The usual faux outrage

I've come to increasingly believe that a chunk of business owners in Athens-Clarke County are more concerned with throwing illogical temper tantrums rather than actually make sound assessments of the impact of policy on business. While I can concede that a two-hour parking limit makes more sense to me, and I can also recognize that a one-hour limit or two-hour limit really won't do anything to deter anyone from residing in their parking spot for as long as they desire.

And that's largely because people have to conduct business downtown and, when compared with the private parking options, the fine is still a more cost-effective approach to finding parking. Furthermore, one of the primary reasons the commission opted to take action on this front was to make sure cars didn't sit downtown all day and move them to those alternative options, like the parking decks, which offer more flexible schedules.

Still, you'd think this was the end of the world based on Rusty Heery's response.

But, again, that's not shocking. For the past decade, some Athens-Clarke County business owners - or at least the organizations that represent them - have responded to these types of ordinances in a kneejerk fashion, masking political biases behind the guise of 'that's bad for business.'

If any of this high-and-mighty outrage sounds familiar, it should ... just drop the word 'median' around any business owner in Athens-Clarke County and you'd think the local government was going to send armed guards out to deter shopping. However, there's a funny thing about the whole indignation over medians ... it's localized. There are ample medians along Epps Bridge Road in Oconee County, which is held up as the paradigm of proper government-business relations, and those businesses are booming.

The same holds for other 'pro-business' communities like Gwinnett County, Columbia County, Chatham County, Charlotte, N.C. and so on and so on. These are places that utilize medians, set restrictions on parking, tackle blighted properties and other various parallel challenges that, in Athens-Clarke County, seem to be absurdly blown out of context by a vocal few.

Now, as I've argued before, I have acknowledged that there is a widespread perception that Athens-Clarke County is 'anti-business' and, while I personally believe much of that perception is not reality-based, I also acknowledge that some of the criticism is grounded in truth (and must be addressed). However, after observing local politics for the better part of the past five years, I've also grown convinced that a large portion of that perception is generated by a handful of individuals who, quite simply, enjoy perpetuating it based on their own petty, personal differences.

Again, the parking fine changes aren't perfect - and I doubt their ability to generate enough turnover in spots downtown - but, given a few pragmatic tweaks, they can be a step in the right direction. Throwing temper tantrums, however, just shows how removed from the reality of the situation you really are.