My name is David Lynn and I’m a candidate for the fifth district seat in the Athens-Clarke County Commission. I’m a resident of the Cobbham neighborhood and I’m employed by the University of Georgia as a public service assistant. My professional background includes city planning, market research, retail site selection, and information technology. In 1999, I became co-chair of an organization called Citizens for Healthy Neighborhoods. CHN was formed in order to negotiate a compromise between Athens Regional Medical Center and the surrounding neighborhoods over the hospital’s expansion plan. As originally proposed, that plan would have destroyed many homes and severely damaged the integrity of several neighborhoods. In the end, an agreement was reached that was beneficial to both sides. The hospital has built the facilities it needed in a far more cost-efficient manner and as a result, the neighborhood was preserved. I learned several things from my experience with CHN and from going door-to-door in this campaign. First, our neighborhoods are extremely vulnerable to outside development pressure. Second, our neighborhoods are usually the last to know about plans and decisions that directly affect their future, and third, our representation seems not to understand that the health of our community is greatly determined by the health of our neighborhoods. Therefore, I decided to run for the District 5 commission seat because I feel our neighborhoods need a stronger voice in the decisions that directly affect their future.

I’m Hugh Logan; I am the current commissioner of the fifth district. I’m seeking reelection. I have served the district in what I think is a very professional and effective manner. I’m proud of the growth and what we’ve accomplished in the previous term. I made myself very accessible. I think I’ve had the experience and I try to be involved in all the activities of the district. I seek your vote, you as members of the fifth district, in the upcoming November 5 election. I, of course, run on my record. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. In regard to the hospital, it’s located in the fifth district and I’m proud of it and proud of the US Navy Supply Corp School for being there also. They’re two great institutions that we’re proud to have in that district. I ask the people again to look at my record and give me an endorsement term.

Good morning. In the primary, all the mayoral candidates agreed that registration of rental property in single family zoning was necessary. How do you two feel about that?

I definitely agree with registration of rental properties. All our landlords know what the rules are and it seems like they’ve been playing a cat and mouse game with the community for far too long. We permit other businesses; there’s no reason why we can’t provide a permit for landlords, especially those in single-family neighborhoods, and those fees can go towards inspection, enforcement, the marshal’s office, etc., and if the landlord doesn’t comply with the ordinances, he loses his license. It’s a good tool for keeping the kind of control that we need over an abundance of rental housing.

Well, I’m still studying that particular issue. I know there is a proposal and we’ve just had a study that’s been made as recently as September 25—when it was submitted to the government. We’ve got quite an interesting community here with some 100,000 population and some 33,000 of that happens to be students who either have to rent—most of them do not buy homes, so they’re not owners, and at least some large number then, out there, of what we term as current Athenians or people that’s here full time and we’ve got a pretty high percentage that rent in that regard. As far as putting a new fee, just if it’s a revenue producing thing, I’d be a little skeptical of that right at this time until I see more about it. We have a record through the tax commissioner’s office and other data that we can tell how many rental houses—how many rental units—are out there. We know the complete number of units that we have, so I don’t know, I got to study that further before . . . I don’t believe in adding any new fees or taxes unless we just have to.

Non partisan elections . . . what’s your feeling’s on it?

I’m for it, I endorse it. Of course, the final decision will be made up by our local delegation to the Georgia General Assembly who has the authority, the right, to introduce the legislation or not to introduce it. But as far as my recommendation to the delegation, I would recommend that we do it and put a referendum on it and let the people express themselves. I think that’s the way—if they have a right to elect the officials, they ought to have the right to express themselves on that issue.

I disagree. I support bi-partisan elections for this community. I think it sends a strong signal to voters which side of any issue you’re going to stand on. It’s true that the national partisan labels may not have a lot to do with the issues we face at the local level, but it certainly sends a signal to voters how you may or may not stand on a particular issue. Certainly, folks that may be on the democratic side feel differently than Republicans on issue of the environment, land use, things like that, and I think that’s what people need to know. I don’t think that it’s something that’s broken in Athens. We have a long history of bi-partisan elections here and I think we should support it.

