originally published January 9, 2008

The Education of Kelly Girtz: The first Mayor and Commission meeting of the new year turned out to be a big night for District 9 Commissioner Kelly Girtz - and not just because, at the start of the evening, he was handed the torch to serve as Mayor Pro Tem this year. Being Mayor Pro Tem will mainly just suck up more of his time (hard to believe he has any left), but it will also put him just a tad closer to Mayor Davison’s agenda-setting and decision-making processes. That’s a position I’d assume he’ll enjoy, given the outspoken and unafraid positions he’s been taking lately, just as he hits the one-year mark for his time on the Commission.

As an example - and perhaps the best one yet in his term - just look at last week’s vote on entering into an intergovernmental agreement with Oglethorpe County for the purpose of expanding the local landfill (see City Pages for the full story). Girtz went out on a limb that most commissioners refused to touch, proposing that the vote should be postponed until a suite of new recycling and waste-reduction strategies - scheduled to come before commissioners next month - could be dealt with. He admitted the move was a political gesture, but said it could be political “in the best sense of the word” - i.e., he wanted the decision-making process, especially vis-a-vis the public, done right. He said he was “truly disappointed” to know that hadn’t happened in the year and a half since the Mayor and Commission had a work session on the landfill expansion.

The landfill issue was a political test for Girtz, who is still a newbie. Most other commissioners, David Lynn included, said they considered it disingenuous to act as though the landfill might not be expanded within the next decade. (They’re all quite sure it will be, though a few progressive-minded citizens argue that it doesn’t have to be.) Commissioner Alice Kinman called the Girtz proposal an “empty” political gesture. If you watched the meeting, it was like the older siblings were telling their younger brother to get real. Surely uncle Carl Jordan would have voted with him, but Jordan was out West at his second home, so he missed the meeting. The only fence-sitter was Commissioner Elton Dodson, who declared he had a dilemma: he was honestly struggling between the Girtz and Kinman perspectives.

If the landfill issue was a political test for Girtz, he sure didn’t ace it - the words of Kinman and Lynn are enough to tell you that - but he didn’t fail it, either. When it came time to vote, Dodson stood with him and voted “No.” Earning just one vote besides his own was enough to keep Girtz from looking like the newbie who doesn’t know anything. Instead, he’s the newbie brave enough to test out just how much power he has; even if he doesn’t have enough power to win, that gives him a way to say that this government has to continue changing the way it does business, especially the more guys like him there are within it.

I’ll Be Darned: Believe it or not, you can learn a lot by reading the Letters page in the Flagpole (despite those weeks when there isn't one). For instance, in the year-end “News & Etc.” wrap-up of 2007 in our last issue, I had the great pleasure to recall a March ’07 letter pushing algae farms as the best way to manufacture biofuels. “It’s unclear where the algae movement went in ’07,” I foolishly wrote. That was foolish because on Dec. 12 the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had run an article detailing Royal Dutch Shell’s announcement that it is a partner in an experimental algae farm and laboratory in Hawaii designed to produce vegetable oil that can be converted to biofuel. Go figure!

Going Up?: Dearing Street residents are watching the skies and waiting to learn more about a pair of new mixed-use highrises planned for the nearby block of West Broad Street between Finley and Pope streets. Sketches submitted to the ACC Planning Department show handsome buildings (“Cobblestone” and “The Dearing”) that ought to fit in with the historic nature of downtown and the adjacent neighborhood, but the applicants are requesting zoning variances on building height, lot coverage and street setbacks, in all cases going for a true downtown look that doesn’t presently exist on that part of Broad Street (a section that, admittedly, could use some work). Keep an eye out for next week’s Athens Rising column for a more thorough look at this project.

Cause for Concern: At press time, volunteers and police were still searching for 29-year-old Athens resident Cayle Bywater, who has been missing and was last seen outside her South Milledge Avenue home on Dec. 29. More information and a photo are online at www.findcayle.org. Anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts has been asked to notify ACC police at 706-613-3330.

Hopes for Recovery: ACC police are also carrying in their thoughts Sgt. Courtney Gale, who has been hospitalized since receiving multiple stab wounds in an attack by a mentally ill man that occurred while she was working off-duty at the Kroger store on Alps Road on Dec. 11. The latest news on Sgt. Gale at press time is that she has been making slow improvements since first waking from a coma on Christmas Day. More information on Sgt. Gale is available at www.getwellcourtney.com.

Ben Emanuel

Send your city dope to ben@flagpole.com.