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Clayton Street Is Complete
PLUS, COMMISSION NIXES AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND MORE NEWS
By Blake Aued and Chris Dowd news@flagpole.com
When Kelly Girtz was first elected to the
Athens-Clarke County Commission in
2006, the Clayton Street infrastructure
project was already in the works. Four
terms later, it’s finally done.
“This may be the longest-underway proj
ect in my time as mayor,” Girtz said after
cutting the ribbon at College Square last
week.
Originally approved by voters as part of
SPLOST 2005, Clayton Street didn’t come
up until toward the end of that round of
sales tax-funded projects. By that time,
costs had nearly doubled amidst a post-re-
cession construction boom, so more funding
was added via TSPLOST 2018. Planning
and public input started in 2019, but then
football season and the COVID-19 pan
demic delayed construction further. When it
finally started, the torn-up sidewalks threat
ened to decimate downtown businesses.
Now, though, the smell of pee and stale
beer is gone. So are the uneven, narrow
sidewalks. The street has new utility lines,
stormwater drainage, landscaping, wayfin
ding signs, streetlights and benches, wider
sidewalks, larger outdoor dining areas and
bollards that come up out of the ground,
allowing county officials to easily close off
portions of the street for festivals. It also
has new trees to replace those that had to
be cut down, and even more of them than
before.
“For everybody who lived through what
I call the Beirut years of 2020-2021, it’s
great,” Girtz said.
He recalled walking around downtown
during a Georgia football game day last year
and overhearing a fan talking to his friend
on the phone, trying to find each other. “It’s
all fucked up down here. Just meet me at
College and Clayton,” the man said, accord
ing to Girtz.
“I’m glad to see it when it’s not all fucked
up,” Girtz said. “Now it’s going to be clean
and accessible for the rest of our lives.”
While anyone who spends
time downtown is no doubt
pleased that our long municipal
nightmare of Clayton Street
construction is over, one aspect
that has pleased hardly anyone
is the public art installation.
Maryland artist and planner
Eric Leshinsky’s 14 blue Tinker
Toy-esque sculptures, collectively
dubbed “Frequency,” have been
widely panned on social media.
Leshinsky took the criticism
in stride during the Dec. 8 rib
bon-cutting ceremony. A lot of
thought went into the artwork,
he said—"the businesses, the
other streetscape elements, the
different types of visitors who
come here.”
But can you lock a bike to
them? “I’m cool with that,”
Leshinsky said, noting that the
installations are made of durable
powder-coated steel.
“If you want to come back
when we win our second national
championship, I guarantee you’ll see some
unique uses for them,” Girtz joked. [Blake
Aued]
Commission Rejects Firefighters’
Union, Accessory Dwellings
The Athens-Clarke County Mayor and
Commission narrowly rejected two propos
als relevant to the future of workers’ rights
and affordable housing in Athens at their
meeting last week.
FIREFIGHTER’S UNION: First, Mayor Kelly Girtz
announced his intention to veto a request
from ACC firefighters for collective bar
gaining and for official recognition of their
union. Second, the commission failed to
pass an ordinance that would have allowed
small cottages, garage apartments and
similar accessory structures to serve as resi
dences and expand Athens’ housing stock.
In recent months, the Professional
Firefighters of Athens-Clarke County (Local
2795) have been attending commission
meetings to request that the local govern
ment officially recognize their union, which
started 15 years ago. While public sector
unions are generally prohibited in Georgia,
firefighters are an exception to this rule.
Even so, most Georgia cities do not take
advantage of this loophole. Only Atlanta
and the city of South Fulton officially recog
nize their firefighters’ unions.
Athens briefly threatened to become
the third pro-union city when commission
ers Jesse Houle, Tim Denson and Melissa
Link responded to the advocacy of Athens
firefighters by asking the mayor to put this
item on their agenda for discussion. Girtz
refused, but in a rare maneuver, Houle,
Denson and Link worked with commission
ers Mike Hamby, Carol Myers and Ovita
Thornton to call a special session over
Girtz’s objections.
