WARNER ROBINS | The National Weather Service confirms a tornado left a 4.2 mile trail of damage in middle Georgia.

The Macon Telegraph reports the weather service confirmed Sunday night that an EF-1 tornado struck Warner Robins on Friday. A survey team's report says the twister packing 90 mph winds touched down at 7:42 a.m. Friday.

Most homes in the area were spared major damage, though some were struck by falling trees.

The weather service was still working to determine whether a tornado hit Robins Air Force Base, where an 84 mph wind gust was recorded at the north end of the air field.

The same violent storms Friday caused another EF-1 tornado to touch down in eastern Twiggs County, where it snapped trees along a 2.4-mile path toward Allentown.

A Clarke County Superior Court judge last week reduced by half the bond originally set for an Uber driver arrested in January for allegedly burglarizing the home of a customer in Athens and then forcibly sodomizing her.

As of Monday morning, however, 49-year-old John M. Kamens had not yet posted the bond that on Friday was reduced from $20,000 to $10,000. Kamens remained at the Clarke County Jail, charged with first-degree burglary and aggravated sodomy with force.

Kamens was arrested Jan. 6, and a week later Chief Judge David Sweat set his bond at $20,000. A motion requesting a bond reduction was filed March 16. Sweat granted the motion during a hearing on Thursday.

At the time of the alleged sexual assault, Kamens had been employed as a customer service representative for the Athens-Clarke County Solid Waste Department. He was fired following his arrest.

While employed  by the county, Kamens had moonlighted for the Uber ride-sharing company, which hires people to use their own vehicles to chauffeur customers with whom drivers are connected through smartphone applications.

Athens-Clarke County police said Kamens was arrested based on a complaint by a 28-year-old Athens woman. The woman alleged that on the night of Dec. 14, after Kamens drove her home from downtown Athens, the Uber driver entered her residence uninvited and sexually assaulted her.

Kamens was arrested following an investigation by detectives with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department’s Sex Crimes Unit.

Follow Criminal Justice reporter Joe Johnson at www.facebook.com/JoeJohnsonABH or www.twitter.com/JoeJohnsonABH.

The average age in Athens may begin to rise in the future, after Forbes Magazine named it among its picks of the 25 top cities in the country for retirees.

Athens made the list for its low cost of living and proximity to Atlanta, and Forbes also cited census data showing the cost of living in Athens is slightly below the national average. The magazine also noted the local median home price of $145,000 as a reason for retiring in Athens, and listed the relatively low rate of serious crimes and the walkable areas around the community as other factors attractive to retirees.

The so-called “baby boomers” — the generation born after World War II in the United States, between 1946 and 1964, are retiring in droves.

By 2020, the youngest of the baby boomers will be 55, which means 71 million people who are 55 and older will likely be looking to retire, according to Forbes.

Forbes chose its top 25 cities for retirees on the basis of which would offer the best value of living during retirement. The cities aren’t ranked, as Forbes maintains they would all provide a good value in retirement.

Also making the list was Blacksburg, Va., home of Virginia Tech. Blacksburg won out over Athens in the recently concluded Garden & Gun magazine competition in which online votes were tallied to determine the best college town in America.

Forbes focused mostly on financial and economic factors in its choices for its 2016 list of best places to retire. The magazine considered state taxes, climate, air quality, doctors per capita and crime rates for cities on the list. The communities’ unemployment and future economic prospects were taken into account to allow for the possibility that some retirees might want to find opportunities to work.

Most of the cities are in warm climates. Florida has four cities on the list, along with three in Texas and two in North Carolina. However, for retirees who like wintry weather, Fargo, North Dakota, Pittsburgh and Traverse City, Michigan, made it to the list as well.

In total, the cities on the list stretch across 19 states. For the complete Forbes list, go online to www.forbes.com/best-retirement-places.

Follow reporter Hilary Butschek on Twitter @hilarylbutschek or at https://www.facebook.com/hbutschek.

A University of Georgia alumnus and his partners in an Atlanta investment advisory firm are donating $250,000 worth of artwork to various museums across the country, including the Madison Museum of Fine Arts in Morgan County.

Peachtree Capital acquired the artwork after purchasing and consolidating about 10 accounting and investment firms, two of which included large collections of contemporary art. Peachtree Capital eventually decided to donate the collections to museums, said Eric Burnette, a partner and chief operating officer with the firm.

“We really thought that would be the best place for it,” Burnette said.

“We had so much that for one, we didn’t have room for it around our office — and a lot of it turned out to be some valuable pieces,” said Burnette, an Athens native and a 2009 graduate of the University of Georgia.

The artwork is going to museums from New York to California, said Brenda de la Cruz, an Atlanta art and design consultant who is authenticating the art and spearheading the donations.

The largest selection of artworks is going to the museum in Madison, she said. Those works include a collection of paintings by Cristina Vergano, an Italian-born artist now living in New York who has also lived in Georgia and Florida.

Vergano’s work is in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, as well as several private and corporate collections. Some of her works are in the private collections of celebrities including Whoopi Goldberg and Madonna, according to de la Cruz.

