In the Loop
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Former Athens Tech President Named Tennessee Chancellor
Photo Credit: Chattanooga State Community College
The Tennessee Board of Regents voted unanimously today to confirm former Athens Tech president Flora Tydings to lead the state's university system, capping a rapid rise that started when she left Georgia less than 18 months ago.
Tydings served as president of Athens Tech from 2003–2015, then served stints as interim president of two other Georgia technical colleges before taking a job as president of Chattanooga State Community College in July 2015.
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11 Days of Christmas: Athens Defeats Campus Carry
As the Flagpole staff takes a much-needed break over the holidays, we're reposting 11 of our most popular, most important, funniest and/or otherwise noteworthy stories of this most dismal of years. Look for a new post each day through Jan. 2.
It almost seems like a minor issue now, given what's about to be unleashed by the Trump Administration, but last spring UGA was up in arms (bad pun intended) about a bill to legalize guns on college campuses.
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11 Days of Christmas: Puppy Love
As the Flagpole staff takes a much-needed break over the holidays, we're reposting 11 of our most popular, most important, funniest and/or otherwise noteworthy stories of this most dismal of years. Look for a new post each day through Jan. 2.
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Huge New Playground Opens at Southeast Clarke Park
Photo Credit: Blake Aued
Athens-Clarke County officials and scores of parents and children braved frigid weather Friday to celebrate the re-opening of the all-new World of Wonder playground at Southeast Clarke Park.
The 2.5 acre playground is a replacement for the original World of Wonder, Athens’ first “destination playground,” which drew people not only from all over the county, but the region as well.
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New Downtown Athens Hotel 'Tops Out'
Photo Credit: Blake Aued
Hyatt Place general manager Angela Smith gives a tour of the still-under-construction Hyatt Place.
Don't book your room just yet, but the new hotel next door to the Classic Center reached a milestone today, as local tourism officials and event organizers from across the Southeast gathered to celebrate the Hyatt Place's "topping out."
The nine-story, 200-room hotel's structural elements are now in place, although it won't officially open until late May or June.
Hyatt Place guests will spend $13.5 million per year, creating a $20 million economic impact, according to Mayor Nancy Denson. Seven hundred people are employed in its constrution, and the hotel will employ 75 people permanently, Denson said.
Along with other downtown hotel projects—a SpringHill Suites next door to the Holiday Inn and a Homewood Suites at The Mark, a student-housing development under construction on Oconee Street—the Hyatt Place will bring the number of hotel rooms downtown to 1,360, with another 385 rooms under construction in other parts of the city, according to Athens Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Chuck Jones.
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Sunday Booze Is Now Legal in Oconee County
^Everyone in Oconee County this morning.
Restaurants, groceries and convenience stores in Oconee County currently selling beer, wine and alcoholic drinks are free to do so on Sunday.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners changed the county’s alcoholic beverage ordinance on Tuesday night by adding hours for sales on Sundays, but did not require license holders to get new licenses.
So all the existing license holders needed to do on Sunday was ring up the sales when customers brought the beer and wine to the cash registers or fill the drink orders when customers made them.
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What Would You Fund With a Local Transportation Tax?
Photo Credit: Joshua L. Jones/file
Athens-Clarke County will host a public forum Wednesday from 7–8 p.m. at the ACC Library for people with questions or comments about an upcoming sales-tax referendum for transportation.
The Transportation Special Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST) will be on the Nov. 7, 2017 ballot. If approved, it will raise an estimated $104 million over five years to spend on roads, bridges, sidewalks, bike lanes and paths and public transit.
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Horton Wins Oconee Commission Seat
Former commissioner Chuck Horton defeated Marcus Wiedower by a 520-vote margin Tuesday night in the special election runoff for the open Post 2 seat on the Oconee County Board of Commissioners.
Horton carried seven of the county’s 13 precincts, including the two largest, to get 56.8 percent of the vote overall.
A total of 3,845 voters cast a ballot, representing 15.6 percent of the county’s 24,657 registered voters.
In other county action tonight, the Board of Commissioners postponed a decision on a requested rezone in the western part of the county for a solar farm.
The board also approved a change in the county’s alcohol ordinances to allow for Sunday sale of beer and wine in groceries and convenience stores and beer, wine and alcoholic drinks in restaurants. The ordinance goes into effect immediately.
For more, visit Oconee County Observations.
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