About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (March 15, 2023)
Relay teams lead Tigers in opening track meet of the season, sports, ib Inaugural prom held for non-traditional students, foster youth. INSIDE, 4A WEDNESDAY I MARCH 15,2023 DaWSOflNeWS >COm DAWSONVULE, GEORGIA $2.00 Corps pauses Lanier renaming plans Announcement comes hours after documents saying Corps would rename lake, Buford Dam By Jeff Gill DCN regional staff Will they or won’t they? Within hours of releasing docu ments saying the Army Corps of Engineers would move forward with recommending new names for Lake Lanier and Buford Dam, the Corps appeared to backtrack on its plans. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is pausing any actions related to project renaming pend ing further guidance from the Department of the Army,” the agency said in a statement sent to The Times Lriday afternoon. Correspondence earlier in the day indicated another direction. The Corps’ Mobile District “will develop and submit a new name for Lake Lanier/Buford Dam for consideration by the Department of the Army,” District Commander Jeremy J. Chapman said in a letter Lriday, March 10, to Lake Lanier Association executive director Amy McGuire. The actions are being taken in accordance with the fiscal 2021 William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act, the letter says. “Our goal is to be fully open and transparent during the renam ing process, and we will solicit public and stakeholder feedback on the recommended names,” Chapman said. The Corps has set up a website to obtain public comments. The agency has been “directed to provide potential name chang es to Lake Sidney Lanier and Buford Dam,” said in a news release Lriday, March 10. A Corps “planning team is working to develop possible name recommendations and establish timelines for this pro cess,” the release states. An information sheet released by the Corps on Lriday shows a list of renaming milestones, with “directed renaming complete” dated Jan.l, 2024. That timeline now seems in limbo, given the latest communi cation from the Corps. The Mobile District, which includes Lake Lanier and Buford Dam, “is committed to public and stakeholder engagement.” “Ultimately, Congress has the final authority to select a new name for the project since it established the project’s name (Lake Lanier) when it first autho rized the project in 1946,” the website states. The issue stems from a September report issued by The Naming Commission, a congres- sionally chartered group assigned to reviewing federal names relat ed to the Confederacy. The Linal Report to Congress says the lake and dam are “within its remit for consideration, but not within its purview to provide a naming recommendation.” Buford Dam is named for the city, the namesake of Lt. Col. Algernon Sidney Buford, who served in the Virginia Militia dur ing the Civil War, the report states. Lake Lanier is named after poet Sidney Lanier, who served in the Confederate States Army as a private. The lake drew 12.3 See Lanier 13A ‘We’re excited to bring even more services’ JfcjBv elf ] H Hi I 1 I H 1 B mu 1 Erica Jones Dawson County News Officials break ground on Northeast Georgia Health System's upcoming Medical Plaza 2 on Wednesday March 8. NGHS breaks ground on medical plaza in Dawson County By Erica Jones ejones@dawsonnews.com On Wednesday March 8, Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) officially broke ground on the system’s newest medical plaza in Dawson County. The new plaza will be called Medical Plaza 2 and will be located at 22 Prestige Lane next to the system’s existing building off of Highway 400, which will be renamed from Medical Plaza 400 to Medical Plaza 1. The new plaza is scheduled to be ready to open in 2024. According to Daniel Tuffy, President and Chief Administrative Officer of Northeast Georgia Physicians Group (NGPG), the new plaza will greatly expand the services that NGHS will be able to offer to Dawson and its surrounding counties. “Medical Plaza 400 opened in 2013; since then we can all agree that this area has changed and grown quite a bit,” Tuffy said. “In this decade that we’ve been here, Northeast Georgia and NGPG have expanded to keep up with the growth of the region, adding new spe cialties and physicians so all our residents can have care closer to home. That’s why we’re excited to bring even more services and expanded care home to this communi ty.” The existing medical plaza will turn into mainly primary care services with radiology, and the new building will have enough room to host both the existing and new specialists, Tuffy said. Medical Plaza 1 will include NGPG family medi cine, pediatrics, internal med icine and psychiatry, as well as the HealthLink Lab, imag ing and radiology. Medical Plaza 2 will house NGPG OBGYN, orthopedic surgery, sports medicine, urgent care and urology, along with cardi ology services provided by the Georgia Heart Institute. Having all of these services available between the two buildings will make patient care easier for both the physi cians and the patients, Tuffy said. “Having this all together in one campus is going to lead to a more effective and effi cient appointment process and less travel for our patients as well,” Tuffy said. “It will also be especially convenient for urgent care patients to have specialty providers in the same building for follow up care.” He also mentioned the upcoming hospital, NGMC Lumpkin, that is expected to open next year in neighboring Lumpkin County. See NGHS14A New buildings at DCHS near completion By Erica Jones ejones@dawsonnews.com Dawson County High School’s two newest additions, the multipurpose athletic building and the Roger D. Slaton agriscience center, are nearing completion and should be ready to open before too much longer, Assistant Superintendent of Operations Hershel Bennett reported to the Dawson County Board of Education during its March 7 meeting. The two buildings will both be located at the high school, with the agriscience center next to the school’s College and Career Academy building and the multipurpose ath letic building located between the high school, performing arts center, gym and press box. Both are being paid for with the district’s E-SPLOST funding, and both are nearing the home stretch of the construction process, Bennett said. See School 14A Details needed for decision on county’s EOC, E911 center By Julia Hansen jhansen@dawsonnews.com After a half hour of recent public discus sion, a decision on the new location for Dawson County’s new emergency operations and E911 center was still too close to call. The Board of Commissioners weighed a lit any of cost and placement concerns about the major capital project during their March 2 work session. The EOC and E911 center is one of several notable projects voters approved as part of a Dawson County special purpose local option See E91115A 0 90994 04002 Inside Volume 9, Number 11 © 2023, Dawson County News Dawsonville, Georgia Events 2B Classifieds 6B Dear Abby 5B Deaths 2A Legals 6B Opinion 7A Sports 1B 3A Anchor Real Estate Advisors brings quality services to Dawson. 6A School system celebrates Exceptional Childrens Week. m r.OSttgS fOH element -jJj- invisolign "We all try and go above and beyond and give that five start treatment, so it's rewarding to know that what we do matters." v r. f 4* - Q)amoiwille B. MANZUR, D.M.D. 754 HWY. 53 WEST, DAWSONVILLE, GA 706-265-2505