The Madison Museum of Fine Arts “received almost the entire Vergano collection. It’s a big collection,” de la Cruz said. In addition to Burnette, another UGA alumni, Shelly Eddy, also a partner at Peachtree Capital, assisted with the donations to the museum in Madison, de la Cruz said.

“We are very grateful they selected us,” said Madison Museum of Fine Arts Director Michelle Bechtell. “Donors like Peachtree Capital are the ones who really help us succeed in our mission of being able to provide art history education to children, families and seniors in this part of Georgia,”

Hundreds of University of Georgia undergraduates shared findings from their research projects Monday in Athens’ Classic Center in the first day of UGA’s annual Center for Undergraduate Research (CURO) Symposium.

Some students gave talks on their research in meeting rooms of the Classic Center, while more than 200 presented research summaries on posters in the Classic Center’s Grand Hall on the first day of the symposium, which continues through today.

These weren’t simple projects, either. Some were independent efforts, but many were done as part of research teams headed by UGA scientists and other faculty members.

A few titles included “Effect of Epigenetic Inhibitors on the Anticancer Activity of Lipid-Based Nanoparticles,” “Analysis of Forces Acting on the Equine Navicular Bone in Normal and Dorsiflexed Positions,” “Synthetic Estrogen Disrupts Spindle Organization and Meiotic Division in Oocytes,” and “Computational Analysis of Hydrogenated Graphyne Folding,” for example.

Student Annie Ladisic, worked with faculty members Janani Thapa and Leann Birch of the UGA department of foods and nutrition to show the power of labeling in one research project. She put relatively low-calorie snack foods on the bottom of three rows in a vending machine, and later put labels on the rows.

Labels on the top two rows featured a “stop” sign and noted those choices were about 330 calories, which would be burned off with the equivalent of 70 minutes of walking.

The bottom row featured a green “go” sign, and the snack choices on that row each had 150 calories, and fewer minutes of walking.

Buyers’ choices changed after the labels appeared on the machine - they started buying more of the “healthy” choices.

Projects weren’t limited to the sciences, but came from across all of UGA’s schools. For instance, one student working with UGA Honors Program Director David Williams, a religion professor, studied the intersection of artificial intelligence and religion, and economics major Alex Edquist studied ways to make prison systems more effective.

The undergraduate research program began in 1999, and at first was limited to Honors Program students. In 2010, it was opened to all undergraduates. CURO passed a couple of milestones this year, Williams said.

This year, for the first time, the number of students participating who are not in the UGA Honors Program exceeded the number of Honors Program students. Also, the number of students participating passed 400 for the first time, according to Williams.

Williams expects the program to keep growing, thanks partly to UGA’s new experiential learning initiative, which requires students to participate in some form of “experiential” learning — such as research — before they graduate.

Now, with contributions from the UGA Athletic Association, many students can get $1,000 CURO research assistantships. UGA started that program last year with 250 assistantships, bumped it up to 300 this year and next year will increase it to 500, Williams said.

Working with faculty members on actual research helps students apply the theory they’ve learned in the classroom in a practical way, said student Anjali Kumar, who studies aspects of pancreatic cancer.

And having the experience gives students who’ve done it an edge when it comes to landing a job, said another participant, biochemistry major Melissa Jennings.

“It’s really nice when an employer asks you about skills,” she said.

Every student should participate, Jennings said.

“No matter what you’re studying, just do it,” she said.

Follow education reporter Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH or https://twitter.com/LeeShearer.

Preschool Storytime: 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Athens-Clarke County Library, 2025 Baxter St., Athens. Story program for children 18 months to 4 years old and their caregivers. Books, songs, puppets, nursery rhymes and early literacy and pre-school activities. www.athenslibrary.org/athens.

Bingo at East Athens Community Center: 10 a.m. to noon Tuesday, East Athens Community Center, 400 McKinley Drive, Athens. Senior adults are invited for fellowship, refreshments and bingo. (706) 613-3593.

Free tax preparation and E-filing services: 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Athens-Clarke County Library, 2025 Baxter St., Athens. AARP Tax-Aide Program volunteers will help taxpayers of middle and low income, with special attention to those ages 50 and older. You do not need to be an AARP member to receive services. Bring identification, 2015 tax documents and supporting information, and a copy of your 2014 tax return. (706) 369-1245.

Cloning Technologies to Regenerative Medicine — Science Fiction to Reality: 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Hotel Indigo Athens, 500 College Ave., Athens. An exclusive panel of Athens entrepreneurs will discuss their innovations and contributions to regenerative medicine and cloning technology. The one-hour panel discussion will be followed by a networking reception that will provide an opportunity to interact with the panelists and others in the North Georgia life science and biotech industries. Sponsored by UGA Innovation Gateway, Georgia Bio and Athens-Clarke County Economic Development Department. Free. For more information, call (404) 221-0617 or email admin@gabio.org. (www.gabio.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=788088&group.)

Lego Club: 4 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oconee County Library, 1080 Experiment Station Road, Watkinsville. Create Lego art and play Lego-based activities. Lego blocks provided. For ages 3 to 11. Free. (706) 769-3950. www.athenslibrary.org/oconee.

