Most recently, the City of Athens supported its residents by helping Athens Arts League host a Mardi Gras parade that collected food for the needy via a partnership with LCCI.
This isn’t the first — or surely last — time that Athens has come together to take care of its residents. Organizations within the community are constantly working together to provide for their neighbors.
Alongside taking care of each other, the city has been working to consider what improvements and changes need to be made to best serve the residents of Athens. These decisions have included considerations on infrastructure, such as the Cloverleaf flooding from July 2023, which led to conversations in future development projects on how to best protect the land from water runoff in unfavorable places.
These considerations have also included some hot debates on what Athens wants to allow in its limits.
In June 2023, a vote to repeal an ordinance allowing medical cannabis dispensing sites in Athens ultimately failed in a 2-2 tie. Then later in August, the council heard debates on whether or not to allow a cigar lounge on the same downtown block as a church, and that vote ended in a decision to allow the lounge to continue its planned opening.
2023 also saw Dana Henry moving into the president’s seat of the Athens City Council, making Henry the first female president in years.
“I don’t foresee that my being president and being female will be an issue to anybody. If anything, it may eliminate your need to refer to me as councilwoman,” Henry said in a previous interview as she began her role in November of 2023.
As Athens-Limestone grows, the Athens government is meeting and making decisions to benefit the residents of the city and keep up with the needs of a growing city.