The Athens-Clarke County Commission voted last week to give the Boys and Girls Club of Athens $2.9 million to open two new satellite locations and start a “delinquency prevention initiative” at all six outposts, and to partner with the Clarke County School District on more youth programs.
The funding comes from the federal American Rescue Plan Act passed in 2021. The ACC government received $58 million through the COVID relief package and designated $7.5 million for “youth development and violence prevention.” The commission has already awarded $836,000 to various community groups for summer camps in 2022 and 2023.
The Boys & Girls Club will use the funding to open satellite locations at the Parkview and Broadacres public housing complexes, keep open locations at Nellie B and Rocksprings that opened last year, provide transportation to those four locations, and open the Smilow and HT Edwards locations on Saturdays. In addition, the delinquency prevention initiative at all six locations will aim to discourage children from joining gangs.
The commission also approved a rare partnership between CCSD and ACC to go in 50-50 on youth sports programs at elementary and middle schools. ACC is contributing $155,000 for after-school football, cheerleading, track and field, volleyball, basketball and soccer for third- through seventh-graders. In addition, the county will spend $75,000 on a facilitator to help an 11-member committee—five appointed by Mayor Kelly Girtz, five by school board President LaKeisha Gantt and a chair selected by those 10 members—evaluate programs for the remaining $3 million in ARPA funds for youth development. “We’ll seek to work with the school district to positively direct those funds for the benefit of youth in the community,” Girtz said.
Those allocations fulfill campaign promises from commissioners Tiffany Taylor and Dexter Fisher, who both ran on beefing up youth programs in 2022. While one-time ARPA money expires in 2026, Fisher said he hopes the commission will continue funding those programs with local tax dollars.
The commission also voted to narrow down the search for a new courthouse site to two properties: the Stephens Federal Building on Hancock Avenue and county-owned parking lots along Dougherty Street, in hopes that the federal government can be talked into a property swap for the mostly vacant building. Commissioners Patrick Davenport, Carol Myers and Ovita Thornton opposed narrowing down the search and wanted all five sites identified by a committee considered. “We don’t just want downtown or the westside or whatever,” Thornton said. “We want all our areas to grow. Of course I’m pushing North Avenue.” But county officials have said the Piggly Wiggly shopping center is relatively inaccessible except by car, would be expensive to acquire, take property off the tax rolls and force the closure of the neighborhood’s only grocery store, and Commissioner Jesse Houle noted that each site will cost $40,000 to evaluate. After Davenport’s motion failed, those three commissioners voted in favor of the two-site final list.
A list of four finalists for an Eastside library was approved, with opposition from Taylor, who said the late addition of Southeast Clarke Park is not walkable from her district, which runs from East Athens to Winterville. Myers, who chairs the site selection committee, described Southeast Clarke Park as “a backup backup plan” because other sites under consideration all have flaws. They include the old Gaines School, the Kroger shopping center off College Station Road and vacant ACC-owned land off Barnett Shoals Road.
In other business, the commission voted unanimously to deny a rezoning for the University Gardens apartment complex near the ACC Library. The complex’s owners wanted to rebuild two buildings that had burned down, but residents of nearby Fortson Drive argued that the rezoning would open the door for a much denser redevelopment. “This would basically be giving them a blank slate to put The Mark right there on Baxter Street,” said Commissioner Melissa Link, referring to the massive development at the corner of Broad and Oconee streets. Commissioners asked for a binding site plan instead of a straight rezoning.
During the public comment period, a group of Pittard Road residents called “Justice 31”—in reference to the 31 of about 200 residents they said have been diagnosed with cancer—called on the commission to further investigate potential contamination from a shuttered DuPont yarn factory. A recent report by an environmental lawyer ACC hired to look into the claims found no evidence of toxic chemical leaks or dumps, but the residents said they are skeptical of the report and want further water and soil testing done. In response, several commissioners made vague promises to take further action.
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