Alcoholics Anonymous: 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Call (706) 389-4164 for location. www.athensaa.org.

Domestic violence support group: 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Call (706) 543-3331 for location. Hosted by Project Safe. Dinner served at 6 p.m. Child care provided.

Olive oil tasting: 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, The Olive Basket, 297 Prince Ave., Athens. Free. www.olivebasketonline.com.

Sons of the American Revolution regular meeting: 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jennings Mill Country Club, 1150 Chambers Court, Watkinsville. Sons of the American Revolution Historical Presentations Series presents “The Great Madness: Borderland Warfare in Revolutionary Georgia,” a program by historian Steven Scurry, during the organization’s regular meeting. Social hour will begin at 6 p.m. with buffet dinner to open at 6:45 followed by the program. Open to the public. (706) 548-3266.

Bingo: 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Ted’s Most Best, 254 W. Washington St., Athens. Free admission. www.facebook.com/tedsmostbest.

Trivia: 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Locos Grill & Pub, Westside and Eastside locations. (706) 208-0911. www.locosgrill.com.

Trivia: 9 to 11 p.m. Tuesday, Hi-Lo Lounge, 1354 Prince Ave., Athens. Free. www.hiloathens.com.

For more events or to add an event to a future calendar, visit events.onlineathens.com.

Land preservation activist Karen Porter and neighborhood leader Dan Lorentz are the winners of this year’s Alec Little Awards, given annually for environmental activism and education in the Athens area.

Porter is an ecologist now retired from the University of Georgia’s Odum School of Ecology; her husband, Jim Porter, continues to teach in the School of Ecology.

Karen Porter may be better known in the wider Athens community for her work to preserve a 310-acre tract of woods called Tallassee Forest, one of the largest natural areas remaining in the county.

Porter enlisted experts in botany, archaeology and other areas to help persuade the community and government officials to buy and preserve the Tallassee Tract, which contains old-growth forest and a holly forest, among other unusual features.

Porter is also a member of the Oconee Rivers Greenway Commission, where she is coordinating a project to inventory and map natural and cultural resources along the Greenway.

Lorentz has been central to the creation of a new public park in the Boulevard neighborhood. He chaired a committee of the Boulevard Neighborhood Association that worked with people in the neighborhood, businesses and government to convent an empty 1.8-acre lot at the east end of Boulevard into what is now the Boulevard Woods Park, which opened earlier this year.

Members of the neighborhood association raised $40,000 in donations and garnered a $75,000 grant for the park project, which is on land owned by the Athens-Clarke County government.

The park is under the management of the Athens-Clarke County Leisure Service Department, but the Boulevard Neighborhood Association has promised to help.

The Alec Little Award was established 25 years ago to honor the memory of the late Alec Little, an Athens man who worked with many governments and environmental organizations before his death in 1991.

Winners of the Little Award are picked by a board that includes past winners and representatives of the groups that began the award in 1991, shortly after Little’s death.

Porter and Lorentz will receive their awards April 15 at the annual GreenFest Awards Ceremony at Flinchum’s Phoenix.

The award has gone to 37 people and 17 groups since its inception, including last year’s honoring of Bruno Giri, head of the Upper Oconee Watershed Network of citizen water-monitoring volunteers, and Ed and Sue Wilde, volunteers with Weed Warriors, a group that works to limit the spread of invasive plant species in areas across the community.

A University of Georgia classics class is staging a reading of epic proportions this week, enlisting volunteers for a two-day marathon reading of Homer’s Odyssey.

Students and volunteers from UGA and the larger Athens community lined up in balmy weather outside the UGA main library building Monday to read parts of the great epic poem in a “Homerathon” scheduled to run through Tuesday. By the end of Tuesday, they’ll have collectively read the entire poem aloud.

Homer may have composed the Odyssey somewhere around the end of the 8th century B.C., but centuries and centuries later, it resonates, as anyone who’s seen “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” knows.

The film, by popular filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen, was based on the Odyssey, in which Odysseus takes 10 years to get back to his wife after the 10-year Trojan War. The movie also has a bit of Preston Sturges’ “Sullivan’s Travels” blended in, said UGA classics professor Christine Albright, who sat at a table outside the library and checked off readers one by one as they read.

The story of a man’s long suffering and frustration, sustained by hope as he tries to get back to his wife, the Odyssey is one of the fundamental works of Western culture, said Charles Platter, head of the UGA Classics Department.

“It’s still relevant. It’s a great story,” said Albright; for example, Odysseus, the hero of the story, knew the same kinds of issues contemporary soldiers face when they return from the war, she said.

And it was meant to be recited, said Platter, who hopes the Homerathon will help reinforce the importance of the study of classics in universities.

Dozens of folks signed up to read parts of the poem; UGA Provost Pamela Whitten, Athens lawyer and education activist Bertis Downs and former Athens-Clarke County Mayor Heidi Davison are among those scheduled to read Tuesday, he said.

The volunteers have a fun, easy task compared to the eight students in Albright’s classics class. The volunteers are reading pages from a modern translation of the Odyssey, but the class members are reading the epic poem in Greek.

