Paul Broun Election Celebration

Anticipating a GOP primary victory this evening, the Paul Broun campaign is holding an election night celebration in Athens. The event begins at 7:00 p.m. and takes place in Magnolia Ballrooms 1 and 2 of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education, located at 1197 South Lumpkin Street, diagonally across the Carlton Street/Sanford Drive intersection from Stegeman Colesium. Everyone is invited to come by, track election returns, and socialize with fellow Broun supporters.

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TDRs: A Shell Game In The Making?

More than a year and a half after its target date, the Transferable Development Rights Committee has finally released its much-anticipated report. The issue of TDRs has been bandied about locally since at least 1999, and for the entirety of that period I have been dubious as to the effort, noting that the county lacked both sending zones and receiving zones.

Consider the following paragraphs, taken verbatim from my 2006 campaign web site:

The Mayor has appointed a committee to study Transferable Development Rights (TDRs), with a report expected by the end of 2006. Just as in 2002, I am receptive to the idea of a TDR program, but have doubts as to such a program’s suitability for Athens-Clarke County.

There are two reasons for this, one concerning potential “sending areas” and one concerning potential “receiving areas.” Regarding the former, the Commission has already down-zoned the development potential of the AR zones by 90 per cent; over the years, it has steadily reduced the allowable density of residential development from one house per acre to one house per ten acres. Also, the Commission has deleted some 35 linear miles of sanitary sewer lines projected for the outlying areas of the county from the Public Utilities Department’s original Service Delivery Plan, as called for by the Unified Government’s Charter. Without sanitary sewer lines, any area’s development potential drops precipitously. The Commission is already using the possible implementation of a TDR program, at some unspecified point in the future, as a reason for denying rezoning requests in the formerly unincorporated areas of the county. In light of these actions, one may reasonably wonder just what development rights remain in the peripheral areas of the county to be transferred anywhere else.

Regarding receiving areas, the questions of where they may be located or how they may be structured have yet to be answered. As an observer of local politics for several years, I fully expect that any proposals to increase density in existing neighborhoods will be fought tooth and nail. Without receiving areas willing to increase their residential densities, there can be no workable TDR program.

About the only thing that has changed since then is that the idea of transferring development rights from rural residential areas to in-town residential ideas proved too daunting, so the Committee shifted the focus to transferring development rights from rural residential areas to in-town industrial and/or commercial areas. Even so, I still have questions about just what will be transferred. The Committee’s recommendation that “for the purpose of transfer only, A-R zone property owners should be allowed one property right per acre” strikes me as arbitrary, especially given that what that really means will be determined at a later point by Planning Department staff.

Says Blake’s article on the Committee's report from last week:

But a TDR program alone won't work, [Commissioner Alice] Kinman said. The committee recommends using sales tax revenue and grants or working with nonprofits to buy undeveloped land and easements near waterways and wetlands.

Great. Let’s use even more of my tax money to take more property off of the property tax digest, thereby forcing taxes up on that property remaining on the tax rolls to compensate for the loss. I have pointed out the ultimately self-defeating nature of this process for years, to no avail whatsoever.

Continued Blake’s article:

Commissioner David Lynn said he'd like officials to consider downzoning property in receiving zones to a lower density so TDR credits are more attractive. Athens-Clarke officials should also work with counterparts in surrounding counties to add sending zones in Jackson, Madison and Oglethorpe counties, protecting the Athens water supply upstream and avoiding doughnut-style development with subdivisions just across the green belt on the Clarke County line, Lynn said.

No disrespect intended toward Commissioner Lynn, but this is worst than the idea floated by John Barrow back in 2002 (you know, back when the erstwhile congressman was the darling of Athens’ progressive set and not W’s “rubber stamp”). Barrow’s bad idea was to “downzone” property in receiving areas and make developers pay through the nose merely to reclaim the original density. Lynn would take that bad idea and make it worse by drawing surrounding counties into the scheme. Given the serious implications for their own sales and property tax revenues, good luck getting any responsible officials in adjacent counties to buy into that one.

Which brings me to another point. I commented on Barrow’s downzoning idea In response to an Athens Grow Green Coalition questionnaire back in 2002:

Would you support implementation of a Transferable Development Rights program to protect open space and direct growth?

YES "I am not opposed to TDRs if such a program is structured in a reasonable manner. I would not support a plan, through which an area's existing development rights were 'down zoned,' only to be 'up zoned' at a later date back to their previous level by virtue of a fictitious transfer of development rights from another area. In such a case, I feel that no transfer of rights has occurred in any meaningful sense."

