I can't comment on this because I don't wrte as good as y'all but I believe Huck is right Big Jim.

Don't want to be the village idiot here but how much will the upkeep be? Who is going to foot that bill? You do know we approved a tennis center that is supposed to be a revenue generator but we had to add $93,000 to this years budget for upkeep or something. If our Leisure Services people were not so lazy we could have made money on that facility and some of the others to help fund the upkeep of this park but forgive them they know not what they do. Oh....get ready for another tax hike.

Why do a search? Waste of tax payer money. The guy has been on the job for 13 years and you want to bring in an unknown? I question whether or not anyone at UGA can make a decision on their on. After all isn't that why we pay these administrator's the big bucks? Make a decision, have some balls.

[quote][b]georgiamom[/b] - @Athens Trojan: Don't think that is how it went down - and I was part of that whole mess. I believe Bethel Homes was placed in the Barrow district so that all districts would have relatively even numbers of disadvantaged children. Without Bethel in the mix over there, the demographics would be very close to the "old" Barrow - primarily white and with only a small percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunch.
[/quote]

So you are admitting that we have rezoned our schools to achieve a certain racial balance? I thought that was illegal now. But you freely admit that the BOE dumbed down Barrow. If our incompetent school staff would get up to date information on their website even a fifth grader could see what they did.

@mpd0.59: The reason is when they redistricted the Cobbham/Boulevard folks successfully lobbied to get the Bethel Homes crowd out of their neighborhood school and sent them to Barrow. Now we are starting to see the results and what the real problem is with the public schools in Clarke County. It is the quality of student that the "affordable housing" crowd wants to attract to Athens. Ain't it amazing that they don't want them to go to school with their kids. Make me go hmmm.

IMG. UGA and Greg Mcgarity should get out of bed with these guys and gals.
They can't hire anyone with any integrity and it makes me wonder about everyone involved in college athletics. Look at the Head coaches from adulteress swim coach to gymnastics to athletic director. WTF

This in and of itself smells bad. I thought the whole idea of local option sales taxes was to get rid of bond interest payments. The school district and the county itself are guilty of not being patient until the money is collected to pay for these projects adding cost to the tax payers. I agree with Mr Garland, unfortunately we have an awful lot of taxpayers who do not pay attention to the board of educations spending habits.

How about utilizing the buildings we have? Maybe we could increase it by uses the facities 7 days a week instead of the 4 days we presently use. Whatever happened to night school? We are a university for Christ sake, THINK!!!!

Moved here from Washinton, so this is what happens when you have too much affordable housing. All the surrounding areas send there poor criminals to Athens

When you have to rely on the color of your jerseys for motivation you got problems. Go ask the Reverend Richt. Wear your traditional uniforms and go out there and kick some ass.

To all the old Georgia Basketball fans that refuse to get behind this coach and these players, go to tech that would be he'll. This coach has more class in his little finger than the one who's son was a cheater. I will support Georgia basketball no matter who the coach is. You fans need to get behind this team and this coach 110% or go support some one else, we don't need or want you. Go Dawgs now go out and kick some uk ass.

He is behind in recruiting this year, ACS is already out in front. Wait, there is no signing period or recruiting, just attracting players. Bet he "attracts" a lot of players because he just might be the best coach in Georgia including the college and pro coaches.

Hold the friggin phone! If you want to save only $40,000 a year, smart people could do that by adjusting the school calendar without a 2 million investment. I wonder how smart these people are who are responsible for educating our children. Quite frankly Jethro could figger this out with his 6th grade education.

Congratulations to Kenny Brown, ACCPD and all the employees of Dirty Birds that got accused by management. Management owes employees one bottle each!

Two planning commissioners, of the eight casting votes, said no to the proposal. Planning commissioner Chrissy Marlowe said during the discussion that she had issue with the requested waiver of having buildings more than 10 feet from the roadway.

10 feet from a state highway? What kind of idiot would build a grocery store with no parking? This ain't Alps Rd.
I think this rule of building all buildings up next to the road should be repealed. Just go look at Family Dollar and Dollar General they would be better off the road, not to mention CVS and George Gibsons.

@TeeWee: I agree except kids shouldn't be charged. We should require anyone over 15 to have a license and the charge should be at least $100 dollars. They should be required to take a bicycle licensing test just as drivers do.

Any mention of getting rid of Bethel Homes? Unfortunately the only land with river frontage on the right side of the river, we use as a c&d landfill off Cleveland ave .

One of Athens best restaurants, I have been there a lot and never had a bad meal.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SQH2711

Well it didn't even take a week and we have our first delay. I don't care to ride in a one engine puddle jumper and like it even less that my tax dollars are being wasted on this. I can't wait to tell all my business partners you can now fly into Athens through Nashville and add a couple of hours to your trip. Honestly, no air service is better than bad air service, we should rethink how we are being perceived with such a rinky dink plane. We can do better.

"The commissioners on the implementation committee — Andy Herod, Harry Sims, Kathy Hoard and Kelly Girtz — and the mayor discussed having the economic development office in the Athens-Clarke County manager’s umbrella, but they didn’t reach any solid conclusion."

Let's see, a professor, retired teacher, secretary, another teacher, and a tax commissioner( government worker). Of course we should increase taxes and create some more jobs. You get the problem of course, no good businessmen are involved in our government. Thus the problem with economic development in Athens. These are the same people that will fight like crazy to keep development of new business out of Athens, just look at their track record.
I do see some better things happening since Nancy has been in office but the rest of these people have all had opportunities to bring development to Athens and they continually vote no.

Just talked to my book in Vegas the over/under on parked cars in this lot is 45.5 daily during the first month and then drops to 35.5 per day. Just reply over or under.

@dowhat: The Economic Development Council, which would also comprise representatives of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, the Athens Downtown Development Authority, the Athens Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Athens-Clarke County Department of Human and Economic Development, the Athens-Ben Epps Airport Authority, and the University of Georgia, would meet monthly to, among other things, “discuss strategy and actions to be recommended to the Center for Economic Development.”

Not one of these entities has done a very good job of economic development. Why would you want to thow more money at them. We should take the first four entities on the list and make them one. Then you might save 1.5 million over 5 years without a tax increase. All these guys want is on the "sugar teet"

I am all for the economic development of Athens, but funding a failing Chamber of Commerce with a tax increase is just about one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of.

Firing squads are cheap and a good criminal deterrent. Put this judge in the unemployment line.

Where is Dirty Harry when we need him? Go ahead....make my day.