Buffers & Trailers
Commission Sets Limits

Despite opposition from some affected property owners, the ACC mayor and commission extended 75-foot stream buffer protections temporarily to more Clarke County streams at the Dec. 2 commission meeting. The move will protect all perennial streams in ACC until the county's stormwater advisory committee can come up with more specific recommendations. That body consists of county staff and representatives of the Athens Area Homebuilders Association, the Upper Oconee Watershed Network, the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce and other citizens.

Buffers protect drinking water by allowing rainwater runoff to soak into the ground rather than run directly into streams and rivers. Such runoff water often carries soil particles and pollutants, especially in developed or agricultural areas where natural vegetation has been removed. Melanie Ruhlman of Upper Oconee Watershed Network says soil particles in runoff water not only fill reservoirs and degrade wildlife habitat, but make drinking water harder to treat because harmful bacteria adhere to the particles.

But stream buffers can be controversial. Past concerns have included a reluctance to regulate homeowners' land in areas that have already been developed. Commissioner Charles Carter has suggested that buffers extending only 50 feet from the streambanks might be enough in some areas, and asked whether steepness of land should be a factor. Property owners who feel the ordinance creates a special hardship may apply for a "variance" from the county hearings board.

Existing (but unbuilt) subdivision lots were somewhat "grandfathered" under the original ordinance, but some property owners who spoke to commissioners didn't like having to pay for the mapping needed to prove their proposals will have the least possible impact on streams.

"This ordinance is stopping us from selling our property," complained one landowner, while another said he had spent $500 per lot on maps in order to be able to build. ACC's planning department has estimated that, in 923 different parcels of land in Athens-Clarke County, 75-foot buffers limit the buildable area of the parcel by at least 50 percent. Commissioner David Lynn questioned these figures, saying parcels owned by railroads and Georgia Power are included, and that parcels already covered by other buffers weren't subtracted. He said only about a third of the parcels are undeveloped.

The stormwater advisory committee will continue to develop proposals for a final stream buffer ordinance, and the first of several public hearings may be held in March. Commissioners Maxwell, Carter and Sims voted against extending the buffers.

Commissioners also extended the county's moratorium on mobile homes in subdivisions, but after hearing from over 20 citizens, including several neighbors who opposed it, a rezoning was granted for the People of Hope cooperative's mobile home park on Freeman Drive. The resident-owned park will give homes to 40 families, some of whom lost their homes when the nearby Garden Springs Trailer Park was closed to make way for student apartments. A number of supporters on the steps of City Hall burned candles quietly before the meeting, and some spoke to commissioners in favor of the park. "Be Santa Claus for a day," asked one young man. "Give us a present we all want."

Commissioners did, but some neighbors said they only found out about the proposal at the last minute. Commissioner David Lynn, who has urged that neighbors be notified by postcard about nearby proposals, told Flagpole it would be "not hard at all" to find mail addresses for property owners, and added, "we've got to get smarter on our use of the web." He proposes putting a map onto the county website that could show proposed projects in any area. At present, he said, the only way people can find out is to regularly ask the planning department whether any plans have been submitted for their area. (Only if a rezoning is required does a sign go up on the site, for at least 15 days.)

In other business, commissioners reduced the planned Lumpkin Street bike lanes from four-and-a-half to four feet wide. The change satisfies some commissioners who felt that county buses need the additional width for auto lanes, and BikeAthens did not object. Commissioner David Lynn urged the county to negotiate with UGA for the extra width needed at the downtown end of Lumpkin Street, saying, "they're ready and willing to work with us."

The meeting adjourned at 2:01 a.m. Commissioners are currently discussing further limitations on commissioners' speaking (currently, three times on a given subject for five minutes each time). But they did adopt a rule requiring the public to "refrain from hooting, shouting, whistling, clapping" or "making profane, vulgar, obscene, or violent comments at a meeting," lest offenders be removed.

John Huie
John Huie never makes profane or vulgar remarks.

War On Dissent
Citizens Or Terrorists?

Three weeks ago I wrote an article here in City Pages [Nov. 12] about Athens folks preparing for a trip to Miami. We aimed to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the newest manifestation of corporate globalization in the Western Hemisphere. I've been to Miami and back, and I wish that I had inspiring news to report.

