When the lights go out in downtown Augusta, is it a precursor of things to come throughout the city?
Lights on Greene Street and lower Broad have been out since last summer, prompting appeals to the Augusta mayor and commissioners, a petition and citizens meeting, but they’re still in the dark.
Opinion
Augusta’s Future Looked Bright
A little over eight years ago, Augusta elected a new mayor and five new commissioners. Voters passed another SPLOST package. Government buildings had been redone and refurbished, including the Marble Palace. Augusta had a new judicial center, library and Tee Center, which was controversial, but has proven to be a great financial investment that has already paid for itself.
In addition, the city partnered with Augusta University, and through a land swap built a new dental school on the site of a former housing project.
The governor had a great interest in Augusta as demonstrated by the Cyber Center. Fort Gordon had continued to grow, and Starbucks and other industries and businesses had come to town.
Augusta is still a city of 200,000, and the government has a budget in excess of a billion dollars. And over the past several years it has spent almost $100 million in COVID money. So why can’t it keep the lights on?
Improvements during Mayor King Hardie Davis’ Reign
Hmmm. This might be a very short section because I can’t think of any, despite the rosy scenario he painted as he walked out the door desperately trying to hang on and still grasping for power. It would obviously be easier to discuss the past eight years if Hardie had kept receipts, and if Maurice McDowell hadn’t lost the file on SPLOST spending at Jamestown Community Center.
To recapture the last eight years of the circus that has been Augusta government, culminating in last week’s emergency meetings, and to blame any one person would be fruitless because it’s been a group effort.
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In most places the buck stops at the top. So, would that be Davis, or could it possibly be one of the five city administrators they’ve had the past eight years? Or can we point our fingers at individuals or groups of commissioners? If this was a multiple choice test, you’d need to check “All of the above.”
It might not be clear exactly whose fault it is, but it is clear that the city seems to be falling apart. It seems as though they can’t get the trash picked up consistently. They’ve turned a moneymaking landfill into a money pit. They can’t keep the grass cut. And instead of hiring a high-school kid to tell them how to do it, they’ll hire a consultant who’ll provide charts, graphs and color-coded forms that cost thousands of dollars and forget to mention they have to put gas in the lawnmowers.
City facilities seem to be falling apart from lack of maintenance. The Augusta Development Authority’s stewardship of Lake Olmstead Stadium has changed it from a Field of Dreams to a nightmare. Diamond Lakes Regional Park is a great place to walk, run and enjoy nature as long as you don’t have to go to the bathroom.
And the Boathouse that stood so majestically on the banks of the Savannah River is barely standing at all now.
Other places, too, such as the Aquatics Center and Riverwalk, are in the same sinking boat. And the answer to gross mismanagement is the commission approving $7 million of your tax money, not to plan for the future, but to correct the mistakes of the past few years made by the recreation department.
The recreation department spent money to cut down trees at the Augusta Common because homeless people were staying there while other parts of city government were spending money finding places for homeless people to stay at local hotels.
Moving Along…
but not too quickly, it seems that Augusta’s fire trucks are having trouble staying on all four wheels.
First of all, wrecking three fire trucks in less than a year can only lead one to question training and supervision. According to an article in The Augusta Chronicle, the drivers in the last two wrecks were not tested for drugs or alcohol use, which city policy mandates.
The debacle of trying to run an ambulance service and the revolt of firefighters who didn’t want to become paramedics and the meddling of Sammie Sias, Ben Hasan, Dennis Williams, Hardie Davis and former Fire Chief Chris James has caused Augusta to come dangerously close to seeing a city of 200,000 people without an emergency ambulance service.
Last week’s commission spectacle involving Gold Cross EMS and the safety of every citizen and visitor in Augusta was a complete and total disgrace. Not only were the politics disgusting, but the behavior of Bully Bobby Williams would have been disrespectful and pathetic if he had been a three-year-old. But for a 60-something-year-old elected official, it was reprehensible. Hard to believe he spent so many years in the Richmond County school system serving as an example to youths.
When one commissioner suggested he be removed from the room for his obnoxious behavior, he continued to shout even louder, “You can’t kick me out!”
Augusta was within days of being without an ambulance service because, after a year-and-a-half, Gold Cross had reached its rope’s end trying to get a contract that would reimburse the company for transporting indigents and non-paying patients. Gold Cross surrendered the zone to the state and announced its departure which meant Augusta would have to come up with another provider immediately.
Geri to the Rescue
During two emergency meetings last week, General Counsel Wayne Brown sat there like a bump on a log and offered little legal guidance to resolve the impasse, and interim Administrator Takiyah Douse spoke only when spoken to. Commissioner Brandon Garrett tried to show some leadership in making a motion to approve a revised contract, only to be accused of negotiating the contract.
It was only with the assistance of Procurement Director Geri Sams that a catastrophe was averted at the last minute. She helped put together a month-to-month contract between Augusta and Gold Cross in only a few minutes, which commissioners approved unanimously.
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How Irregular!
These are just some of the things people in Augusta face today. And believe it or not, I’ve only begun to scratch the surface.
In some cities, the fact that the Director of the Land Bank Authority Shawn Edwards submitted plans for a strip club to be built on city property, which he described in an email as a “personal endeavor,” would end up being a weeks long investigative series of news stories and calls for a grand jury investigation.
In Augusta, it was just one day, and everybody moved on.
Still, I can’t help wondering about those plans being submitted before the revised nude ordinance that Ben Hasan and Dennis Williams proposed was approved by the commission.
If this strip club is built and opened, I’m thinking about sending Ernie in to see if Dennis Williams is a bouncer and Ben Hasan a bartender.
Brighter Days Ahead
There’s always hope for those. Brighter days, I mean. And with new Mayor Garnett Johnson and his staff moving into the Marble Palace, I see more work being done in the past 28 days by Johnson dealing with problems not of his making but left on his plate than in eight years of King Hardie’s reign. Johnson has shown himself to be hardworking, accessible and responsive. I believe he will try to do what he believes is best for Augusta.
Won’t that be something?
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
Sylvia Cooper is a columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
