The Athens-Clarke County Commission gave Judd Drake another two-year term as county attorney at its Tuesday voting meeting, then immediately turned around and named him acting manager.
Drake is the ACC government’s fourth manager in the past year. Last June, Blaine Williams announced his resignation. Williams was replaced by then-deputy manager Niki Jones, who left in January to take a job in his native North Carolina. Mayor Kelly Girtz then brought former planning director Brad Griffin out of retirement to run the city until a permanent replacement could be found. But the limit on the amount of time Griffin could serve as a retiree expired on Wednesday.
The ACC Mayor and Commission initially hired Drake in 2019. Previously, he served as attorney and interim manager in Macon-Bibb County.
The commission unanimously ratified Girtz’s appointment of Drake as both county attorney and acting manager. Deputy Chief Attorney John Hawkins will serve as attorney while a nationwide search is underway for a new permanent manager.
In other business, the commission:
• approved what is believed to be the largest residential development in Athens history: 396 single-family homes, 216 townhouses and 313 apartments off Atlanta Highway near Bogart.
• tabled a 300-house subdivision on Newton Bridge Road near Vincent Drive.
• allowed developers to withdraw plans for an office building on Gaines School Road and a senior living facility on Whit Davis Road.
• tabled a proposal to build student housing on two ACC-owned parking lots off Jackson Street in exchange for affordable housing funding an a new sewer line serving north downtown.
• voted to ask the U.S. Department of Transportation to convert a $25 million grant for North Avenue into a much smaller planning grant because the county is unable to meet a deadline to start construction.
• redesignated $3 million in SPLOST funds for a youth facility in the West Broad neighborhood toward a park in Commissioner Stephanie Johnson’s District 6 or Commission Ovita Thornton’s District 9.
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