Urban Pro Weekly

City not prepared for FEMA

U W rban Pro NEWS • COMMENTARY

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The CSRA’s FREE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER VOL.3 NO.24

ENTERTAINMENT FEB. 27 - MARCH 5, 2014

ARTWORK BY XAVIER JONES

Photo by Vincent Hobbs

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Festivities kick-off with food, drinks, live jazz on Friday at the Frank Yerby Award Ceremony On Saturday, March 1st, from 9-5 PM, Augusta will once again embrace the literary world with both arms wide open by hosting the 3rd Annual Augusta Literary Festival.

Fifty local and national authors will be on hand at the main library branch on 823 Telfair St. in Downtown Augusta, Georgia.

Anthony “Sleepyeyez” Carter.

Before the award ceremony at the Main Library Branch, Yerby’s alma mater Paine College will be honoring him as well. At 1 PM on

Friday, February 28th, on the campus of Paine College, there will be a Roundtable Discussion with the five finalists of the Yerby Award for Literary Fiction. This discussion

will be moderated by Dr. Anthony Neal, Chair of the Yerby Selection Committee. After the discussion, there will be a tour of the Yerby House on Paine’s campus.

Celebrated Augusta author Louise Shivers attended the inaugural Augusta Literary Festival in 2012.

The Augusta Literary Festival (ALF) will be the climax of two days of literary excitement, starting with activities planned for Friday, February 28th.

The festivities kick off at the main library branch on Friday, Feb. 28th with two workshops designed for both prospective and current authors. The first workshop will be from 10-12, and is titled, Marketing and the Modern Author. It will be taught by Hildie McQueen (Amazon Best Selling author). The second workshop will be from 2-4 and is titled Advanced Novel Writing: Tips and Techniques that will take your Novel to the Next Level. National Best Selling Author Karen Gillespie will be the instructor for this workshop.

At 1 PM on Friday, on the campus of Paine College, there will be a Roundtable Discussion with the five finalists of the Yerby Award for Literary Fiction. This discussion will be moderated by Dr. Anthony Neal, Chair of the Yerby Selection Committee. After the discussion, there will be a tour of the Yerby House on Paine’s campus.

The Yerby Award for Fiction This year marks the 2nd year that the ALF will feature the Yerby Award for Fiction. The award ceremony will be held during the authors’ reception on Friday, February 28th at the Main Library branch of the Augusta Public Library from 6 PM – 8 PM. Yerby’s nephew, Gerald Yerby will be presenting the top three finalists their awards. In addition, there will be food, drinks, live jazz by guitarist Robert Reid, and a special poem commemorating Frank Yerby by Augusta’s Poet Laureate

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UrbanProWeekly LLC Mailing Address: 3529 Monte Carlo Drive Augusta, Georgia 30906

Publisher Ben Hasan 706-394-9411 Managing Editor Frederick Benjamin Sr. 706-306-4647

Sales & Marketing Phone: 706-394-9411 Photography and Social Media Courtesy of Vincent Hobbs

email: Ben Hasan bzhasan54@yahoo.com Frederick Benjamin Sr. editor@urbanproweekly.com Vincent Hobbs coolveestudio@gmail.com

UrbanProWeekly • FEB. 27 - MAR. 5, 2014

3rd Annual Augusta Literary Festival

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4 UrbanProWeekly • FEB 27 - MAR. 5, 2014

The City

Storm debris from the Augusta ice storm is collected at several locations throughout the city, including this growing pile of tree branches and chipped wood near Lake Olmstead on Milledge Road. Photo by Vincent Hobbs

City unprepared for FEMA disaster recovery guidelines

By Frederick Benjamin Sr. UrbanProWeekly Staff Writer AUGUSTA Augusta handled the snow pretty easily. The storming ice was a more formidable challenge, but battalions of utility workers worked diligently to restore power to tens of thousands of Augustans.

