Cleanup project may go to vote

Not looking to turn down free help, the chairman of the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame is trying to accommodate a volunteer group that wants to take on the overgrown botanical gardens.

On Monday Bryan Persons said he was working to set up a board of directors meeting via conference call before week's end to vote on whether to grant community organizer Anthony Esposito access to the state-owned property behind the Savannah River levee.

Mr. Esposito, a 33-year-old attorney, wants to get into the golf gardens Saturday morning so he and a cadre of volunteers can start mowing and weed whacking at 8:15 a.m. He said he'll focus first on the area visible from Reynolds Street and the Marriott hotel parking lot, saving the once-opulent, now jungle-like area behind the serpentine brick wall for when he can enlist the help of horticulture experts.

Last week he said if he didn't get permission before Saturday he might slip onto the property and do the work until he's forcibly removed. He backed off that Monday, saying he'll stand outside the gate with landscaping equipment in view of the news media.

"I think the message is going to get across enough," he said.

Its state funding gutted, the golf hall no longer has money to maintain the gardens. Its last employees are being laid off, effective Wednesday.

Mr. Esposito e-mailed his request a week ago. The Georgia Attorney General's Office has tentatively approved it, pending signing of waivers, but said the golf hall board has to take a formal vote. Its next meeting is June 25.

Mr. Persons, the vice president of Murphey, Taylor & Ellis Inc., a real estate firm in Macon, Ga., said in an e-mail Monday that he was polling board members in hopes of setting up a conference call before Saturday.

"However, please understand I am not making any promises, not (knowing) the schedules of board members," he said.

The board has 15 seats but only 11 sitting members, appointed by the governor, the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House. It takes six members for a meeting to have a quorum.

Mr. Esposito said he picked Saturday as the cleanup date because it's the first Saturday of the month, and he has joined forces with WGAC-FM (93.1) reporter Scott Hudson's First Saturday Crew, volunteers who clean up the Augusta Canal.

"We all want to do it. We've just got bureaucracy in the way," Mr. Esposito said.

He said he's asking for right-of-entry for one year. He's on the agenda to address the Augusta Commission today and said he'll pitch a plan to coordinate with volunteer groups from each commission district to get the property mowed every other week.

Mr. Esposito said his immediate goal is to bring the property in compliance with Augusta's nuisance ordinance.

However, License and Inspection Director Rob Sherman said that because the 17-acre parcel is state-owned it's exempt from city regulations.

Were it private, abandoned property, Mr. Sherman said, his office would try to persuade the owner to bring it into compliance. If that didn't work, the city could take the owner to Magistrate Court, where a judge could order the cleanup. And if that didn't work, the city would send out an inmate crew, charging $224 for the first hour and $112 for every hour after that and tacking it onto the property owner's tax bill.

With the commission divided over funding of the Reynolds Street trade, exhibit and event center, Mr. Esposito said he hopes restoring the gardens might unite the city through civic pride.

"It's far more rewarding than sitting at home in your pj's," he said.

Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com.