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1«M f»AW«W©i-i6-loi3 ...www.thismodernworld.com. ..twitter.com/tomtomorrow
CHOICES WILL AFFECT US ALL
THE FUTURE OF WEST BROAD
There is not an infinite amount of money
in Georgia's annual budget. At the most, legis
lators will have a little more than $19 billion
in state revenues to spend on the programs
that are funded. Because there are a limited
number of tax dollars to allocate, lawmakers
have to make hard decisions about what they
will pay for and what they will discard.
We have seen that hard choice being made
over the past decade. The General Assembly
and the governor made the choice to give
dozens of tax breaks to corporations and
special interest groups during that 10-year
period, in the purported belief that these
financial incentives would help "create jobs."
Legislators are required by the constitution to
adopt a balanced budget every year. When you
grant that many tax breaks, you have to
pay for them somehow.
Our elected leadership effec
tively paid for those tax breaks by
cutting off state funds to local
school systems. Since Sonny
Perdue became governor in 2003,
Georgia has enacted a series of
"austerity cuts" to education
that reduced state funding to
local schools by a combined total
of more than $5 billion. You can
have some enlightening debates as to
whether this was the best choice we could
have made for the state's future wellbeing,
but it was the choice that legislators made.
As the latest session of the General
Assembly gets underway, lawmakers find them
selves with another interesting choice to make
about their state's future. They will be asked
to pass a bill that allows the Georgia World
Congress Center Authority to spend $300 mil
lion in hotel-motel tax revenues on a new sta
dium for Arthur Blank and his Atlanta Falcons
football franchise.
At the same time they are mulling that
proposal to give state tax money to one of
the wealthiest individuals in Georgia, legisla
tors will have a decision to make about the
Medicaid program that provides healthcare
services for low-income families. The
Legislature adopted a Medicaid provider fee—
also known as a hospital bed tax—in 2010
to provide additional funds for the program.
Each hospital pays a 1.45 percent tax on their
net patient revenue, and the money brings in
about $400 million a year in federal matching
funds that help pay for Medicaid services.
The provider fee will expire this year unless
the General Assembly passes a bill to extend
it. If the tax is not renewed, the financially
stressed Medicaid program will be in deeper
trouble and hospitals in rural areas that
depend on Medicaid payments will likely be
forced to close.
The bed tax is paid by hospitals, and
the state's three major hospital groups are
united in their support of it: the Georgia
Hospital Association, the Georgia
Alliance of Community Hospitals
and the rural hospital group
HomeTown Health.
Gov. Nathan Deal and House
Speaker David Ralston also agree
that some type of provider fee
will need to be enacted to keep
Medicaid afloat and allow rural
hospitals to continue operating.
They are facing powerful opposition,
however, from anti-tax activist Grover
Norquist.
"A vote in favor of extending the bed tax is
a violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge,"
Norquist said last fall in a letter to legislators
warning them not to renew the provider fee.
Georgia's lawmakers have some important
choices to make. Is a football stadium for an
NFL team owned by a billionaire more impor
tant to our citizens than keeping rural hospi
tals open? Do legislators owe their allegiance
to the people who voted to put them in office,
or to a political crank in Washington, D.C.?
The choices they make on these vital issues
will say a lot about the future prosperity of
this state.
Tom Crawford tcrawford@gareport.com
THIS W«ILB by TOM TOMORROW
THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS NEED
TO RESOLVE THEIR DIFFERENCES IN
A SENSIBLE, BIPARTISAN MANNER.'
I MEAN, I UNDERSTAND IT WILL
NEVER HAPPEN—BUT IF REPUBLI
CANS ARE GOING TO EXPLOIT THE
DEBT CEILING GIMMICK IN
ORDER TO HOLD THE ECONOMY
HOSTAGE—
—WHY SHOULDN'T OBAMA EXPLOIT
THE TRILLION DOLLAR COIN
GIMMICK IN ORDER To CIRCUM
VENT THEM?
EVEN IF IT'S LEGAL, IT SIMPLY
WOULDN'T BE APPROPRIATE! IT
WOULD IMPLICITLY UNDERMINE OUR
SYSTEM OF CHECKS AND BALANCES—
AND SET A TERRIBLE PRECEDENT.'
