Stalk & Save
Laws Are For Others

ACC is now aggressively enforcing "quality-of-life" ordinances like illegal front-yard parking and garbage cans left at the curb - violations that were formerly enforced only in response to complaints. Enforcement efforts are "gaining speed and efficiency every day," said an enforcement officer.
"We're seeing results out there," said Commissioner States McCarter at last week's Commission work session. McCarter and several other Commissioners have long pushed for better ordinance enforcement, and he said he has "no sympathy" for people who have called to complain about the more stringent enforcement. Commissioner David Lynn agrees. He is getting "some" complaints, he told Flagpole, and thinks some people who are "still embittered" over the rental registration debate see this as just more government meddling. But Lynn points out that people on both sides of that debate urged better enforcement of existing nuisance ordinances.
Community Protection Division head John Ward told Commissioners that his recently re-organized department is making at least 75 new cases every day. The majority of cases involve front-yard parking, garbage "roll carts" left at the curb and junk vehicles. (Front-yard parking is illegal unless a paved or graveled parking surface is provided, and garbage carts are only allowed at the curb during the day of pickup. Parked vehicles must run and have a current tag.) Initially, warnings were given, Ward said, but now parking and roll-cart violations usually get a $50 ticket. He said enforcement officers are attending neighborhood association meetings to educate people about the ordinances and answer questions. His department also looks for sign ordinance violations and enforces occupancy limits in homes.
Ward told Flagpole that in three months his division has cited about 30 occupancy violators. (In Athens-Clarke County it is illegal for more than two unrelated adults to share a house in an area zoned "single-family residential.") Most violators complied voluntarily, but a couple of occupancy cases went to court. In those cases the defendants were fined and received a probated sentence, Ward said. Such violations are often discovered by officers investigating other complaints, he said, adding that often, occupancy complaints reported by neighbors are unfounded because the occupants are in compliance with zoning.
At the same meeting Commissioner David Lynn reported on efforts to designate some portion of downtown Athens as a "historic district," which would limit changes that could be made to the exteriors of existing buildings. It could also prevent buildings from being demolished to make way for new ones - and that concerns some downtown property owners, Lynn said.
Whether to designate an area as a historic district is up to the ACC Commission, but commissioners have usually leaned heavily on neighborhood input in making such decisions. Eight Athens neighborhoods - including Cobbham, Boulevard, Cloverhurst and a portion of Rocksprings - are already protected as historic districts, but none are commercial areas. There is also a "National Historic Register" designation, Lynn said, but it "doesn't keep anyone from doing anything" unless a federally funded project threatens the building.
Downtown preservation became a hot issue when the historic Adcock building on Washington St. was threatened with demolition, Lynn told Flagpole. That building is presently being restored, but Lynn thinks it was saved only by "incredible public pressure." Lynn chairs a citizen committee studying historic designation of downtown, which includes downtown property owners along with representatives of the Convention and Visitors' Bureau, the Downtown Development Authority and the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation. He said the members "all felt that something needs to be done downtown, or we're going to lose an economic jewel."
Lynn suggested that the "urban core" of older downtown buildings might be protected as a local historic district, while a wider area of downtown - perhaps the existing commercial zoning district, which also contains newer buildings - could be protected using only design guideline requirements. Developers, he said, find such design guidelines more attractive than the "planned development" process currently allowed, which requires ACC Commission approval for each project.
Property owners want to be significantly represented on any board governing such a district, Lynn said, but there is precedent for including design professionals as well. Commissioner Kathy Hoard suggested such a system might "go broader than just downtown," allowing for example Boulevard residents to make decisions about their own area.
But "we're not walking away" until some portion of downtown is covered by a locally designated historic district, Lynn said. Downtown has seen some "great projects" using old buildings, he said, like B&L Warehouse and the Cotton Exchange; but there is also nothing to prevent the destruction of a historic building front, as was done at Gator Haters.
"We want to ensure that we have more successes than failures," Lynn said.

John Huie

John Huie is the former owner of a historic business in a historic building downtown.

