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10A I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com
Wednesday, August 29,2018
Photos by Austin Steele Gainesville Times
Law enforcement officials searching a Gainesville property off Old Cornelia Highway discovered marijuana, pills and a cache of more than 50 guns, includ
ing a military-style machine gun,Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018.
FROM 1A
Guns
“As we were able to expand the investiga
tion, it led us to this property. There was evi
dence associated with this property that
there could be a clandestine lab,” said DEA
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Chad
Cook.
About 50 pounds of marijuana valued at
about $150,000 were found at the home.
The DEA also found 800 grams of alprazol
am powder and pills and a large quantity of
steroids and growth hormone. No value has
yet been assigned to the other drugs pulled
from the property.
More than 50 long guns and about 20 pis
tols were found at the property. Some of the
rifles had barrels shortened below the 16
inches allowed by federal law, and many of
them were unfinished, according to
Truesdale.
It’s possible some of the rifles are auto
matic weapons, according to Truesdale. The
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
has taken the lead on investigating the fire
arms found on Thursday, but representatives
of the ATF were unavailable for comment
on Friday.
Along with the rifles, law enforcement
found suppressors, body armor and other
items.
A ladder leads to
a bunker discov
ered during a
warrant search of
a property on
Old Cornelia
Highway on
Thursday, Aug.
23, 2018.
FROM 1A
Fees
Eason presented the
county’s impact fee meth
odology report to the rest
of the council. The report
lists the fees that Dawson
County adopted on Aug.
16 and explains how the
maximum fees were cal
culated.
“I want everybody to be
thinking about this. I’m
not suggesting we’re
ready to do any impact
fees or even if we want to
do impact fees I wanted
everybody to just have
this information avail
able,” Eason said.
City Attorney Dana
Miles told the council
that impact fees are a
development tool to fund
a portion of the cost of
infrastructure and capital
improvements that are
required by growth.
“What I would say to
the council is that if
you’re considering impact
fees the smart time to
consider them is on the
upswing of economic
growth, not when you’re
at your peak because
that’s too late,” Miles
said. “To me, the two
major uses I see for
impact fees within the
city would be roads and a
tertiary wastewater treat
ment plant because as
you grow in population
you will have to have a
new wastewater treatment
plant.”
In order to get one per
mitted through the EPD,
Miles said, the city would
probably want to use
SPLOST dollars, impact
fees and enterprise funds
to fund it.
“The same would be
true for road improve
ments like the city por
tion of the improvement
to Perimeter Road, build
ing the Perimeter Road
extension on to Hwy. 53
West, those are the types
of projects that you could
help fund with impact
fees should you choose to
do so,” Miles said.
Miles said that in order
to enact impact fees, the
council would have to
first decide that was what
they wanted to do, and
then hold at least two
public hearings and con
duct a study, all which
would take several
months.
Eason said he wanted
the council to consider
the use of impact fees for
the expansion of the
city’s sewage capacity
and wastewater treatment.
“As you know we do a
lot of water and sewer
service, so if we’ve got
500 homes coming into
the city that’s going to be
a burden on our sewer we
may not be able to handle
it with our existing
resources,” Eason said.
“At the current time we
have about 400 or 500
homes that are already
zoned, they’re not under
construction yet but in the
next 24 months they
probably will be under
construction, possibly
completed.
“We want everybody to
study what’s been provid
ed, what the information
from the county is... and
then we need to come
back together in the next
month or two and discern
whatever we want to do.
This was a request that
the county made of us
and I wanted us to con
sider it.”
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