Friday, May 10, 2013
The Athens Clarke County Commissioners question and consider the Mayor's FY14 budget.
The FY14 budget for Athens Clarke County says a lot about what the Athens Clarke County community is like. At a Thursday night work session, the ACC Commissioners listened as Manager Allan Reddish outlined the budget, then asked him questions about various items. Consider: * We have learned not to run the red light at Cherokee/Gaines School and Lexington Highway. The traffic cameras, which photographed cars as they barreled through the intersection when the light was red, snaps a photo of license plates. Anyone running the light gets a $70 ticket. The program, which includes another camera at Alps/Hawthorne and Atlanta Highway, has been so effective in changing behavior that it's running a $98,000 deficit. Oh, and the number of tickets …
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Mayor Denson didn't put the issue on the agenda, so the Commission held a special called meeting.
It came at the end of Tuesday's monthly Athens Clarke County Commission meeting, and lasted only a few minutes. But it could appear again. It's a special called meeting. And it happened because Mayor Denson wouldn't put an item on the agenda after a Commissioner asked her to do so. So the Commission held a meeting to consider the issue. The issue was one she wasn't interested in visiting, she said, about allowing people to board dogs in their homes. The real issue for Commissioner Jared Bailey was the local government's home occupation ordinance, which hasn't been updated in 20 years. Bailey told the Commissioners that 95 percent of all jobs in Athens Clarke County are created by entrepreneurs. He wants to make sure Athens remains …
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Melissa Link warned the ACC Commission of problems to come if they don't address large scale developments.
At Tuesday's meeting of the Athens Clarke County Commission, Buena Vista Heights resident Melissa Link spoke to the commissioners about her neighborhood. Last month, the commission designated as a historic district part of the neighborhood, which lies off Prince Avenue near the new UGA Health Sciences Campus. The commissioners approved a district that was half the size of one recommended by the Historic Preservation Commission. Link noted that a small house on Park Avenue was on the market for one day before an investor bought it, presumably to construct a larger building on the lot.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
It's not that big, but at 123,000 square feet, it dwarfs the Alps Kroger.
If they could have, the Athens Clarke County Commission would have blown kisses at the officials from Kroger who arrived toward the end of the Tuesday night Commission meeting. As it was, they simply thanked them for choosing to build a grocery store on 22 acres near Athens Tech and then approved the proposal. When the Kroger is finished in the summer of 2014, it will be the first from-the-ground-up, state-of-the-art Kroger grocery in Georgia. So says Arahn Hawkins, real estate manager for Kroger. What does state-of-the-art mean for Kroger? Hawkins says it means more of everything: more baby products. More fish. More kinds of coffee. A bigger offering of organic food, organic produce, organic packaged food, organic baby food, milk, …
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Allison believes Athens should take advantage of technological advances.
- GOVERNMENT
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Wednesday, January 16
My priorities as an Athens Clarke County Commissioner are: Number 1 - Smart 911 and increased online web-based communications between ACC and the public. Smart911 (www.smart911.com) provides an enhanced level of detail that can be registered to a person's phone. Specific advantages include that a cell phone can be used for 911 communications via texting. Details about the person who has the specific phone number are registered. In the appropriate areas of the country those details can be used by 911 dispatchers and first responders. Imagine the benefit of having the knowledge of who a 911 dispatcher is speaking to. It might mean a dispatcher could say your child's name, noting the child's age for how to talk with him or her. Imagine how…
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Chamber of Commerce voices its support for letting the local government land the big economic fish.
Before Doc Eldridge, CEO and Executive Director of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, took his current job, he was an insurance executive, an Athens Clarke County Commissioner and Mayor of Athens Clarke County. His experience, he says, has given him first-hand knowledge of how the local government works. Which is why he--and the Chamber Board--are supporting a move to create an office for economic development, fund it well and house it within the local government. His support places him at odds with some business people in town and with some members of the Economic Development Foundation, a body he helped create to bring businesses and jobs to Athens. "The realization is that the commission is willing to fund economic development at a …
Friday, September 14, 2012
ACC Police want to partner with the Clarke County School District to prevent dangerous traffic violations involving schools buses.
If things go the way Athens Clarke County Police Chief Jack Lumpkin wants, come January, a few of the county's 168 school buses will be equipped with cameras. And these cameras will help to snag drivers who don't stop when the bus puts out its "stop arm," which signals that children are getting on or off the bus. "School buses are the safest vehicles on the road, until the children are loading or unloading," said the chief. "We want to reduce the chances of something terrible happening." With six deaths in the past five years, Georgia leads the country in the number of school bus fatalities, records show. The Clarke County School District's buses drive 145 different routes. Each route has a reported average of 1.4 violations a day. "Our …
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The ACC Commission has delayed implementation of a new recycling ordinance.
It's just sixty days. When you've been waiting 20 years for something to come to pass, sixty days is nothing. Right? For Athens Clarke County Commissioner Ed Robinson, sixty days is too long. He's been waiting decades for the county's recycling ordinance to include multi-family buildings and businesses as well as single family homes. “We’ve needed this change for 20 years, and it’s not going to be as hard as the panicked responses I’ve heard," said Robinson. "It's not an onerous as people think." But wait he must, so officials can resolve the problems. The Commission voted Tuesday night--after impassioned pleas from Mayor Denson, apartment owner Mike Power and solid waste hauler Courtney Elder--to delay the ordinance's passage so the …
Monday, July 16, 2012
Allison has served on the Clarke County Board of Education for eight years.
- ELECTIONS
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Monday, July 16, 2012
1. Where did you grow up? (County and state) I grew up in Fayette County, Lexington, Kentucky – home of the University of Kentucky-- and moved to Athens just over 20 years ago. 2. Where did you finish high school? College? Graduate or professional school? College major or area of concentration? I attended Henry Clay High School, a public school in Fayette County, KY. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Science at the University of Kentucky and later a Master of Science degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Medical Illustration. 3. Are you married? Do you have children? If so, where do they go to school? I have been married to my husband, Gene, for 20 years. He is a Professor of Science Illustration at the University…
The Athens native has rented a home in Five Points for two years.
- ELECTIONS
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Monday, July 16, 2012
1. Where did you grow up? Athens, Georgia 2. Where did you finish high school? College? Graduate or professional school? College major or area of concentration? Graduated from Athens Academy in 2003. Graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2007 with a Double Major in History and Political Science Major and with an Art History Minor. Graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law 2010, cum laude. 3. Are you married? Do you have children? If so, where do they go to school? Yes. I met my wife, Lauren, at Vanderbilt University and we both attended the University of Georgia School of Law together. She works as an Assistant Solicitor in Athens-Clarke County. We do not yet have any children. 4. Have you ever held any elected office? …
Nancy Revnes
10:26 pm on Wednesday, May 8, 2013
The last 20 years have brought aggressive change to the way every business does business with online buying and selling and advertising. What shape would the economy be in today without the internet? Fortunately, there are many more people who are able to work out of home in these challenging times, so let's do the fair thing for these small businesses and update the home occupation ordinance. more ›