A previously approved master plan for local parks and sports, arts and nature programs suddenly became a hot topic at the Athens-Clarke County Commission’s voting meeting last week.
Commissioners rang in the new year Jan. 2 by squabbling over a number of issues that had seemingly been settled months before, including allocating funds for the homeless and a small hike in the county’s stormwater fee.
The vote was to award a contract to consulting firm BerryDunn to create a Leisure Services Department strategic master plan. The mayor and commission included $200,000 in each of the past two county budgets for the master plan, as well as $100,000 to plan for a future park off Barnett Shoals Road in 2021 that was later merged into the master plan.
Mayor Kelly Girtz and Manager Blaine Williams said the master plan will help ACC officials prioritize programs and projects among many competing requests from special interest groups like pickleball, youth basketball, mountain biking, equestrians and parents of special needs children.
“Everybody wants every park to be everything, and it can’t with [limited] resources,” Williams said. “We’re trying to have a thoughtful exercise where everybody’s sitting around the table talking about what the needs of the community are, what parks lend themselves to certain types of activities. I’m sure even in this small of a county we can provide access for all sorts of interests. I just don’t know if we can do all of them at every park.”
Some commissioners, though, questioned the need for a master plan, as well as the cost of up to $446,000. Commissioner Mike Hamby made a motion to hold the contract award until a discussion at a retreat or possibly the next budget cycle this spring.
“What are the priorities we’re facing behind the rail on this commission?” Hamby said, citing Athens’ homelessness problem. “Look what we could do with $400,000.”
Commissioner Ovita Thornton objected not only to the master plan, but to hiring consultants in general. “We do so many studies, and we’ve made some bad decisions, some of my commissioners, based on a study,” she said. “And some studies are just sitting there.
“We put this in the budget last year, you know why? Because we did not think things clearly on what our priorities—no, I’m not going to be voting for property taxes and stormwater taxes and all that stuff when we’re putting toilets downtown,” Thornton continued.
Commissioner Jesse Houle noted that the decision to fund the master plan had already been made. “And the budget that passed… was sponsored by the same folks who are arguing to hold it now, which is a bit puzzling to me,” Houle said.
“Several of us argued against putting this in the budget, and it’s an argument we didn’t win,” Hamby responded.
A master plan would have helped when the commission awarded federal funds earmarked for youth programs to the Clarke County School District and the Boys & Girls Club without going through the usual budget or bidding process, Commissioner Melissa Link argued. “It’s kind of like throwing spaghetti against a wall,” she said. “If we do a study like this, it can guide us to where the real need is.”
Thornton suggested that the ACC Housing and Community Development Department do the master plan, although HCD has no involvement in parks. Hamby asked why Leisure Services can’t do the study itself.
“I do want to remind everybody that we are severely understaffed, just like every other government across America,” Williams said. “They are winning awards doing their jobs and others’ jobs.”
Rejecting the contract would only further demoralize county employees, Houle said. “A great way to hurt morale is to make staff request it year after year, finally approve it, and then once we award the contract to get the work done that they’re banking on being done, yank the rug out from under them and make them start over again,” they said.
Thornton and Commissioner Dexter Fisher asked to see a previous Leisure Services master plan from 2008, but Williams said it was never finished. “It was awarded but not completed. It predated me coming here, I know that,” Williams said. “I don’t think there was a lot of useful information that came out of that, particularly for today’s needs.”
Girtz cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of awarding the contract, joined by Link, Houle and commissioners Patrick Davenport, Tiffany Taylor and Carol Myers. Hamby, Thornton, Fisher and commissioners Allison Wright and John Culpepper voted no.
Link and Houle criticized Culpepper for a potential conflict of interest in helping to craft a proposal to award $550,000 to the Salvation Army while sitting on that nonprofit’s board of directors, although he recused himself from the vote.
“I respect the recusal from the vote, but the fact that this was generated by somebody serving on the board and circumvents the normal process we do is, I think, well-intentioned, but it’s something that puts this body at risk,” Houle said.
“I agree, the conflict of interest is really disturbing,” Link said.
It was another instance where a group of commissioners went outside the usual process to award funds to an organization without competition or vetting by staff. “To allow this one agency to essentially skip the line, I feel like it sends a poor message to the rest of the providers in our community,” Link said. “There’s a question of fairness there that needs to be addressed.”
Houle said they were concerned about “skipping the bidding process that would normally happen and just direct awarding $550,000 to the Salvation Army for a proposal that’s fairly underdeveloped.”
Thornton—who cosponsored the commission-defined option (CDO) with Fisher, Wright and Culpepper—said moving quickly to fund an expansion of the Salvation Army’s shelter would take 38 people off the street. Local Salvation Army Capt. Sheldon Greenland told the commission that the funding would allow it to add 20 beds to its 74-bed Hawthorne Avenue shelter.
Less controversial was the CDO’s designation of $500,000 for warming shelters. Assistant Manager Niki Jones said ACC would use that money to provide equipment like cots, blankets and generators to churches and other partners that open as emergency shelters during cold weather or natural disasters.
The CDO left $1.1 million to beef up the Athens Homeless Coalition’s staff and $2.3 million that nonprofits can bid on to open a new low-barrier shelter and provide services like outreach and health care. That’s almost $1 million less than the $3.2 million recommended by a recent homelessness strategic plan study and county staff. The money comes from $5 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds the commission previously designated to address homelessness, which is growing both locally and nationwide.
The CDO passed by a 6–3 vote, with Davenport, Taylor, Wright, Fisher, Thornton and Hamby in favor, and Link, Houle and Myers opposed.
Despite previously approving it in August, commissioners also once again debated an increase in county stormwater fees to fund infrastructure maintenance and a higher level of service. The vote was 9–1 in favor, with Thornton opposed.
In 2004 the commission opted to pay for federally mandated stormwater management with a fee based on impervious surfaces like rooftops and parking lots that contribute to runoff and flooding, rather than property taxes. The decision forced tax-exempt property owners like UGA and churches to pay their fair share. “We can put it back into the general fund budget if you want to, but if you do that, the people who pay property tax will pay more than through the fee,” Williams told commissioners.
The fee will rise from $3.50 to $4.73 a month for the average homeowner, with an automatic 3.75% increase each of the next five years and a 2% annual increase from 2029–2033.
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