UPDATED
Student Uprising In Statesboro?

South Georgia Battle Had Parallel in Athens 40 Years Ago. Click here.

(Update at 12:47 p.m. corrects in last graf the date of election which prompted the change in city charter, and adds additional detail courtesy of Connect Statesboro. New material highlighted.)

By Dick Pettys
InsiderAdvantage Georgia

(10/30/07) Is Statesboro on the verge of a student uprising that will put the under-30 crowd and a party-hearty outlook in the driver's seat at city hall, or are students merely reacting to years of having a deaf-ear turned to them by city fathers? Depends on who you talk to in the run-up to the Nov. 6 city election that has been anything but normal in a city where a “good” turnout for council seats in the past has been maybe 200 or 300 people.

Over the summer and fall, more than 2,400 new voters have been registered in a town that for years has been struggling to accommodate itself to the extraordinary growth and resultant demands of Georgia Southern University, with an estimated 80 percent of the new voters in the 18-24 age group.

But just last week, a group calling itself Statesboro Citizens for Good Government filed petitions challenging the residency of some of the newly registered. The count of challenged voters stands now at 909.

Three of the five council seats are contested in the elections and one challenger, Nathan Queen, a 26-year-old GSU student originally from Ringgold, was quoted recently in the Statesboro Herald as saying of the registration challenges: “All they’re trying to do is use scare tactics to deter people from voting.” Queen is running against incumbent Gary Lewis, 57, who was elected to the council in 1998.

Sarah Hines, one of the members of the good government group, told the newspaper: “I feel like young college students are here just to go to college; that their primary interest is in their hometowns where the candidates are people that they know and that their interest is really in their hometown ... It’s important for them to vote at home, when they’re only going to be here for a short while.”

There’s been chatter on some of the local blogs that one incumbent councilman attempted to run an ad warning students that by registering to vote in Statesboro they could no longer be listed as a deduction on their parents’ tax returns, would be subject to jury duty and were perhaps jeopardizing their financial aid. The ad apparently wasn’t run after it was challenged.

But some took the presence of two uniformed policemen at the lone polling place on Monday as early voting opened as a rather ominous sign. A voter told us he was asked to offer his ID to one of the two officers and later overhead one of them grilling a young woman of obvious college age about why she was voting in Statesboro, given that her license showed she lived elsewhere. However, the Statesboro newspaper said the two policemen were primarily checking to make sure that vehicles hired to ferry students to the polls didn't use the handicapped parking area.

About 180 people cast ballots on Monday, the newspaper quoted the registrar as saying.

A number of the folks we wanted to talk to in Statesboro for this story, like the registrar, seemed to be out of town or otherwise tied up when we called. But we did talk to the mayor, a councilman who’s in the thick of it, and several other folks who aren’t involved but have watched from the sidelines.

“This is most definitely generational,” argued Will Britt, 32, a former GSU student who was elected to the council in 2003 and has been the most vocal member of the council about student rights.

At one time, Britt owned several nightspots that catered to the young adult set - Woodin Nickel and Legends - and served alcoholic drinks along with food. He lost the licenses for what he described as a violation of a city ordinance. City officials said he failed to document that half of his profits came from food. “The main issue is, students are just tired of not being able to voice any concern about anything.”

There are roughly 17,000 students in the town of somewhere around 25,000 people. Package stores are banned but liquor is sold at bars and restaurants by the drink. There’s a limit of two drinks per time, and closing time on Saturday is at midnight.

Those have been flashpoints between the city and the students, along with issues like how many unrelated people can live in the same dwelling and how many cars can be parked outside.

Not all that unusual in a college town, but the flood of new voter registrations, combined with the challenges, raise this to a new level.

Mayor Bill Hatcher, who is in his second term and does not face re-election this go-round, said alcohol is a big driver in this race and that it centers on Britt.

“Two years ago we had a complaint from GSU students and faculty. We had pictures showing horrendous acts of alcohol being poured down the throats of females. He’d have a ladies night out, and then he’d charge a cover for males coming in after 10 p.m. It made the state news,” said Hatcher.

“We tightened our alcohol ordinances for the safety of our citizens and the well-being of our citizens. There are some who frankly don’t like that in our community. That’s a big part of this,” he said.

Insider asked Britt about that Monday afternoon. He said: "The City of Statesboro and the state of Georgia never found any wrongdoing that was going on. Once those concerns were voiced to us, we changed some of the practices - not because the city or the state cited us. We followed the letter of the law on what you could do and what you could not do."

He added, "I don't believe this centers around alcohol. Alcohol is a very hot topic in town. But it was the flashpoint of the fire, not the fire, itself. When students wanted to voice concerns, the city didn't want to hear them."

Britt faces challenger Bubba Propes, 45, who comes from an old-line Bulloch County family.

Also up for election is incumbent John Morris, 43, a local businessman. His challenger is 29-year-old Travis Chance.

According to the Statesboro Herald, the College Student Association has run a number of ads supporting Councilman Britt and challengers Queen and Travis Chance, and has circulated flyers at campus establishments near the university. Among other issues, the flyers urge students to get out and vote in order to allow parking in yards, drink specials, Sunday alcohol sales and more than two drinks at a time.

Britt said that, contrary to rumors circulating in some quarters, he is not funding the other two challengers' campaigns and did not encourage them to get in the race, although he acknowledged he has had disputes with the incumbents they wish to unseat. "By no means have I gone out of the way to help those two gentlemen."

The newly-registered voters whose registrations have been challenged will be allowed to cast provisional ballots, which will be kept separate until the local Board of Registrars hears the cases.

Statesboro is a town with something of a history of student political uprisings. A 1999 race between Councilman Joe Brannen and GSU student Aaron Niceley (which resulted in a 127-51 victory for the councilman) prompted the city to ask state lawmakers to amend the city charter to set a minimum age of 25 to run for council and 30 to run for mayor. It may be the only city in the state with such high minimums. Congressional candidates only have to be 25. Candidates for the U.S. Senate only have to be 30.