UPW Urban Pro Weekly

UPW URBAN PRO WEEKLY

DECEMBER 3 - 9, 2015 VOL. 5 NO. 13

Hardie’s PARALLEL UNIVERSE Photo by Vincent Hobbs

What makes Mayor Davis act the way he does?

Eddie Bussey 706-772-9800

UrbanProWeekly - DECEMBER 3 -9, 2015

COMMUNITY

HAPPENINGS

Battle named ATC GOAL Winner Markita Battle, a Culinary Arts student at Augusta Technical College, has been named as the college’s winner of the Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership (GOAL). Battle was chosen by a panel of local leaders from The Optimist Club of Augusta and the Augusta Technical College Foundation Board over two other nominees for the award. The runners-up were Ms. Niki Black, a Practical Nursing student, and Mr. Jerry Justice, an Occupational Therapy Assistant student. GOAL, a statewide program of the Technical College System of Georgia, honors excellence in academics and leadership among the state’s technical college students. Local GOAL winners are selected at each of the state’s 22 technical colleges as well as one Board of Regents college with a technical education division. Battle will now proceed to regional judging. All college winners will

UPW

Markita Battle receive an all-expense-paid trip to Atlanta in April. Nine regional finalists, three finalists from each of the three regions, will be announced in Atlanta on April 20, 2016. A panel of leaders from the business, industry, and government sectors will interview them and choose one to be the 2016 state GOAL winner and the recipient of the GOAL medallion. The grand prize also includes a new car.

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Contributors VINCENT HOBBS Photography & New Media KEN MAKIN contributing columnist

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Why does Hardie act like that? Hardie Davis never wanted to be an ineffective leader who just manages meetings. He wants to be the transformative figure of Augusta politics. Photo by Vincent Hobbs By Frederick Benjamin Sr. UrbanProWeekly Political Analyst AUGUSTA Over the past few months, we’ve heard lots and lots of griping about Mayor Hardie Davis. I don’t think anyone should be surprised. Back in November of 2014 a good six weeks before Mr. Davis’ coronation, we wrote an article entitled “Should Hardie Davis Be The Last Mayor?” That wasn’t written to bash Davis who had not yet taken the oath of office. It was an argument for eliminating the position of mayor for all time. We suggested that the next mayor should just enjoy himself knowing that this would be his last hurrah. Now that Hardie Davis has taken over the mayor’s chair, he has provided documentary proof that the city could operate just fine as a commission/manager (sometimes referred to as a council/ manager) form of government — without the services of a mayor. The mayor was rendered powerless

by design by the professionals, citizens and elected officials who put together the new consolidated government 20 years ago. Davis was well aware of the deal, but he didn’t say anything about it while he was campaigning for the position. When asked why anyone would want to be mayor of Augusta, Davis’ response had been that the mayor actually has considerable influence. At any rate, Hardie Davis the candidate, suggested that he could do the job. Once he won the election, everything changed. Suddenly, the mayor needed more power, more money and rather than having “considerable influence,” the mayor needed imperial status. The game changed overnight. This is the key to understanding why the mayor acts the way he does. His antics have been interpreted incorrectly. Some have attempted to explain his behavior by calling it selfishness, arrogance, ignorance even. One longtime political observer dubbed his behavior symptomatic of “HNIC syn-

drome.” All of this misses the mark. Here’s the deal. Davis walks to his own beat. That’s another way of saying that his orbit is set and has nothing to do with anyone else except him and those over whom he has control. If you recall, Davis revealed his Master Plan at the infamous Feb. 20 press conference at the base of the “Tower of Aspiration” in historic Springfield Village Park. In that news conference, Davis announced that his mission was transformative. It was not his plan to simply accept the unacceptable rank of an ineffective leader. After citing the huge responsibilities borne by the superintendent of schools and the sheriff, he chided the citizens of Augusta for allowing the mayor to be relegated to “managing meetings where ten individuals make all the decisions to hire and fire, to spend taxpayer resources without any long-range planning.”

