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Barrow ... Journal www.BarrowJournal.com Or Read all over... Wednesday, December 17,2008 Vol. 1 No. 8 20 PAGES 2 SECTIONS A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. WINDER, BARROW COUNTY GEORGIA 30680 25c COPY Statham cuts staff hours Is Barrow airport for sale? No offer yet, but suitor shows interest in privatizing controversial facility BY CHRIS BRIDGES The tough economy has found its way to Statham. Mayor Robert Bridges said the city's work force has had to cut back to 32 hours per week. The adjusted work schedule went into effect this week. “Our rev enues have slowed down quite a bit,” Bridges told the Barrow Journal prior to Tuesday night’s coun cil meeting. “We hope this will only be for a short amount of time. We decided to go this route instead of layoffs.” The reduction from 40 to 32 hours will not affect employ ees' benefits, the mayor said. Statham has 20 full-time employees, including a police department and workers for the city. “We are a full-service city including police, water, sewer and garbage,” Bridges said. “We don’t expect any interrup tions in any of these areas.” Barrow planners to meet Thurs. The Barrow County Planning Commission’s regular meeting for this month will be at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Board of Commissioners meeting room in the administrative annex on East Broad Street. One item is on the agenda. James Rex Palmer and Margaret Ann Palmer of 410 Kilcrease Road are requesting that three acres be rezoned from AG to R1 to allow their land to be split into three tracts for residential use. Other News: •School News page 6B •Public Safety pages 6-8A •Church News page 5B •Obituaries page 7 7 A BRIDGES •Sports pages 7-4 B A proposal to possibly sell the Northeast Georgia Regional Airport in Winder to a private investment firm has generated considerable con troversy since it was revealed late last week. That controversy continued at Tuesday’s meeting of the Barrow County Airport Authority, even though the matter was not a formal part of the agenda. As the authority discussed com pleting the ILS system at the airport, incoming chairman of the Barrow board of commissioners, Danny Yearwood, questioned the need to spend money to complete the project with a potential sale of the airport in the works. “We’ve got a private business that has already contacted us to buy the airport,” Yearwood said. “The money you're spending (on the ILS) is going into something that is going to be torn out.” After some back-and-forth debate over county airport financing, author ity chairman Sammy Everett told Yearwood to stick to the ILS subject. “Did you come in to chastise the airport or to discuss the ILS?” Everett said. “What you are saying is not rel evant to our discussion. I am asking for discussion on the ILS.” Yearwood responded, “I’m tell ing you the position you are putting the county in. I will deal with it in January.” NO OFFER YET This latest skirmish in the ongo ing war over the future of the air port began last month when a pri vate investment firm from New York contacted Barrow County leaders about the possibility of buying the Northeast Georgia Regional Airport and making it into a regional facility for “light” passenger aircraft. No offer has been made and the dis cussions are in the very early stages, said those involved in the situation. Brett Smith, one of the principles of Propeller Investments in New York, said his firm would not be reviewing any proposal until mid-January. Smith said that the firm had been evaluating several sites in Georgia and that Barrow was just one of sev eral locations. He said no site studies had been done and that the discussion was just preliminary in nature. Smith also said his firm would “not do anything without the support of the community.” continued on page 3A Santa and Sparky FIRE DEPARTMENT EMPTY STOCKING FUND DRIVE Santa and Sparky the fire dog along with Ian Givexis, 6, and Mason Spinis, 4, take a quick break during last week’s toy drive conducted by the Winder Fire Department. See more photos from the event on page 12A. Photo by Jessica Brown Barrow gets two new firetrucks READY FOR SERVICE Winder’s newfire truck was manufactured by Florida- based E-ONE and purchased through Fireline, Inc., a new Barrow County distributor of fire equipment. Photo courtesy of the Winder Fire Department BY SUSAN NORMAN Two aerial ladder trucks with a combined price tag of $1 million arrived within 10 days of each other last month in Barrow County. Winder’s 75-foot ladder truck, along with 1,200 feet of 5-inch hose and other equipment, cost the city $511,000, said Winder Fire Chief Ray Mattison. Barrow’s 75-foot lad der truck cost the county government $508,711, said Barrow County Fire Chief Robert Post. The chiefs acknowledged that some might question why both fire departments purchased their depart ments’ most expensive piec es of equipment at the same time and during a down economy. But they said it was not competition between depart ments that precipitated the purchases; it was the fire suppression standards set by the Insurance Services Office (ISO), a private firm whose ratings affect the cost of property insurance premi ums in communities around the United States. “ISO, which regulates us for fire insurance rates, requires us to have a certain amount of ladder trucks,” Mattison said. “It’s based on having so many buildings over three stories in height. “Whether it was one or two departments, we would still have to have two lad der trucks. We're required to because of the city (build ings), and Barrow County's required to because of build ings they have.” Winder's new truck is replacing a 75-foot ladder truck the city has used since 1975. “Every year, we're required to have an aerial test on this truck,” Mattison said. “For the last several years, we've held our breath. This past year, it failed the aerial test and was going to cost in excess of $30,000 to repair the truck, and it was not worth the repair. We could have spent that money and we would still have a very old truck.” He said he and his staff looked around for a newer truck in good condition, but could not find one that would be of good value to the city. continued on page 3A Barrow wins hospital lawsuit BY KERRI TESTEMENT A judge’s decision on Monday could put plans for a new hospital in Braselton in doubt. Superior Court Judge Bob Adamson ruled in favor of Barrow Regional Medical Center in a lawsuit that cha llenged the state's granting of a Certificate of Need (CON) to Northeast Georgia Medical Center for a new 100-bed hospital in Braselton on Thompson Mill Road, near Chateau Elan. While an attorney for the Winder hospital hailed the ruling, an official from the Gainesville-based health system said plans to build a hospital in Braselton are still moving forward. “Our resolve — relative to the hospital, relative to the development of a signifi cant number of positions in the South Hall marketplace, bringing sophisticated ima ging and surgical services to that marketplace — remains absolutely unchanged,” said Jim Gardner, president and CEO of the Northeast Georgia Health System. Gardner said the health sys tem anticipated that Barrow Regional would oppose a new hospital in South Hall and accounted for an appeals pro cess in the development time line of the Braselton facility. “Because we built this into our timeline for the new hos pital — in the 2011 or 2012 timeframe — we anticipated this trip,” he said. “It takes a certain amount of time. We built that amount of time into our timeline (for construc tion). We expect to prevail through the court of appeals and life will go on.” Former state attorney gene ral Mike Bowers — who is representing Barrow Regional — said the ruling is an econo mic boost to Winder. “For Winder, it's a huge positive economic development to block a hos pital from locating 11 miles away with no analysis having been done,” he said. Adamson ruled that the state’s review process of the CON application had been “arbitrary and unreasonable.” Adamson said the events lea ding up to the state gran ting a CON for the Braselton facility had not been handled correctly. “The actions of the (state) Board in affirming the grant of a CON under these cir cumstances is inconsistent with the rationale of the CON program,” Adamson said. He ruled that state's process “was without adequate review” and had not allowed Barrow Regional an opportunity to fully respond. The judge also said the state had “recklessly” assumed that the fast growth in the North Georgia area would be enough to support the hospitals busi ness plans. continued on page 5A COURT HEARINGS Barrow Regional Medical Center Chief Operating Officer Brent Burish and Chief Executive Officer Joe Clancy leave the Barrow County Courthouse after the Nov. 24 hearing. Photo by Susan Norman