Follow education reporter Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH or https://twitter.com/LeeShearer.

Athens-Clarke County’s planning commissioners could be making recommendations later this week on five proposed development projects, all part of a crowded agenda that could bring considerable public comment.

The agenda for the commission’s 7 p.m. Thursday meeting at the Governmental Building at 120 W. Dougherty St. in downtown Athens includes:

• A planned-development request for a mixed-use development at Prince Avenue and Childs Street on a 6-acre tract that has housed the St. Joseph Catholic Church and its associated school.

• Another planned-development request from the Kroger grocery company for a massive redevelopment of the eastside’s College Station Shopping Center at College Station and Barnett Shoals roads.

• A separate request from Kroger for a fuel center at 1065 Baxter Street to be associated with its store at the nearby intersection of Baxter Street and Alps Road.

• A planned-development request from Walton Georgia LLC for a 215-acre mixed-use development at 4500 Atlanta Highway in the western edge of the county.

• A request from a local engineering firm on behalf of the Tennessee-based McNeill Hotel Company to be released from a local ordinance requiring that the bottom floor of parking decks include some commercial space. The Tennessee company is proposing a Homewood Suites hotel on East Broad Street at The Mark mixed-used development, and topographical challenges are forcing the parking deck to be constructed underground.

All of the requests, with the exception of the hotel proposal, have been in front of the planning commission previously, and all have generated at least some public comment, although most of that comment has come in connection with the proposal for the St. Joseph property — the 100 Prince project, as envisioned by Greenville, S.C.-based developer Homes Urban LLC. That public comment, along with comments made at community meetings held by the developer and attended by one of the firm’s founders, Russ Davis, have prompted some changes in the original proposal, particularly in connection with nearby residents’ concerns that the height of some buildings in the development would problematically shade their residences.

Among the major changes to the original proposal for the tract is the elimination of about two dozen residential units. The change, which comes largely from a decision to redesign one of the apartment buildings, eliminating one story and cutting its height by 12 feet, leaves the development with 120 units. The units are contained within three traditional apartment units and two rows of detached multifamily residences along Childs Street.

Plans for the development also include a 10,000-square-foot grocery store in a building fronting Prince Avenue, with the nearby Daily Groceries Co-op being mentioned as a possible tenant for that space, along with 11,000 additional square feet of retail space, and 6,000 square feet of “amenity” space. The 3,200-square-foot chapel on the site, built in 1913, will be renovated for use as a restaurant.

Across town, the Kroger plan is among the larger projects to be proposed for the eastside in recent years. Kroger wants to raze the entire shopping center and replace it with a free-standing Kroger Marketplace and a fuel center associated with the store.

Also planned for the site, replacing the long line of attached retail spaces now comprising much of the shopping center, is a set of four attached buildings totaling 36,410 square feet, split into spaces ranging from 3,600 square feet to 14,260 square feet. In addition, the latest site plan for the shopping center shows three structures on two “outlots” facing College Station Road, sized at 1,700 square feet, 3,000 square feet and 6,805 square feet.

The Kroger Marketplace planned for the site would cover 116,274 square feet. The Kroger now in the College Station Shopping Center is a 59,000-square-foot structure.

Because the development is being pursued as a planned development, Kroger can, and is, seeking some variances from the county’s zoning ordinance. Brad Griffin, director of the county’s planning department, said last month that his staff would be meeting with Kroger to discuss some of those variances in advance of Thursday’s planning commission meeting.

Kroger will also be in front of the planning commission Thursday with a planned-development request for a small tract at 1065 Baxter St. where the company wants to build a fuel center. In an earlier appearance in front of the planning commission, the proposal was met with some concern that it might not fit the existing streetscape along Baxter Street.

In other business set to be addressed Thursday, the massive mixed-used development on Atlanta Highway had been met with some concern when it first came in front of the planning commission a few months ago. Those concerns were focused on plans for clearing some of the land and on what some planning commissioners saw as limited ways of getting into and out of the 215-acre development.

As currently envisioned, the project would include 307 single-family homes, 342 apartments and 204 “active adult” residences. The plan also shows seven commercial buildings along and near Atlanta Highway.

In still other business Thursday, the planning commission will be getting its first look at the proposal for the Homewood Suites project. The hotel will be located at The Mark, a mixed-use development under construction in the eastern edge of downtown Athens that will include student-oriented housing. McNeill Hotel Company purchased the property for the hotel from Landmark Properties, developer of The Mark, but the hotel will not be part of The Mark, according to Landmark Properties CEO Wes Rogers.

ATLANTA | The Georgia Department of Revenue has issued new proposed regulations for the state's growing craft beer industry.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Georgia is proposing to again allow breweries to sell tours of their facilities at different prices based on the quality and amount of beer customers receive as "free souvenirs."

It's a return to a deal that craft brewers thought they'd reached after legislation passed in 2015. SB 63 took effect in July and allowed brewers to provide customers with up to 72 ounces of beer to take home if they purchased a facility tour.

Months later, Revenue issued a new set of regulations that seemed to reverse course. After an uproar from brewers and some lawmakers, all sides came to an agreement in January to ease the rules.

