About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 2020)
Tigers win thrilling triple overtime battle with Denmark SPORTS, 1B DCHS announces homecoming King and Queen, inside, sb DawsonCountyNews WEDNESDAY I JANUARY 22, 2020 DaWSOflNeWS >COnri DAWSONVULE, GEORGIA $1.00 City, county enter IGA on TSPLOST By Jessica Taylor jtaylor@dawsonnews.com The Dawsonville city council and the Dawson County board of commissioners came togeth er Monday, Dec. 10, 2019 in a joint meeting to discuss the terms and conditions of the proposed TSPLOST referen dum. County and city officials met at Dawsonville city hall on Jan. 14 to enter an intergovernmen tal agreement on the Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST), a one penny sales tax that the local entities have discussed for the past several years. “I think all of us understand the importance of our infra structure, especially our roads and bridges and how important they are, and they’re also one of the most expensive things the cities and counties have to deal with and trying to maintain,” Dawson County Commission Chairman Billy Thurmond said. “This would give both the city and the county an opportunity to have a specified revenue source that would allow us to be able to take care of those issues.” The city council and board of commissioners unanimously approved to enter an intergov ernmental agreement regarding TSPLOST which will be on the May 19 primary ballot. District 4 Commissioner Julie Hughes Nix was not present for the meeting due to a family emer gency. The IGA outlines the terms of the proposed TSPLOST which, if approved by city and county residents in May, would seek to collect a cap of $45 million over a span of five years. The county would collect 91% of the revenue, with the city collecting nine percent. The agreement calls for the county to receive the funds from the Georgia Department of Revenue then pay over a cer tain percentage to the city. Per the IGA, the city will receive some of its money upfront in order to jumpstart some of its projects while the county fin ishes up its SPLOST projects. “There are a lot of things that the city’s got that need to be repaired. It’s a good vehicle for us to reach out to many of our subdivisions... the city during our downturn in the economy adopted a lot of roads that are probably substandard to what we would have adopted now. They’re in pretty bad shape and we think this will be good,” Dawsonville Mayor Mike See TSPLOST17A A floral half-century Jessica Taylor Dawson County News Gail Wright creates a floral arrangement with fresh cut red roses on Jan. 20 at Dawsonville Florist. Dawsonville Florist celebrates 50 years in business By Jessica Taylor jtaylor@dawsonnews.com What started as a hobby for two young women has blossomed into a flourishing floral business that has been a staple in Dawsonville for half of a century. When Gail Wright was just 21 years old in 1969, she wanted to embark on a new hobby with her friend and neighbor, Beverly Ball, who lived just across the street. “We kind of decided we wanted a little bit of a hobby in 1969 so we trained under a flower shop in Dahlonega for two weeks and then she kind of taught us the tools and how to do things and where to buy things,” Wright said. The passion for designing floral arrangements grew beyond just a hobby as the duo decided to go into business, opening up Dawsonville Florist on Nov. 8, 1969. “We started on her back porch at her house and then about a year later I guess we built this little building here on my side of the road, so we’ve been here ever since,” Wright said. “We just both liked flowers and we thought it might be a neat thing to do, and it just kind of bloomed from there.” While Ball retired from the floral shop six years ago, Wright hasn’t slowed down. Inside the little white building on Hwy. 9, Wright and her husband of 53 years, Wayne, work to keep their loyal customers happy. “I’ve always lived here so our cus tomers are people that we grew up with and they helped to start the busi ness, really, and then have been cus tomers all this time a lot of them,” Wright said. “With funerals and wed dings and birthdays we see people through their happy times and through their sad times.” Gail designs fresh cut flowers, green plants and silk flowers in the shop while Wayne goes out to deliver arrangements and helps around the shop by cleaning buckets and helping with Gail’s preparations. “People walk in and they’ll say ‘I’d just love to do this. This looks like it’s just so much fun,’ but it’s hard work, long hours. Sometimes you don’t get a day off for several days so it’s not quite what people think it is,” Wright said. “Everything that comes in has to be made so that takes time and that’s why we put in a lot of long hours because a funeral doesn’t wait on you. There’s a time. A wedding doesn’t See Florist 13A BOC approves 2% raise per salary study By Jessica Taylor jtaylor@dawsonnews.com The Dawson County Board of Commissioners approved a two percent raise for all county employees during its Jan. 16 voting session. At the Dec. 19, 2019 voting session, the board voted to table a new salary study until its Jan. 16 meeting where the board took a vote and unanimously approved $836,000 to be spent on a 2% raise for county employees, as well as an increase in benefits. The salary study’s goals, according to the presentation, were to “perform a com pensation/classification study for all county positions, comparing compensa tion to relevant labor markets/competitors and ensure that positions performing sim ilar work with essentially the same level of complexity, responsibility and knowl edge, are classified together.” The salary study looked at 333 posi tions in 139 job titles. It’s the second sal ary study the county has conducted since SeeBOC|8A Popp named editor of DCN From staff reports Alexander Popp has been named as edi tor of the Dawson County News. The announcement was made on Jan. 20 by Stephanie Woody, publisher of the Dawson County News. “We are excited to have someone of Alex’s cali ber to lead Dawson County News,” Woody said. “Alex has proven himself as a strong jour nalist throughout his career. We look forward to him bringing those skills with him in his new position as editor of the Dawson See Editor 14A Popp 0 9 0 9 9 Inside Volume 4, Number 69 © 2019, Dawson County News Dawsonville, Georgia Church Events 3B Classifieds 8B Dear Abby 7B Deaths 2A Legals 9B Opinion 9A Sports 1B 4A Deputies arrest 2 in Ga. 400 drug bust 7k Dawson County Schools releases 2020 ESPLOST project list NOW CANCER CENTERS ACROSS GEORGIA ■I By providing access to more cancer treatment centers, we're bringing expert care to more Georgians. That care is made possible by having the most board-certified medical oncologists of any community hospital network in the state—and it's helped establish us as top 2 in the nation among community cancer programs. Learn more at builttobeatcancer.com m NORTHSIDE HOSPITAL CANCER INSTITUTE BEATCANCER ■feUILTTO
