Blog posts by Blake Aued, Editor
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The Loop's Prince Avenue Interchange Is Open Again
Blog: In the Loop
Just in time for the deluge of cars rolling into town for the Georgia-Missouri game Saturday night, the Georgia Department of Transportation has reopened two ramps at the Loop-Prince Avenue interchange.
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Beware the UGA Homecoming Parade
Blog: In the Loop
Photo Credit: UGA News Service
Traffic will get pretty hairy in the downtown area this afternoon as UGA’s homecoming parade gets underway.
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Water Main Breaks on Jefferson Road
Blog: In the Loop
Photo Credit: Jeff Montgomery
A water main break in western Athens has forced authorities to close part of the Loop and advise some residents to boil water before drinking or cooking with it.
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Creature Comforts Re-Releases Automatic Pale Ale Today
Blog: Grub Notes
It wasn't automatic that Creature Comforts would bring back its Automatic pale ale, but they're doing it, and the first kegs will get tapped today.
The release party kicks off at the Hancock Avenue brewery from 5–8 p.m. with food from White Tiger and music by New Orleans jazz band Roamin’ Jasmine. It then moves to Normaltown for live music, beer and beer cocktails at Normal Bar, Hi-Lo and Old Pal. Prints and T-shirts by Double Dutch Press will be for sale, too.
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UGA Is Giving Ryan Seacrest a Doctorate
Blog: Culture Briefs
The doctor will see you now.
That’s Dr. Ryan Seacrest to you.
The “American Idol” host is the speaker at UGA’s spring commencement ceremony May 13. The university will also bestow upon him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, which “is given to recognize a person who has a sustained record of achievements of lasting significance.”
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Urban Outfitters Asks Employees to Work for Free
Blog: In the Loop
Photo Credit: Joshua L. Jones/file
Here’s some more fuel to throw on the Urban Outfitters fire.
The clothing retailer’s Philadelphia-based parent company, URBN, recently asked salaried employees at its corporate headquarters to “volunteer” at a Pennsylvania warehouse to pack packages for shipping, labeling the free labor a “team building activity.”
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A Grand Jury Is Investigating Paul Broun and Jody Hice
Blog: In the Loop
"Did you really think you'd get away with this?" the lion asked Paul Broun.
A federal grand jury in Macon is looking into whether former Rep. Paul Broun and his successor, Rep. Jody Hice, misused taxpayer funds by mixing official business with their campaigns.
Consultant Brett O’Donnell is facing five years in prison for lying to investigators. Broun’s congressional office paid O’Donnell $43,000 in taxpayer money to prepare Broun for debates when he ran for Senate last year. At the urging of Broun’s chief of staff, David Bowser, O’Donnell initially told investigators that he was a volunteer on Broun’s campaign, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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Commission Puts Food Truck Ordinance on Hold
Blog: In the Loop
Photo Credit: Joshua L. Jones/file
Atlanta's Mix'd Up Burgers at a downtown Athens food truck festival last month that drew 6,000 people.
A proposal to allow food trucks to set up shop downtown one day a week is on hold after brick-and-mortar restaurant owners complained.
The Athens-Clarke County Commission voted 6–5 Tuesday night to hold the ordinance for 30 days while they hear concerns from restaurant owners. Commissioners Jared Bailey, Diane Bell, Sharyn Dickerson, Harry Sims and Allison Wright and Mayor Nancy Denson voted for the delay; commissioners Andy Herod, Mike Hamby, Jerry NeSmith, Melissa Link and Kelly Girtz voted against it because they wanted to pass the ordinance immediately.
The ordinance would allow six food trucks to park around City Hall on a first-come, first-serve bases on Tuesdays for a $200 fee.
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Ort's Trial Is Monday
Blog: In the Loop
Photo Credit: Blake Aued/file
Well-known local writer, DJ, record collector and beer connoisseur William Orten "Ort" Carlton will go to trial Monday in Athens-Clarke County Municipal Court on charges of having a bunch of crap in his yard.
Ort will face a probation-revocation hearing stemming from citations he received for violating local quality-of-life ordinances last October. He spent a night in jail last month after Judge Leslie Spornberger Jones ruled that he hadn't done enough to clean up his property in the ensuing months, in spite of several extensions.