The one thing Augusta wasn’t prepared for was the thousands of pounds of debris the storm left in its wake. The city thought it had all the bases covered to remove the debris, but no one could have predicted the magnitude of the storm.

“There was a plan in place. The Engineering Department had contractors ready. We have already removed over 100,000 cubic yards of debris,” according to Mie Lucas, the city’s Disaster Preparedness Coordinator.

The contractors which per prepositioned to remove debris did what they could, but they were overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the cleanup effort. It doesn’t seem as if anyone in the city disaster preparedness team, imagined that the city would ever have to deal with FEMA for debris removal.

If they did, they might have had contractors in place who were familiar with what FEMA requires from those entities who are looking for federal dollars to help pay for the cleanup.

FEMA requires the city to document and monitor debris removal. Since the city-approved contractors were not

“FEMA-qualified,” the city would have not been able to apply for federal funds.

Simply put, FEMA’s stringent accountability requirements far outdistance whatever the city imagined it would have to do.

Lucas, who is in her first year at the position, told Urban Pro Weekly that her department had never dealt with FEMA guidelines in the past. Her job is to coordinate the cleanup effort with city department heads such as Engineering and Solid Waste.

Lucas said that her department has no budget for disaster cleanup. If the city wants to get rid of the mounds of debris that litter the streets and parks and roadways in time for the Masters golf tournament in April, it needs outside help that has worked with FEMA before and is familiar with its guidelines.

The cost of the cleanup is estimated to exceed $8 million and the city has contracted with Ashbritt Environmental to oversee the project. Ashbritt, of Deefield Beach, Florida, will be organizing a small army of waste removal contractors to do the hands-on removal. Local workers who want to get in on the action should attend a workshop at the Julian Smith Casino on Friday (See sidebar on this page for details).

To qualify for federal assistance from FEMA, it is not enough just to go and start moving trash about the city.

Everything that happens has to be documented by an independent firm.

That’s why the city had to bring in a sec-

ond firm, Leidos, a defense contractor from Reston, Virginia, to monitor the debris removal as per FEMA guidelines.

Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11, FEMA has become part of Homeland Security. The huge bureaucracy thrives on mounds of data. After many missteps in the wake of Hurricane Katrina FEMA has been forced to run a tighter ship. Now all of its contracts include guidelines to safeguard against fraud, waste and abuse. Every aspect of a cleanup has to be monitored.

Municipalities not used to working with FEMA often run into difficulties, according to disaster preparedness professionals.

“Pre-planning for disaster recovery is a critical element of any community’s emergency management program. Unfortunately, comprehensive recovery planning is the place where the “Preparedness — Response — Recovery — Mitigation” circle is most often broken,” according to authors Joe C. Moseley and Thomas B. Rodino.

“This is not the fault of the emergency management community. Those knowledgeable professionals recognize that all four elements of the circle demand a full measure of attention and resource commitment. In practice, however, the resources available for those activities — staff and dollars — are rarely adequate to allow emergency managers to address all of the needs in each phase of the disaster recovery process.”

Disaster Recovery and Debris Removal Contractors Workshop A workshop for contractors interested in a possible opportunity to aid in debris removal and recovery projects for Augusta Richmond County on Friday, February 28, 2014. The workshop will be from 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM at the Julian Smith Casino at 2200 Broad Street Augusta, GA 30904.

Contractors will be assisting Solid Waste and Engineering with clearing county right of ways and parks. Contractors will be meeting with AshBritt Environmental and Leidos. Contractors should bring the following items with them: Copy of Insurance, Copy of Workers Compensation Forms, W9.

Residents in Richmond County may pull debris to the curb and it will be picked up by these groups; they will not be cleaning and doing repairs on private property.

For questions, please contact the Augusta Procurement Office at (706)821-2422.