A University of Georgia student has been arrested a second time in six months for having allegedly spied on women in a UGA restroom.

Hunter Bramlett, 22, was charged Monday with being a peeping Tom for an alleged incident last week at Joseph E. Brown Hall. The charge "resulted from (an) investigation into (Bramlett's) presence in a women's restroom," UGA police said.

Bramlett was previously arrested on Oct. 29 for allegedly taking photographs of a female in a restroom at the physics building. UGA police said Bramlett was charged at that time with felony eavesdropping. UGA did not have immediate comment on why Bramlett was still allowed on campus after that arrest.

The most recent alleged incident came to light Friday morning, on a complaint by the business manager for the Department of Comparative Literature, which is housed at Brown Hall.

According to a UGA police report, the manager said that after learning from a teacher's assistant that there was a male in the women's restroom, she entered the room, saw someone in a closed stall and began talking so that the male might realize where he was.

The business manager reportedly told police that she asked the male several times whether he was OK, but he just made some grunting noises.

Then, Bramlett emerged from the stall, apologizing and saying, "Oh my God this is the women's restroom," and the business manager, thinking the student to be convincing, directed him to where the men's room was, according to police.

After the student walked away down the hall but did not go into the men's room, the UGA employee was able to identify the student as Bramlett by providing his description to a professor who had Bramlett in one of his classes, according to the police report.

An Athens-Clarke County Magistrate Court judge subsequently signed an arrest warrant charging Bramlett with felony peeping Tom. UGA police notified the student of the warrant Monday afternoon and he surrendered himself soon after at the Clarke County Jail.

Bail had not immediately been set, and Bramlett remained at the jail as of late Tuesday morning.

Follow Criminal Justice reporter Joe Johnson at www.facebook.com/JoeJohnsonABH  or www.twitter.com/JoeJohnsonABH.

ATLANTA | The mayor of Atlanta is joining other city and state officials in banning taxpayer-funded travel to North Carolina over its new law preventing specific anti-discrimination rules for gay and transgender people for public accommodations and restroom use.

Local news outlets report Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced Monday he has ordered city employees to halt non-essential trips to North Carolina because of what he called "discriminatory and unnecessary legislation."

The Atlanta travel ban follows similar actions by the mayor of the District of Columbia, the Boston city council and the governors of Washington, New York, Connecticut and Minnesota.

The North Carolina law responded to a Charlotte city ordinance approved in February that would have extended protections to gays and lesbians as well as bisexual and transgender people while at hotels, restaurants and stores.

A century ago — March 12, 1916, to be exact — the Salvation Army came to Athens, finding its first home on North Jackson Street just four years after the Titanic sank and one year before the United States joined World War I.

That first local Salvation Army outpost was open only seven months, closing as the country went to war. The Salvation Army would return to Athens in 1919, and while it nearly was forced to close again in 1942 as World War II beckoned many of its personnel, it has been a steady presence in the community, expanding beyond Athens into Oconee, Oglethorpe and Madison counties.

“I feel like the Salvation Army does so much for the community,” said Paul Martin, who has been a Salvation Army board member in Athens for 57 years. “By me doing for the Salvation Army, I’m doing for the community.”

Martin joined the Salvation Army in 1959, when he was 26 years old. At that time, the organization operated out of a small two-story house across from City Hall. The 83-year-old Martin continues to work as a board member, extending his already long service with the organization.

“It’s an organization that’s been in my heart forever,” Martin said. “I’ll just never stop giving back to them.”

Martin is one of many people, including former University of Georgia quarterback David Greene, who will attend the Athens Salvation Army’s 100-year celebration luncheon at the Classic Center on Wednesday. Greene will serve as the event’s guest speaker.

Over its many years in Athens, the Salvation Army has expanded its services to include a thrift store and a women’s shelter. The Athens Salvation Army also provides youth programs, emergency financial assistance, disaster relief and support for the homeless.

In the last fiscal year, the Salvation Army in Athens served 18,000 people, prepared more than 43,000 meals and provided 19,000 gifts for kids, according to a press release.

“I feel like we truly are doing the most good for the whole community by providing all the services we provide,” said Jim Thompson, chairman of the Athens Salvation Army’s advisory board for seven years.

After working with the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia for 14 years, the Athens Area Habitat for Humanity for 14 years and helping start Our Daily Bread, a soup kitchen at the First Baptist Church of Athens, Thompson said the Salvation Army is particularly expansive in terms of the way it serves the community.

“I feel like we truly are doing the most good for the whole community by providing all the services we provide,” he said.

The Athens Salvation Army’s 100-year celebration luncheon will be from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday at the Classic Center.

No conclusions were reached nor were any minds changed, but the air was clear Monday at the conclusion of a two-hour information session concerning the changing face of Five Points.

Co-hosted by the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation and the Friends of Five Points, the educational meeting at the Athens-Clarke County Library provided plenty of information about residential demolitions and proposed demolitions in the area and the progress of the county’s infill housing ordinance.