As our government was being formed some 12 years ago, there were many committees, and many studies, and many meetings were held in regard to consolidation. At that time, when the charter was written, the forefathers agreed to put non-partisan elections in the charter. It went to Atlanta and then it was kind of held up there and changed. Our first election, the group of representatives for the new government, was non-partisan in November, and it was changed then by the legislature subsequently.

I’m wondering if, for both of the candidates, do you think we have an affordable housing problem in Clarke County, and if so, what would you propose to do about it as commissioner?

I think we definitely have an affordable housing problem in Clarke County and we need to do more to address that issue. The guiding principles of our land use plan advocated a housing survey every five years and I think that’s something that we need to take up. I know that an affordable housing study was just issued by the Department of Housing and Economic Development and I think what we need to do is to encourage developers to provide a mix of housing types within their development and make that more affordable to middle to lower class residents and I think we need to work harder on preventing sprawl that makes that type of development more expensive.

Well I think we have to define affordable. What’s affordable to you may not be affordable to me. I think we have a greater problem of affordable salaries and affordable income than we do of housing. We have unfortunately so many that cannot afford even the most economical of housing and of course that’s where subsidies come in and other rents and stuff, and things like that. But there is segment of our population that do have economic problems to provide the type of house with the conditions of safety and sanitation and everything that they need. This is being a very . . . at this minute worked on in this community because it was brought to light on one or two previous occasions and the government is working on that now to try to assist the private sector in being sure that the numbers are there to take care of the needs of all.

In your opening statement, you asked that voters look at your record to make their decision on whether or not to support you. When I look at your record, I see that in 1990 you voted to re-zone four single-family homes on King Avenue—my neighborhood—to offices and you also did not support me when my home was to be demolished by the Athens Regional Medical Center’s expansion. Why should I or my neighbors vote for you if you won’t vote for me?

Well I tell you, the hospital is a great institution here in this community. I am very proud that it’s here and the degree of health care that it affords is offered to you and to me and to our fellow citizens. Naturally, when you get improvements in the field of medicine and technology, medical procedures and so forth, you’re going to have to have additional space and then, too, the draw to come as sophisticated as that facility has and offer the type of services it does, it has to have more space and you don’t pick up an institution like that and just move it. I know that they did get some additional property and I would predict regardless of who’s representing the fifth district or in the mayor’s chair or anything else in the future that they will be acquiring some more property because it’s there to stay and I think the same thing’s true of St. Mary’s. As the population increases, there’ll be a greater need for more space.

Well, Amy, that’s exactly why I’m in this race. I think that what Mr. Logan is suggesting is that oftentimes we have community values perhaps that override a particular neighborhood. From my view, it’s completely opposite. Our neighborhoods are the most important building blocks of our community and the hospital is only going to suffer if its surrounding neighborhoods decline. As far as the analogy to St. Mary’s, St. Mary’s is doing a great job with its expansion plan by staying with commercial property and that’s what we at CHN advocated to the regional medical center. There was plenty of available commercial property directly across the street. Sure, it’s easier to develop residential property because its cheaper, but an institution as large as ARMC can certainly afford to develop some of those vacant commercial properties across Prince and we just need to hold the line on the related uses that are attractive to the hospital. Doctor’s offices need to realize that they’ve got to stay in commercial zones and not expand into the neighborhoods.

Well, I don’t want to stray from the subject about Athens Regional because I think . . . I’d like to know what they think about the Barrow report and what do they also think about having some kind of . . . having the hospital board be responsible people now—elected responsible people—that will make responsible decisions and not give Athens Regional an open check. What do they think about these?