All that was just a prelude to a diatribe where he invoked the U.S. Constitution and all of western civilization. He then went on to outline the most insane power-grab this city has ever witnessed. He expressed his desire for veto power over the entire commission as well as assumption of all the powers currently enjoyed by the city administrator. Make no mistake about it. This mayor has not given up the idea of becoming the transformational figure in the city’s history. If you keep this in mind, you will understand why he does the things that he does and why he will keep on doing so. Davis will create his world and implement his policies in his own way and if and when, if ever, his orbit synchronizes with that of the commission that would be a happy accident. No, Davis is not suffering from a personality defect. His plan is set. Look for him to continue plotting from outside of the city to get his way.

UrbanProWeekly - DECEMBER 3 - 9, 2015

THE CITY COMMENTARY

UrbanProWeekly - DECEMBER 3 -9, 2015

MAKIN’ A DIFFERENCE COMMENTARY by Ken Makin

NEWS-12 MISSES MARK ON POLICE COVERAGE

Local station’s cop commentary disappointing

went to the WRDW News-12 website on Tuesday afternoon and couldn’t believe my eyes – or ears. As a part of its traditionally outstanding “On Your Side” series, the station posted a report on how “less qualified people” wanted to work in law enforcement. Because I understood the profound effect that police brutality has toward the distrust of law enforcement in this country, the headline had my full attention. What I read from there only offered more disappointment. The story’s angle, whether intentionally or otherwise, had a familiar rhetoric – it’s the media’s fault that people don’t trust law enforcement, and not rabid, overzealous police culture. “Folks don’t want to be police officers anymore and a lot has to do with the national news. Things that have taken place in other parts of the country,” said Marshal Steve Smith with the

Richmond County Marshal’s Office. “The vast majority of officers are good people. They come into this business to help people, not to muscle people which is being depicted in some of the scenarios,” said Columbia County Sheriff Clay Whittle. The officers may have had good intentions. The reporter and the station may have had good intentions. But in this charged social climate, this “On Your Side” sounded like a one-sided affair with its fill of shameful excuses. Let’s talk police versus people in 2015. We are almost 16 months clear of the Michael Brown tragedy – a flashpoint incident that put Ferguson, Mo., on the map. Since the Brown murder, a host of familiar names have been added to a painful lexicon. Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Laquan McDonald. We’ll come back to the corrupt

culture of policing in Chicago in a minute. Firstly, I want to bring this conversation closer to home. How soon have we forgotten the resource officer who threw a girl across a classroom like a rag doll at Spring Valley High School. His nickname was “Officer Slam.” Disgraceful. Columbia isn’t close enough? Alright then. Last February, Ernest Satterwhite was shot to death after a slow-speed chase that ended as he parked in his own driveway. Who shot him? North Augusta Public Safety Officer Justin Craven. The shooting was captured on a dash cam video. Has it seen the light of day? NOPE. Here’s some more irony: The Aiken Standard and The Associated Press are two of three media entities who, at some point, have fought for the release of that video. The third is News 12. Some may ask why my commentary

is so harsh, so seemingly unforgiving. It’s simple, really. Playtime is over. The media has a responsibility to tell the truth. People might forget about that with Donald Trump all over the news. People might forget about that when Chicago’s long, sad history of police cover-ups come to the light. I haven’t forgotten, though. Since foolishness and injustice won’t take a day off, neither should those of us who stand for something in the media. Lord knows our community needs someone on their side. Ken J. Makin is the host of “Makin’ A Difference,” an online radio program available on iTunes and Soundcloud (soundcloud.com/makinadifference). Updates on the show are available at facebook.com/makinadifferenceshow. You can also reach Ken by email at makinadifferenceshow@gmail.com, or via Twitter @differencemakin.