The meeting, which attracted about 100 people, also offered a forum (under the guise of a question-and-answer session with Athens-Clarke County Senior Planner Bruce Lonnee) for homeowners, developers, real estate agents and elected and appointed local officials to unburden themselves on the myriad issues surrounding infill development. The demolition of homes in intown neighborhoods has become a focal point of infill development issues, particularly when a home is demolished and replaced with a new residence that is out of scale, and often out of character, with the surrounding neighborhood.

Commissioner Allison Wright, who represents part of Five Points, said after the meeting that she was pleased with the dialogue that ensued because she doesn’t think listserv chatter is the always the best method to deal with concerns Five Points residents have with demolition requests submitted to the county. It was, however, chatter on the Friends of Five Points listserv about residential demolition in the neighborhood that precipitated Monday’s meeting.

“I was happy they put this together because a listserv is not a fair educational information format — it can be for certain things, but not things this emotional,” Wright said. “It doesn’t allow informed information exchange because it stifles opposite opinions. And you could see that here, too – once you start getting people popping up, everybody wants their voice to be heard, which is good, but it still stirs up a very emotional topic.”

Lonnee spoke for about an hour about the county’s history with infill development (a dozen or so years ago, it was seen as a desirable means of concentrating residential development), its establishment of local historic districts (in 28 years, a dozen such districts have been named) and the demolition process.

There are currently three applications pending for demolition in the Five Points community and two demolition requests have recently been approved for the area. In the last year, Lonnee said, there have been a dozen demolition requests for houses in the area.

When the floor was opened for questions, there were numerous comments on both sides of the issue of how to deal with Five Points going forward. Some expressed concerns about the demolition process and what follows, while others spoke of overreaction to a problem they didn’t feel really existed and still others lamented the changing character of the community.

Amy Kissane, executive director of the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation, assented that while no solutions pleasing to all were reached, she felt the meeting was successful in its intent, which was to provide factual information about current infill and demolition regulations, as well as steps for establishing local historic districts; allow those present to ask questions based on the facts presented; and to bring people together to talk about their areas of concern.

“I don’t think there’s one right answer, but what I want is for people to be able to discuss it from an informed point of view because it’s really hard when people have strong opinions based on misinformation,” Kissane said. “I’m on the listserv for the Friends of Five Points and there’s been a lot of stuff on the listserv, so the idea was to bring everybody together and have an opportunity to have a conversation together, rather than try to do it on the listserv.

“I don’t think we solved anything tonight necessarily, but I thought it was interesting and I thought we had some good discussions and people left better informed than when they came and that was our primary purpose.”

Perhaps more importantly, Kissane said, was the presence of Mayor Nancy Denson and several commissioners, who heard firsthand the various points of view about pending requests and the near future of Five Points.

“I feel we achieved what we set out to do, and we also invited the mayor and commissioners and I think I saw six commissioners and the mayor here, and we had some member of the planning commission here and some from the historic preservation commission, so that was the other thing — the people making decisions about what’s going on were here,” she said. “And for them to hear from this group of people, I’m glad we had the turnout that we did.”

The Athens-Clarke County government is seeking applicants for positions on a number of local commissions, boards and authorities, including the high-profile Athens-Clarke County Planning Commission, the Historic Preservation Commission, the Classic Center Authority and the Athens-Ben Epps Airport Authority.

Applicants are also being sought for the county’s Hearings Board, which reviews requests for variances from development standards in the local environmental areas ordinance, flood protection ordinance, sign ordinance and tree management ordinance.

Additionally, the county is looking for applicants for two partial terms on the Board of Health, one for a consumer advocate that expires on Dec.. 31 of this year, and a second for a physician that expires on Dec. 31 of next year.

Outside of the two Board of Health positions, the commission, board and authority posts that are now opening up do not require any special expertise. The only requirements for appointment to any of those positions are to be an Athens-Clarke County resident and to be registered to vote in the county.

The open positions are:

—two seats on the Athens-Ben Epps Airport Authority, both for four-year terms. The airport authority oversees operations of Athens-Ben Epps Airport.

—two posts on the Classic Center Authority, both for four-year terms. The Classic Center Authority oversees operations of the downtown Athens public convention and performance space.

—two four-year appointments to the Hearings Board.

—two seats on the Historic Preservation Commission, each for a three-year term. With assistance from the historic preservation planners in the Athens-Clarke County Planning Department, a major duty of the HPC is ruling on applications for “certificates of appropriateness” for planned modifications to structures within any of the county’s locally designated historic districts.

—two five-year terms on the Athens-Clarke County Planning Commission. The planning commission serves Athens-Clarke County’s mayor and commission in an advisory capacity, making recommendations on rezoning requests and any associated development, and on potential changes to the county’s zoning ordinance, among other issues. The mayor and commission make the final decisions on all zoning-related matters.

Applications for any of the open positions can be filled out online at http://bit.ly/1V7stSs on the county government’s website, or are available in the Clerk of Commission’s office, Room 204 in City Hall.

The deadline for applying for the current vacancies is April 15, and the mayor and commission are tentatively scheduled to interview applicants on April 26. The mayor and commission could announce their appointments to the open board, authority and commission seats as soon as their May 3 voting meeting, according to a news release from the county.

