Statesboro Blues

Oh Statesboro. The time I spent in Statesboro taught me what The South was really about. Growing up in Atlanta you dont get to see the "good 'ol boy" system at its finest. That system is certainly alive and well in Statesboro.

A handful of people in the town have money. And they pretty much run the whole town. Its not that they simply have money...they have a lot of it. They own farms, apartment complexes, land, car dealerships, etc. And its their families who own this stuff. Its old money.

The people who actually reside in Statesboro have lived there forever, thier parents, and their parents lived and died in Statesboro.

Its a quaint old southern town. Bottom line.

But this is a classic example of the good 'ol boy system at work. When Will Britt got elected to the city council in 2003 this same voter registration drive came up. It just did not garner national attention. This was pre "bar shutdown" though. I got several knocks on my doors from Will Britt's "campaign team" with voter registration cards in hand urging me to register to vote in Bulloch county. This "campaign team" consisted of Britt's bar crew and friends.

I did not change my voter registration at the time, but during my time in Statesboro I did consider myself a permanent resident. I paid utilities, power, bought my groceries, paid rent, bought gas, ate at the local mom n' pops. I never went home on the weekends, stayed throughout the summer. Went home only on holidays. I saw a doctor in Statesboro. Went to the dentist in Statesboro. And I am not the only student like that. I would say more than a majority...especially the upperclassmen...considered Statesboro their permanent residence. I know a lot of people who even stayed in Statesboro after graduated and decided to make that their new home.

A lot of people also fail to realize that a majority of the population at Georgia Southern is from Atlanta and its suburbs. But Statesboro is the "big" city for many, many towns in south Georgia and a lot more of the students I believe come from those small towns. Those students especially consider Statesboro their permanent residence because a lot of them were raised hearing if you leave home, you cant come back.

I am a bit weary of Will Britt and his team and I do believe mostly this is being done to serve his own ego and to line his own pockets. I attended Ladies' Lockup on numerous occasions. And my girlfriends and I would go get our free drinks and then leave when the free drinks stopped flowing. I know a lot of other girls that did this also. This date rape mess is ridiculous. Will Britt isnt a vicious person, just a businessman. Trying to get his pockets as fat as he can. As there is really not another industry in Statesboro to capitalize on besides college students...this is really the only cash cow for him.

Statesboro should be more thankful for its college student population. We are the ones volunteering at your Women's Shelter, Boys' Home, etc. We are the ones paying the speeding tickets, DUI charges, and MUI charges that help your county profit in addition to the taxes the "real" residents pay.

Statesboro should be allowed to grow. New businesses should be welcomed with open arms. New DIFFERENT businesses. When I left Statesboro there were 4 Subways within 4 or 5 miles of each other. 2 Taco Bells. About 10 grocery stores. All within the same 4 or 5 mile radius. This just meant none of these businesses did very well and the franchises came and went.

As for the location of the bars. They are all pretty much on the GSU campus. Nowhere near where the "real" residents live.

College students are going to drink. Are going to get in trouble. Are going to be loud. Are going to be obnoxious. Let them have their drink specials and happy hours, bars...

Its really sad they have to get into the politics of a rinky dink town just to have that...and its even sadder that leading Bulloch county for years to come could be small minded frat boys. Oh wait...that's the just modern day good 'ol boy system...wake up Statesboro...same thing, different name.
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Vote showdown in college town
Georgia Southern students defy ballot challenges by Statesboro's old guard

By ANDREA JONES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 11/04/07

Statesboro — For a week now, the shuttle buses have been pulling up to the City Hall steps in this South Georgia town, and T-shirt-clad college students have been piling out.

Hundreds of Georgia Southern University students with a "we're not going to take it anymore" attitude have been making the trek from campus to cast their vote in a contentious City Council election, determined to kick out the old guard.


Georgia Southern University seniors Shane Patterson, 21, (left) and Jeff Hill, 21, fill out paperwork Thursday before casting their early ballots at city hall in Statesboro.

They aren't protesting civil rights violations or an unjust war. Their causes are much closer to home.

They want looser drinking laws and Sunday liquor sales. They want well-known retailers such as Best Buy and Abercrombie & Fitch.

But nervous town residents have mobilized to fight off the young folk in what's gearing up to be the ugliest town-and-gown spat in the state.

Joe Williams, a Georgia Southern senior, said he and other students want a more modern Statesboro.

"They want to keep the town old-timey," Williams said. "They're keeping us from growing."

Four residents have challenged more than 900 students' right to vote in Statesboro, saying they haven't lived in the city long enough to make decisions about how things should be run in Statesboro, a city of 25,000 people — roughly 14,000 of them students — about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta.