Spring Semester Begins January 4th

Apply Now! AUGUSTA • (706) 771-4000 COLUMBIA COUNTY • (706) 651-7368 THOMSON/MCDUFFIE • (706) 595-0166 WAYNESBORO/BURKE • (706) 437-6801

A unit of the Technical College System of Georgia Equal Opportunity Institution www.augustatech.edu

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

UrbanProWeekly - DECEMBER 3 - 9, 2015

NEIGHBORHOODS

School building awaits wrecking ball

Front doors are seen through a fence at the old John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School on Telfair Street. The building, vacant since 1997, has been standing for 82 years and has served as an elementary and magnet school for the arts in Richmond County. The now dilapidated building is slated for demolition in December. Alumni and students gathered on Saturday to bid farewell to the structure. Photo by Vincent Hobbs

COMMUNITY

HAPPENINGS

Keysville gets medical facility Medical Associates Plus (MAP) recently announced the grand opening of Medical Associates Plus @Keysville location. This new medical facility is located at 480B Martin Luther King Jr. Road, Keysville, Georgia. MAP@Keysville began accepting new patients on Monday, November 30th. The grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony for the new facility was December 2. M A P has hired Dr. Edmund Byne as the family physician for the new primar y care site. J.R.

Richards, Chief Executive Officer of M AP said, “Dr. Byne joins a M A P’ team toward the end of another year of growth and success for the center. M AP’s mission to provide quality comprehensive health care to the underserved continues to be the center’s premise of operations.” This year MAP was awarded a Federal grant of $650,000 annually to provide primary health care services to the Keysville area. This grant allows for MAP to serve patients that have limited access to

a doctor’s office. “We look forward to continuing our mission and are excited about this new venture. We have worked closely with the new staff and will bring Patient Centered Care along with new technology to the area,” Dr. Angela Overstreet-Wright, Chief Medical Officer said. MAP @ Keysville services includes primary care and pharmacy, prescription assistance. Medicaid, Medicare and all other forms of insurance are accepted. The center provides care to those without health insurance based on an income and family size sliding fee scale. A patient can be seen for as little as $25. For more information or to make an appointment, call (706) 790-4440.

New Bethlehem Community Center New Bethlehem Community Center will present its Goodwill Christmas Program on Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 3:00p.m. The Friday Night Kick-Off SOUPer Bowl will be held on February 5, 2016 at 5:00p.m. in the Activity Building. For info call 706-722-0086.

Church Anniversary The New Zion Apostolic Church will celebrate their 25th Church Anniversary on Sunday, December 13, 2015 at 4:00 P.M. Elder Kenneth A. Dyson is the pastor. Bishop William R. Cue of Trenton, S.C. will be the guest speaker. For additional information you may call 706-551-1389.

UrbanProWeekly UrbanProWeekly -- DECEMBER DECEMBER 33 -9, -9, 2015 2015

SPORTS Jaguar Hoops

Kariel Hutt, an Augusta University senior, prepares against Clark Atlanta University, held at Christenber Panthers, winning with a final score of 79-59. Photo

Augusta Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tommy Williams goes for the rebound during a game against Mount Olive at Christenberry Fieldhouse. The Jags were defeated by the Trojans 87-83. Photo by Vincent Hobbs

Augusta University head womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basketball coach non-conference game against Clark Atlanta Universi prevailed against the Panthers, winning with a final s

UrbanProWeekly -- DECEMBER DECEMBER 33 --9, UrbanProWeekly 9, 2015

for a free throw during a non-conference game rry Fieldhouse. The Lady Jags prevailed against the o by Vincent Hobbs

Nate Teymer talks to the team during a timeout in a ity, held at Christenberry Fieldhouse. The Lady Jags score of 79-59. Photo by Vincent Hobbs

Augusta Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tavia Sykes (R) battles Clark Atlanta University opponent Siera Bubb (L) for control of a rebound during a non-conference game held at Christenberry Fieldhouse. The Lady Jags prevailed against the Panthers, winning with a final score of 79-59. Photo by Vincent Hobbs

UrbanProWeekly - DECEMBER 3 -9, 2015

WORLD COMMENT

Still, the buck does stop at the top, and Russia’s recent move into Syria has a lot of people wondering if the Kremlin has outflanked, outwitted, and outgunned the White House once again.