I thought that AGGC’s assessment of my response was deliberately disingenuous, as the organization knew full well that such an approach was precisely what a sitting commissioner, one that it invariably supported, had proposed:

James Garland’s positions consistently contradict those of Grow Green. In addition, his answers to our questionnaire suggest a lack of understanding of issues such as TDRs . . .

Be that as it may, this entire TDR thing is sounding more and more like a shell game to me.

Such cynicism may be forgiven by recalling the “conservation subdivision” ordinance adopted back in 2003. That ordinance, which gave the green activists everything they wanted, was touted as the end-all for managing development in the greenbelt. That ordinance has been a complete and total failure, as its draconian regulations made the construction of a conservation subdivision prohibitively expensive, a fact evidenced by the number of such subdivisions proposed since then, which is precisely zero (zip, zilch, nada). On the other hand, though, if the idea was to go through the motions of passing a development ordinance – one that effectively prevented such development - thereby locking in the one house per ten acres restriction in the greenbelt and giving the Commission political cover, it has been an astounding success.

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Clarke County Charter School (2008 edition)

The Clarke County Board of Education is again considering a charter school, this time involving a partnership among the Clarke County School District, Athens Technical College, and the University of Georgia. The resulting Athens Community Career Academy would be geared toward the acquisition of job skills and college credit.

So far, so good. I am not opposed to a charter school in principle. Quite the opposite is true, in fact, as the proposal is one of the few made by the local education bureaucracy in recent years of which I have approved. That said, I do have some specific concerns as to how the proposal is taking shape.

My first concern has to do with financing. Last year’s CCSD proposal for a charter school was dependent on securing a specific grant from the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education; when that grant application was denied, the proposal was dead in the water. This year, the CCSD missed the deadline for a US Department of Education grant and is now hoping that Athens Tech can get a grant of its own to renovate the H.T. Edwards building, a property that the CCSD owns, at a cost of $3.2 million.

So why all of this emphasis on grants? It is not like the CCSD doesn’t have plenty of money at its disposal. Just last month, it approved a budget that included $9.244 million in reserve funds. Why can’t the CCSD use a mere one-third of its existing reserves, without relying on other education bureaucracies to fund the project, and get on with it?

Which brings me to my second concern, which is that involving those other education bureaucracies poses its own set of problems. The CCSD should be perfectly capable of designing and operating a charter school on its own. It does not have to reinvent the wheel here, as there are successful charter schools all across the country which it could model. I recognize the appeal of involving Athens Teach and UGA, namely that the other members of the proposed partnership have some nice things that they can bring to the table in terms of facilities, expertise (hopefully), etc.

On the other hand, involving other education bureaucracies necessitates having more seats at that table, the invariable consequences of which are problems of coordination and a diffusion of responsibility among different institutions that may not share the same goals and expectations over time. Again, I think that a strong argument can be made that the CCSD may be better off acting alone.

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Clarke County Advance Voting

At the half-way point of advance voting, more than 500 people had cast ballots at the Clarke County Board of Elections office (178 on Monday, 257 on Tuesday, and about 100 through noon on Wednesday). Turnout has been so large that additional voting machines were set up in City Hall to supplement the three in the Board’s office.

According to Supervisor of Elections Gail Schrader, who always graciously answers my questions, election workers had processed 548 Democrat primary ballots (325 in office and 223 mail-ins) and 344 Republican primary ballots (194 in office and 150 mail-ins) through the close of business on Tuesday. That works out to a 61% to 39% split, which is pretty much what one would expect here in the bluest of blue counties.

She also informed me that additional voting machines will be set up in old Fire Hall portion of the Classic Center for advance voting prior to November’s general election.

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Just An Observation On My Part

Anyone else get that direct mail piece a few days back advertising a “Retirement & Estate Planning Workshop” put on by The Lloyd Group? What intrigued me was the fact that Dale Cardwell’s name and photo are prominently displayed at the top of the page. Cardwell is slated as a “guest speaker” for the workshops to be held at the Watkinsville Community Center at 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on 31 July (there are also workshops in Gwinnett County on 24 July, but I do not know if Cardwell is scheduled for those).

I realize that not all of life revolves around politics. This did strike me as quite odd, however, given that Cardwell is currently up to his eyeballs in the Democrat primary for United States Senate - and presumably would immediately shift into general election mode should he win.