Before the special meeting, ACC
Manager Blaine Williams sent a memo to
commissioners opposing their decision. In
the memo, Williams argued that it would
be unfair for some ACC employees to gain
the advantage of a union while others are
denied that right by state law. He worried
that union influence may lead the local gov
ernment’s wage structure and other bene
fits to be defined more by political influence
than by market conditions. He argued that
unions often express political opinions,
something which employees are discour
aged from doing by ACC government policy.
Finally, he stressed that the process of col
lective bargaining is time consuming, inef
ficient and would cost taxpayers if union
contract negotiations ever needed external
mediation.
In a 5-4 vote, most commissioners dis
agreed with Williams and sided with the
firefighters’ union, passing a resolution in
support of ACC government employees
joining labor unions. “To me, this is quite
simple,” said Houle. “Do we believe in
worker empowerment? Do we believe in the
principles of democracy enough to apply
them to our workplace?”
While admitting that the process of
collective bargaining would be complicated,
Houle said it would ultimately strengthen
the ACC Fire Department by improving
morale and reducing issues of employee
recruitment and retention.
Denson, Link, Houle and Hamby were
joined by Commissioner Russell Edwards,
who also voted in support of the resolution.
Despite being among the six who called
for the special meeting, Thornton and
Myers voted against the resolution, as did
commissioners Allison Wright and Patrick
Davenport.
“I have too many concerns to proceed
tonight,” said Myers. “Added work to over
worked staff without added resources,
people and budgeted dollars; the creation of
unbalanced power and representation for
one group of ACC employees over the rest;
lack of clarity about future commission sup
port of these items; the need for the local
union to build its credibility and the need
for more carefully defined wording in the
resolution.
“These are concerns that might eventu
ally be addressed in a satisfactory way,” she
added.
Wright voted no on the resolution, but
encouraged firefighters to reach out to her
privately if they had any concerns with their
pay or benefits. “If the chain of command
is not working for you, for your personnel
issues, for your budget issues, you need to
let us know,” she said.
After passing the resolution, union sup
porters on the commission hesitated and
did not vote on the ordinance that would
actually begin the resolution’s implementa
tion. Unlike resolutions, ordinances require
six votes for passage, meaning union sup
porters would have needed an additional
vote that would have been hard to come
by. At Hamby’s suggestion, the ordinance
was tabled until April in something of a
Hail Mary pass to a future commission that
would hopefully be more supportive of
unions.
This last-ditch effort to recognize the
firefighters’ union in April will almost
certainly end up failing, however. That’s
because Girtz announced that he would be
THIS MSBkIN VSILB
FROM TRUMP'S ATTEMPT TO OVER
THROW THE 102.0 ELECTION TO
THE INCREASING VISIBILITY OF
WHITE SUPREMACISTS AND ANTI-
SEMITES—
—NOT TO MENTION THE RISING
VIOLENCE DIRECTED AT QUEER
AND TRANS PEOPLE—THE SIGNS
OF FASCISM ARE EVERYWHERE!
by TOM TOMORROW
IT CREEPS UP ON YOU SLOWLY,
UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE TO DO ANY
THING. I FEEL LIKE THERE'S AN
APPROPRIATE METAPHOR For
THIS!
till
hi
w
mtmmzmmm
mi
mu
m
YEAH, YEAH, THAT OLD CANARD
about boiling frogs in a grad
ually HEATED POT. I DON'T KNOW
WHAT PSYCHOPATH CAME UP WITH
THAT SICK LITTLE FANTASY, BUT
IT'S A MtTH.
IN REALITY, WHEN THE WATER
STARTS GETTING TOO HOT, WE
JUMP THE HELL OUT! WE MAY
BE FROGS, 8UT WE'RE NOT IDIOTS:
PERHAPS HUMANS COULD LEARN
FROM OUR EXAMPLE.
NOT UNTIL THEY STOP
falling For all the
WIDESPREAD PROS
DISINFORMATION!
Athens Downtown Development Authority board member Jason Leonard (left) and Mayor Kelly Girtz celebrate
College Square's new beer-filled splash pad.
FLAGPOLE.COM ■ DECEMBER 14, 2022
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