Nancy Waters, a feisty grandmother who chairs the Statesboro Alcohol Control Board, said she believes students have been misled by candidates who have pounced on hot-button issues — like drinking and housing — without fully explaining how things work.

"I just think they've been lied to and, by jingles, I want them to know what they are doing," she said.

Waters, 70, formed the Statesboro Citizens for Good Government group and brought petitions challenging individual voters to the Bulloch County registrar's office last month.

The challenged students will be allowed to vote, but it will be up to county officials to decide — in a lengthy hearing process — whose votes will be counted.

County officials have said they had probable cause to let the challenge stand.

Since she filed the petition, Waters and others have felt the wrath of students and other young townspeople.

Incumbent City Councilman Will Britt, who was elected in 2003 by a mostly Georgia Southern student crowd, called Waters and fellow petitioner Sarah Hines "older bitter women" in a local newspaper.

A Statesboro native and Georgia Southern graduate, Britt, 33, owns several properties, including a gym and, until recently, two clubs that served liquor.

For her part, Hines, who has lived in her Statesboro home for the past 39 years, said she doesn't have a problem with "informed" students "who could make wise decisions" casting a ballot.

Students, meanwhile, have complained to the Georgia Secretary of State's office and even the FBI, saying they've been intimidated by local police officers manning the early voting polls.

Matt Carrothers, spokesman for the Secretary of State's office, called the situation in Statesboro unusual, the first case of its kind his office has investigated in recent years.

The students also have hired an Atlanta lawyer and said they're not backing down.

"It doesn't matter if I'm the least educated person in the world. I should still be allowed to vote," said Ryne Gatlin, a junior from Fayetteville. "This is about voter disenfranchisement. ... Our rights are being infringed."

The Atlanta office of the American Civil Liberties Union appears to agree.

In a letter sent this week to Bulloch County's attorney, the ACLU said those objecting to the voter registrations "have improperly and unconstitutionally targeted voters simply because they registered during the student-sponsored registration drives or happen to be students of the university."

A statement released Friday by the ACLU Voting Rights Project in Atlanta said: "Mass challenges to voters in order to intimidate qualified voters is in the sorriest tradition of the Old South. ... Unfortunately, it is a tactic commonly used for partisan gain throughout the country, and it is often aimed at students."

For those familiar with the town's politics, the implications of a big student voter turnout are clear.

Britt and two GSU buddies, bar manager Nathan Queen, 26, and business owner Travis Chance, 29, are on the City Council ballot, vying for three seats on the five-member council. They have been campaigning hard among the college set.

In recent weeks, more than 2,400 new voters registered in Bulloch County — 85 percent of them students, election officials said — after aggressive voter drives on campus. Stretch limos, paid for by local business owners, are ferrying students to City Hall.

In early voting, more than 700 people have cast ballots so far, a huge turnout for a race that typically generates a turnout of just a couple of hundred on Election Day.

The dust-up began two years ago when a Georgia Southern professor brought pictures of "Ladies Lockup" night, a weekly event in one of Britt's clubs, to a City Council meeting.

The poster-size photos showed bartenders with giant sprayers on their backs pouring neon green concoctions into girls' mouths as others chanted for them to chug more. The women drank free liquor for two hours before the doors opened to a crowd of waiting men willing to pay a cover charge to get in.

The pictures rankled many residents and horrified some city leaders. Not long after, the city yanked Britt's liquor license at The Woodin Nikel and at Legend's, another establishment he owned in town.

Britt was barred from the debate as his fellow council members passed stringent alcohol ordinances banning happy hour specials and limiting customers to one drink at a time.

Hundreds of students showed up to protest the ordinances, and the council eventually eased up a bit; it now allows limited happy hours.

Britt insists he's the one who's been harassed.

"I've been beat up by this system for 10 years," he said. "It's personal."

Georgia Southern officials, meanwhile, are staying out of the fray.

"We support the rights of students who are eligible to vote under the law," reads a dry statement issued by GSU.

Queen said residents should be thankful for the university and the millions of dollars students pump into the local economy.

"Without Georgia Southern, this town would be another Metter or Claxton," he said, referring to nearby towns along I-16 just west of Savannah. "Students should have a say."

Waters and other residents met Thursday with members of the Student Government Association, where SGA President Jon Simpson asked them to drop the challenge. Even if the students are listening to the wrong influences, he said, they should still have their right to vote.

Resident Ray Fry disagreed.

At Thursday's meeting, he said students who have registered to vote in the city election care about just a few issues that affect them while they're in town.

"This city isn't run on three topics — alcohol, towing and front-yard parking," a frustrated Fry said.

If the students' candidates are elected, Hines said, "it might just be."