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Not Pfenning on Getting a Flu Shot this Year?
Researchers at the University of Georgia and the Oak Ridge Associated
Universities are conducting a study to understand how adults think
about adult vaccines, and to get their reactions to vaccine education
materials. Your participation can help efforts to provide helpful
Information to the public about vaccinations recommended for adults.
You may be eligible to participate if you:
• Didn't get a flu shot or vaccine last year and don't plan to get one
this year
* Are between 19 ■ 49 years old
Eligibility will be determined through a telephone screening. Eligible
subjects will first be sent an online questionnaire to complete, then will
be scheduled for a research visit lasting around 60 minutes. During the
research visit, you will view immunization-related education materials
and complete study questionnaires.
Subjects will receive compensation of $30 for completing the study.
You will not receive any vaccinations as a part of this study.
The study will be conducted at the Clinical and Translational Research
Unit (CTRU) on the UGA Health Sciences Campus. The Principal
Investigator is Dr. Glen Nowak.
For more info, call 706-713-2721 or email try ■■■.ti’h.edu
Clinical and Translational
Research Unit
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Polishing the Eastside
DICKERSON VS. DAVENPORT IN COMMISSION DISTRICT 1
By Blake Aued news@flagpole.com
one of six contested Athens-Clarke
County Commission races, pro
gressive activist Patrick Davenport is look
ing to oust District 1 incumbent Sharyn
Dickerson on May 22.
Davenport, 38, grew up on the Eastside,
has been involved with the progressive
group Athens for Everyone and is oper
ations manager at Peachy Green Clean
Co-op, a worker-owned cleaning service
started by the Economic Justice Coalition.
He said he was motivated to run by an argu
ment Dickerson made during
a 2016 work session against
raising wages for part-time
ACC employees. “We’d all like
to get paid what the president
of the United States gets paid,
but we don’t have the knowl
edge, skills and ability, and we
haven’t paid the dues to get
there,” Dickerson said.
Davenport said he felt the
comment belittled his mother,
who worked in a factory for
minimum wage for 30 years. “There are a
lot of people in Athens who work 40 hours
[a week], 50 hours, 60 hours, work two or
three jobs, and it barely [provides] a liveli
hood,” he said.
Beyond that specific issue, Davenport
said he believes Dickerson is out of touch
with parts of the district, which includes
suburban and rural areas
on the eastern edge of
the county. For example,
Dickerson co-chaired the
steering committee for the
county’s once-a-decade
comprehensive plan, but
Davenport said several black
churches in his neighborhood
were not told about the plan
and only found out about it
through the media, while a
meeting was held to discuss it
at a primarily white church nearby. “I would
include everybody,” he said. “I can’t say she
purposefully left people out, but it’s trou
bling to me.”
Dickerson, though, said she prides
herself on keeping constituents informed,
whether it’s through social media or a
monthly newsletter. The first-term commis
sioner and recycling consultant also chaired
Envision Athens, a planning process that
brought together ACC, the school district,
UGA and other local institutions and gath
ered public input used in the comp plan.
Envision Athens drew more than 5,000
public comments. “We made an effort to
have people at the table who didn’t have a
voice or weren’t ordinarily involved,” she
said.
Davenport is also critical of the way ACC
has handled infrastructure on the Eastside.
He would like to see the Lexington Road
corridor study implemented. That 2015
consultants’ report referred to the Eastside
as “a diamond in the rough” and recom
mended improvements like sidewalks, bike
lanes and trails—perhaps even a brewery
trail—to help it reach its potential. He said
he’d also like to see bus service extended to
Winterville and Whit Davis Road.
“There’s still broken sidewalks. People
still walk on the grass,” Davenport said.
“There are a lot of neighborhoods where
people walk through bushes, so let’s formal
ize that and make it a trail. Instead, we get
banners.”
The Lexington Road committee, of which
Dickerson is a member, is indeed hang
ing banners along the corridor, as well as
working with the Georgia Department of
Transportation to do some
landscaping, which she said
will make it more inviting
for businesses. “We’re trying
to do what we can to make
Lexington Road a more attrac
tive corridor,” she said.
Dickerson pointed to
the $4 million set aside in
T-SPLOST—the 1 percent
sales tax for transporta
tion voters approved in
November—for Lexington
Road improvements, which could include
trails, bike lanes and sidewalks. In addition,
T-SPLOST includes $17 million to finish
Firefly Trail, which will run from downtown
Athens to Winterville, and $1.5 million for
improvements at Athens-Ben Epps Airport.
Davenport said the airport funding
would be better spent on sidewalks.
Drawing a commercial airline
is “a good idea, but not at
this time a practical idea,”
and would mainly benefit
UGA and executives at big
corporations.
Dickerson said the airport
has the potential to grow into
a regional economic develop
ment force. Another study—“I
truly feel Sharyn loves stud
ies,” Davenport said—found
that thousands of potential
passengers live within a 50-mile radius of
Ben Epps and would fly there, given the
chance, rather than Hartsfield-Jackson in
Atlanta.
Athens has been without a commercial
airline since 2014, when Congress canceled
a federal subsidy. The county’s Airport
Authority has applied for a $750,000 fed
eral grant and is in talks with Florida-based
Elite Airways about providing service to
either Washington, DC or New York three
times a week, but it’s caught up in bureau
cracy, Dickerson said. “The problem is we
haven’t responded with what we’re going
to do” in terms of incentives, she said. “I’m
pushing for that.”
The candidates do agree on a few things,
such as the need for rural broadband and
a library on the Eastside. Davenport also
wants an urgent-care clinic or even a hos
pital, and is concerned about ambulance
times to far-flung parts of the Eastside.
Former EMTs have criticized National
EMS, which contracts with St. Mary’s and
Piedmont Athens Regional, and the com
mission hasn’t looked at the issue closely
enough, he said. ©
Patrick Davenport
Sharyn Dickerson
FLAGPOLE.COM | MARCH 28, 2018
