Aquatic finals are a godsend for swim center
The timing could hardly have been better for the Columbus Aquatics Center.
Just days after learning that the lowest viable private bid for operation of the troubled city swim center is almost a half-million dollars more than what the city budgeted, Columbus has landed the first major swimming and diving competition since the facility opened two years ago.
This is the kind of event envisioned for the center, the kind of thing that would bring the city and the venue not just business, but attention.
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has contracted with the Columbus Sports Council for the center to host the men's and women's national championships in swimming and diving for the next two years. The 2016 event is practically around the corner, scheduled for March 2-5.
The Columbus Sports Council's record of attracting and hosting softball events here -- which grew out of the successful effort to make Columbus a 1996 Olympics venue -- seems to have had a lot to do with turning the trick.
"Columbus delivered a great experience for our softball student-athletes," NAIA President/CEO Jim Carr said in a media release, "and we are confident that they can take our swimming and diving championships to the next level."
The city, the Sports Council and the Parks and Recreation Department have three months to get the center ready to show off at its buffed and shiny best. This could be the break that makes the difference.
The struggles of babies born addicted to drugs do not leave most of us inclined toward leniency for the mothers whose lifestyles are responsible. According to a report in Georgia Health News, Tennessee jails pregnant drug addicts, and North Carolina is considering legislation along those lines. Georgia's approach might be considered more lenient by some; its proponents think it's just practical.
Georgia deals with drug-using mothers-to-be through "accountability courts" that focus on treatment and rehabilitation so the babies can ultimately be reunited with mothers fit to care for them.
"We want to have our folks get clean and sober and stay clean and sober, and we want them to be reunified with their children," said Danny Stevens of Athens-Clarke County Family Dependency Treatment Court. "So the whole goal is to get them clean and have their children removed from foster care and placed back in their custody."
By treating the problem primarily as a public health issue rather than as a criminal one, the state offers women with substance abuse problems a greater incentive to come forward and seek help.
When they do, said Susie Weller, volunteer coordinator for child advocates in the Athens-Clarke area, "You can see progress. You can see improvement. You can see hope."+
This story was originally published December 1, 2015 at 3:38 PM with the headline "Aquatic finals are a godsend for swim center."