{"id":5326,"date":"2013-03-31T10:07:26","date_gmt":"2013-03-31T14:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=5326"},"modified":"2013-03-31T10:07:26","modified_gmt":"2013-03-31T14:07:26","slug":"city-brings-savannah-development-and-renewal-authority-back-after-controversies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2013\/03\/31\/city-brings-savannah-development-and-renewal-authority-back-after-controversies\/","title":{"rendered":"City brings Savannah Development and Renewal Authority back after controversies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"10\" style=\"float: right; margin:10px 0 10px 10px;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:600px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"8268618372\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<br \/>\nOf all the decisions of former City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney, the dismantling of the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority was one of the poorest. Even if there were a few legitimate but minor questions raised by an audit, the organization&#8217;s fine work over the years proved its worth. The SDRA was absolutely critical in the rebirth of Broughton Street and in creating a vision for the MLK\/Montgomery corridor.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, I think the SDRA could have been a little more entrepreneurial and even ambitious. And, yes, I think the organization occasionally got more caught up in esthetics than in encouraging commerce &#8212; like in the decision to create too hard of a median along much of MLK, with the effect of cutting off key east-west connections.<\/p>\n<p>But the SDRA&#8217;s good work and intense focus on downtown revitalization paid a lot of dividends, especially for the money invested in the office and in a handful of employees.<\/p>\n<p>Small-Toney said she planned to replace the SDRA with another agency, but those efforts never got anywhere that I know of.<\/p>\n<p>So it&#8217;s good to see acting City Manager Stephanie Cutter, Mayor Edna Jackson, and the rest of the council bringing the SDRA back. From <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/exchange\/2013-03-30\/savannah-city-officials-restore-sdra-board\" target=\"_blank\">Savannah city officials restore SDRA board<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Cutter identified revitalization of Montgomery Street as the highest priority, but she also wants the board to focus on wider, long-term goals.<\/p>\n<p>Another issue will involve clearly defining how the SDRA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role will work with the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economic development department with no duplication of function, Cutter said.<\/p>\n<p>That department also is in transition. The city is advertising for the open director\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s position.<\/p>\n<p>[Architect Jerry] Lominack wants the board to return to promoting the Downtown Master Plan, which created a blueprint for deciding how the desire for economic development would meld with maintaining the physical beauty, culture and quality of downtown life.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We need to get action on that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good plan.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>He hopes, too, that the board can play a role with other organizations to develop a larger economic plan for the whole city, one that considers residents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 needs, tourism, education and the type of growth the city wants to see.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A word of caution, however. While I know and respect about half the 15 board members selected so far, it seems odd that the entire list, I believe, is made up of men. On its face, that seems like a rather serious issue. (You can see the list in the article above.)<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s hope that greater diversity is represented in the other 10 selections.<\/p>\n<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4374909701\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A word of caution, however. While I know and respect about half the 15 board members selected so far, it seems odd that the entire list, I believe, is made up of men. On its face, that seems like a rather serious issue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2013\/03\/31\/city-brings-savannah-development-and-renewal-authority-back-after-controversies\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[8,62],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-1nU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}