{"id":1,"date":"2014-08-20T20:20:46","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T20:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/learning-technologies\/?p=1"},"modified":"2023-04-14T16:22:28","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T16:22:28","slug":"event-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/event-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Center President announced ELEVATE Campaign surpassed its fundraising goal of $5.5 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sydney Rainwater<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Student journalist tries to make out what Classic Center Authority members are discussing by putting her ear to the door during their executive session. She and 14 other students and professors waited outside for the public meeting to resume. (Photo\/Sydney Rainwater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Classic Center Authority faced pushback Tuesday afternoon from student journalists during the authority meeting. Classic Center President Paul Cramer announced before the executive session a Classic Center Arena Letter of Intent was signed that day and the ELEVATE Campaign surpassed its fundraising goal of $5.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authority signed documentation to go into executive session to discuss a potential real estate deal and ushered the 12 students and three professors out of the meeting room at 4:58 p.m., but they did not take a vote, as required by the Open Meetings Act of Georgia\u2019s Sunshine Laws<\/a>. The meeting resumed at 6:18 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Executive session is an exemption to the act. These closed meetings must be to discuss personnel or real estate, and they must be preceded by, \u201ca majority vote of those agency members present,\u201d according to the Georgia Sunshine Laws<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The journalists showed the board the Sunshine Laws when the meeting was reopened, and the CCA insisted they took a vote.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe voted to go into executive session,\u201d Treasurer Tres Small said \u201c(Ms. Taylor) read it, I thought.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know we intended to vote,\u201d Cramer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students and professors explained they were all recording video and audio and did not observe a suitable vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Executive assistant Melanie Taylor showed the attendees the affidavit the chairman signed, and said that was all they were required to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs there anybody that would have objected to going into Executive Session?\u201d President Cramer asked the board. \u201cLet the record show that everyone was willfully going into executive session, and that we are now out of Executive Session.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Members of the board and the audience listen to Cramer\u2019s Presidential Report. He is seated next to Jack Crawley, the chairman of the board. (Photo\/Sydney Rainwater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What was discussed:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Arena Letter of Intent<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Cramer announced the Letter of Intent between the Classic Center and the developer, Mallory & Evans<\/a>, for the upcoming Classic Center Arena was finalized and signed by all parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The signed LOI allows for the Classic Center to develop all of the property surrounding the arena to \u201ccreate an entertainment district,\u201d generate long-term leases with the developer and help pay for the construction of the building, Cramer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 150′ x 358′ arena will be able to house as many as 8,500 guests. Cramer said it will come with 1,000 parking spaces located off of Hickory Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Granite Dispute<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The authority discussed negotiations with JE Dunn, the major contractor for the Classic Center Arena. Cramer said the contractor requested an additional $11 million from the Classic Center because they had to extract an unexpected amount of granite and soil from the site. The CCA has two engineering firms evaluating the claim to see if they agree with JE Dunn\u2019s assessment before agreeing to pay the $11 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ELEVATE Campaign<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The president also reported that the CCA has surpassed its fundraising goal of $5.5 million for the ELEVATE Campaign<\/a>, an initiative to broaden the Classic Center\u2019s music, entertainment and education programming and bring more jobs to Athens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He announced they\u2019ve raised $5.63 million. Cramer said he hopes the CCA can keep raising money by not disclosing that they\u2019ve met their goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf everybody knows that I hit the goal, then you’ll hear the checkbooks close from everywhere,\u201d Cramer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the CCA hired a professional fundraising company and made campaign videos and brochures to attract donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spring Graduation<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The CCA confirmed that many of UGA\u2019s graduation ceremonies will be held in the Classic Center this May due to Stegeman Coliseum\u2019s recent closure. Stegeman was closed until further notice after a piece of the ceiling fell on March 1, the university announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe volume of people that we are gonna put through this building is staggering,\u201d the president said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cramer said the increase of events scheduled in May has made meetings with the police department and traffic engineers necessary to consider the logistics of hosting more people than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Why I Wrote the Story: <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This story taught me the importance of keeping people in positions of power in check. The Classic Center Authority members were hesitant to speak on certain topics because they had an audience. Writing this story encouraged me to be bold and persistent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Classic Center Authority members violated Georgia\u2019s Sunshine Laws Tuesday by asking student journalists to leave a public meeting after they did not vote to go into Executive Session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19,24,21,22,20,23,26,27,25],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arena","tag-classic-center","tag-fundraising","tag-meeting","tag-new","tag-signed","tag-state-law","tag-sunshine-laws","tag-violation"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlsites.uga.edu\/rp-sydneyrainwater\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}