It was another action-packed Athens-Clarke County Commission meeting Sept. 6, as the commission—now short a member—voted on nearly 30 items over almost four hours, amidst much bickering. Here’s what went down.
Help for Renters: Last month, news broke that a Florida-based property investment company had bought several low-income Athens rental communities, and were raising rents by 40% while no longer accepting Section 8 government vouchers, thus putting dozens of residents in danger of homelessness.
“They purport to be Christians,” Commissioner Melissa Link said at last week’s meeting about Florida-based Prosperity Capital Partners. “I don’t know what Bible they’re reading.”
In approving the distribution of this year’s round of federal Community Development Block Grants for housing and social services last week, ACC officials and several nonprofits—Acceptance Recovery Center, The Ark, Advantage Behavioral Health Systems and Family Promise—would prioritize residents of Lexington Heights, Highland Park, Hidden Pines and Rosemary Place who have been displaced. Those agencies will receive a combined $700,000 for services like rent and deposits, utilities, child care and emergency shelter at motels.
“I’m glad we can do something, although there’s more we can do,” said Commissioner Tim Denson. He added that he plans to lobby for changes to state law next year to ban discrimination against Section 8 recipients and allow cities to enact rent control.
In a bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking, Commissioner Ovita Thornton said the commission should have used federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to buy those properties before Prosperity Capital Partners did. “It seems like on the commission, we don’t respond until things blow up,” she said.
And Link said that the University of Georgia shares some of the blame for increasing enrollment by 6,000 students over the past decade while building only 500 new dorm rooms, which is putting significant upward pressure on the local rental housing market.
Homelessness Plan: The commission voted 9–1 to spend $133,000 on a consultant to help put together a strategic plan to address homelessness, with Thornton opposed.
“We do too many studies and surveys, and we still have these problems,” she said. “We’ve got to get out of planning stages and into action stages.”
But other commissioners and Manager Blaine Williams said the strategic plan would help bring together various service providers like shelters that are already working on the problem, but in silos, and bring in new stakeholders, like UGA, the Clarke County School District and Athens Area Chamber of Commerce. “We’re all working at this, and we don’t have a coordinated plan,” Myers said. “Hopefully this will bring people together.”
A strategic plan is also necessary because most of the unhoused in Athens are chronically homeless, which is much harder to address than transitory or temporary homelessness, said Commissioner Jesse Houle, citing a Housing and Community Development Department presentation at a recent retreat.
“I think that’s important to know because while there are the occasional stories—they are true—of people getting dropped off in our community, that does not make up the majority of the folks who are experiencing this challenge in our community,” Houle said. “The majority of the problem we’re trying to solve is one of people who’ve been living here a long time. It’s one of chronic homeless, which is more difficult to solve than people who are experiencing temporary homelessness.”
Transit Talk: What was essentially a $225,000 bridge loan from ACC’s general fund to Athens Transit until federal funding arrives has sparked discussion of expanding the transit system and possibly reinstituting fares in advance of a new Transit Development Plan this fall.
“If it’s a choice between free and more routes and frequency, I vote for the latter,” former commission candidate and TSPLOST advisory board member Allen Jones told commissioners. He said his home off Timothy Road is more than a mile from the closest bus stop, and that there is no safe route for cyclists to cross the Middle Oconee River.
Commissioner Russell Edwards said he wants to see more frequent service and more bus shelters so that people don’t have to wait in the rain. “I’m embarrassed at the way transit riders are treated in this community,” he said.
But funding wouldn’t necessarily have to come from fares, which only brought in $400,000 a year, not including UGA’s reimbursement for students, faculty and staff, according to Denson. Link and Houle argued that much of that revenue was eaten up by the cost of buying and maintaining the fareboxes, at a cost of slowing down boarding and making riding the bus less convenient.
Thornton asked for more information about farebox revenue. “Maybe I missed that meeting where we talked about transit,” she said, “but what did we gain and what did we lose?”
Quorum Quarrels: Missing meetings was another point of contention among commissioners, with some pushing a proposal to let six commissioners start a meeting rather than the current seven.
The commission voted 6–3 to table the issue, which would need to be approved in both October and November to become law because it requires changing the charter, but not before several commissioners put their colleagues on blast for skipping out on meetings. Commissioner Allison Wright pointed out that no regularly scheduled voting meetings have lacked a quorum, but others countered that work sessions, retreats and interviews for citizen boards and authorities are often not well attended, and that several executive sessions have been postponed because not enough commissioners showed up.
“There [have] been plenty of times when certain members of the body deliberately elected not to show up to discuss particular topics they might have found uncomfortable,” Link said.
Commissioner Mike Hamby defended his decision to skip work sessions and retreats, saying that he already had a grasp of the issues and prepared himself with written materials, and that retreats are often a waste of time. “I personally don’t need to be playing games, pass a watermelon or whatever, to build a team,” he said. “If you want to talk about the issues, I’ll be there, and I am there.”
Commissioner Carol Myers, a retired college administrator, disagreed, saying that she’s often been to conferences and retreats she thought were a waste of time, but never felt that way about commission retreats.
Thornton said she missed some executive sessions because they were hastily scheduled, which drew a response from Houle. “These are executive sessions that have been announced far in advance and then scheduled at the end of agenda-setting or voting meetings. And then people have left our meetings early, including meetings that didn’t go very late, instead of sticking around for that,” Houle said.
The quorum change looks unlikely to pass, given that even some of those who voted to keep discussing it said they’re leaning against it, but it will be on the agenda again next month.
Other Business: The commission allocated $13.7 million to the over-budget Bethel Midtown Village redevelopment project, including $4 million from the Athens Housing Authority, a $4 million Georgia Department of Community Affairs grant and $5 million from ARPA; signed off on an agreement with the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) to help low-income residents pay their water bills; and approved plans to expand the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia and the Athens Neighborhood Health Center. Two zoning requests—for a subdivision off Olympic Drive and a fraternity house on Hancock Avenue downtown—were withdrawn. Another request, for a subdivision off Lexington Road, was tabled until October.
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