That was one of the main things that we were advocating and the interesting thing about the Barrow report to me is that here we had an elected official, our representative to the county commission, who actually had to file an open records request against the public hospital to get any kind of information and even at that time, it was heavily censored. There’s no question that ARMC is a quality hospital and does a great job and the employees over there are first-rate. We are lucky to have ARMC in our community. However, they’ve got to realize that the public has questions that they’re just going to have to answer and the theme of this campaign is certainly transparent government and they need to come on up to the plate and demonstrate this is what we’re doing and this is why. They need to bring some sunshine into that organization. We’re not going to bite them we want them to continue to be a great hospital, but we just need to know some answers, that’s all.

Well, it’s an authority and as any other authority, the downtown authority, the Classic Center and others operate that way. The commission appoints the members and there’s as much sunshine, I guess, in that organization as there is in other authorities and its not unusual for government to have it the state has the (unintelligible) Island Authority, the Stone Mountain Authority, the Jekyll Island Authority and various other things that . . . and I don’t know, I’ve never heard of any of them being elected. I guess you could set up an election procedure. It seems to be back and forth whether you have an elected school superintendent or whether you have an appointed school superintendent on the state level and also the county level. I guess you could have an elected school board. You could have an elected Department of Transportation board but the organization of these particular things are pretty much guided by local demand and also by state law and the state law is that the authority has the right . . . now it was a previous county hospital which was without an authority and was operated out of the commissioner’s office with a manager of the hospital. Now I’m thankful to say I was one of them that voted to change that to make it an authority. I’ve never regretted making it an authority because we’ve had some very highly capable people out there operating as far as the authority members.

I’d like to respond to that. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the idea of authorities of ARMC. I think the problem is that the appointments to that authority are pretty much rubber stamped by the commission. Rubber stamped that we get one nominee from the hospital and we’re just supposed to just rubber stamp that and send it along and I think we need to put a different type of person on the authority—one that has some neighborhood interests in mind as well as the hospital interests.

I have a question for Mr. Logan. I guess I should point out that this is the same question I directed to the Republican candidate for District 7 on Wednesday. Friends of Five Points mailed out a questionnaire to all the local candidates way back in late July. Mr. Logan received his on August 1 and, just to remind your listeners, the questionnaire contained several questions dealing with neighborhood protection issues which I think that you can tell from earlier calls is a pretty important topic during this election season. Now, most of the candidates returned the questionnaire including, I should point out, Mr. Lynn whose comments were quite extensive, but Mr. Logan did not return the questionnaire and my question to him is why?

Because I got about 10 or 15 questionnaires from every two people that named themselves, gave themselves a title and a committee or something and I didn’t have the time because I wasn’t running until November and that was for the primary and I just didn’t have the time to fill out all those questions and I wasn’t in the race at that time. I was out trying to get signatures to run as an Independent which I’m doing and you were talking about the party primaries and I’m running as an Independent which will be November 5 and if you live in the fifth—you said you lived in Five Points, I guess,—but I’d certainly appreciate you voting for me if you lived in the fifth.

I have a question for the two candidates running. On Baxter Street, they have the government housing there and it’s really close to the student dormitories there and it seems like there’s been a big problem over the years—rape cases—and I don’t know whose genius idea it was in the first place to put them right beside each other. I wanted to know if either one of the candidates were going to address that problem.

I was not aware of that. I know the Housing Authority’s moving their headquarters out there on Rocksprings but you said on Baxter . . .

I think he’s talking about the Rocksprings area.

The headquarters for the Housing Authority is being built there on Rocksprings and I don’t know of any particular problem that it’s presented so far. If there is some, I’d like to hear about it; although I don’t represent that district, I’m interested in the entire county and I’ll certainly check into it.

Well, I’m not aware of any problems either that the Rocksprings community presents to the University community. We have to realize that even though the Rocksprings community may not look like the neighborhoods that we were brought up in, that’s a neighborhood that’s been in Athens for a long time and it’s a community that’s developed there. The University has conflicts with a lot of neighborhoods surrounding it, including the Five Points neighborhood. So, we need to recognize that Rocksprings and other public housing areas like that are neighborhoods and have special needs and we need to preserve them in Athens.

