{"478111":{"#nid":"478111","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Sally Bethea (MCP \u201980) says proposed Hall County reservoir a waste of tax dollars to benefit developers","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor the past two decades, local and state officials have crusaded to build a reservoir in the middle of thousands of acres of timber land owned by a wealthy Austrian family. The current version of this project would require the damming of a small tributary to the Chattahoochee River in Hall County just upstream of Lake Lanier, and the flooding of 850 acres,\u0022 writes Sally Bethea (MCRP \u002780) and guest lectuerer at SCaRP in her column for the Saporta Report.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Taxpayers in Hall County, who have never been given the opportunity to vote for the reservoir, have spent $16 million on consultants \u2013 lawyers, lobbyists and engineers who are working to secure the federal permits that must be issued to allow 18 miles of streams and 40 acres of wetlands to be destroyed during construction. (One of those consultants \u2013 lawyer Tommy Craig, who was paid at least $1 million by Hall County for his Glades efforts \u2013 no longer works for the county and has been fired by other local governments for overbilling and failing to deliver permits for similar reservoir projects.)\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERead her full column at the Saporta Report site.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"28044","created_gmt":"2015-12-11 13:12:08","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 02:27:49","author":"Jessie Brandon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","publication":"maritime","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"http:\/\/saportareport.com\/proposed-hall-county-reservoir-a-waste-of-tax-dollars-to-benefit-developers-politically-connected-insiders\/","dateline":{"date":"2015-12-06T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-12-06T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"478101":{"id":"478101","type":"image","title":"sally bethea","body":null,"created":"1450285200","gmt_created":"2015-12-16 17:00:00","changed":"1475895230","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:50","alt":"sally bethea","file":{"fid":"204124","name":"sallybethea.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sallybethea_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sallybethea_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":115722,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/sallybethea_0.jpg?itok=2ipib2RI"}}},"media_ids":["478101"],"groups":[{"id":"1224","name":"School of City \u0026 Regional Planning"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}