A dump truck overturned on Mars Hill Road at Cliff Dawson Road in Oconee County early Tuesday evening, causing some unspecified injuries, according to the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office sent out an alert about the mishap shortly after 5 p.m. and advised motorists to avoid the area. A wrecker was on the scene a short time later. No further details about the wreck were forthcoming from the sheriff’s office Tuesday evening. The area was reopened to traffic shortly after 6 p.m.

• View more photos from the accident scene in our slideshow.

Guided Trail Hikes: 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesday, Sandy Creek Nature Center, 205 Old Commerce Road, Athens. Sandy Creek Nature Center staff and naturalists from the community will lead a guided walk on the trails at the nature center. Everyone is invited to stay afterwards for coffee. Free and open to the public. 706-613-3615. www.athensclarkecounty.com/sandycreeknaturecenter.

Preschool Storytime: 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Athens-Clarke County Library, 2025 Baxter St., Athens. Story program for children 18 months to 4 years old and their caregivers. Books, songs, puppets, nursery rhymes and early literacy and pre-school activities. www.athenslibrary.org/athens.

New mamas support group: 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Bloom Community Space, 160 Tracy St., Athens. Studio GH. New moms can bring their babies and talk with other new moms about life with a newborn. Free. www.bloomathens.com.

Alcoholics Anonymous: 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Call (706) 389-4164 for location. www.athensaa.org.

Four Athens Happy Hour: 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, The World Famous, 351 N. Hull St., Athens. www.fourathens.com.

Harry Potter coloring: 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oconee County Library, 1080 Experiment Station Road, Watkinsville. Represent your house and color your favorite characters as you hang out and munch on Harry Potter-themed snacks. For grades 6 through 12. Free and open to the public. (706) 769-3950. www.athenslibrary.org/oconee.

Jazz at Porterhouse: 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Porterhouse Grill, 459 E. Broad St., Athens. (706) 369-0990. www.porterhouseathens.com.

¡Aprende Español! Semana Uno: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oconee County Library, 1080 Experiment Station Road, Watkinsville. An eight-week Spanish course for beginners with Adriana Hayunga on Wednesdays through April 20. Participants don’t have to make it to every single class to attend. Registration is required and space is limited. All programs and events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 706-769-3950 or visit www.athenslibrary.org/oconee.

The Steel Wheels with special guests Forlorn Strangers: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, The Foundry, 295 E. Dougherty St., Athens. All ages show. (706) 549-7051.

Bingo: 8 p.m. Wednesday, Highwire Lounge, 269 N. Hull St., Athens. www.highwirelounge.com.

Trivia: 8 p.m. Wednesday, Blind Pig Tavern, 312 Washington St., Athens. (706) 548-3442. www.blindpigtavern.com.

Karaoke: 9 p.m. Wednesday, The Office Lounge, 2455 Jefferson Road, Athens. www.facebook.com/OfficeAthens.

Trivia: 9 p.m. Wednesday, Copper Creek Brewing Co., 140 E. Washington St., Athens. (706) 546-1102. www.coppercreekathens.com.

For more events or to add an event to a future calendar, visit events.onlineathens.com.

The new 32-bed cell block addition to the Madison County Jail was opened for a public tour on Tuesday, but by Wednesday, officials expect the cell pods to be filled with the inmates that the county is currently paying to have housed in detention centers in Elbert and Oglethorpe counties.

During a Tuesday ribbon-cutting ceremony, Sheriff Kip Thomas expressed gratitude to the Madison County Board of Commissioners and New South Construction, the contractor for the addition.

“I think the best thing, coming from the board of commissioners, is it is paid for,” Commission Chairman Anthony Dove told a gathering of about two dozen people.

The new addition, which enlarges the jail to 96 beds, was built with proceeds of a 1 percent special-purpose local option sales tax approved by Madison County voters in a 2008 referendum. The addition was projected to cost $2.65 million, and was completed at approximately $90,000 under that budget, Dove said.

“There are very few projects that come in at the cost you expect them to come in and under budget,” Dove said.

The addition has space for installing more cell blocks in the future, and provides easy access for maintenance, which Dove said was important from the commission’s standpoint.

“This is exactly what we wanted,” he said.

“I want to thank New South, the sheriff and (Chief Deputy) Shawn (Burns), who was really the lead man in looking after this,” Dove said.

The public was also allowed a view of the new control room, where deputies can monitor inmates and do such things as turn off the water to showers and toilets.

Other improvements have also been made at the jail, including a new roof for the older section of the facility and a reconfiguration of the gate providing access to the jail sally port, a secured entryway. A new “man gate” was added, Thomas said, which cuts down on use of the larger gate now used for vehicles.

“Maintenance (of the gate) has been a huge issue and I think this will help a lot,” Burns said.

The improved control room should avoid what happened a few years ago when an inmate escaped.

The man was able to get out of the jail when a jailer accidentally hit a button that opened a fire escape door. That system has been improved to avoid that kind of mistake, Burns said.

“We spent 72 hours in the swamps looking for him, but we got him back,” Burns recalled. “This system is almost fail-safe.”

