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Have You Heard This One Before?: The mayor and commission will set the agenda for their July vote this Thursday, June 23, when they will presumably discuss such topics as the project concept for the
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It’s Complicated: Nobody thinks ACC commissioners Andy Herod, Kelly Girtz or Mike Hamby have anything but the best of intentions— ”being responsible for the public’s money,” as Herod puts it—in trying to get themselves appointed to serve on the board of the Economic Development Foundation. Indeed, it’s high time for improvements in Athens’ lagging efforts to bring in new business and jobs. Whether “packing” the EDF board with self-appointed commissioners is going to do that is an open question. What are they going to do differently? They haven’t said. In fact, they’ve said precious little, going outside normal channels with little explanation. In an unprecedented move, a majority on the commission threatened funds for the board without explaining why (or offering any specific criticisms)—and certainly without revealing that they were doing so in order to get three of their number appointed to the board. This flirts with illegality and violates the spirit of open government that usually prevails here. But it also shows determination about an important issue; a frustration with the failings of the past. Longtime complacency has allowed Athens to fall behind in recruiting new business and jobs. Athens has, by some measures, one of the highest poverty rates in America; and as the OneAthens antipoverty group has said, the real answer to poverty is jobs. Yet, persistent recommendations for a better-organized multi-county effort to “sell” Athens have fallen to shortsighted politics (notably in Oconee County). Clearly, something needs to change. Maybe ACC’s ambitious commissioners have some answers, and are prepared to make the effort it’s going to take. And maybe too, they could let the rest of us in on their plans? [John Huie]
expansion of the county jail, the three-laning of Pulaski Street downtown and revisions to the sidewalk café ordinance to accommodate tenants of the new downtown parking deck. But it appears the M&C will have little to say about whatever the revised plans for the Classic Center expansion, which they will also vote on July 5, will consist of. That’s because the Classic Center’s architects, whose “final” plans, it was announced May 26, were over budget by an unspecified amount of money, required five weeks, not four, to prepare their revisions to be presented to the commissioners whose job it is to approve them. Oh, well—it’s not like the architects or their bosses have a history of disregarding overarching public concerns in deference to whatever is most convenient for the Classic Center. The last plan the architects presented all but ignored the commission’s mandate for midblock access between Thomas and Foundry streets, and commissioners’ half-hearted suggestions that such access actually be provided in the revisions aren’t likely to be taken very seriously, either. Especially when the new plan can be presented a week before the vote, with predictions of downtown’s economic ruin if the M&C don’t wave it through right now—for real, this time. [Dave Marr] Another Tragedy: It was only nine months ago that Caixia Geng, an electronics engineer who had lived in the Athens area since moving here from China in 1993, was the subject of a wonderful profile by André Gallant in Flagpole’s “Everyday People,” in which she eloquently reminisced on the changes that have overtaken her hometown since her emigration, and spoke with excitement of her son’s impending completion of a Georgia Tech doctoral degree. Caixia and her husband, Denghui Cheng, were killed in a car accident on GA 316 last week, and all of us at Flagpole offer our heartfelt sympathies to all the family and friends who loved them. [DM] John Huie & Dave Marr
Paul Broun, Jr.’s Krazy Korner Quiz time. Clear your desks. Let’s see how well you know the congressman. “True or false” format:
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A. Broun supported the Iraq war and occupation under President Bush. true false B. Broun co-sponsored a bill to reprimand President Obama for, and question the legality of, committing U.S. troops to NATO’s war against Libya’s tyrannical Muammar Gaddafi. true false C. Broun voted for Representative Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which would effectively end Medicare as we know it. true false D. Broun is helping lead opposition to the President’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel instituted by last year’s health care law which advises Congress on how to keep Medicare’s rising costs under control in order to preserve the program— because it gives “unqualified bureaucrats… the power to ration health care.” true
false
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FLAGPOLE.COM ∙ JUNE 22, 2011
Scoring: TRUE, TRUE, TRUE, TRUE. If you answered TRUE to all four, you’ve clearly been paying attention. You understand that the decision to go to war is based not on lives lost or attainable objectives but, rather, the party affiliation of the decision makers. While a single FALSE response indicates only a nagging naïveté, a T, F, T, F answer key is a serious matter, and a clinical psychologist should become involved: to find principles at work in Broun’s thinking indicates delusional episodes of a quite serious nature. [Matthew Pulver]