"Our main goal is compliance," County Attorney Bill Berryman said after a brief hearing this afternoon to set a trial date. "We don't want to punish them [people who are cited by the Community Protection Division]. We want them to fix it."
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Hey! The Plans for St. Joe's Don't Look Half Bad
Blog: In the Loop
Photo Credit: Davis Property Group
Rejoice, ye townies, for the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church property shall not be maxed out with more student apartments.
Plans submitted Friday by Greenville, SC-based Davis Property Group show a 192,000 square-foot mixed-use development (not including parking) with commercial space fronting Prince Avenue and 146 one- and two-bedroom apartments above and behind it, all in three-story buildings.
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Whatever You Do, Stay Away from Campus Saturday
Blog: In the Loop
Football game days in Athens are always intense, but the Georgia-Alabama game this weekend has the potential to be pure pandemonium. Hide the women and children, board up your windows and hunker down.
“The high-profile 3:30 p.m. game in Sanford Stadium is expected to draw one of the largest crowds of the past couple years,” according to a UGA news release.
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Police Make Arrest in Greenway Attack
Blog: In the Loop
Athens-Clarke County police arrested Pedro Alvarado, 43, on Tuesday in connection with a reported assault on the North Oconee River Greenway.
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Alice Walker Fans Disappointed by Lack of Tickets for UGA Event
Blog: Culture Briefs
Alice Walker fans who waited in drizzly weather this morning for tickets to the writer’s upcoming talk at the Morton Theatre left disappointed after learning that UGA held back almost all of the tickets.
Free tickets to “A Conversation with Alice Walker” on Oct. 15 were made available at the Morton Theatre box office at 10 a.m. today.
Several people who waited for tickets said they were told that the UGA Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, which is sponsoring Walker’s two appearances on campus next month, had released only 80 of 500 tickets to the general public. A number of people complained on the event’s Facebook page.
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Athens Power Rankings for the Week of Sept. 28
Blog: In the Loop
Photo Credit: Andy Mitchell/UGA Athletics
Malcolm Mitchell carries the ball during Georgia's 48-6 win over Southern University.
Welcome to Athens Power Rankings. In the spirit of sports rating systems, through painstaking analysis, we rank the top movers and shakers in the Classic City each week. Who's hot? Who's not? Find out below.
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Caterpillar Is Laying Off 10,000 Workers
Blog: In the Loop
Caterpillar announced plans Thursday to lay off 10,000 employees, saving the company about $1.5 billion annually.
The Illinois company’s sales have declined three years in a row. It recently lowered its 2015 outlook by $1 billion and expects 2016 revenue to decline by another 5 percent. CEO Doug Oberhelman attributed this to a slowdown in the mining and energy sectors.
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The UGA Medical Training Class That Killed Dogs Really Lasted Until 2014
Blog: In the Loop
On Monday, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said it was filing a federal complaint about a University of Georgia veterinary college program that trained National Guard soldiers in battlefield medicine using live goats, pigs and dogs.
UGA at first defended the program, then said that it had stopped in 2013.
Tuesday, PETA provided documentation that it said showed that the program had continued on into 2014. When asked about it at a media briefing that day, UGA President Jere Morehead said he didn't have any information to that effect.
But Wednesday, the university released a letter from Vice President for Research David Lee to PETA confirming that the program was not, in fact, completely discontinued until last year.
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Ort's Out of Jail; Here's How He Got There
Blog: In the Loop
Beloved Athens man-about-town William Orten Carlton, aka Ort’s, troubles with Athens-Clarke County regarding the condition of his property stretch back at least 15 months.
After spending the night in the Clarke County Jail on a misdemeanor charge of probation violation, Ort was released on his own recognizance this afternoon, according to attorney Bill Overend. Ort commented on our previous story:
Dearfolk,
I'm back on the street (as of 2:30 this afternoon) and ready to start in working as soon as possible. Thanks for all the concern.
I await the next step: committal proceedings. It's been tried before. Yawn.
Wholeheartedly, Ort.
