Blog Topic: Government

In the Loop: More Student Housing Proposed Downtown

By David Schick | August 8, 2014 10:36am

Photo Credit: Niles Bolton Associates

At the top of the agenda for the Athens-Clarke County Planning Commission Thursday night was a plan for more student housing.

Campus Acquisitions, a company based in Chicago, wants to turn 165 E. Dougherty St. into a five-story mixed use development with retail spaces at ground level and student apartments above. Until recently, an office building on the property housed Advantage Behavioral Health Systems, and it's now occupied by the tech incubator Four Athens.

The biggest concern voiced by the public and the planning commission was the waiver for residential density. The plan would add 81 residential dwelling units, or 237 bedrooms, which is 27 bedrooms too many, according to the current zoning codes.

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In the Loop: Liquor and SPLOST Will Be on the Oconee County Ballot in November

By Lee Becker | August 6, 2014 12:29pm

Photo Credit: Lee Becker

Jimmie Daniell Road at McNutt Creek.

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday night to put both a 1 percent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum and a referendum on liquor by the drink in restaurants on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Commissioners also denied a request for a cell tower on McRees Mill Road in the rural area of the county south of Barnett Shoals Road and postponed action on three agreements with the Georgia Department of Transportation on road projects on Daniells Bridge Road and Jimmy Daniell Road.

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In the Loop: Athens Has the Fourth Busiest Transit System in the U.S.

By Blake Aued | August 4, 2014 11:20am

Photo Credit: Kelly Hart

Athens-Clarke County has the fourth-busiest transit system in the country, according to an analysis by the data journalism website FivethirtyEight.com of National Transit Database numbers.

ACC averaged 99.5 trips per capita in 2013, meaning the average resident boarded a bus about 100 times last year. That figure is based on ridership numbers ACC and 289 other cities report to the Federal Transit Administration in order to receive grants. FiveThirtyEight divided those numbers by 2012 American Community Survey population estimates.

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In the Loop: The Pulaski Greenway Is Now Open

By Blake Aued | August 1, 2014 11:10am

Photo Credit: Blake Aued

Athens-Clarke County officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony this morning for the newPulaski Creek Greenway.

The concrete path—funded by $984,308 from SPLOST 2005—connects the Athens Community Council on Aging, on Hoyt Street off College Avenue, and Pulaski Street near the Leathers Building.

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In the Loop: Is Caterpillar in Cahoots with Gov. Nathan Deal?

By Blake Aued | July 31, 2014 11:10am

Photo Credit: Photo via online.wsj.com

This is a month old, but in light of our recent feature on the progressive group better Georgia and the connection to Athens, it's worth bringing up.

Gov. Nathan Deal has built his campaign around Georgia being ranked the No. 1 state to do business. But Better Georgia implies that Deal is using his political connections—including with Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman, whom Deal gave $44 million in tax breaks to build a plant in Athens—to influence the rankings.

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In the Loop: In Oconee, Few Speak Out on Liquor by the Drink

By Lee Becker | July 30, 2014 10:54am

The Oconee County Board of Commissioners, anticipating a large turnout tonight for its discussion of a liquor-by-the-drink referendum, moved its meeting from the relatively small Commission Chamber to the much larger Courtroom 1, but the change of venue proved to be unnecessary.

Only nine people spoke, with three of them expressing opposition to the proposal to put the issue before voters in November.

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In the Loop: Liquor By the Drink on Oconee Agenda

By Lee Becker | July 28, 2014 3:51pm

Discussion of a liquor-by-the-drink referendum tops a busy agenda of the Oconee County Board of Commissioners Tuesday night that also includes consideration of contracts for three roadway projects, at least one of which has been controversial in the past.

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In the Loop: CDC Accidentally Sends Deadly Flu Virus to Athens

By Blake Aued | July 14, 2014 2:22pm

Photo credit: European Commission.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were supposed to send a relatively mild form of avian flu to the Southeastern Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens for study.

Instead, in an incident officials disclosed Friday, what the CDC actually shipped was an H9N2 sample contaminated with the far more dangerous H5N1 virus, which has killed 375 people since 2002.

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In the Loop: Medical Marijuana Hearings Scheduled in Georgia

By Blake Aued | July 11, 2014 12:39pm

Photo Credit: O'Dea/Flickr

A medical marijuana dispensary in Denver.

A committee of state lawmakers will hold hearings in Atlanta, Macon, Lawrenceville and Augusta later this year on legalizing medical marijuana.

The committee's co-chairman, Rep. Allen Peake (R-Macon), released the following statement today:

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In the Loop: Oconee County Sometimes Enforces the Law

By Lee Becker | July 2, 2014 11:56am

Photo Credit: Lee Becker

The Oconee County Code Enforcement Office issued a sign permit on Friday for two temporary signs on the property being listed for sale at the southeast corner of Highway 316 and the Oconee Connector.

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