$42K Corridor Study

Just Sort of an Idea?

originally published July 23, 2008

With county planning staffers pleading they have a full plate already, Athens-Clarke County Commissioners backed away last week from broadening a county “corridor management” study to include detailed design specs for crosswalks and bike lanes, and perhaps policies on signs, speed limits, overhead utility wires and bus access. But county staff and Planning Director Brad Griffin insisted the $42,000, consultant-produced study was never intended to be a design manual.

The slick 35-page study suggests a dozen categories for county streets: “urban institutional” streets like Lumpkin, for example, should have street trees, patterned crosswalks and landscaped “pedestrian refuge islands” at midblock crosswalks, it suggests. “Suburban commercial” streets (like Barnett Shoals Road) should have wide sidewalks separated from the road by a grass strip, and driveway entrances should be limited to one per business, it recommends.

The report also suggests “strict limits” on billboards, a proposal that commissioner Carl Jordan called political “dynamite” at last week’s government operations committee meeting. But it makes no recommendations on business signs, overhead utility wires, bus stops or traffic-slowing measures. Commissioners had bounced the study back to staffers for further work, but planning director Griffin told them last week he would need “a rather extensive timeline” and perhaps an outside consultant to revisit the study. That won’t happen soon; instead, Commissioners appear likely to approve the present study - now over a year old - as the basis for the future “complete streets” study they’d rather see. (“Complete streets” refers to street designs that accommodate all users, not just drivers.) Other upcoming discussions may include updating the county’s Bicycle Master Plan (which designates plans for bike lanes) and whether to replace the planning commission (perhaps by BikeAthens, which has requested it) as the citizens’ voice on the MACORTS board. (MACORTS is the multi-county board that requests local transportation projects from the state DOT.)

John Huie

Commission Balks at Raising Fees

originally published July 23, 2008

Also bounced back to committee – more than once – were increases in county recreation fees that Commissioners have been reluctant to implement. Commissioner Kelly Girtz said he feared “sticker shock” when the public saw the new fees - lower in some cases, higher in most - that are supposed to more nearly cover the county’s actual costs. When basketball fees went up two years ago, County Manager Alan Reddish said, he heard “all kinds of hue and cry” that it would kill the program; but that didn’t happen, he said.

At the request of Commissioners, county staffers have made extensive estimates of the actual costs of all Leisure Services programs; the proposed new fees are typically half of those costs for youth courses and park fees, and about the full cost for adult programs. Reduced-cost or free scholarships will still be provided to children whose parents apply; but commissioners have repeatedly shied from either implementing the higher fees, or suggesting specific changes. Among the biggest jumps were Lyndon House arts courses; but last week the committee balked at nearly doubling Lyndon House fees and recommended a more modest increase. They also relented on a $17 per night fee for the Grand Slam program that’s intended to get kids off the streets; and with that, the new fees appear headed for passage by the full commission. They could go into effect in January.

John Huie

Commissioners Cool with Mass-Grading

originally published July 23, 2008

Can the county’s mass-grading ordinance - that has successfully ended wholesale land-flattening for residential developments - be extended to commercial developments (like big-box stores) too? Not likely, it seems.

“Residential developments and commercial developments are really quite different animals,” Commissioner Elton Dodson told the legislative review committee. The county’s mass-grading ordinance requires streets to be graded in advance of individual lots; but in most retail or apartment developments, there are no public streets - only parking lots.

“I’m not saying it couldn’t be done,” Planning Director Brad Griffin advised, but he said it would add layers of complication and expense. “The more you get into this, the more issues you continue to find,” he said.

“Mass grading is going to be mass grading,” reflected Commissioner George Maxwell. Perhaps, suggested Carl Jordan, developers might be required to retain the natural topography in places. But committee members instead appeared willing to rely on the county’s existing tree ordinance - which encourages developers to retain existing trees, but allows them to replant smaller ones if they don’t.

John Huie

Historian Studies School Integration in Athens

originally published July 23, 2008

Dr. Christian Appy, a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is researching a book on race relations in Athens in the 1960s and 1970s. He has made several visits here and is coming July 27-Aug. 3.

Why is a U. Mass professor coming all the way to Athens to study race relations?

"I lived in Athens until age nine (1955-1964) and attended Gaines School Road Elementary School," Appy responds by email. "My father was station manager for WGTV at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. When he got a job at WNET in New York City we moved to Connecticut. Since then I've often wondered how Athens changed after we moved away, and now I'm serious about finding out."

Appy started out studying the integration of the University of Georgia football team, but when he found out that the first four or five African-American players at Georgia came from Clarke Central High School, he also became interested in the effect that integration had on sports and vice-versa during the consolidation of Burney-Harris High and Athens High.

"I'm fascinated by the years 1968 to 1972, that time when the South moved from having the most segregated public schools in the nation to the most integrated, Appy says. "What do people remember about those years, how were they affected and what does that history mean to them today? I'm also curious about how sports reflects and influences racial attitudes. Have athletics contributed substantially to racial justice or do they lead us to overestimate the progress we've made? Perhaps both are true?"

Appy is anxious to talk to people who were in high school during that period. "I'm interviewing a wide range of people," he says, "but I especially want to talk with people who went to Clarke Central High School in its first years (1970-1973) or who were at the University of Georgia from 1968 to 1975."

Anybody who has recollections to share with Chris Appy can contact him by email at appy@history.umass.edu.

Appy is the author of two histories of the Vietnam War: Working Class War (University of North Carolina Press, 1993) and Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides (Viking, 2003).

Pete McCommons