Regardless, the question is academic to me. As one may easily surmise from this, I chose the GOP primary ballot and voted for Paul Broun. The only other contested races on my ballot were a couple of seats on the Public Service Commission.

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Petrovs To Address CCRC

Valdis “Red” Petrovs, candidate for the open District 6 seat on the Athens-Clarke County Commission, will address the Clarke County Republican Committee on Monday, 14 July. The meeting, which begins at 6:00 p.m., will be held at CCRC Headquarters located at 455 North Milledge Avenue.

Petrovs has an impressive background in the business world, but is best known locally as vice-chairman of Partners for a Prosperous Athens and its subsequent OneAthens anti-poverty initiative.

Even so, from my perspective Petrovs has made some welcome noises concerning the continuing growth of the Unified Government’s budget and has exhibited some skepticism about government as the solution to every problem. That being the case, many in self-consciously progressive Athens will be only too happy to tar Petrovs with the Chamber of Commerce and/or Republican labels. In fact, some will regard his appearance at a GOP function, despite the fact that the election is nonpartisan and I am sure that Petrovs will also speak to local Democrats, as a reason to vote against him.

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Clarke County Nonpartisan Qualifiers

Directly from the fine folks at the Board of Elections, the final list of candidates who qualified for this coming November's nonpartisan elections appears below.

Four seats on the Clarke County Board of Education are up for election this year. Given the chaos that has characterized the Board recently, it is no surprise that only one incumbent is unopposed. The two other incumbents are opposed and there are two candidates for the one open seat.

Five seats on the Athens-Clarke County Commission are up for election this year; three incumbents are unopposed, one incumbent is opposed, and there are two candidates for the one open seat.

The qualified candidates are:

Board of Education District 2
J.T. Jones
Vernon Payne (incumbent)

Board of Education District 4
Allison Wright (incumbent)

Board of Education District 6
James Francis Geiser
Charles Worthy (incumbent)

Board of Education District 8
Chinami Goodie
David Knox Huff

Commission District 2
Harry Sims (incumbent)

Commission District 4
Alice Kinman (incumbent)

Commission District 6
Edward Robinson
Valdis “Red” Petrovs

Commission District 8
Andy Herod (incumbent)

Commission District 10
Elton Dodson (incumbent)
Mike Hamby

I am not familiar with the challengers for the Board, though most any change there probably would be an improvement.

Insofar as the Commission is concerned, the interesting race is in District 6; Petrovs is a player in the PPA/OneAthens anti-poverty initiative, about which I remain dubious, but is making some good noises about trimming the budget. On the other hand, I suspect that Dodson and Hamby simply will try to outflank one another to the “progressive” left in District 10.

Regarding other offices, Ethelyn Simpson (incumbent) is the lone qualifier for State Court Judge (remember that this is a recently created position; Simpson was named to it by the Governor and must run for election this cycle) and Kenneth B. Brown has qualified to run for Sheriff as an independent (he has paid the qualifing fee, but still must file a nominating petition no later than 08 July).

Correction: In my previous comments, since revised, I was talking about Ed Vaughn, former candidate for Districts 7 and 9. I do not know anything about Edwin Robinson.

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Concerning The Militia

As my contribution to the inevitable discussions of the Supreme Court’s (uncomfortably narrow) decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, I present some information regarding the concept of “militia” here in the Peach State.

Article III, Section VI, Paragraph II of the state Constitution specifies that the General Assembly “shall have the power to provide by law for:”

(2) A militia and for the trial by courts-martial and nonjudicial punishment of its members, the discipline of whom, when not in federal exercise, shall be in accordance with law and the directives of the Governor acting as commander in chief.

The composition of the militia is far more expansive than most folks realize. For specifics, see O.C.G.A. 38-2-3:

Division and composition of militia; membership of unorganized militia

(a) The militia of the state shall be divided into the organized militia, the state reserve list, the state retired list, and the unorganized militia.

(b) The organized militia shall be composed of:
(1) An Army National Guard and an Air National Guard which forces, together with an inactive National Guard, when such is authorized by the laws of the United States and regulations issued pursuant thereto, shall comprise the Georgia National Guard;
(2) The Georgia Naval Militia whenever such a state force shall be duly organized; and
(3) The State Defense Force whenever such a state force shall be duly organized.

