Newspaper Page Text
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Barrow it Journal
www.barrowjournal.com rianrnia’e Rod Woolrlw Panor 0D10.0D17
Georgia’s Best Weekly Paper, 2012-2013
Vol. 6 No. 22
20 PAGES 2 SECTIONS plus inserts
A publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. WINDER, BARROW COUNTY GEORGIA 30680
500 COPY
Fullington named police chief
By Susan Norman
snorman @ barrowjournal. com
After serving four months as interim chief
of the Winder Police Department, Major Jim
Fullington has been promoted to the perma
nent post.
Councilman Travis Singley, chairman of
the Winder City Council’s Public Safety
Committee, made the announcement
Tuesday night at a committee meeting.
A retired special agent in charge of the
Athens office of the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation, Fullington joined the depart
ment in January 2013 as the major in charge
of operations.
“I want to congratulate Jim Fullington
as our new police chief,” said Singley, who
along with city administrator Don Toms
and human resources coordinator Heather
Wright served on the committee that inter
viewed the top candidates.
Singley added: “We welcome him. We did
get the best candidate for the job. We are
very, very fortunate in the city of Winder to
have a gentleman like this.”
Those at the meeting in City Hall gave the
new chief a strong hand of applause.
“I appreciate your support and confi
dence,” Fullington responded. “We are going
to move forward together and you won’t be
disappointed."
Fullington was promoted by the city
administrator. Toms told the Barrow Journal
that only eight applicants met the position’s
requirements — college graduation, eight
years of command experience and 15 years
in law enforcement — and also correctly
filled out their job applications.
Of those, three finalists were selected for
interviews. Toms did not disclose the names
of the other two finalists.
The Barrow Journal on March 6 filed an
open-records request for the applications
and resumes of the finalists, but city officials
initially resisted the release of the docu
ments, telling a reporter that the city would
“contact you as soon as a decision has been
made and the position filled.”
After intervention by the Journal’s
co-publisher, the city clerk on March 13
released the applications and resumes of all
eight qualified candidates.
The records show that the other applicants
for the chief’s position included two current
police chiefs — one in a small Georgia city
and the other in a small Florida city — as
well as a retired assistant police chief from
Henry County and a retired police com
mander from the City of Atlanta Police
Department.
See Chief on Page 3A
JIM FULLINGTON
After 10 years... pi
/ RalM
Tax breaks OK’d
Hwy. 316 vision >
y D d 11 •
for Mizuno USA
still a dream
By Susan Norman
snorman @ barrowjournal. com
Ten years ago this month,
elected officials in four coun
ties agreed to establish the
Georgia Bioscience Joint
Development Authority to
promote the development
of bioscience centers along
Hwy. 316.
Their collective dream was
to create something along the
lines of the Research Triangle
Park in North Carolina —
with the local focus to be on
research, testing and manu
facturing of products in the
bioscience fields.
But after making little
progress over the past decade,
the JDA in the past year or
so hasn’t been able to gener
ate even enough interest from
those same local governments
to get their representatives to
the authority’s meetings.
Three of the quarterly
meetings in 2013 had to be
canceled due to the lack of a
quorum.
A quorum is seven of the
authority’s 12 members.
See 316 on Page 3A
WELCOME
ta tke fjcwtufiy!
Melinda McCoy
By Susan Norman
snorman @ barrowjournal. com
The Winder-Barrow Industrial Building
Authority last week agreed to issue up to
$18 million in revenue bonds to finance the
relocation of Mizuno USA from Gwinnett
County to Braselton.
The authority also agreed to give the
company seven years of tax breaks on $13
million in equipment the company plans to
install at the new site.
In exchange, the sports apparel and equip
ment company has promised to bring 150
full-time jobs to the facility at 920 Hwy.
124 within two years.
Most of the jobs will not be new to
Georgia. The first 100 positions will be
filled primarily by Mizuno employees trans
ferring from the company’s manufacturing
facility in Norcross and from its distribution
center in Buford. The other 50 positions
will be new, according to Guy Herring, the
county’s economic development director,
who presented the “Inducement Resolution”
to the IB A on March 13.
According to the resolution, the average
pay for the jobs in the Braselton facility
will be $20 per hour. The document also
says the company must have the initial 100
employees in place by the end of this year,
and the other 50 by Dec. 31, 2016.
“Failure to meet these goals will result
in an additional pro-rated... payment to the
county.” the document states. The arrange
ment with Mizuno is called a “payment
in lieu of taxes” and is relatively new in
Barrow County. Duke Realty Inc., which
owns the 520.000-square-foot building that
will be leased to Mizuno, meanwhile will
pay the full amount of ad valorem taxes on
it. Concerning the new equipment, Mizuno
will pay the county in the first year the
equivalent of 20 percent of the taxes nor
mally due.
A. J. Frasier
See Tax Break on Page 3A
A NEW SEASON
It was opening day for
Auburn Dixie Youth
Saturday. Following
the traditional opening
morning ceremonies,
games were played
throughout the day in
Auburn. Opening day
for youth baseball is a
time honored tradition.
Photos by
Jessica Brown
Ralph Edwards
Raymond Garrett
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Barrow ■! journal
Index:
Athlete of the Week 2B
Church News
10A
Classifieds
6-7B
Obituaries
11A
Pets of the Week
3B
Public Safety
6-7A
Sports
1B
Contact:
Phone:
770-867-6397
Fax:
678425-1435
Mail:
77 E. May St.
Winder, Ga. 30680
Web: www.barrovyjournal.com
Barrow’s top two building
maintenance staff retiring
By Susan Norman
snorman @ barrowjournal. com
The two top employees in Barrow County’s Department of
Building Services are retiring on Friday, leaving the maintenance
of nearly 40 government-owned buildings in the hands of a skeletal
crew.
Supervisor Ronny Allison is leaving after 12 years of service and
senior maintenance technician Charles Sarsfield has 14 years on
the job. Neither would explain the timing of their dual retirements,
which leaves only two employees in place to maintain the govern
ment's 30 occupied buildings and 10 or so other structures used
for storage and other purposes. When asked if recent privatization
discussions were a factor in his decision to retire at age 62, Allison
sent the following statement to the newspaper:
“I think most employees are concerned that they will lose their
jobs or have a job with a different company that may or may not
pay as much as they are making now. They are also concerned
about what a job change will do to insurance and retirement. I
don’t know if privatization is good or bad for the county, but I do
know that all these months of not knowing what is going to happen
is hard on a group of employees who have already had to deal with
no raises for six years while working short handed and under a lot
of stress."
See Retire on Page 3A
SCOPE SUCCESS
Students from the SCOPE class at Kennedy Elementary School
are regional winners in the Fall 2013 Stock Market Game competi
tion. This is the third quarter in a row that KES’s SCOPE students
have won. The Stock Market Game (SMG) is sponsored by the
Georgia Economics Council twice a year. Theses students started
with a fictitious portfolio of $100,000 and after nine weeks their
portfolio had earned $38,008. They will be honored at the Georgia
Freight Depot in May. Shown in the photo are team members
Nehemiah Sorokopud, Adrian Morales and Jacob Wright. They
are in the fourth grade and students of Cindy Ellington, SCOPE
teacher and SMG advisor.