Arts enrichment center seeks to offer creativity to all comers

By Frederick Benjamin Sr. and Vincent Hobbs AUGUSTA Xavier Jones has been on the cutting edge of creative technology since the mid-1980s when personal computers were still in their infancy. He was pixel-ready then and in the digital dizziness of 2014’s hyper cyber landscape — he’s perfectly at home.

Jones has never been the ivory tower type. His penchant for communication and sharing always landed him in front of an audience and in search of a commercial vehicle for his gifts. In his latest venture, he may have found both.

His conception for a one-stop arts experience is slowly coming into focus but he needs financial energy.

When it come to art, it’s hard for him to stop grinning.

“Perfect Storm is an Arts Enrichment Center. My team and I chose this designation because we started seeing, over a span of about twenty years, a growing need for a multitude of artistic and creative-oriented endeavors in education, business, art appreciation, mentoring and artist support,” he explains.

“The goal for most schools is to expose kids and adults to the arts and this is a great thing; except that most art programs face the challenges

Artist Xavier O. Jones (R) stands in the lobby of Augusta’s newest facility to promote the arts, Perfect Storm Art Enrichment Center.

Photo by Vincent Hobbs of budget and time constraints, and deal with many of these issues in a the continuing fight between aesthet- single place. ics vs. academics,” Jones adds.

“We wanted to see if we could creSo if schools are having a hard time ate a situation where professionalism, justifying the cost of the arts, artists advanced use technology and innohave to move out of their comfort vative thinking could be coordinated zone and begin building institutions. with mentorship and grassroots con“We started compiling data about nections to families. This is a big part art education to see if there could be of what we are doing.” an alternative approach that could The center is located at 1543

5 UrbanProWeekly • FEB. 27 - MAR. 5, 2014

Artist Xavier O. Jones stands in the lobby of Augusta’s newest facility to promote the arts, Perfect Storm Art Enrichment Center. Photo by Vincent Hobbs

Greene Street near the Enterprise Mill. It’s 2700 sq. ft. of newly renovated art space, but funds are needed to stock it with the technology and supplies that a vibrant arts community needs.

So far, those who have been willing to lend a hand include Realtors Sherman and Hemstreet, Bill Franke, Syd Padgett (Chair for Artists Row), Mat Kwantinetz (QBL Partners - Urban Economics & Redevelopment, working with ArtSpace), Margaret Woodard (Downtown Development Authority) and Shawn Edwards (Housing and Community Development Department).

“We also received much help from my colleagues from Episcopal Day School and Georgia Regents University Augusta,” Jones said.

Jones recognizes the need for all age groups to be exposed to the arts.

He has plans to deal with children as well as seniors.

“Our target students include those who may have lapsed in their art studies programs (drawing, painting, sketching or art of any type), as well as the curious novice and talented professional. Some may just need a place just to use top-notch art materials and/or computer equipment. We are also looking at home-schooled organizations, as well as independent students.”

Jones realizes that cash is the energy that drives arts education and he is opting for traditional and nontraditional funding approaches.

“We need seed money just to open our doors and nail down the basics of our plan. We are doing the initial traditional funding through a dual collaboration with Artists Row to raise money and awareness; this helps both Artists Row and Perfect Storm. The second phase of funding will be crowd-sourcing (such Indiegogo or Kickstarter).

We will put together a crowd-sourcing package for the stretch goal that would pay for the bigger startup operation and purchase of the specialized equipment and supplies needed for the Innovative program that we are creating. The goal is to raise $25,000 to execute the initial phase of the art program,” Jones said.

One of the fundraising projects involves selling signed and numbered prints of Jones’ artwork “Best Day Ever” which appears on the cover of this week’s edition. The sales would be handled through the Oddfellows Gallery’s downtown location as well as online.

Jones would like to see the area’s talented artists stay in Augusta and contribute to the area’s artistic pedigree.

