originally published March 26, 2008

Don’t Forget: In what’s now an annual event, OneAthens (formerly Partners for a Prosperous Athens) will be holding its giant community meeting at the Classic Center on Monday night, Mar. 31, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. On tap that night is “the OneAthens action plan that will break the terrible cycle of poverty in our community,” and all the background reading you could ever desire - including a compilation of all recommendations at this stage of the game - is online at http://prosperousathens.org. Check it out, at least.

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A Good Man: Just when you thought Georgia’s Democrats had hit rock bottom - with candidates no better than Vernon Jones and Dale Cardwell running for a seat in the U.S. Senate - here comes good ol’ Jim Martin signing on to tell Saxby Chambliss who ought to be boss. Martin may not be able to win this fall against the Republican machine that’ll back Saxby, but everybody knows that Chambliss deserves no less than a sharp, intelligent opponent who understands why kids should have health care, who cares about Georgia’s soldiers and veterans, and who knows it’s okay to criticize the Commander-in-Chief once in a while - and that’s the kind of opponent Chambliss is going to get.

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Some Thoughts on Jekyll Island: City Dope would be being less than truthful if he didn’t finally fess up that he’s been a bit unsure of what to make of the ongoing controversy over the redevelopment of Jekyll Island. Several weeks ago, he had a pleasant visit from Jim Langford of Linger Longer Communities (you know, back when Langford was visiting just about every paper in the state), and left that meeting skeptical, but thinking sure, it’s a big-deal fancy-pants redevelopment plan, but what’s wrong on fundamentals?

And finally, in a Mar. 17 column, Jay Bookman at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution hit the nail on the head, putting his finger on the problem that may or may not have been apparent to Jekyll observers from across the state. In a nutshell: for argument’s sake, leave Linger Longer out of it for a moment. The problem is with the Jekyll Island Authority.

That rang true, based on City Dope’s close look at the plans via a personal presentation by Langford. Linger Longer’s plan might be fine, for what it is (or it might not), but the real problem has to do with where the development goes. The Authority’s screw-up came in limiting redevelopment to a small portion of the island. (Though at least they’re staying away from the island’s south end - that was the big fight of the 2007 legislative session - and of course that’s a good thing.)

Basically, it’s the framework everybody’s working within that’s problematic. Or, as Bookman put it, “Everyone agrees that visits to Jekyll are down,” though he does well to point out how much is open to argument, and “everyone agrees that its infrastructure needs updating. An authority more open to the public, more professional in its approach and less arrogant in its operations would be able to build on that agreement and accomplish something important.” Yep.

There are a couple of rules of thumb here: so-called “authorities,” because of their quasi-governmental nature, always need to be watched closely. So do big-time corporate developers. And when the two get together…

All that aside, the battle over Jekyll goes on. Here’s hoping the Authority gets more truthful, the will of the people is heard, the sea turtles don’t get killed, and the state park’s revenues go up. Why shoot for anything less?

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To Three-Lane, or Not to Three-Lane? ACC Transportation and Public Works Director David Clark reports that his department now has documents up online pertaining to the possible three-laning of Cedar Shoals Drive and North Avenue. (The official public comment period on that topic runs through the end of March.) Plenty of folks at a Mar. 17 public meeting apparently voiced the opinion that Cedar Shoals ought to be left alone, but District 8 Commissioner Andy Herod says he’s had direct contact from folks thinking the opposite. He’s been interested for some time in re-envisioning that street, and sees partial three-laning or median installation as worthy ideas to explore. And, Herod adds, “The problem with Cedar Shoals Drive at the moment is it’s a racetrack.”

On that note, included below are some tangential comments made at an ACC committee meeting last week, in regard to the previous night’s resurfacing (i.e. three-laning) meeting. Also, see this week’s City Pages for notes on the county’s broader “Corridor Management Strategy,” and Athens Rising for a fuller discussion of the benefits of putting tree-planted medians down the middle of some of our major roads.

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What Folks Have to Say: At any rate - for what they’re worth - here go those quotes mentioned above…

ACC Manager Alan Reddish:

“Our policy is to review the cross-section whenever we make those changes. It doesn’t say that we simply consider three-laning. It says that we reconsider what the proper configuration is - that could be from three to four, or from four to three.”

Commissioner Kelly Girtz:

“People oftentimes get hung up on one design component - three-laning versus four-laning…. But ultimately, I think everybody wants most of the same things - people want safe streets, people want accommodating streets. And you can have a safe three-lane street; you can have a safe, accommodating four-lane street.”

Commissioner Carl Jordan:

“It was very clear that people had Hawthorne on their minds last night. They want Hawthorne not only to be fixed, but they want to be sure we don’t create any new Hawthornes. They also had speed and safety on their minds… Why don’t we reduce the speed limits on some of these roads?  That would make them safer.”

Ben Emanuel & John Huie

Send your city dope to ben@flagpole.com.