Someone wants attention
Granted we've been having a rather civil discussion regarding OneAthens over here, but then again you've got folks like Donald Chapman who pretend like there isn't a problem at all.
Chapman, who has launched a new 'think tank' called Sensible Athens, has put on his tin foil hat and claims that poverty isn't that big of a deal in our neck of the woods because the statistics are inflated (apparently for some nefarious reason too). Through some odd rationale, he claims that because a portion of our labor force lives in Madison County and Oconee County, we must include them in our poverty survey.
Two absolute problems with his findings ...
First, a 21.8 percent poverty rate is still dramatically higher than the state average.
Second, he concedes that close to 1/3 of the population in Athens-Clarke Counthy lives below the federal poverty threshold, but apparently because poverty rates are lower in the neighboring counties we shouldn't bother.
Now, who is Donald Chapman? Well, that's a damn fine question. I've asked around to several folks from both sides of the political aisle, those affiliated with the Univesity of Georgia and those who work in the public sector, those who favor expanded public services to the poor and those who favor market-based solutions ... and no one knows this guy.
The only Donald Chapman I can find is a guy who lives in Lawrenceville and works for UGA in an unspecified capacity, so I can't verify if he's the guy or not. Regardless, Chapman for some reason wants to sabotage the very fact that we're talking about poverty in our community. Why he wants to do this, who knows?
But I do this - his organization is a sham that exists to satisfy his own ego and it's not better than the falsehoods peddled by the non-defunct Sunshine Project.
Chapman, who has launched a new 'think tank' called Sensible Athens, has put on his tin foil hat and claims that poverty isn't that big of a deal in our neck of the woods because the statistics are inflated (apparently for some nefarious reason too). Through some odd rationale, he claims that because a portion of our labor force lives in Madison County and Oconee County, we must include them in our poverty survey.
Two absolute problems with his findings ...
First, a 21.8 percent poverty rate is still dramatically higher than the state average.
Second, he concedes that close to 1/3 of the population in Athens-Clarke Counthy lives below the federal poverty threshold, but apparently because poverty rates are lower in the neighboring counties we shouldn't bother.
Now, who is Donald Chapman? Well, that's a damn fine question. I've asked around to several folks from both sides of the political aisle, those affiliated with the Univesity of Georgia and those who work in the public sector, those who favor expanded public services to the poor and those who favor market-based solutions ... and no one knows this guy.
The only Donald Chapman I can find is a guy who lives in Lawrenceville and works for UGA in an unspecified capacity, so I can't verify if he's the guy or not. Regardless, Chapman for some reason wants to sabotage the very fact that we're talking about poverty in our community. Why he wants to do this, who knows?
But I do this - his organization is a sham that exists to satisfy his own ego and it's not better than the falsehoods peddled by the non-defunct Sunshine Project.
posted by Jmac at 4:51 PM
3 Comments:
I thought the poverty rate in Athens was high because they consider many college students as living in poverty, am I wrong?
Removing the number of college students, the number dips from 31 percent to 25 percent.
At least the print margins on that pdf help to conserve paper.
But, not knowing anything about this myself, how did you arrive at the conclusion that this is a sham organization? I know you know a good number of people here in Athens, and likely they'd know someone directly or indirectly who had the resources to start an influential community think tank, but it seems to me that being an unknown doesn't automatically discredit one's organizations. Or even being on the wrong end of a historical moment...
So, is there something unstated that I'm supposed to be aware of? Should I just read Winders' column (the link went to the pdf...)?
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