P. S. I AM crazy, and I'm PROUD of it. And my house is not quite a sty... now that the carport is cleaned out, it's looking more like a residence.
But he still has a ways to go in cleaning up his property to avoid more legal trouble. Overend set up a GoFundMe account to raise money for the cleanup. It raised more than $4,000 in six hours, and Overend has now asked that people stop donating because it’s exceeded the $2,500 goal.
Here’s how Ort got into this pickle, according to ACC Community Protection Division and Municipal Court records:
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Ort Is in Jail
Blog: In the Loop
Well known Athens personality Ort is spending the night in the Clarke County Jail after receiving a series of tickets in recent month over his messy yard.
Ort (born William Orten Carlton) was booked into jail at 10:22 p.m. on a probation violation charge. He's being held without bond.
A warrant was signed out for Ort's arrest after he allegedly received additional quality-of-life citations regarding his property, according to his attorney, Bill Overend. The charge "ultimately amounts to not keeping his yard clean," Overend said in a Facebook post.
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UGA: Program Criticized by PETA No Longer Exists
Blog: In the Loop
Earlier today, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced that it's asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate a UGA medical training program involving dogs, goats and pigs that PETA deemed unethical, unnecessary and possibly illegal.
UGA initially responded that it has reviewed the program—in which Georgia National Guard soldiers trained in field medicine using live but anestheticized animals that were later euthanized—and the program met the university's ethical standards for humane treatment of animals.
Now, however, the university says that the program was discontinued in 2013:
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PETA: UGA Is 'Mutilating' Dogs in Training Course
Blog: In the Loop
Photo Credit: PETA
The animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate a UGA training program in which PETA says “dogs and other animals [are] mutilated and killed in a cruel and archaic training course.”
The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine course trains Georgia National Guard soldiers in field medicine by practicing procedures on 30 live animals, including goats, pigs and dogs. However, “dogs are the preferred animals for this laboratory because of their anatomic similarity to humans,” according to a university document.
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latest stories
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In the Loop | October 16, 2015 8:22pm
The Loop's Prince Avenue Interchange Is Open Again
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In the Loop | October 16, 2015 2:18pm
Beware the UGA Homecoming Parade
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In the Loop | October 16, 2015 10:41am
Water Main Breaks on Jefferson Road
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Grub Notes | October 15, 2015 12:08pm
Creature Comforts Re-Releases Automatic Pale Ale Today
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Culture Briefs | October 14, 2015 11:38am
UGA Is Giving Ryan Seacrest a Doctorate
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In the Loop | October 13, 2015 12:52pm
Urban Outfitters Asks Employees to Work for Free
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In the Loop | October 8, 2015 12:53pm
A Grand Jury Is Investigating Paul Broun and Jody Hice
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In the Loop | October 7, 2015 2:34pm
Commission Puts Food Truck Ordinance on Hold
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In the Loop | October 6, 2015 4:57pm
Ort's Trial Is Monday
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In the Loop | October 5, 2015 4:29pm
Hey! The Plans for St. Joe's Don't Look Half Bad
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In the Loop | September 30, 2015 4:30pm
Whatever You Do, Stay Away from Campus Saturday
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In the Loop | September 30, 2015 12:12pm
Police Make Arrest in Greenway Attack
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Culture Briefs | September 28, 2015 2:52pm
Alice Walker Fans Disappointed by Lack of Tickets for UGA Event
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In the Loop | September 28, 2015 12:23pm
Athens Power Rankings for the Week of Sept. 28
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In the Loop | September 25, 2015 1:04pm
Caterpillar Is Laying Off 10,000 Workers
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In the Loop | September 24, 2015 12:05pm
The UGA Medical Training Class That Killed Dogs Really Lasted Until 2014
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In the Loop | September 22, 2015 4:41pm
Ort's Out of Jail; Here's How He Got There
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In the Loop | September 22, 2015 12:52am
Ort Is in Jail
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In the Loop | September 21, 2015 8:54pm
UGA: Program Criticized by PETA No Longer Exists
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In the Loop | September 21, 2015 4:11pm
PETA: UGA Is 'Mutilating' Dogs in Training Course