“He said ‘almost,’” Thomas added.

“Anything electronic is ‘almost,’” someone from the audience commented.

Follow writer Wayne Ford on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WayneFordABH.

Parents of elementary and middle school students concerned about “summer slide” now have one more way to counter its effects thanks to a new initiative between the University of Georgia and the Clarke County School District.

Camp DIVE (Discover, Inquire, Voice and Explore) is a program that combines faculty-led classes and assistance from UGA students with programs for local children. It runs June 6 to July 1 with a variety of classes for rising kindergarteners through eighth-graders. Programming runs 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays at Clarke Middle School, with all-day field trips each Friday. Depending on the grade level, classes cover topics such as art, food, robots and history. Daily activities also help reinforce literacy, and local nonprofit groups will lead afternoon programming.

The summer program has limited enrollment and is free and open to Clarke County School District students. Breakfast and lunch will be provided by the Clarke County School District.

To register, visit coe.uga.edu/campdive.

Janna Dresden, a clinical associate professor in the UGA College of Education and director of the Office of School Engagement, said this is an opportunity for faculty to create lessons that focus on problem-based learning and other cutting-edge teaching strategies. It’s also a chance for UGA students — some of whom are teacher-candidates, but others who simply want to work with kids during the summer — to learn from faculty, gaining either course or volunteer credit.

“We’re giving our students other options to experience hands-on education with kids,” she said. “And it gives people an idea of how education can be when they’re not encumbered by tests.”

Mark Tavernier, Clarke County Schools’ associate superintendent for instructional services and school performance, said the opportunity for students to take classes delving into topics such as robots and MakerSpaces, how our food is produced or how photography and performance can lead to social change is one more way to add to students’ overall learning experience.

“I am excited that we can provide this innovative approach and an additional summer learning opportunity to our students,” he said. “This program will offer many opportunities for our students to have experiences that they would not normally have during the school year while extending our year-long focus on developing literacy skills across content and interest areas.”

Camp DIVE is one more way the UGA College of Education is enhancing its partnership with the Clarke County School District, which already includes the Professional Development School District, which embeds faculty and UGA students in classrooms throughout the county, and the Experience UGA partnership, which brings students to the UGA campus for a new experience every school year.

A group of University of Georgia scientists has created what may be the first climate action plan based on Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si” encyclical of last year.

The encyclical was subtitled “On Care for our Common Home,” and in it Francis called on not only Catholics but the people of the world to leave behind the irresponsible development and consumer culture that have fueled environmental degradation and global warming, which Francis called “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”

On Tuesday, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta came to the Catholic Center at the University of Georgia to thank the scientists who developed the plan, to emphasize why it’s important, and to say, “We’ll try to do a better job” of taking care of God’s creation, the earth.

More than 200 people gathered at the Lumpkin Street center Tuesday morning to hear speakers and then see Gregory ceremonially plant a weeping cherry tree.

• View more photos from the event in our slideshow.

The plan, printed in both English and Spanish, describes dozens of ways people can help take care of the earth.

“We are charged with scripture to be good stewards,” UGA climate scientist Marshall Shepherd told the crowd Tuesday.

The effects of climate change will fall heaviest on the most vulnerable, such as the poor and the elderly, he said.

“It’s the type of people Jesus would be hanging out with,” he said.

Shepherd and fellow UGA climate scientists Pam Knox and David Stooksbury helped write the action plan, along with UGA water resources expert Mark Risse and geologist Rob McDowell, said Susan Varlamoff, the recently retired director of the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences’ Office of Environmental Sciences.

Varlamoff went to Gregory after Francis’ encyclical to suggest the idea, then led the effort to put it together.

The straightforward document describes dozens of ways people can help take care of the earth, divided into three categories — “easy,” “moderate” and “advanced.”

Avoiding bottled water or carpooling to Mass, school or parish meetings would be easy, for example, while planting trees and supporting candidates who support the environment would be a moderate action, and reducing lawn size and creating a community garden are in the advanced category.

“We can all do something in this plan,” said Varlamoff.

“We also know as scientists we must make change quickly,” Varlamoff told the crowd gathered Tuesday, which included students from Athens’ St. Joseph Catholic Parish School and Monsignor Donovan Catholic High School.

“As far as we know, this is the only action plan for the pope’s encyclical in the nation,” Varlamoff said.

An encyclical is a kind of letter, and Francis’ encyclical “came from Pope Francis to all of humanity,” Gregory said. “It is addressed to all of us because we share one earth.”

Gregory’s message reinforced the impassioned words of another speaker at Tuesday’s ceremony, Rev. Dr. Gerald Durley, the retired pastor of Atlanta’s Providence Missionary Baptist Church.

Durley is a longtime civil rights activist who now works with Interfaith Power & Light, a national religious group that promotes energy conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Climate change and environmental destruction are “the civil and human rights issue of our time,” Durley said, calling on people to “reverse the devastation we are deliberately and consciously inflicting on the earth.”

The Archdiocese of Atlanta’s action plan is online at www.archatl.com/catholic-life/refreshatl.

Follow education reporter Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH or https://twitter.com/LeeShearer.