Editorial: More thought needed on parking deck

It didn't sound all that good two years ago, and it doesn't sound any better now.

In November 2007, as Athens-Clarke County commissioners were moving toward a grander vision for a planned downtown parking deck, Commissioner David Lynn - under the assumption his colleagues wouldn't seek re-election or wouldn't be around to put their stamp on the next list of local sales tax-funded projects - waxed philosophical.

"This is it as far as most of us are concerned, as far as our legacy for the built environment for the community," he said of the parking deck slated for a tract bounded by Clayton, Washington and Lumpkin streets. "We need to think big."

Lynn's statement of two years ago failed to take a couple of things into adequate consideration.

One, as was pointed out on this page on Nov. 16, 2007, the deck isn't really the commission's legacy, inasmuch as the 10 commissioners and Athens-Clarke's mayor will, even collectively, be making relatively minuscule personal contributions of sales tax revenue and other levies to the construction of the parking deck. And unless they're footing the bill for the structure, which they aren't, it's a bit arrogant for Lynn to suggest the parking deck is in any way a "legacy" of the mayor and commission.

Second, while it wasn't a big deal two years ago, before the current economic downturn, Lynn's 2007 admonition to his colleagues that they should "think big" regarding the deck now seems particularly out of place, and suggests that responsible stewardship of the public purse would mandate that elected officials always opt to "think small" in terms of what they propose to do with taxpayer dollars.

Although it is true that in this case, the parking deck project was approved by voters in a 2004 referendum on continuing a 1 percent local sales tax, that doesn't absolve the commission of what should be its responsibility to maintain a level head while shepherding such projects.

Sadly, it is becoming clear that the commission has not met that responsibility in connection with the parking deck. As originally envisioned, according to the county's own online guide to the special-purpose, local-o

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