SPLOST Update

originally published December 20, 2006

As members of the 2005 SPLOST Citizen Oversight Committee, we’d like to update our fellow citizens on the progress of the Athens-Clarke County Government SPLOST projects. (Note: The ACC SPLOST 2005 differs from the Clarke County School District SPLOST program that citizens just approved on Nov. 7).

Two years ago in 2004, voters approved a SPLOST 2005 referendum to continue a one-cent sales tax to fund a diverse list of community improvement projects that were reviewed and recommended by a citizen committee and ultimately approved by the Mayor and Commission. Work on these projects began in 2005 and will continue through 2011. The planning, design and construction phases of each individual SPLOST project are reviewed and approved by the Mayor and Commission at their regular meetings. The Citizen Oversight Committee exists to ensure that projects remain within their prescribed budgets, are feasible, and fulfill the project description voters approved two years ago. The citizen committee is made up of 12 community members who serve as unpaid volunteers representing diverse parts of the community and one commissioner, George Maxwell. The public is welcome to attend the committee’s regular meetings on the fourth Monday of each month.

Since June 2005, almost $28 million has been collected from the one-cent SPLOST sales tax, more than three percent over anticipated revenue at this point. Although work on the SPLOST projects will be spread out over six years, many have started already. Construction on the long-awaited Fire Station #9 in north Athens started in September. To provide for better drinking water and improved fire protection within Athens-Clarke County, SPLOST moneys will soon start paying for water lines, fire hydrants and related infrastructure along existing roadways to provide service to all areas of the county without access to public water, including high need areas in the north Athens-Clarke County area. SPLOST renovation and expansion projects have been completed or are in progress at the Classic Center, Rocksprings Park and the new East Athens Park. Various road, bridge and sidewalk projects have been started and completed. New police cars and Athens Transit buses have been purchased.

For those interested in more information, a new SPLOST 2005 website (linked to through www.athensclarkecounty.com) has recently come online with detailed information on specific projects, SPLOST finances, calendar information for citizen input meetings, and contact information for the Citizen Oversight Committee. Fortunately for us in ACC, the SPLOST program is set up to encourage citizen involvement. We hope the new website allows people to feel informed about and become involved in the SPLOST 2005 projects.

SPLOST 2005 Citizen Oversight Committee

Carol Myers, Chair

Athens

Go Bus!

originally published December 20, 2006

I certainly agree with Brent Buice’s letter [“On The Bus”] in the Dec. 13 issue of the Flagpole. My wife and I used the transit system of Athens on a daily basis save for Sundays and some Saturdays for six years while we resided in Athens for graduate school. We begged for extended hours, and while too late for us, others will be able to take advantage of this.

The transit system is the “thinking” commuter’s means of getting around. We plan for our events and ride accordingly, all the while having great conversations and meeting new people as opposed to blowing a bunch of hard-earned cash into a gas tank, and chatting on a cell phone while driving.

Our thanks go out to the drivers of #25 and #26. Thanks for the great times, safe transportation and your dedication to true customer service (listen up all the taxi drivers).

Greg Jensen & Tanja Mani

Flowood, MS

Gov. Sonny

originally published December 20, 2006

Thanks to Tom Crawford for another keen and insightful column on state politics and, more specifically, state politicians [Capitol Impact, Dec. 13]. I’d heard a news blip about Governor Sonny taking the helm of the nationwide Republican Governors’ Association, but didn’t know what to make of it. Is such a spot considered a stepping stone to higher posts, or is it the realm of the also-rans? As Crawford points out, one can’t really know what’s in Perdue’s future, but it was informative for me (even if not the least bit comforting) that other eyebrows raised at the possibility of our illustrious governor gunning for the presidency.

But, to the point: Thanks to Crawford for at least making another mention of Sonny’s fishy land dealings in his native Middle Georgia. Personally, I could give a damn about Disney World, even if our governor did buy some coastal wetlands that will probably get filled in and displace all kinds of wildlife to build luxury condos or a gated subdivision. Big deal. What won’t stop irking me is this news about Sonny’s speculating on land that neighbors an ecological gem which he could have preserved for the good of this state as a whole. If you’re one of the many who missed those headlines in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution a week and a half before the election in November - or thought (from the vague, watered-down language in the headline itself) that this was merely more news about Sonny’s shady Florida dealings - do yourself a Christmastime favor and dig those stories up on the Internet.

Personally, I’m shocked and saddened that this story hasn’t alarmed more Georgians; maybe it’s just that folks don’t understand the implications of the governor working on some bigtime land deals while he’s in office and - because of those deals being in progress - very clearly declining to save some woods which happen to be part of the only home to black bears in the state of Georgia outside of the Okefenokee and the mountains, a testament to their richness.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying we should have voted him out because of some news stories that came out too late in the election season to do anything and passed most folks by, anyway. We all know that Sonny had that election sewn up the minute that the Big Loser announced he was running for the Democratic nomination. The point is that, especially for a Republican, Perdue talks a pretty good game about greenspace preservation and land conservation. And he’s done some good stuff in that regard, too, I know. All that is because he knows that Georgians tend to care about conserving the good woods that we have. Don’t we? If we do, we need to let him and all the other politicians know it. I’m still incensed about the Oaky Woods business.

If you missed it, here’s the short version: In 2004, the huge lumber/ paper company Weyerhauser went to balance its books by selling off big tracts of woods it owned all over Georgia. One of the nicest ones was a tract along the Ocmulgee River below Warner Robins, near where Perdue grew up, which the state had been leasing from Weyerhauser so the public could use the woods for hunting, fishing and recreation. That’s a common setup for state “wildlife management areas.” This one was called Oaky Woods WMA.

Well, oftentimes when a tract like that goes up for sale, either the state of the Nature Conservancy steps in and buys it - or they work together to do so - for the good of everybody. In 2004, folks in the environmental community statewide hoped fervently that the state would help save the Oaky Woods from the developers who would surely want it. It was crushing for the people who knew those woods’ value when the property went into private hands later that year. If you look at a landcover map of the state, that’s one of the biggest pieces of green between the swamps of the far south and the mountains of the far north, and it’s right in the middle of the state.

Now, to hear past governors tell it, all it takes for the state to get a piece of land like that is for the governor to want to do it. The money’s not the biggest factor; the Nature Conservancy helps with that part. So why didn’t Gov. Perdue want to get this piece of land, land that he himself hunted and fished and loved as a kid? Come to find out in 2006 that around the time the developers (who are pals of his) bought from Weyerhauser, Sonny used an LLC to expand his own land holdings adjacent to his own family land, and adjacent also to the Oaky Woods tract. The value of his new holdings next-door to the slated mega-development has something like tripled in value since then.

It’s like a friend of mine told me last month: You seen the movie Chinatown? Chinatown was all about water. Around here, it’s all about land.

When they start building houses in the Oaky Woods, I wonder where all those bears are going to go. A few years ago, a young male went upriver on his youthful explorations and found himself on Moreland Avenue in south DeKalb. (Fortunately it didn’t maul anybody, but we all know Sonny and gang don’t care too much for the folks who live in that part of Atlanta, anyway.) This time there will be a lot more bears looking for new homes. But maybe Crawford’s right. Maybe by then Sonny will have gotten his ass out of these backwards backwoods, too, away from those of us who know him for what he is, and out of the path of the bears getting evicted from his old homeplace and theirs, down on the Ocmulgee River. All I’m saying is let’s not let him forget about it.

Isaac Boone

Athens