 Welcome to Athens Politics Nerd where we break down commission meetings to bring you the important local news. Rusty pipes are collapsing beneath our roads, Georgia power is raising our energy bills, and police are still arresting people for smoking marijuana. I thought we were going to put a stop to that. Not just yet, but we have made some progress. Let me tell you about it. You can keep up with local news, Georgia politics, and national policy by subscribing. Athena Drive near the Certaintyed facility is closed due to a collapsed culvert pipe underneath the road. These pipes were installed all over Athens about 25 years ago, which was a bad decision because they only last 25 years on average. That means they're all about to start collapsing. The commission approved $690,000 for emergency repair at their meeting on March 3rd, but this is just the beginning. Manager Blaine Williams estimates it will cost about $22 million to repair our stormwater infrastructure over the next 10 years. That means there might be a stormwater fee increase coming soon. But not if Commissioner Obita Thornton has anything to say about it. I totally agree. This is very important and this urgent for the whole community, but I hope our staff is looking at other ways we can fund this. So people of the lowest economic spectrum are not overloaded. The new culverts will be made of concrete, which has a much longer lifespan. Moving on, have you heard that Georgia Power is raising our energy bills? Yep, about $6 a month this year, with more increases planned over the next two years. They're doing this to make us pay to clean up their coal ash pollution. Elections for Public Service Commissioner are important, you guys. Anyway, our county commissioners and sustainability officer Andrew Saunders have decided to step up to help us by starting a community energy fund. That passed at the March 3rd meeting as well. But what is a community energy fund? Well, right now it's a pot of money that doesn't exist yet. But the intention is to help people improve their homes by using incentives for energy efficiency. ACC might also buy solar panels to sell electricity direct to consumers at a reasonable rate. This will all be paid for by diverting some of the franchise fees that governments charge utilities for the use of public space. Future increases in franchise fee collections, if any, will from now on be diverted to the community energy fund for use in the community. Awesome. Now it's time to talk about drugs. Don't do drugs kids, don't do it. But if you do, I don't think you should go to jail. Jail may be a buzz kill, but it really won't help anything. And I thought our new progressive Mayor and Commission agreed with that. Don't they? I mean, I guess they do. But they've had over a year to decriminalize cannabis and they haven't done it yet. So what gives? It's definitely possible in Georgia. There are communities who have already passed a parallel ordinance to more or less decriminalized cannabis. It gives prosecutors the option of a civil penalty, like a $75 parking ticket. Instead of a criminal penalty, like arrest and jail time. It's not full decriminalization because the state law is still in effect, but it gets us close. So why haven't we done it? ACC Solicitor General, C.R. Chisholm, feels that allowing the lesser penalty would be a violation of his oath of office to uphold state law. He's already said that he would ignore a parallel ordinance, even if the commission passes one, and would opt for the harsher state penalty instead. So that's lame. But some commissioners feel we should go ahead and pass a parallel ordinance now anyway. There's no reason why we shouldn't go ahead with a parallel ordinance. We might not have other elected officials that don't see eye to eye with us about enforcing a parallel ordinance around cannabis possession, but let's make it their problem that ours. This body has the power, and therefore the responsibility, to pass a parallel ordinance to further decriminalize marijuana possession under an ounce. I feel confident that most of this body, if not all, supports that. A parallel ordinance isn't happening anytime soon. Even so, I have some good news to report. The commission, in coordination with Solicitor Chisholm, has developed a new program called Pre-Arrest Diversion, or PAD. Pre-Arrest Diversion discussed PAD at a recent meeting of the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement. Pre-Rest Diversion is pretty much in the title. This is a way of addressing behavior that led to law enforcement interaction, but without creating an arrest or a charge that shows up on a criminal history or conviction. Basically, instead of going to jail for cannabis possession, or for another low-level offense like shoplifting, you'd probably be able to opt into the PAD program as an alternative. And for cannabis, if it was a first-time offense, you'd get off just by paying a $75 fee and taking a three-hour online course. Drugs are bad, you shouldn't do drugs, if you do them, you're bad. If you couldn't afford the $75, you could even choose eight hours of community service instead. I caught up with Commissioner Tim Denson, who's on the Pre-Arrest Diversion Committee, to get his take on it. This is going to let us have a more flexible, and therefore had the potential at least, to have more humane and compassionate reactions, requirements for people, rather than doing something that's actually creating more harm than is good, which is like having them be sent to jail or pay tons of fines or be put on probation, and then, again, probation is not free, so you're actually paying for that probation. So I have high hopes for this. It's really kind of come down to how it's implemented. This program definitely has its critics. One issue is that it's entirely up to the police and the solicitor to decide whether you would even be accepted into the program. I do have some, you know, reservations regarding things like, you know, the officer discretion with whether or not someone is deemed as a threat, and therefore when that they choose to go through with the PAD or to arrest someone, I think that on racial grounds that could be weaponized against certain communities. Beyond outright discrimination along racial lines, most with a felony or prior conviction are out. Sorry. And once you've made it through the program once, it gets harder to be invited in a second time. For a third offense, you've got to get the explicit approval of both the solicitor and the police chief, or you're going to jail. Don't get me wrong, it's a good program. It's a very exciting program. I think it's groundbreaking in its use in Georgia in the way that we're crafting it through the needs of this community and is going to be broadly beneficial. But there are flaws, which makes it all the more frustrating that Mayor Gertz and Solicitor Chisholm are blocking further steps towards criminalization. But that being said, I think PAD will be effective in stopping some people from going to jail and from having an arrest on their record. It's a big step forward from where we are, even if it doesn't quite get us to where we need to go. We have to keep at it. We'll get there eventually. Hey, smash that like button for me if you like this video. And thanks to all my patrons who make these videos possible.