ACC meeting

“It’s not a fun thing to do to allocate a shrinking pool of money,” said a commissioner during Tuesday’s meeting of the Athens-Clarke County government. The commission voted 6-4 in favor of a proposal to reallocate ever-shrinking funds made available to the county through a federal grant program.

Alice Kinman of the 4^th District proposed an amendment to the bill that would take a total of $285,000 of funding from humanitarian organizations in favor of programs that would provide what another commissioner called more “concrete results.”

Kathy Hoard of the 7^th District expressed her support for the amendment. Allocating the funds from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), she said, is “an exercise in using scant funds to the best of our ability.”

One of the programs from which some funding would be taken educates potential buyers about homeownership. The program, said Hoard, represents an investment of $111,364 for only 74 participants. Statistics presented later suggested that of those 74, the vast majority would fail to purchase and maintain ownership of a home.

Not all of the commissioners agreed with the amendment’s contents or the fashion in which it was presented. “This is an entirely inappropriate way to conduct business as a government,” said Elton Dodson of the 10^th District, obviously upset that the amendment had been presented so near voting on the bill.

Other commissioners outspokenly upset by the amendment were George Maxwell and Harry Sims. Despite the opposition, however, the bill passed as presented.