“I have never seen such a blatant disregard for community,” Martin Vazquez said, describing the mornings he leaves his house to find the remnants of last night’s party strewn across his yard.

One vocal opponent of the special use, Hunter McComb, said that the quality of life is being intruded upon by a number of things going on in the Historic District.

McComb also spoke about a story in the GCSU student newspaper, The Colonnade, concerning the special use in which SGA Senator Joel Graham was quoted as saying: “I would even fear a possible rise in vandalism cases due to the increased foot traffic to and from outlying apartment complexes.”

McComb said that maybe there was something he didn’t understand.

“I didn’t know that in a college town we didn’t have to respect the rule of law,” he said.

William McComb read a letter on behalf of Historic District resident Ray Olivier that pointed to recent issues of The Colonnade, which printed stories about the rampant theft of street signs on and around campus and a number of recent vehicle break-ins.

Sandra Jones said she represented the people who had given up on living in downtown because of the disruptive nature of the group

residences.

“Milledgeville dropped the ball in adequately planning for the college’s expansion,” she said. “We’re not going to have downtown grocery stores and movie theaters unless single families are there, and single families won’t move in unless we stop the encroachment of transients in the neighborhood.”

Milledgeville Historic Preservation Commission Chair John Alton told council that the root of the problem is the dismantling of single-family neighborhoods by allowing de facto multi-family residences in single-family-zoned districts.

But opponents peppered their criticism of the students with some encouragement.

Mary Moore Jones, a Historic District resident who works in the GCSU library said she didn’t want the students leaving the meeting thinking that the residents hated them. She said she was depending on the students to among other things pay her Social Security, a benefit they won’t get to enjoy when they grow older.

With all the community input council could handle, District 6 Councilman Steve Chambers motioned that council disregard the Planning and Zoning Commission’s negative recommendation and approve the special-use designation as written. But silence took the place of a second, and the motion died for lack of action.

Despite Mayor Richard Bentley’s comment that Planning and Zoning’s recommendation stands, council is procedurally forced to take the issue up again at its next meeting Nov. 18.