“Augusta artists have contributed not only this state, but to the entire country in many ways - and yet the sheer amount of talent that streams out of the CSRA to make other places awesome is a creative drain on the CSRA. Imagine an Augusta where our artistic talent decides to stay, grow and make the arts culture fertile again. We have industry, and we have history – and we also need the third leg – the cultural arts,” he said.

For Jones, there’s a sense of how art transcends the physical act of drawing or painting to something more devout.

“How about wonder, imagination, inspiration, innovation, motivation, creative courage, historical influence, exploration and necessity - just for starters,” he beams.

UrbanProWeekly • FEB 27 - MAR. 5, 2014

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Medical experts to discuss how deep brain stimulation helps patients at Saturday seminar

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AUGUSTA If you or someone you know is among the one million Americans with Parkinson’s disease or the 10 million living with essential tremor, then deep brain stimulation could improve quality of life.

Find out more about this advanced procedure from medical experts with the Georgia Regents Movement Disorders Program during a free seminar from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, March 1, at Double Tree Hotel, 2651 Perimeter Parkway.

Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, is not a cure for movement disorders, but it can successfully treat symptoms by disrupting the abnormal patterns of brain activity that become prominent in Parkinson’s, essential tremor, and other neurological disorders. It is often described as a brain “pacemaker” because constant pulses of electrical charge are delivered at settings that are thought to restore normal brain rhythms, allowing more normal movements.

A specially trained neurosurgeon places the device, and a neurologist adjusts the settings to optimize therapy. Most patients are able to resume many normal activities in a short time.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Cole Giller and neurologists Drs. John Morgan and Deborah Boland will explain DBS, including what to expect during and after surgery. In addition, several patients will talk about their personal experiences and how DBS has improved their lives.

Parkinson’s disease involves the malfunction and death of vital nerve cells in the brain, called neurons. Some of these dying neurons produce dopamine, a chemical that sends messages to the part of the brain that controls movement and coordination. As the disease progresses, the amount of dopamine produced in the brain decreases, leaving a person unable to control movement normally. Symptoms vary, but most patients experience tremors of the hands, arms, legs, jaw and face.

Often misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s, essential tremor is characterized by rhythmic shaking that occurs during voluntary movement or while holding a position against gravity, such as raising a hand in the air. Most often it affects only the hands, but the head, voice and legs can sometimes succumb.

Registration for the seminar is not required, but it is encouraged. To register, please visit gru.edu/parkinsons. For more information, call Amanda Stefanakos, Outreach Coordinator for the Georgia Regents Movement Disorders Program, at 706-721-4895.

Georgia Regents has the only nationally designated Movement Disorders/ Parkinson’s Disease Center of Excellence in Georgia or South Carolina.

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UrbanProWeekly • FEB 27 - MAR. 5, 2014

12

U WIs itFORUM time to ditch AP exams? rban Pro

eekly

By Frederick Benjamin Sr. UrbanProWeekly Staff Writer AUGUSTA The recent airing of the 2013 results of Richmond County Schools’ Advanced Placement (AP) Exams demonstrated the challenge that obtaining a passing grade presented to both the students and their instructors.

The fact that the Advanced Placement Academy at Lucy Laney High School — a magnet-schoolstyle program that attracts students from across the county — fared so poorly on the AP exams makes one wonder if there is really a compelling need for the whole AP experience.

Why is it that a program with one of the most challenging curriculums in the system produced, by far, the worst outcome. Only one passing grade out of 344 attempts in 2013 defies any credible explanation. What is clear is that one of the main goals set up for Advanced Placement exams (earning college credit while still in high school) is not being met. And in this, Laney is not alone.

The exemplary magnet school

at A.R. Johnson, which attracts the best and brightest students in the county, while faring much better than Laney, still tested far below the state average. Johnson AP students posted a 19.8 percent success rate on the AP exams versus the 55.4 success rate for the entire state AP exam takers.