Who is a better strategist: Obama or Putin? By Stephen M. Walt Who’s the better grand strategist: Barack Obama or Vladimir Putin? That’s not quite the right question, of course, because both leaders depend to some degree on intelligence reports and advice from trusted advisors and not just their own judgment. Accordingly, any assessment of their relative performance is to some degree an evaluation not just of the individual leaders but also their respective foreign-policy brain trusts. Still, the buck does stop at the top, and Russia’s recent move into Syria has a lot of people wondering if the Kremlin has outflanked, outwitted, and outgunned the White House once again. Is this really true? Has the crafty former KGB officer done a number on the former law professor and community organizer? And what does this latest turn of events tell us about each country’s ability to formulate and implement an effective foreign policy? One way to address this question

is to take a broader look at how each country has fared over the past seven years or so. Putin’s record looked pretty good for awhile: The Russian economy grew rapidly through 2012 (due to high oil and commodity prices), it gained entry into the World Trade Organization, and the so-called “reset” restored a degree of cordiality to the strained relationship between Washington and Moscow. But Putin’s overall record since looks much less impressive: The Russian economy is now in a serious recession, while America’s is chugging along reasonably well. And consider this: Russia’s 2014 GDP was less than $2 trillion, so over the past six years the US economy grew by an amount larger than Russia’s entire economy. The U.S. economy is also far more diverse and resilient. Equally important, the United States hasn’t lost any key allies over the past seven years and its relations with a number of countries (e.g., India, Vietnam, etc.) have improved significantly. Russia and China are cooperating a bit more but are hard-

ly close allies while the Ukraine crisis has damaged relations with Europe significantly and gotten Russia suspended from the G-8. The United States just signed a massive trade deal with an array of Asian partners, whereas Putin’s efforts to build a “Eurasian Economic Union” have been mostly stillborn. And the fact that Putin felt compelled to bail out the Assad regime in Syria tells us that its overall position in the Middle East is tenuous. By contrast, and despite some recent frictions, the United States still has close ties with Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, and the UAE, and its acrimonious relationship with longtime adversary Iran is somewhat better. Bottom line: You’d much rather be playing America’s hand, and any fair-minded assessment has to give Obama and his team some grudging credit for continuing to build useful relationships abroad and for avoiding the costly quagmires that George W. Bush and the neocons plunged into with panicky and ignorant abandon.

And yet, it is hard to escape the impression that Putin has been playing his weak hand better than Obama has played his strong one. These perceptions arise in part because Obama inherited several foreign-policy debacles, and it’s hard to abandon a bunch of failed projects without being accused of retreating. Obama’s main mistake was not going far enough to liquidate the unsound positions bequeathed by his predecessor: He should have gotten out of Afghanistan faster and never done regime change in Libya at all. By contrast, Putin looks successful at first glance because Russia is playing a more active role than it did back when it was largely prostrate. Given where Russia was in 1995 or even 2000, there was nowhere to go but up. But Putin has also done one thing right: He has pursued simple objectives that were fairly easy to achieve and that played to Russia’s modest strengths. In Ukraine, he had one overriding goal: to prevent that Continued on next page

country from moving closer to the EU, eventually becoming a full member, and then joining NATO. He wasn’t interested in trying to reincorporate all of Ukraine or turn it into a clone of Russia, and the “frozen conflict” that now exists there is sufficient to achieve his core goal. This essentially negative objective was not that hard to accomplish because Ukraine was corrupt, internally divided, and right next door to Russia. These features made it easy for Putin to use a modest degree of force and hard for anyone else to respond without starting a cycle of escalation they could not win. Putin’s goals in Syria are equally simple, realistic, and aligned with Russia’s limited means. He wants to preserve the Assad regime as a meaningful political entity so that it remains an avenue of Russian influence and a part of any future political settlement. He’s not trying to conquer Syria, restore the Alawites to full control over the entire country, defeat the Islamic State, or eliminate all Iranian influence. And he’s certainly not pursuing some sort of quixotic dream of building democracy there. A limited deployment of Russian airpower and a handful of “volunteers” may suffice to keep Assad from being defeated, especially if the United States and others eventually adopt a more realistic approach to the conflict as well. By contrast, U.S. goals toward both of these conflicts have been a combination of wishful thinking and strategic contradictions. In Ukraine, a familiar alliance of neocon fantasists (e.g., Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland) and liberal internationalists convinced themselves that the EU Accession Agreement was a purely benign act whose virtues and alleged neutrality no one could possibly misconstrue. As a result, they were completely blindsided when Moscow kept using the realpolitik playbook and saw the whole matter very differently. (There was an element of hypocrisy and blindness here, too; Russia was simply acting the same way the United States has long acted when dealing with the Western Hemisphere, but somehow U.S. officials managed to ignore the clear warnings that Moscow had given.) Moreover, the core Western objective -- creating a well-func-

