in the
meeting, some of the most impassioned testi
monials by white residents were centered on
the historic nature of the development site,
and the need to prevent its special ambiance
from being disturbed by sontething like a
Walmart.
Val Freeman, a longtime resident of the
neighborhood who was one of about 10
African Americans in the audience of about 40
neighbors, was clearly put off. She said she
didn't understand why people were so con
cerned about a bunch of old sheds and brick
ruins when there was a whole neighborhood
behind them that was full of poor people who
need access to groceries and jobs. Walking
past the fenced-off, overgrown and unused
Armstrong & Dobbs site, she said, "I see
something different from what you see." As
a veteran of local anti-poverty initiatives—
including a campaign to keep the Lexington
Road Walmart from locating there—Freeman
was well aware of the complexity of the issues
on the table. But her perception was that the
interests of a large segment of the community
weren't being considered, and she emphati
cally brought them to the fore.
Of course, the vast majority of people at
the meeting, white and black, were fully con
scious of the need for groceries in that part of
town, and of the fact that historic preserva
tion is not the top concern of people trying to
fight their way out of poverty. But the conver
sation in the room hadn't yet been framed to
give those factors their proper importance,
and that needed to be corrected. Val Freeman,
who had felt the need to state outright that
she was speaking "from a black person's
perspective," did so. The rest of the meeting
was focused on the needs of all the people
in the neighborhood, and how they might be
addressed by the development with as little
negative collateral impact as possible. It was
agreed that this discussion among neighbors
should continue, and that a concerted effort
was needed to get more people in the area
informed and involved.
The next day, there was a meeting of the
committee that's been assigned the task of
determining whether Athens-Clarke County's
two commission "superdistricts" have the
effect of diluting minority voting strength.
That's an extremely valid question, but in
this case it's being asked in the context of a
local redistricting process that's been shaped
to a great extent by state legislators whose
agenda, it's fair to speculate, has more to do
with strengthening the voting power of con
servatives in Athens than that of minorities.
That backdrop has understandably led
to some defensiveness on the part of many
who are active in Athens' local politics, who
resent what they perceive as the hijacking of
our local government process. That attitude
was on full display at the committee meeting
last week, as members pored over ACC vot
ing data reaching back to 1996 with an eye
toward analyzing minority participation. What
they found was that Athens has a high rate of
election turnout among registered non-white
voters, which was cited as clear evidence that
the existence of superdistricts hasn't harmed
minority voting strength.
That's ridiculous: one might just as well
offer the same data as evidence that our
Republican-gerrymandered state legislative
districts have no such negative effect. Why
would a progressive committee member like
Gwen O'Looney, a former mayor whose alli
ances in the black community are as strong
and meaningful as those of any white politi
cian Athens has ever known, draw such a
faulty conclusion and suggest that it should
be sufficient to put the issue of the superdis
tricts firmly to rest?
The answer, of course, is to get the ques
tion off the table. Because those who frame
it properly—as a matter of whether the
overlaying of two districts with strong white
majorities prevents minorities from being pro
portionally represented on the commission—
also tend to answer it too simply, using the
assumption that white voters in Athens won't
elect black candidates, which is far from abso
lutely true. And with the dubious intent of
the legislators hanging over the committee's
deliberations, there's plenty of motivation for
its members to dispense with the question
quickly—even if that means failing to treat it
with its due rigor and sincerity.
So, we have people talking past each other
on a personal level, which can be overcome
with diligence and commitment from those
involved in the conversations, and people fail
ing to be honest with themselves and each
other on a political level, which is going to
be harder to resolve. What does all this show?
Are we learning anything as we stare across
the deep gap that divides our community? The
only way we can is to start talking to each
other with honesty, even if it's painful, and
keep doing it, like the people at that com
munity meeting last week. No, nothing got
resolved that night, but with a few thousand
more nights like it, you can bet something
will.
Dave Marr news@flagpole.com
Reducing Traffic Flow
on Prince Ave. Still
a Divisive Proposition
The Athens-Clarke County Planning
Department held a third public presentation
and input session on its Prince Avenue cor
ridor study Dec. 12 at Piedmont College. The
meeting distinguished itself from previous
input sessions in that planning staff made a
deliberate attempt to engage property and
business owners along Prince Avenue, invit
ing them to voice their opinions both formally
and informally. Previous input sessions have
attracted mainly neighborhood residents. Of
the two corridor studies currently underway by
Planning staff, the Prince study has garnered
the lion's share of public interest to date, with
a study of the Oak/Oconee corridor generating
only 15 percent of comments received.
Presenting formal comments were Jamey
Thaw, CEO of Athens Regional Medical Center;
Tim Burgess, senior vice president for finance
and administration at the University of
Georgia; and Doc Eldridge, executive direc
tor of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce.
Thaw and Burgess spoke of the medical and
academic engines that help drive the Athens
economy, and the need to avoid impos
ing restrictions on those components. Thaw
encouraged the city to keep Prince Avenue
four lanes for the sake of patient and ambu
lance traffic, and not to impose restrictions
that could discourage medical growth along
the corridor. Burgess spoke of the Health
Sciences Campus being developed on the for
mer Normal School/ Navy Supply Corps School
property, and the resultant medical growth
that could be expected, which he said should
be welcomed. The business community was
represented by business and property owners
and non-Prince Avenue developers, who were
unanimous in their support of keeping Prince
Avenue four lanes and who warned that a pro
posed 10,000-square-foot limitation on medi
cal offices was untenable.
ACC planner Bruce Lonnee made the point
that Prince Avenue is a series of nodes, each
with its own distinct character that calls for
stepped-down development. As an example, he
noted the Athens Heart Center office, whose
size is appropriate in its present location on
Prince Avenue near Loop 10, but would not
be appropriate in the downtown end of Prince
Avenue. He introduced a new zoning classifi
cation, Commercial-Neighborhood Established
(CNE), that could be used on selected prop
erties within the corridor to make sure that
development is of a scale that is compatible
with adjacent neighborhoods. Currently, medi
cal offices are exempt from the professional
office size limitation of 10,000 square feet.
Avid Bookshop employee Rachel Watkins
read comments from the store's owner, Janet
Geddis, who advocated for improved crosswalk
signage and slowing traffic, noting that many
of Avid's customers are pedestrians who find it
difficult and often dangerous to cross Prince.
Most residents echoed her concerns and noted
that while Prince Avenue is a major corridor, it
is also an in-town street surrounded by neigh
borhoods, and warrants measures to reduce
vehicular speed and improve safety for pedes
trians and cyclists. Residents also expressed
concern that the sense of place along the cor
ridor could be permanently altered if massive
structures are encouraged to be built.
Monday's meeting was the last scheduled
public input session; comments on both cor
ridor studies are still being accepted at www.
athenscl3rkec0unty.com/planning.
Amy Andrews
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4 FLAGPOLE.COM -DECEMBER 21, 2011