Is it time to scrap the program all together? One has to ask, how is it that in the state of Georgia, more and more students are being encouraged to take AP courses while their effectiveness, not just in preparing students for college, but in predicting success in college has been called into question time and time again.

According to Atlanta columnist Maureen Downey, “Only five other states in the country had a greater percentage of AP exam takers last year. The percentage of Georgia seniors who took an AP exam was 38.2 percent, compared to 30.2 percent for the nation. I know many metro high school students graduating with seven to nine AP classes.”

Advance Placement courses have been around for over 50 years.

While in the past they have been

more loosely structured, their aim has always to provide highly motivated students a more challenging academic experience. An added benefit of the course was that those who took the course would look more attractive to prospective college recruiters.

Well, none of that has changed.

What has changed is the increased role played by the College Board.

Their products have been a fixture on the higher education scene for generations. Their SAT, PSAT, LSAT and other products are officially sanctioned and highly regarded by the higher education industry. You can add AP testing to their list of products and profit centers.

The College Board folks have a pretty decent thing going. While each school puts together their own Advanced Placement programs, the AP tests — the same one’s taken by student’s all across the country — are all provided by the College Board, but not without a cost.

The cost of each exam is anywhere from 70.00 - 89.00. The same tests for the various subjects Continued on next page

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are provided to public and private schools with the cost being borne either by the school system or the students themselves.

While there has always been mixed opinion as to the value of the AP courses themselves, the promotion of the exams has been the source of some heated criticism of the College Board’s involvement in the entire process.

Business writer Emily Driscoll, says “High school students often take college-level classes to save time and money in college, but there is one catch: You have to pass the exams in order to get the credit. According to a recent study by The College Board, nearly 50% of high school students taking Advanced Placement (AP) courses do not pass the exams to qualify for college credit.”

“While AP enrollments are on the rise, the reality is that the vast majority of new AP class takers are not becoming AP exam passers,” says Jeff Livingston, senior vice president of College and Career Readiness at McGraw-Hill

Education. “These students are unprepared for the rigors of college level coursework in high school.”

AP exams are scored on a fivepoint scale, with test scores earning a three and above considered a passing grade by most universities. Some schools will give college credit for students earning a score of two on certain exams.

Because there are more students than ever taking AP courses, more teachers are needed for both preparatory curriculum and for the advanced classes, resulting in a decrease in the quality of teachers, according to senior advisor at College Confidential Sally Rubenstone.

“Now second- and third-string teachers have been called upon to teach APs and many react with mixed feelings,” she says. “My own son is just a freshman in high school, but already I’ve seen the chasm that separates his strongest teachers from his weakest ones.”

Rubenstone adds that a growing number of high schools are requiring the AP exam for all students who take an AP class, “or the school will

not put the vaunted “AP” designation on the transcript if the student bails on the exam.”

“In the old days, “I can’t afford the test,” allowed some unprepared students to wheedle out,” she says. “But now, even with recent budget cuts that affected AP exam fee waivers, many school districts provide free testing for students from low-income households.”

Writer John Tierney has been uncompromising in his attacks on the College Boards. In a article entitled “AP Classes Are A Scam,” he writes, ”Many critics lay the blame on the College Board itself, a huge “non-profit” organization that operates like a big business. The College Board earns over half of all its revenues from its Advanced Placement program -- more than all its other revenue streams (SATs, SAT subject tests, PSATs) combined. The College Board’s profits for 2009, were 8.6 percent of revenue, which would be respectable even for a for-profit corporation. “When a non-profit company is earning those profits, something is wrong,” says Americans for

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Rev. Clarence Moore, Pastor 1714 Olive Road / P. O. Box 141 (mailing address) Augusta, GA 30903 706/733-0341- Telephone/706/667-0205 – Fax E-mail address: admin@goodshepherdaugusta.org Web address: goodshepherdaugusta.org Rev. Clarence Moore Church Service: 7:45 & 11:00 a.m.