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The strongest impression I brought home, however, was not one of creative resistance or inspiration, but of categorically violent state repression.

My personal goal at the Miami protests was to join in expressing my dissatisfaction with free trade to the American public. I wanted to expose the FTAA for what I believe it is: a trade agreement that will hasten the destruction of the environment, exacerbate chronic poverty and elevate multinationals to the status of de facto Hemispheric masters.

About 1500 of us followed an unpermitted route, chanting, waving signs and carrying puppets. In marching without a permit, we were committing a minor and mostly symbolic misdemeanor that under most circumstances would be tolerated by police for at least a few hours. Soon the march ended and we staked our claim to several intersections. The "Free Carnival of the Americas" circulated among different groups to entertain with drums, puppets and skits.

Within a matter of minutes, lines of police officers clad in riot gear began pushing forward down the street. Protesters that linked arms and tried to hold their ground were shoved and beaten with batons and doused with pepper spray. Some retreating protesters were shot with rubber or plastic bullets at point blank range, and others were attacked with tasers, which resemble electric cattle prods and send their victims into convulsions or unconsciousness. I watched despairingly as people emerged from the crowd with bloody heads, calling for help from the volunteer medics that were roaming the streets. On several occasions, the police forcefully separated medics from their patients; later in the day they raided and gassed an activist wellness center where the traumatized were recovering.

By the end of the day, over 250 Americans had been arrested, scores injured, and 12 hospitalized. The brutality did not stop when the protests ended, however. Numerous reports from inside the city jail revealed a pattern of assault and humiliation of protesters behind bars.

I left Miami with a sense that something fundamental was under attack in "the homeland." I'm starting to realize that a new war is being waged by the Bush Administration that borrows its rhetoric, tactics, and justification from the War on Terror. The enemies, however, are not Islamist extremists, but politically engaged American citizens, and the war is a War on Dissent.

The War on Terror and the War on Dissent intersect in places and run parallel in others. The intersections occur where resources and rhetoric from the former are applied to fighting the latter. For example, the militarization of Miami was financed with $9 million from the White House's $87 billion Iraq occupation bill, and another sum will fund a security buildup here in Georgia for the Spring G8 Summit on Sea Island. What was justified as necessary deficit spending for national security was used, in part, to crush dissent against Bush policies.

The Justice Department is also diverting resources and rhetoric from the War on Terror to fight the War on Dissent. An FBI memo sent to local law enforcement and leaked last week to the New York Times warns of "extremist" protesters, who have been known to use such "aggressive tactics" as "the formation of human chains or shields" and "intimidation techniques such as videotaping" police officers. The memo concludes by urging local police departments to monitor protest activity and report these "potentially illegal" acts to the FBI Joint Terror Task Force. Left unclear is why exactly protesters are being associated with terror and why this surveillance falls under the purview of the counterterrorism unit.

The lexicon used above to describe protesters - i.e. extremist, aggressive, intimidating - is more than just a grand and amusing psychological projection exhibited by Bush's security arm. Creating fanatics out of one's political foes is a time-honored tradition. The goal is to scare the public into turning the other way as civil liberties are suspended and excessive force is brought to bear on dissenters.

As opponents of corporate rule multiply, law enforcement agencies have created the dreaded "anarchist," an elusive radical dressed in black, descending on our cities to spread terror and mayhem. Nevermind that at most seven or eight percent of the protesters in Miami would self-identify as anarchists, or that even the most confrontational of those did nothing more than spraypaint a telephone booth or politely return a tear gas canister from whence it came. No, the message to the American people is this: protesters are anarchists, anarchists are violent, so violence is justified to defeat protesters. Not surprisingly, the media seems more than willing to obediently deliver this message, in the process obscuring the real reasons why thousands are taking to the streets.

While the news about the War on Dissent may be disheartening, it is by no means final. Civil suits and investigations into the November Miami debacle are pending and need public support. Georgians should also insist that our government not follow the "Miami Model" of crime preemption in guarding the G8 Summit this Spring. Most importantly, Florida is now a battleground state, and if the 2000 elections were any indication, the fate of the First Amendment may be decided there next November.

Brian Holland

Brian Holland is a member of the Athens Global Justice Collective and can be reached at BriHollan2@yahoo.com.