Animal Control
Last Week's Scorecard

Athens-Clarke County Animal Control responded to 84 calls.
7 complaints of animal cruelty
3 reported bite cases
3 complaints of barking dogs
9 ordinance violations
36 animal impounded
30 dogs
2 chickens
1 opossum
1 quail
2 raccoons
22 dogs placed
4 adopted
10 reclaimed
4 turned over to other agencies

ACC Animal Control press release for the week of April 8 to April 14.

Clinton & 9/11
Payback, CIA Confirms

Osama bin Laden, the CIA told George W. Bush in its August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, wanted to "bring the fighting to America." The memo continues: "After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington."
This reference may trigger the memories of long-time readers and listeners to my talk radio show on KFI radio about my September 1999 encounter with Taliban fighters in the Pakistani sector of Kashmir. A travel feature assignment about the high-altitude Karakoram Highway connecting western China and Pakistan turned into high-stakes military and political intrigue when I happened to cross the Khunjerab Pass into Kashmir during the same week that General Pervez Musharraf seized power via a military coup.
Unbeknownst to me and most of the world, Musharraf's first act was to invite Taliban and Al Qaeda militias from neighboring Afghanistan into Pakistani Kashmir as surrogates to launch an offensive in his country's ongoing conflict against India.
Three Talibs, one of whom spoke fluent English ("NYU! Class of '83!" he beamed), pulled me off the bus at an improvised checkpoint outside a town where a minor battle was winding down. Taliban leader Mullah Omar had recently issued an edict directing that Americans, including diplomatic passport holders, were to be put to death if apprehended on Taliban territory. "We are sorry," the Talib said blandly, "but you are American. Therefore, we must execute you."
I pointed out that, when I had boarded the bus four days earlier in Kashgar, the place where we were standing had been more than a hundred miles from Afghanistan. I pointed to my map to reiterate.
"Yes," my Anglophonic Talib agreed, "but sometimes Afghanistan comes to you!"
We had a good laugh over that. Then, after assuring me that he wouldn't shoot me after all, he invited me to join him for a cup of milky chai. I considered the high-powered weaponry draped over his shoulders and accepted his generous offer.
As is often the case when Americans travel in the Muslim world, the conversation turned to politics.
"The worst thing about you Americans," I remember the Talib saying, "is that you never admit when you make mistakes. Last year, your President Clinton sent his cruise missile against a drug plant in Khartoum, Sudan. He killed many innocent people. Does he say he is sorry? No. The same day he sent cruise missiles against my country. Again: only innocent people were killed."
Actually, the Afghan strike had missed bin Laden - who had claimed responsibility for the bombings of the American embassies in East Africa - by hours. He was probably tipped off by intelligence officers of the Pakistani ISI. I didn't bring up these unpleasant facts.
"America causes misery everywhere - Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan - but not in America." His face brightened. "But no more. We are going to bring the war to you, so your country learns what it is like."
Bring the war to America: The same phrase bin Laden had used in interviews.
My would-be executioner didn't know what was coming; he was too low ranked to have known anything about the 9/11 plot. But a powerful message had gone out to Islamists: the days of beleaguered Muslims hunkering down as cruise missiles rained down upon nations decimated by years of brutal economic sanctions were about to come to an end. The jihadis were going on the offensive.
As the 9/11 commission winds down, Republicans are arguing that Bill Clinton, whose presidency spanned eight years from the first World Trade Center bombing to the U.S.S. Cole, deserves far more blame for the attacks than Bush, who had only been in office eight months. But they've got it wrong when they criticize Clinton for not being aggressive enough in the fight against Muslim extremism. If we're to believe the August 2001 intelligence assessment and the word of the jihadis themselves, we know why 9/11 really took place.
It wasn't, as Bush says, because radical Islamists are evil or because they hate our freedom. It was vengeance for 1998, for cruise missile attacks that scarcely raised an eyebrow in the United States even as the convulsions of rage surged through millions of Muslims. It's perfectly reasonable, therefore, to blame Bill Clinton for 9/11, but not because he didn't do enough. What led to 9/11 was a clumsy application of excessive military power - and arrogance.
It's a lesson that the United States, so accustomed to swinging a sledgehammer to kill a fly, should take to heart in its dealings with the rest of humanity.

Ted Rall

Ted Rall is the author of Wake Up, You're Liberal: How We Can Take America Back From the Right.