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Educational Testing Reform. (The 13 AETR’s “report card” on the College Board awards a grade of D and cites numerous “areas of misconduct” by the College Board.)

Statewide the number of students taking AP courses and the number of students taking the AP final exams have increased dramatically from 72,764 in 2011 to 83,327 in 2013.

Statewide the number of exams taken has also increased from 121,486 in 2011 to 142,010 in 2013.

However, in Richmond County the number of students taking AP courses and exams has been shrinking.

1248 students took AP courses in 2011 and only 1149 students took AP courses in 2013. The number of exams take dropped also from 1896 in 2011 to 1782 in 2013.

There is clearly more than a single school of thought on the philosophy behind the AP course load. On the one hand you have AP teachers downplaying the importance of the exam and on the other you have the system’s superintendent wanting to boost the number of students who pass the exam.

UrbanProWeekly • FEB. 27 - MAR. 5, 2014

AP from page 12

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Richard Smallwood to join Parade of Quartets Salute Leontyne Price at a White House Christmas Celebration. He collaborated with Bill and Gloria Gaither to write the gospel standard, “Center of My Joy”. And his most acclaimed song to date is, “I Love the Lord”.

The song was performed by the late Whitney Houston and featured on The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack.

Other notable artists such as Destiny’s Child and Yolanda Adams have included his original songs during their performances.

Famed composer, musical director and Grammy Award winning Gospel Artist, Richard Smallwood, will attend the Parade of Quartets 60th Year Anniversary Gala.

Mr. Smallwood is a classically trained pianist who has performed with countless gospel and mainstream musical giants such as Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan and Walter Hawkins.

During the Reagan administration he accompanied opera legend

Tickets available now for Moon River – Johnny Mercer: The Man, The Music EVANS Get lost in the music of Johnny Mercer as The Ballroom Dance Center staff and students bring some of Mercer’s best loved and most recognizable songs to life in their showcase production of Moon River – Johnny Mercer: The Man, The Music on March 15, 21 and 22, 2014.

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer, whose music spans decades and includes such songs as “Moon River,” for which he received an Academy Award in 1961, and “On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe,” that won him an Oscar. Between 1929 and 1976, Mercer penned the lyrics to more than 1,000 songs, and time after time he drew upon his Georgia roots for inspiration. He also wrote the music for a number of Broadway shows and was the founder of Capitol Records. Mercer literally did it all!

The doors will open for the show each evening at 7:00 p.m., with a show time of 7:30. Tickets are $18 for those under 18 years of age and $25 for adults. Tickets are $22 with a military ID. “With dynamic dancing, period authentic costuming, an enthralling story line and a set design that would rival any Broadway production, The Ballroom Dance Center is the place you want be on March 15, 21 and 22,” stated Emilie Tobias, owner of The Ballroom Dance Center.

Purchase your tickets now by calling The Ballroom Dance Center at 706-8548888. The ticket price also includes general dancing after the show.

Visit our website at www.augustaballroomdance.com for more information. The Ballroom Dance Center studio is located at 525 Grand Slam Drive in Evans, Georgia.

“We are elated that an artist of Richard Smallwood’s caliber chose to make his first appearance in Augusta at the Celebration of our 60th year anniversary”, says Karlton Howard, Executive Producer/Host of the Parade of Quartets. Mr. Howard goes on to say, “His music was a personal favorite of our father’s and we are honored to present him with a Henry L. Howard Legends Award.” Other honorees on the program include Clarence Fountain of the Original

Blind Boys, The Williams Brothers, Dr. Bobby Jones and Lady Tramaine Hawkins.

The Parade of Quartets 60th Year Anniversary Gala will take place this Saturday, March1,2014 at 6 p.m. at the Marriott Augusta Convention Center, located at 210th Street in downtown Augusta, Georgia. For tickets, sponsorships or additional information contact the Parade of Quartets at 706722-1123 or visit www.paradeofquartets.com.

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