Some of the Athens-Clarke County residents fear that we can’t keep our economy strong and our property taxes down if we elect someone who’s in favor of smart growth. What are the candidate’s opinions about that?

Well, let me ask you what’s your definition of smart growth so they’ll know what they’re answering?

That would be compact . . . growth, transportation . . . options.

I think I know what she’s talking about there.

Are you OK with this Mr. Logan? I’m not sure I understand what she’s asking.

Well, we’re in an era of time when that is the catch type thing now. It’s like other things that we go through. As Mr. Russ used to say, we go through these silly seasons when we have these various things and this clustering and this type of smart growth and this type of open space and so forth is very much an issue now but I think that she’s picking up on what is being talked about in news media and other and its means much to many different people, I mean different things to different people.

Well there’s nothing silly about good planning and I think that’s what smart growth is all about is rejection of the sprawl policies of the past and as far as our economy and the burden placed on our property owners, there’s nothing more expensive than urban sprawl. As we develop the periphery of our county, that requires a greater public investment in infrastructure to serve those areas so if we can employ smart growth, and I realize that’s been a misapplied term, but if we can employ good planning and centralize planning within our urban areas and not sprawl out into the countryside, we can create a great community that people want to live in and start businesses in and we don’t have to place an undue burden on our taxpayers through extending infrastructure where it didn’t exist.

John, I might add, we’ve got a great community here of people clamoring to get in and then they come in with different ideas that they’ve had from other areas, but we’ve got an ideal community here and that’s the reason it attracts people is we have such a great community.

Athens has a wonderful heritage of historic buildings and neighborhoods. How can we preserve that heritage without stifling businesses that provide our vital economic foundation? I’d like to address that to both candidates.

I think part of what makes Athens successful to businesses is that it presents a great product in the sense that if we take care of Athens, people are going to come here and I think we need to strengthen our historic preservation ordinances to cover downtown and to cover areas that may not necessarily want to be part of the preservation district. If the community sees an area as an area that needs to be preserved because of architectural or social heritage, then we need to make the hard decision and include that entire area within a preservation district. We can’t let people just pick and choose who wants to be part of the district. But we do need to include some kind of design or preservation ordinance for our downtown or we’re really going to lose something special.

I talked a little different stance on that. I’m a big believer in property rights. As long as a person owns a piece of property, pays the tax on it, and keeps it in a condition that’s conducive to other properties in the community, then we shouldn’t step in and try to take that property out and impose all kind of restrictions on it. If it’s so historic and meets the criteria and demand, buy it, and we the people buy it, rather than . . . or some incentive to that person to come along and cooperate with whatever the plan might be but I’ve seen very close treading on property rights as far as I’m concerned about people that don’t want to be in a district that puts a lot of additional requirements on them and they’re forced in it just by a decree of government.

Well, I disagree. That argument could be extended to a lot of things—the government requires different parts of town to develop in a certain way through zoning ordinances. That’s why we have zoning, so we don’t have to buy all the properties to direct what type of development we want there and, as far as incentive, my goodness, I think the most desirable portions of town are in historic districts and there certainly aren’t any historic districts that are suffering as far as their property values are concerned so I think it’s a great incentive for property owners to be in a historic district because it certainly makes it more attractive to a buyer.

If I might just respond to that. I think the same rule that brings a person in ought to let the person out. I know we’ve had and I’ve voted over on Dearing Street to bust a block to make a historic house in the middle of the house that way because the owner wanted it and I looked at it as being the right of the individual—if he wanted it to be a historic house—so I voted that way. But at the same time, had he been in a middle of a block in an historic district and wanted out, he ought to have that right to get out.