tioning democratic Ukrainian state -- was a laudable but hugely demanding task from the very beginning, whereas Putin’s far more limited goal -- keeping Ukraine out of NATO -- was comparatively easy. Needless to say, U.S. policy in Syria has been even more muddled. Since the uprising first began, Washington has been vainly trying to achieve a series of difficult and incompatible goals. It says, “Assad must go,” but it doesn’t want any jihadi groups (i.e., the only people who are really fighting Assad) to replace him. It wants to “degrade and destroy ISIS,” but it also wants to make sure anti-Islamic State groups like al-Nusra Front don’t succeed. It is relying on Kurdish fighters to help deal with the Islamic State, but it wants Turkey to help, too, and Turkey opposes any steps that might stoke the fires of Kurdish nationalism. So the United States has been searching in vain for “politically correct” Syrian rebels -- those ever-elusive “moderates” -- and it has yet to find more than a handful. And apart from wanting Assad gone, the long-term U.S. vision for Syria’s future was never clear. Given all this muddled direction, is it any wonder Putin’s actions look bold and decisive while Obama’s seem confused? This difference is partly structural: Because Russia is much weaker than the United States (and destined to grow even weaker over time), it has to play its remaining cards carefully and pursue only vital objectives that are achievable at modest cost. The United States has vastly more resources to throw at global problems, and its favorable geopolitical position allows it to avoid most of the repercussions of its mistakes. Add to that the tendency of both neoconservatives and liberal internationalists to believe that spreading the gospel of “freedom” around the world is necessary, easy to do, and won’t generate unintended consequences or serious resistance, and you have a recipe for an overly ambitious yet under-resourced set of policy initiatives. Needless to say, this is the perfect recipe for recurring failure. In other words, Putin looks more successful because his goals are commensurate with his limited resources. He likes to complain about American hegemony, but you don’t hear him making highfalutin speeches about how it is Russia’s destiny to exert “leadership” over the entire planet. America’s power

9 UrbanProWeekly - DECEMBER 3 - 9, 2015

Obama or Putin continued

and core geographic security allow its leaders to set ambitious goals, but actually achieving most of them isn’t essential to U.S. security or prosperity. Sometimes U.S. diplomacy succeeds in spite of ourselves (e.g., the Iran nuclear deal, TPP, etc.), but often it drags us into conflicts and complications that we can neither win nor walk away from. So who’s the better strategist? On one side, Obama does have an underlying sense of realism and understands that U.S. interests in many places are limited. He also grasps that our capacity to dictate outcomes is equally constrained, especially when it involves complicated matters of social engineering in divided societies very different from our own. In other words: Nation-building is expensive, goddamn hard, and for the most part unnecessary. But he has to lead a foreign-policy establishment that is addicted to “global leadership” — if

only to keep giving itself something to do --- and he faces an opposition party that derides any form of “inaction,” even when its proposed alternatives are “mumbo-jumbo.” Putin, by contrast, has done a better job of matching his goals to the resources he has available, which is one of the hallmarks of a good strategist. His failing is that it’s all shortterm and essentially defensive; he is fighting a series of rearguard actions designed to prevent Russia’s global position from deteriorating further, instead of pursuing a program that might enhance Russia’s power and status over the longer term. So let’s call it a tie. The real losers, alas, are the unfortunate people in Ukraine, Syria, and several other places. Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

UrbanProWeekly - DECEMBER 3 -9, 2015

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