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Barrow ... Journal
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Wednesday, March 18,2009
Vol. 1 No. 21 22 PAGES 3 SECTIONS A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. WINDER, BARROW COUNTY GEORGIA 30680 25c COPY
•Spring begins to
arrive in Barrow
page 1C
•Another Cook of
Barrow County
page 1C
•Statham to bid on
sewer tap installation
page 2A
•Barrow schools now
accepting Pre-K signups
page 3A
Opinions:
•Talent defies bound
aries of youth
page 4A
•Barnes sounds more
like a candidate
page 4A
•Living with Mr. Fix It
page 5A
Sports:
•Annual WBHS Rotary
Relays held in rain
page 1B
•WBHS, AHS baseball
teams earn wins
page 1B
•JV Lady Wildcats
remain undefeated
page 2B
Also Inside:
•Classifieds
page 7C
•Church News
page 5B
•Letters to the Editor
page 5A
•Public Safety
pages 6-8A
•Obituaries
pages 4-5C
To subscribe,
call today:
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(6397).
The Barrow
Journal is
delivered
every
Thursday.
Free tax ride to end at airport
BY SUSAN NORMAN
The Barrow County Tax
Assessor’s Office is pursu
ing 2008 county taxes on
planes parked at Northeast
Georgia Regional Airport
that should have been taxed
in the past, but weren’t.
Chief Tax Assessor Cecil
Highfield said his office
mailed certified letters on
March 11 requesting tax
returns from seven airplane
owners.
Among them is the Barrow
County Airport Authority’s
new chairman, Frank
Nocera, who keeps two
restored, ‘50s-era Cessnas
in his privately-owned han
gar at the airport.
“The taxpayers were sent,
by certified mail, a letter
stating that it had come to
the attention of this office
that they may have had an
aircraft that was taxable in
Barrow County for the 2008
digest,” Highfield said in
an e-mail to the Barrow
Journal. “Along with this
letter we sent a reporting
form for (the) aircraft and
asked for it to be complet
ed and mailed back to our
office.”
Over the past month,
assessors twice have gone
to the county-owned air
port to photograph planes in
order to help establish their
taxable values. They also
have been examining the
validity of owners’justifica
tions for why their aircraft
shouldn’t be taxed.
Nocera said last week that
he was the one who had
raised the airport tax issue,
that he had “paid all the
bills I’ve received” and had
filed his tax return and “put
everything on it I was told
to.”
But other sources said
the issue had first been
raised last month by new
Barrow County Board of
Commissioners member
Steve Worley, who inquired
about airplane taxes.
continued on page 2A
CHAIRMAN’S PLANE
One of Frank Nocera’s planes at the Barrow County
Airport is shown. Nocera is the new Barrow County
Airport Authority chairman.
In Statham...
No pay
raise for
city officials
BY CHRIS BRIDGES
There will be no pay
increases for elected officials
in the City of Statham.
Saying it would not be right
to increase the pay with city
employees’ hours already cut,
a vote was not even taken on
the matter at Tuesday’s March
council meeting.
The mayor currently makes
$1,000 per month in Statham
with council members making
$500 per month.
Mayor Robert Bridges said
action would have to be taken
at this time in order for it to be
effective for the next council.
However, Bridges then said
with the tough economic times
at hand, it was not right to
institute a pay raise for elected
officials.
“It is just a bad time to do
this,” the mayor said.
Auburn may
approve new
charter Thurs.
BY CHRIS BRIDGES
The City of Auburn could
have an updated charter after
Thursday night.
City officials will hold a sec
ond — and final — public hear
ing on the updated charter prior
to a work session at 7 p.m. The
first hearing was held March 5.
The council voted 3-1 at that
meeting to approve the updated
charter.
Council member Sally Brown
voted against the new charter
due to a section which would
allow the city to take on bonded
debt without a vote of its citi
zens. Language was put in the
Auburn charter in 1997 that
had limited the town’s ability to
issue debt without first holding
a public vote.
Mayor Linda Blechinger
contended at the meeting that
such a restriction should never
have been put in the charter
and she was opposed to holding
another referendum to address
the matter.
No citizens spoke against the
proposed charter changes at last
week’s council meeting.
Previously, city attorney Jack
Wilson said there is a need
for revitalization in the down
town area, a move the town’s
new Downtown Development
Authority could undertake by
obtaining bonds to fund the
downtown project.
continued on page 2A
Irish Celebration
ANNUAL EVENT AT CHATEAU ELAN
Chateau Elan held its annual St. Paddy’s Celebration on
Saturday in the pavilion and neighboring Paddy’s Irish
Pub, which was built in Ireland and reconstructed in
Braselton in 1997. The annual event is one of Chateau
Elan’s biggest events, drawing plenty of visitors to the
winery and resort. Photo by Jessica Brown
Heroin bust latest in string
of local trafficking arrests
BY SUSAN NORMAN
Barrow County narcotics
investigators last Friday night
made their biggest heroin bust
in more than a decade.