YES, WE WOULDN'T WANT THE MAN
WITH A SECRET DRONE ASSASSI
NATION PROGRAM to SET
ANY BAD PRECEDENTS.
HEY, SOMETIMES YA
GOTTA BREAK THE
RULES, AMIRITE?
After 27 years, Vision Video is closing its
flagship location on Broad Street. (Yes, the
other two locations will remain open.) With
this icon of Athens soon to be gone, a prime
piece of property is up for grabs.
We can lament another locally owned
business falling prey to Amazon or Netflix,
but this section of Broad between downtown
and Milledge Avenue has seen other changes
in the past few years. Treehouse Kid & Craft
opened in the old, crazy-ass Nuwaubian/
Egyptian cult building. (Though it's a great
example of adaptive reuse, I miss the green
pharaohs.) This space is also occupied by Luna
Bakery and, though it's not yet official, I've
heard Luna might be opening a restaurant in
the third space in the building. Since Peaches
Fine Foods closed last summer, another res
taurant is needed in the area. Phi Kappa Tau is
renovating and eventually adding onto the old
West Broad Street needs more "well-
designed two- to three-story structures that
offer goods and services that expand area
offerings," ACC Commissioner Kelly Girtz says.
"Athens benefits when more opportunity is
available in a smaller geographic area."
Girtz says he has not heard much from
constituents about what they would like to
see in the area, but it is clear that oversized,
intrusive structures are not wanted. Like
Girtz, Evan Smith, beer guru and owner of
Blockader Homebrew Supply, would like to see
well-designed, renovated buildings and local
businesses. Smith agrees that the area is not
equipped to handle large-scale chains like
other parts of Broad but is perfect for smaller,
local businesses that attracts a variety of cli
entele. While this section of Broad is the most
likely direction for downtown expansion, it
shouldn't mimic downtown.
Vision Video is an Athens icon, but the building it occupies is not.
Steak & Ale/Red Rooster/Taco Mac building
nearby, though my guess is that most traffic
generated from the fraternity will be aimed
toward downtown and not up the hill.
Which poses an interesting question:
What is to become of this area of town? Its
proximity to downtown seems to be more of
a problem than a blessing. Being so close to
downtown keeps the rents and taxes high on
many of these properties, creating an incen
tive for redevelopment.
No development applications have been
filed in the area, according to the Athens-
Clarke Planning Department, meaning that,
as of now, there are no immediate plans for
change. Eventually, much-needed change will
come. Hopefully, it will fit the wants and
needs of residents and business owners in the
neighborhood while serving as an attractive
entrance into the heart of Athens.
This section of Broad Street is the main
entrance into downtown from the west and
should be one of our best-looking thor
oughfares. Although there are several great
examples of mid-century modern architecture,
most of the buildings are so run-down that
people notice their dilapidated condition, not
their architectural aesthetics. While almost all
of the businesses in the area are local, many
of the buildings themselves are owned by out-
of-towners. (Vision Video's building, owned by
the Benson family, is an exception.) Absentee
landlords have few interests beyond collecting
the rent check.
Restaurants and retail are viable options
for this section of Broad, but the nightlife
should be kept downtown, says Pat Gannon,
a college-age resident. "I can walk downtown
to bars or to the co-op for groceries, but more
restaurants and retail in the area would be
nice," Gannon says. While there are many stu
dent renters in the area, there are also many
homeowners with nine-to-five jobs and chil
dren, who would probably not be too happy
with bars coming into their neighborhood but
wouldn't mind walking or driving to restau
rants and shops that cater to their needs. A
few businesses are filling this niche.
David Dwyer of Atlas Real Estate Advisors
sees Athens as a city of nodes with roadways
connecting the nodes like spokes on a wheel,
and the downtown and Beechwood nodes are
expanding to meet each other. For example, a
Dollar General is opening near the Rocksprings
Street intersection on Broad Street.
Dwyer says nearby Baxter Street used to
be a walkable, vibrant neighborhood, though
in my time in Athens, it has been little more
than an auto-centric corridor connecting cam
pus and Beechwood. It just goes to show how
much things change overtime. Perhaps 15
years from now, I'll be telling another Flagpole
columnist about back in the day, when the
neighborhood wasn't vibrant or walkable; it
was little more than a corridor connecting a
couple of Athens nodes.
Stella Smith
6 FLAGPOLE.COM-JANUARY 16, 2013
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