originally published May 14, 2008

The Theater of the Commission: Well, gang, last week’s Mayor and Commission meeting was pretty much one of the craziest in quite a while. Just ask the ladies of Gamma Phi Beta, who as a group came in a distant second for number of people present for one agenda item. The lead position, of course, was with the many African-American citizens who turned out to ask commissioners to return the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)monies stripped from the EADC (East Athens Development Corporation) and the HCDC (Hancock Corridor Development Corporation) last month.

Early in the night, as the crowd was still swelling, Mayor Davison introduced a group of Kenyan women who were spending a week or so in Athens. They all stood up, smiling, for a moment. A little while later, as one person after another approached the podium to complain of mistreatment and argue for restoration of funds, City Dope pulled aside one of the Kenyans in the hallway to ask her about her week in Athens, and for it seemed pertinent, her impressions of our City Hall. “It’s great,” she said, “that all these people can come in here and talk to the government.”

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Outcome Measures: Showing up and talking to the government, though, didn’t accomplish much in the end - that is, five or six hours later - for the defenders of the two agencies in question. Why? After a month of hearing complaints about the commission majority’s decision on CDBG funds at their April meeting, commissioners hadn’t made much progress in figuring out alternate options for what to do with that money.

And that’s fine, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone if discontent with the idea to give $25,000 each to the EADC and the HCDC lingers on for a while. It did, admittedly, have the feel of giving out some scraps. Worse, perhaps, was Mayor Davison and Commissioner Kathy Hoard’s embarrassing grilling of the EADC Director, Winston Heard, some time after midnight. Sure, Heard was utterly unprepared to defend his organization’s actions, and sure, the whole spectacle hammered home the point that the commission majority was making an abundantly correct fiscal decision - but couldn’t that have happened two months ago, at the annual CDBG hearing dedicated to the topic of wise spending of those federal funds?

Questions like those are why the central problem with this issue will never stray far from matters of process - and looking at process is important because it tells us how our government works. More thought-provoking than all that, though, is the inescapable feeling of shock that a majority of ACC Commissioners could be so blinded to the important, meaningful politics wrapped up in CDBG money - to their own relationship with the African-American community. Their decision on the CDBG money was good government but bad politics. The two don’t always run together.

At 1:50 a.m. last Tuesday night (er, Wednesday morning), the ladies of Gamma Phi Beta - looking to tack an addition onto the side of their historic sorority house - filed into the council chamber at City Hall in their post-finals-parties cocktail dresses while the remaining, disappointed African-American citizens filtered out - just another odd scene in the halls of government.

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An Ignoble Distinction: Amen to the folks who were out by the Arch on Tuesday evening, May 6, to protest Georgia’s resuming the execution of state prisoners that night. That was odd, too - walking by to see fresh UGA grads posing with smiles at the Arch for their graduation snapshots, just a few steps from these solemn protesters. Such is life in Athens.

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Just Lettin’ Ya Know: One other note from the commission meeting last week - ACC Commissioners voted to raise trash-collection fees slightly, but raised fees for backyard collection considerably, since that takes workers longer and can result in “dog and insect bites, slips, falls, abrasions and twisted ankles,” according to county documents. The water-and-sewer portion of bills will be going up a few bucks later this year, too, largely because Athens-Clarke is just about ready to begin building three new sewer plants. [John Huie]

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Addendum to Last Week’s Edition: Wouldn’t you know it, that after Flagpole had gone to press last week, yet another northeast Georgian qualified to run for Congress against Paul Broun, Jr.? That would be a guy by the name of James P. Mason, a former Marine from Jackson County, who’s running as an independent - meaning that whatever happens in the Republican primary on that one, if this Mason can stick it out, we’ll at least have the fun of a multi-way race again on the general election ballot. The 10th - it’s the district that keeps on giving.

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A Glance at the Playing Field: Then again, maybe we all ought to run. Some of the latest news out of incumbent Broun’s office celebrated his receiving an “A in English” award from the group U.S. English, Inc. This is, of course, a special-interest group’s way of rewarding the Congressman for his support of English-only legislation. Matter of fact, Broun got a perfect score, in part for having introduced English-only legislation this year. At least the guy’s getting good grades in the courses he’s choosing to take.

Ben Emanuel

Send your city dope to ben@flagpole.com