They arrested a Snellville drug
dealer a little before midnight in
the parking lot of a Bethlehem
business and recovered 8 grams
of heroin. That was enough for
up to 160 single doses with a
street value of about $3,000,
according to the Barrow County
Sheriff’s Office.
Evan Richard Newby, 27, of
3815 Mink Livsey Road, alleg
edly sold heroin and prescrip
tion hydrocodone to an under
cover investigator.
His was the 12th drug traf
ficking arrest by the Barrow
County Sheriff’s Office in the
past six months. Officers from
the Winder Police Department
assisted in the arrest.
Newby was charged with traf-
Fire chief given
week suspension
County chairman takes action
for fire chief not being ‘truthful’
BY SUSAN NORMAN
Barrow County Board of Commissioners
Chairman Danny Yearwood suspended Barrow
County Fire Chief Robert Post Monday for one
week without pay. Post was suspended for being
“untruthful” and for not following Yearwood’s
directives about overtime pay and the use of county
vehicles.
Post had reportedly requested a meeting with
Yearwood to discuss rumors about the board of
commissioners’ plans for the fire department. But
when Post walked into the chairman’s office at
4 p.m. Monday, he found not only the chairman,
but also Human Resources Director Norma Jean
Brown. Yearwood told Post he was being suspended
without pay for 40 hours. He was asked to surrender
his badge, his county car, and until next Tuesday,
his position.
Assistant fire chief Mark Melvin is serving as act
ing chief during the one-week suspension that ends
Tuesday morning, Brown said.
Yearwood said he suspended Post because “he
was doing some things I asked him not to do.”
continued on page 2A
Yearwood’s 2008 taxes
among those collected
BY SUSAN NORMAN
Barrow County Board of Commissioners Chairman
Danny Yearwood has paid his overdue 2008 property
taxes.
With $159 in interest charged since the Dec. 15 due
date, he paid $5,796, according to the county’s website.
His payments on March 12-13 were among the $1.35
million in property taxes collected in the four weeks
since Barrow County Tax Commissioner Melinda
Williams issued tax-lien notices in February.
The notices were sent to owners of 4,700 properties
for which $6.8 million in taxes were past due. Taxes
now have been paid on 800 of those properties.
continued on page 2A
Feds looking at funding
completion of ILS work
NEWBY
ficking in heroin, possession of
heroin with the intent to dis
tribute, possession of morphine
with the intent to distribute, sale
of hydrocodone, and two counts
of the sale of heroin.
As of Tuesday morning, he
was still in the Barrow County
Detention Center on a $100,000
bond.
continued on page 3A
Barrow school system steps
cautiously with new budget
BY MIKE BUFFINGTON
AND CHRIS BRIDGES
Show us the money. That
might well be the motto of the
Barrow County School System
as it awaits final action on fund
ing by the Georgia General
Assembly and the parameters of
federal “stimulus” funds that are
slated to be spent for education.
“We haven’t seen a check yet,”
superintendent Ron Saunders
said last week of the federal
funds. “Right now, we are await
ing word on what we can and
what we can’t do with it.”
But the waiting game is — to
use a football analogy — now in
the fourth quarter. Teacher con
tracts are due in mid-April and
the system has to decide who it
will, or won't, offer contracts to
for the 2009-2010 school year.
In addition, the system is under
the gun to get its fiscal year
budget finished and adopted as
July 1, the start of the new year,
looms.
And all of that is awaiting the
end of the legislative session,
which is slated to adjourn some
time in April, and the final rules
and procedures on any federal
funds.
continued on page 3A
BY SUSAN NORMAN
The county may not have the money to complete
the final phase of the controversial instrument land
ing system project at Northeast Georgia Regional
Airport, but the U.S. Congress just might.
Airport Director Glen Boyd said he received a
call from a Federal Aviation Administration official
last week notifying him that the federal economic
stimulus bill passed by Congress may have the fund
ing needed to cover the project’s entire $894,00C
shortfall.
The additional money would be added to $528,00C
in existing federal funds for the $1.4 million projecl
to install a “medium-intensity approach light system
with runway alignment indicator lights” known in
the industry as MALSR.
“These are lights that will enable planes to land
in bad weather,” Boyd said. “It’s a very, very good
thing and it’s wonderful. It will enhance the safety
of the vast majority of approaches for runway 31,
which we consider our primary runway.”
If the funding comes through as hoped, the projecl
could be completed by the end of this year.
