Athens City Council hears Mayor Patterson discuss Ukraine and an upcoming conference in Washington, D.C.
Athens Mayor Steve Patterson briefly discussed his recent trip to Ukraine during the Athens City Council meeting on Monday night. Several ordinances were also passed by City Council over the course of the meeting.
Patterson began his report by sharing that he will attend the National League of Cities (NLC)’s Congressional City Conference in Washington, D.C. next week. He has been asked to serve on the NLC’s 2024 Presidential Task Force, where members of the task force engage with the presidential candidates. Patterson shared his past participation in this processt and expressed that he was honored to be asked by the NLC to serve on the task force again.
Following this announcement, Patterson discussed details about his eight-day diplomatic trip to Ukraine. Patterson shared preliminary thoughts following the trip and requested that 10 minutes be set aside at the next City Council meeting, March 18, to offer a more in-depth report.
“Every place that I visited…the same thing came up time and time again,” Patterson said. “Every agency, every government, every citizen that I engaged with over there, all of them said emphatically: thank you for the funding that Ukraine has been receiving during this time of unjust invasion by a foreign entity.”
Patterson asked City Council “that we do whatever we can to encourage Congress to reauthorize continued funding, because they're at the point over there right now where they're almost having to ration ammunition…So that's certainly a message that I'm going to be carrying to Capitol Hill next week in Washington, D.C., to express the true need.”
In other business:
City Council passed an ordinance taking financial steps toward beginning a project improving the traffic lights on East State Street.
Several ordinances put forward by Councilmember Solveig Spjeldnes regarding events in 2024 passed, including permitting street closures uptown, permitting vending uptown during certain event times and suspending the city’s noise ordinance during events.
Ordinances passed regarding parking during the period of Dec. 15, 2024 to Jan. 12, 2025, allowing flexibility in parking for Athens residents leaving town for the holidays or for visitors coming to stay. On certain days during this period, meters in the Athens City Parking Garage will not be enforced, excluding the two-hour parking on Level 1 Upper.
An ordinance was read to amend the city’s tax code to be aligned with the state legislature.
Councilmember Alan Swank put forward a resolution to name an unnamed right of way Davison Court. The right of way is on Herrold Avenue and would be named after Andrew Jackson Davison and his wife Eliza Brown. Davison was the first Black attorney in Athens County. In the text of the bill, Swank characterized both figures as “significant citizens in the story of Athens and representative of Athens’ Black heritage.”
A Committee Meeting will take place next week, March 11, in Council Chambers.
