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o o 12 Pages, 1 Section, Plus Preprints A Publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. Winder, Barrow County, Georgia $1.00 Copy Wednesday, January 6, 2021 For results from Tuesday s runoff election, go online to barrownewsjournal.com and see next week s edition. Schools plan to reopen next week By Scott Thompson sthompson@barrownewsjournal.com Despite the continued massive surge in corona- virus infections, including locally, Barrow County School System superinten dent Chris McMichael said the district plans, for now, to have all of its schools open when students return for instruction next week. McMichael told the board of education during its Tuesday, Jan. 5 work session that — as of Tues day night — the district re mained at adequate staffing levels to open all schools to in-person instruction Mon day, Jan. 11, when the new semester begins. School staffers will return Friday, Jan. 8, for a planning day. As has become custom, McMichael stressed to the board and the public that the district’s course could change at any time based on conditions. “We’re in fairly good po sition,” McMichael said. “We do expect this is go ing to be a very uncertain time over the next several months. There is some light at the of the tunnel, even though (the rollout) has been a little slower than we anticipated. We’ll do our absolute very best to give as much notice (about any changes).” The school district has planned to enact “targeted” closures when individual schools reach insufficient staffing levels, or in the event major outbreaks oc cur within the student body at those facilities. Winder Elementary School was closed to in-person instruc tion the final week of the first semester before the dis trict went on winter break because the school did not have adequate staffing due to COVID-19 issues. See BOE, page 3A Index: Public Safety 6-7A Ronda Rich 7A Classifieds 12A Legals 8-9 A Obituaries 10-11A Opinion 4A Sports 5A MAILING LABEL State announces expansion to virus vaccine group Georgia officials have announced plans to add additional groups of people to the current group of individuals eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. Adults 65 and older, law enforce ment officers, fire fighters and first responders are expected to be eligi ble for the vaccination in the next two weeks, if adequate supply is available. They will join health care work ers and long-term care facility res idents, who are already eligible to receive the vaccination. Georgia public health commis sioner Kathleen Toomey and Gov. Brian Kemp announced the expan sion of the “Phase la vaccination criteria” last week — “provided the state continues to receive ade quate vaccine supplies,” according to Kemp. “We will continue to monitor the administration efforts of our public health workers and partners in the private sector, and the supply chain of both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to ensure eligible Geor gians are vaccinated without delay,” Kemp said. While the vaccine is starting to be administered, some reports indicate the rollout in the state has been ex ceedingly slow. While the federal government al located funding to develop and then ship the vaccines, it did not allocate funding for the states to actually ad minister the vaccine until the most recent legislation was passed. “Different areas of the state are completing Phase la at different times based on the number of health care workers and LTCF residents and staff they have to vaccinate,” Toomey said. “This expansion of la eligible vaccination criteria will allow vaccine to be administered See Virus, page 3A Proposed development back before Winder City Council Google Maps image The Winder City Council is set to consider a revised annexation and rezone request for more than 200 acres south of Atlanta Highway and west of Pine Hills Golf Course for a proposed 240-home residential subdivision — six months after it denied the original request. City planning board has recommended denial of annexation of land\ rezoningfor residential development By Scott Thompson sthompson@barrownewsjournal.com A proposed large residential subdivi sion just east of the Winder city limits is coming back before the council this week — six months after the council shot down proposed land annexation and rezoning re quests that would have initiated the devel opment. But despite the applicants cutting back the proposed number of homes by more than a third, the city’s planning board has again recommended denial of the re quests. As part of its new meeting schedule for 2021, the city council will meet at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 7, in a work session and will hold public hearings on requests by MMK, LLC. and Sullins Engineering to annex seven parcels totaling more than 200 acres south of Atlanta Highway and between Pine Hills Golf Course and Russell Cemetery Road into the city and rezone the bulk of the land to single-family high-density resi dential in order to build a proposed 240-lot subdivision at 1.57 units per acre. The re maining 45 acres would be rezoned to gen eral commercial. The applicants last summer proposed a 387-lot subdivision and “light industrial development,” but the proposal drew sig nificant pushback from council members as well as county government leaders over the potential impact on traffic in the area and concerns from county school officials over the strain new homes could cause the district as well as the projected price point of the homes. The land is currently located within the county’s rural reserve character area, which would limit the developers to only about a third of the homes under the orig inal plan, which the applicants said last summer would not be economically fea sible. Future land uses under the county’s character area are recommended to be ag riculture, forestry and “very low-density, detached single-family residences” with a maximum of one dwelling unit per two acres), including residential subdivisions that “protect natural features and set aside communal open space.” The land is also adjacent to the Subur ban Neighborhood character area with in the city limits. That area’s intent is to “preserve established neighborhoods and create quality new residential develop ment that is consistent with surrounding suburban densities; and are suitable where suburban residential development exists or is likely to, given the presence of sewer (or the potential for sewer expansion) and existing residential zoning. Future devel opment is recommended to be consistent with single-family homes at low to mod erate densities. Suburban Neighborhood areas include the perimeter of Winder and adjacent unincorporated areas.” Julie Sellers, an attorney for the appli cants, wrote in a letter to the city that the site plan has been “significantly modified” following input from the city last summer. See Winder, page 3A Barrow among Ga. counties that received threatening election email The Barrow County Sheriff’s Office had deputies posted at each of the county’s eight polling locations Tuesday after the county officials received a threat ening email in the lead-up to the Jan. 5 runoff elec tion, where both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats and a Georgia Public Services Commission seat were on the ballot. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Depart ment of Homeland Security and other agencies are investigating the email, which apparently was part of a coordinated series of threats sent by a person or per sons seeming to be part of a right-wing organization to officials in Barrow and at least nine other counties across the state, including neighboring Jackson Coun ty. The individual or group threatened to blow up polling places and inflict violence upon anyone who doesn’t support overturning the presidential election results in Georgia to favor outgoing President Donald Trump and referred to anyone who voted for any of the candidates in the runoff “our greatest enemy.” See Threat, page 3A GBI sketch Public help sought in identifying statutory rape, kidnapping suspect The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Barrow County Sheriff’s Office are seeking help from the public in identifying a man wanted for questioning in connection to a May 2020 incident in the county that involved kidnapping, statutory rape and aggravated child molestation. The GBI released a sketch of the white male this week but did not have any age information available. He may drive, or previously had access to, a white SUV, authorities said. Anyone with information is asked to call the GBI Athens office at 706-552-2309. Anonymous tips can be made via the GBI tip line at 1-800-597-8477 or online at https://investigative-gbi.georgia.gov/gbi-tip- line.