City lawsuits, SPLOST top government and school news
Like most, this year has seen its ups and downs: Elected officials sued their city government, voters approved a SPLOST for education, historic housing projects fell to the wrecking ball and Phenix City schools took a progressive step forward.
Lawsuits against the city
Columbus taxpayers spent more than $1 million in 2015 on attorney fees in three lawsuits filed against the city by four elected officials in late 2014. Sheriff John Darr and Superior Court Clerk Linda Pierce filed lawsuits against the city and its top leadership, claiming their offices were not funded sufficiently for them to carry out their required obligations, and that their budgets were incorrectly, if not illegally, crafted by the city's administration and Columbus Council.
Municipal Court Clerk Vivian Creighton-Bishop and Marshal Greg Country co-filed a similar lawsuit the same week. The courts have dismissed pieces of Darr's and Pierce's suits, but they remain in Superior Court after a trip through the state Supreme Court. The city's motion to dismiss the lawsuit from Countryman and Bishop was recently transferred from the Supreme Court to the Georgia Court of Appeals.
Bulldozers knock down BTW Apartments
Heavy equipment rolled into the Booker T. Washington public housing complex in June to begin demolition to make way for a mixed-income housing complex, akin to Arbor Pointe, which replaced Baker Village and Ashley Station, which replaced Peabody Apartments.
Eventually, a 106-unit mixed use complex called Columbus Commons will be built on the northern half of the old BTW land, and the southern end will be made available for commercial development.
A 100-unit senior public housing
complex is almost complete on Benning Road, the site of the old Chapman Homes. But those and the 206 Columbus Commons units will not be enough to replace the 392 units lost when BTW was closed. Residents displaced by the reduced number of units available will be offered units in one of the authority's other complexes or in its Section 8 housing program.
City goes to once-a-week garbage pickup
After more than a few years of trying to institute once-a-week household garbage pickup in Columbus, Mayor Teresa Tomlinson finally got it into the fiscal year 2016 budget.
Council, faced with a fund balance teetering at the 60-day level, below which bond ratings can be lowered, gave in and approved the change. The reduction in service was purported to save Public Works close to $500,000 a year in cost avoidance.
The city still sends refuse trucks to city households four times a week, once each for garbage, recycling, yard waste and "white goods" such as discarded refrigerators and other large appliances.
City works to move homeless into homes
The city moved on several fronts to deal with Columbus' homeless situation.
The most dramatic was Home for Good, a United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley umbrella agency that is addressing the city's homeless problem. Home for Good is participating in "Zero: 2016," a best-practices program that provided the tools to address veteran and chronic homelessness. The agency is using U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development vouchers to move the chronic homeless into houses.
The city has also addressed faith-based groups that were feeding the homeless and less fortunate in parks by trying to direct them into local shelters equipped to provide services other than just a meal.
"This is an effort to make sure that those in our community are feeding in places that are set up to provide broader services," Tomlinson said in July.
Problems plague aquatic center
The Columbus Aquatic Center opened to great fanfare in 2013, with USA Pools being awarded an $825,000 contract to operate the facility. Eighteen months later, the city canceled the contract and put its parks and recreation department temporarily in charge of it until another private company could be found to take over.
Another, as yet unidentified, company has been chosen to put before council, but its bid is $1.27 million annually. At the same time, the parks and rec department is saying it could take over operations permanently and do so for slightly less, $1.24 million.
At a recent council meeting, more than 100 local swimmers and supporters gathered to hear Parks and Rec Director James Worsley explain to councilors that, with the $825,000 budgeted for this fiscal year, he will have to cut back operations to 45 hours, down from 89.
Councilors suggested creating an organization akin to the Columbus Regional Tennis Association to help, but ultimately Councilor Pops Barnes said they would "make it happen" to keep the facility fully operational.
SCHOOLS
Voters pass new school SPLOST
By 54 to 46 percent, Columbus voters passed the March referendum to renew the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax that expired Dec. 31. The new 1 percent sales tax, which went into effect July 1, will last for five years or until $192,185,000 is collected for 24 capital projects in the Muscogee County School District. The big-ticket items are a new Spencer High School ($56 million), district-wide technology upgrades ($34 million), district-wide facility needs ($28 million) and a multi-sport complex for district-wide use ($11 million).
District improves graduation rates
An area in which MCSD already has shown progress during Lewis' 2½-year tenure is in the graduation rates, which improved at every local high school, led by the only one that declined last year. After dipping 2.7 percentage points, from 61.3 to 58.6 between 2013 and 2014, Carver High School's graduation rate soared 17.8 percentage points, to 76.4 in 2015. While the average graduation rate in Georgia improved 6.3 percentage points, from 72.5 to 78.8, Muscogee County's jumped 8.0 percentage points, from 76.6 to 84.6; Harris County's increased 2.5 percentage points, from 87.4 to 89.9; and Chattahoochee County's surged 9.0 percentage points, from 74.3 to 83.3. Critics noted this was the first graduating class not required to pass the Georgia High School Graduation Tests since the high-stakes exams were phased out. They say that factored into the significant improvements locally and statewide.
Phenix City launches STEM Center
Under the leadership of Superintendent Randy Wilkes, the Phenix City Public Schools has implemented its i3 Initiative, standing for inquiry, innovation and impact. That includes: breaking ground on the $2.1 million Dyer Family STEM Center (for science, technology, engineering and math), scheduled to open at Phenix City Intermediate School in August 2016; and spending $750,000 to equip approximately 1,500 students and 100 teachers at PCIS (grades 6-7) and South Girard School (grade 8) with iPad Air tablets.
Mixed results in Milestones
The scores from the state's new and more rigorous standardized tests, the Georgia Milestones, showed mixed results for local school districts. Three-fourths of Muscogee County schools ranked below the state average on the overall scores, but Muscogee performed better than districts representing the state's other second-tier cities (Augusta, Macon and Savannah), which are similar in size and demographics. Meanwhile, Harris County surpassed the state average on 27 of the 32 tested subjects in grades 3-12, and Chattahoochee County went 4-for-32.
CSU welcomes its fifth president
Columbus State University had a newsy year, most notably the selection of a new president. The 19-member University System of Georgia Board of Regents unanimously voted in April to hire Chris Markwood, who was the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He assumed the new position June 1, becoming the fifth president in the institution's 57-year history and succeeding Tim Mescon, who retired Dec. 31. CSU in 2015 set records in enrollment (8,440, an increase of 3 percent over last year) and in fundraising (the CSU Fund collected $5.9 million, an increase of 20 percent over fiscal year 2014).
This story was originally published December 25, 2015 at 10:32 PM with the headline "City lawsuits, SPLOST top government and school news."