That is directly my point. I like what Mr. Lynn is saying—I want him to stay on his point because as Mr. Logan said, Athens is attractive, and a lot of people want to come here, well they ain’t going to want to come here after there ain’t nothing going to be left to come to. We know what the area of Athens was like before desegregation—a lot of these communities are virtually gone, they are changing and something needs to be done. The process needs to change. We know it all boils down to land and zoning and who’s got the most money, who can buy the most property to do whatever with, but if we’re going to value our communities, we must come up with a different way of preserving communities. It doesn’t impress me to watch houses that have been in communities for 30, 40, 50, 60 years and they’re sitting there and they’re falling down when some process could come up where some incentive could be there for somebody to do something—some group, some committee—preserve the house and likewise you preserve the community, you preserve the value, and particularly these communities that are close to ones like Cobbham and other districts that really have nice homes in them and they have a lot of value, so I’m pro-Mr. Lynn. I like Mr. Logan’s point, but take the forced bid out—nobody wants to force anybody to do anything, but I think if people get educated, if our zoning officers don’t wait until people come and then once they come, they’re like here’s what we’ve been waiting for somebody to come and do this. We can’t work that way.

I realize that our commissioners—no matter what district they’re in—they are working for the whole of Clarke County and I appreciate that, but I’ve also noticed in the last several years that those others who live from Oglethorpe Avenue down to Broad Street are between two entities that are part of our county and they seem wanting to be the only two parts, but as you say, the neighborhoods, the people are the reason for this county. I know there was a time when the University was not only the University, but it was the local government.

Do you want to form a question out of this?

What I want to say is don’t let us be squeezed by these two entities and just remember all the people of all of the county.

A very good point and I think what Elizabeth is implying is that our in-town neighborhoods are really important and one of the reasons why I’m in this race is that it’s hard to relax as an in-town resident knowing that the hospital or the University is breathing down you neck, and those institutions are great institutions and that’s one of the reasons why we’re all here, but those institutions are only going to be better off if they’ve got great neighborhoods around them.

Miss Elizabeth, I know that you know that they are two great institutions and I agree with you about we need to keep in between and guard our neighborhoods and neighbors, but it’s ironic that between those two entities that you mentioned, they’re the number one and number two employer in this county. The payroll for the University is in excess of $500 million, I am told, and then when you take what they multiply for is the students and other things that contribute to the economy. It is a real factor in this community as far as offering jobs and for bringing people into the community. That same thing is true for number two which is the Athens regional hospital. It’s the second largest employer and I can’t tell you what that budget is, but it’s in the millions, and it’s a big economic factor in the community also and also to those neighbors of ours in between these two institutions offer certainly a lot of the jobs.

Yeah, and after break, I have another question about the University, but Dave, real quick . . .

I don’t really think the two are mutually incompatible. Most of the people that live around the hospital actually work for the hospital. They want a great neighborhood so they can walk to their jobs and likewise with the University. I think we can have great neighborhoods and great institutions.

As an interested citizen from Athens, Georgia, I’d like to ask a general question. Mr. Logan has served this community for more than forty years on the state level, on the county level, on the city level with great distinction. I would like to find out a little more about from David as to what he has done to contribute to this community over the last 30 or 40 years.

Well, I don’t think he’s 40 years old yet. Are you David?

I’m 40 years old. Thanks Tom, that’s a great question and no doubt Mr. Logan has served this community honorably almost continuously since 1959 and I applaud him for that proud record of public service—we just disagree on the issues. Now to answer you question, my background is in city planning. I think I bring a perspective to the government that perhaps some of the other commissioners don’t have and I’ve been a neighborhood activist in my neighborhood for a long time. I think if you ask people that know me and were involved in the hospital issue, they would tell you that I took both sides of the issue very seriously; I wasn’t just an advocate for one side and couldn’t see the other side. I think we worked a compromise that worked out great for the neighborhoods and the hospital. The hospital has a more compact campus and more cost efficient and the neighborhoods are still preserved and I think what I bring to the commission is the ability to seek consensus and to see both sides, but having that background in city planning, I know what’s at stake here and I look forward to working with you.