(c) The state reserve list and the state retired list shall include the persons who are lawfully carried thereon and such persons as may be transferred thereto or placed thereon by the Governor in accordance with this chapter.

(d) Subject to such exemptions to military duty as are created by the laws of the United States, the unorganized militia shall consist of all able-bodied male residents of the state between the ages of 17 and 45 who are not serving in any force of the organized militia or who are not on the state reserve list or the state retired list and who are, or who have declared their intention to become, citizens of the United States.

Thus, most military aged males in the state are in the unorganized militia, whether they realize it or not. To the best of my knowledge, the Georgia Naval Militia has never been organized. The State Defense Force, successor organization to a series of volunteer forces dating back to colonial times, was “re-authorized” in 1973 and is headquartered on Confederate Avenue in Atlanta.

Further, the unorganized militia is subject to O.C.G.A. 38-2-70:

Organizations from unorganized militia: applicable regulations; enlistment and volunteers:

To the extend permitted by the Constitution and laws of the United States, the Governor may:

(1) Order into active state service, recognize existing, or authorize the establishment of organizations of the unorganized militia, of designated classes thereof, or of volunteers therefore, as he may deem to be for the public interest;

(2) Prescribe for those organizations enumerated in paragraph (1) of this Code section such parts of the regulations governing the organized militia as may be applicable thereto or establish such regulations therefor, or both, as he may deem proper; and

(3) Provide for the separate organization of the unorganized militia and authorize the enlistment in such organizations of persons volunteering for such service who are not otherwise subject to military duty under Code Section 38-2-3.

State-level military affairs are administered by the Georgia Department of Defense (and how many readers realized that such a thing even existed?).

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Damned If They Didn’t Do It Again

At its voting session earlier this month, the Athens-Clarke County Commission passed yet another development moratorium (unanimously, of course). I must confess that I let this one slip by me, only realizing what had happened by reading about it in the current edition of Flagpole (seventh paragraph down).

Consistent with its hasty imposition of a staggering array of other development moratoria in recent years, this item was added to the Commission’s agenda with no public notice, in this case on the day of the voting session itself. I regard this practice, routine though it has come to be, as an affront to good government.

Reads the agenda item in its entirety (see item 37 under New Business on page 2):

Resolution establishing a temporary moratorium on the acceptance of applications for all demolition permits for buildings located within a proposed Reese Street historic district.

Of course, the idea of a moratorium was bandied about at the time the Kappa Alpha fraternity, having the temerity to do precisely what the existing zoning ordinances permitted, tore down those two old houses on Reese Street. Even so, the sudden imposition of the moratorium came as a surprise

The Banner-Herald’s coverage of the moratorium vote, which I completely missed the morning after the fact, consisted of a mere two sentences tacked on to the end of Blake's article concerning the Commission’s June voting session:

A moratorium on issuing demolition permits in the Reese Street neighborhood, added to the agenda at the last minute, passed unanimously. The moratorium is needed because a proposed historic district in the neighborhood is coming up for a vote, and someone could try to circumvent the new district by tearing down a building before it is approved, Commissioner David Lynn said.

We can’t have people “circumventing” the will of our betters on the Commission by obeying the law and exercising their property rights, now can we?

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On The Clarke County Board of Education

With the Clarke County Board of Education continuing its impersonation of a slow-motion train wreck, a few observations come to mind as many commentators in the local media and blogosphere note the need for some new blood on the Board.

The Clayton County School District, which significantly outperforms its Clarke County counterpart in terms of graduation rates and AYP scores (and at far less expense, mind you), got into accreditation trouble not because of the academic performance of its students, but due to a variety of administrative problems. It seems that we now have the worst of both worlds here in the Classic City, low student achievement coupled with administrative chaos.

It is sad that a debacle of this magnitude was required to get folks exercised about what has happened to the school system. As I noted over at Jmac’s earlier in the week (scroll down to the 5th comment):

With the exception of the mayor's office, during the last election cycle the only contested spots on either the Commission of the Board of Education were the open seats (District 1 and 9 on the Commission and District 5 on the BOE). So, implied (as opposed to actual) satisfaction with incumbents is the norm.

Be that as it may, those who may be contemplating a run for office need to remember that Board districts do not correspond to Commission districts. A comparison can probably best be seen at the precinct level.

Lastly, the Board of Elections has sample ballots for the Democrat and Republican primaries to be held on 15 July. Just why the Dems continue to elect their County Committee this way eludes me; is such a practice still common in other counties?

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