The Red and Black

Originally posted by

Winfield J. Abbe

This outrageous corrupt (and totally undemocratic) practice of using a secret organization the so-called "UGA Real Estate Foundation" to secretly take property off the tax rolls of Athens Clarke County and then lease it back to the UGA Regents, also with secret deals with no citizen input or possibility for citizen input is completely illegal with conflicts of interest, and must be stopped immediately by the State of Georgia Legislature. UGA already owns thousands of acres of land in the smallest county in Georgia so why does it need to purchase more without any consent from the taxpayers here who are shafted by all this? This was totally unnecessary anyway since the Navy School has not even been formally transferred to UGA yet and the program should not begin until it is so transferred. The property taxpayers of Athens love to be fooled by a very corrupt government constantly shafting them in secret with impunity as UGA and the Board of Regents constantly do. Why is it that this property, most of which is in a flood plain, was only worth about $3+ million before the recent sale to the friends and cronies of the UGA Real Estate Foundation, but suddenly increased in value to about $ 7.5 million? Why did no one question this? What about other possible locations for this facility, and, in fact, why this facility at all? Why did not the Red and Black or the Athens Banner Herald or Flagpole Magazine question this or all three question this? It is like taking candy from a baby to fool the local dupes in Athens isn't it when the local press aids the government in their secret, corrupt deals isn't it? Athens' citizens love to be fooled and pay higher property taxes to finance the many deadbeats who use the expensive public services but who pay virtually nothing for public schools, police services, medical hospital services, bus services, subsidized to over $ 1.5 million a year by local property taxes, etc., etc., etc., ...expensive fire dept. services even provided in secret to Oconee County so they won't have to spend some of their newly found millions on a multi million dollar fire dept. Athenians and Georgians love to be fooled, in secret, by their corrupt government.