West Broad Rising

Come out on Saturday! It’s going to be a beautiful day!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/d3qnDWHrb66TTTzc/?mibextid=WiMSqg

We're looking forward to this month’s special event, the African American Heritage and Urban Agriculture Festival on November 18th! We originally created this event in 2013 to celebrate Athens’ rich African American heritage, particularly surrounding the West Broad neighborhood and urban agriculture.

Join us from 11 AM to 2 PM at 300 S. Rocksprings Street for kids’ activities, live music, a panel of community leaders in music, art, and agriculture, an art showcase, food demos, and community fun!

Cabinet Secretary's Visit Brings Energy to Athens' West Broad Neighborhood - Flagpole When a magnolia tree’s roots grew into the water line running through Bennie and Annie Pearl Tillman’s Paris Street front yard, the retired couple couldn’t afford to have the leak fixed. Nor could they afford the water bill when their usage tripled. The problem got so bad that Bennie would tur...

We’re making progress on the site for our new facility which will house the commercial kitchen and other awesome programming. There are 10 possible sites and we need you to give input to make sure we end up in the perfect place!

Come out Tuesday to hear more about the project and the potential sites!

https://www.accgov.com/youthfacility

Celebrating the not so little wins along the way!

We are so excited to report that yesterday under the Gold Dome the Athens Representatives, with Rep. Frye articulating so well the urgent need, passed legislation to put an issue on the ballot for the citizens of Athens-Clarke County to decide if it is the right time to provide an expanded homestead exemption (increasing it from the existing $10,000 by another $15,000) to create a household savings of $280 per year. In addition, we are incredibly excited about the possibility of a low-income property tax freeze. This will allow households below 200% of the federal poverty rate to freeze the value of their assessment in a way that will provide increased stability for some of the most critical affordable housing stock in our community. This would mean that a family of 3 making below $44,000 would be able to lock in the value that their home is assessed at and provide some relief against rising inflation. Local affordable housing advocates took this tax freeze policy to the state representatives at the request of the clients that they serve who have been struggling to keep up with the increase in taxes on their fixed incomes. With rising property tax revenues and rising sales tax collections, these property tax relief measures will be absorbed fairly easily by local government. The overall annual impact will be less than $4 million and the current increase in revenues for local government are expected to be over $15 million not including any stimulus dollars that they receive.

Thank your state representatives for getting this done! Now it’ll be on the citizens to make the call.

And great job to the West Broad residents that kept pushing this as an important issue!!!