I was wondering since the elected officials represent the citizens of the community, I was wondering what plans you guys have in getting input from the citizens on different issues and, more specifically, since Hugh Logan has been there for awhile, I was wondering how he has gathered his citizen input for any decisions he has made. And one last question is, I was wondering why did Hugh Logan switch to Independent and why not Republican, maybe based on the views or something, just getting some information.

Mr. Logan, let’s go to you first. Two of the parts of that question were directed at you: "What do you want to do about citizen input?" and "Why did you change parties?"

Well, I tell you, I’m a merchant and right in the middle of the district that I serve. I’m there six days a week, usually from 7:30 to 5:30 and people come in and make a specific trip oftentimes just to bring some kind of question or issue to me or either call or ask me to come out to wherever the problem might be and therefore I receive it that way. I attend community meetings and association meetings, etc., etc., etc., but wherever a group is gathered together and wants me I go.

But why I changed, there’s just no need for partisanship. Once you’re elected, you represent Democrat, Republican, Black, White, voter, non-voter and everybody once you’re elected. You put all that aside and I just don’t see any need of having the mayor and commission having to take a party standard and fly it when actually, at this level, there’s no connection between party and politics and that’s the reason why I changed and I hope that the people change with me and accept me just as individual that will represent them.

David, I guess the question for you then would be citizen input.

I think the results of the last campaign certainly was a mandate for more public participation into our government process and Mr. Logan’s right. He’s met with neighborhood associations and things like that and he’s always accessible at the hardware store, but I think we need to move beyond that. I think Athens is ready for a neighborhood planning system where it institutionalizes, if you will, how the public gets information and processes that back to the decision makers. I think neighborhood planning units . . . I think neighborhoods, for example, often don’t know about development or something that’s about to happen in the neighborhood until they see the sign come up and oftentimes, by that time, the decision’s too late—we can’t convince the developer or the county to change the plan at the late time. So that type of input needs to be taken at the beginning of the process before any hard decision and money has been spent on a particular issue and that includes the county such as what happened with the Classic Center and the land use plan as well as the Carr’s Hill rezoning. That should have been processed through the neighborhoods and probably the developer would have been better off as well as the neighborhoods.

Now as far as non-partisan labels, I think Mr. Logan’s learned through 40 years of government service that you represent everyone once you’re elected and I think that perhaps him running as an Independent, he views that most of the district feels differently about that now and he has a better chance at the general election than at the party primary.

Well I have no formal closing statements—it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me and thank the station for providing this opportunity. I have tried to serve as being a voice of reason on the commission and I’ve tried to serve with distinction and representing all the people and looking at the big picture. I’ve not been an activist in the neighborhood but I’ve been active in the neighborhoods of trying to improve it and trying to make it a better place to live and the quality of life and I respectfully ask the voters in the fifth district to go out and send me back and I’ll give them the same service in the next four years that I’ve tried to give them in the previous four years.

Thank you John. If elected, I’ll make our neighborhood’s health my top priority. To keep our neighborhoods strong and our community healthy, I will work to strengthen the linkage between our decision makers and our neighborhoods. I think its time to develop a formal neighborhood planning system. I will also work for increased attention to the enforcement of quality of life ordinances such as those that deal with noise, parking, traffic, and definition of a family. I will work to strengthen our historic preservation efforts in our community including protection of our downtown. New development must accommodate mixed use and be in accordance with the guiding principles of our comprehensive land use plan. Infill development should be accommodated and encouraged, but with design standards. My platform is based on the notion that Athens is a special place. People choose to live and open businesses here because of our distinct quality of life. Athens is a healthy and growing community and we can accommodate that growth in a fashion that preserves what is good about Athens. There’s no pressing need to accept the mediocre. So thank you and I would appreciate your vote on November 5.