About Fayette County news. (Fayetteville, GA) 2009-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 2023)
OBITUARIES Wednesday, February 22,2023 PTC Council Discusses Voter Hardships, Redistricting Resident Presents Plan to Simplify Ballot Casting for City Voters A2 Fayette County News Elaine Warren Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023, Elaine Warren, age 60, of Fayetteville, passed away. She was born in Wake field, Mass., to Eleanor Loughman and the late James Loughman. In ad dition to her father, she was preceded in death by her younger brother, Bobby Loughman. Elaine Warren is sur vived by her spouse, Dixie Warren, Jr., and her four children, Jessica (Alex) Dickinson, Kevin (Hayley) Lewallen, Bryce Warren, and Kennedy Warren. In addition, she is sur vived by her mother, Elea nor Loughman; her sisters, Diane Pealor, Karen Smith, and Cindy Adamson; and her grandchildren, Brady Dickinson, Logan Dickin son, Brooke Dickinson, Beau Lewallen, Whit Le wallen, and Iva Lewallen. Elaine worked at Geor gia Pacific for 23 years, Dixie Sod for two years, and the Ginn Group for 13 years. She loved the out doors, finding hobbies in biking, walking her dogs, and jumping on the tram poline. Her favorite place in the world was the beach, and she could be found there every summer with her en tire family. She loved her family, and was always one to cele brate with them. She threw birthday parties, holiday celebrations, Fourth of July bashes, etc. Not only did she throw these parties, but she was the life of the party. She was known for her loving manner, her compas sion, and her kind spirit. Her celebration of life will be held from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26, at ONE Church in Fayetteville. Vis itation will be from 2-3 p.m. and will be followed by the ceremony at 3 p.m. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Kid ney Cancer Association (kidneycancer. or g). Leah Banks Investigative Reporter leah@fayette-news.net PEACHTREE CITY- In recent elections, members of many Fayette County com munities searched high and low to find their local voting precincts on election day, as many residents must travel to two voting locations to vote in local municipal elec tions and countywide, state, and federal elections. In Peachtree City, a high percentage of voters made it to the municipal precinct, but not to their designated county precinct. In the Feb. 16 PTC Coun cil meeting, resident Su zanne Brown addressed council with the possibility of redistricting to allow PTC voters to be registered to one location for all elections, as Fayette County Board of Elections members are al ready considering a redis tricting process countywide. Prior to Brown’s dissec tion of the issue, PTC City Manager Robert “Bob” Cur- now highlighted that it has been an issue between the municipal elections and statewide elections, and the staff has been working on a possible solution. “We have reached out to Brian Hill, the election su perintendent of the county. We have also been speaking to Patrick Stowe, the attor ney at the county, and per sonally had a conversation with Steve Rapson, the county administrator, stress ing our interest to make sure that our voting precincts can be somewhat combined to allow our constituents, our residents, to do a vote and to go to the same location, as opposed to going to two dif ferent locations,” Curnow said. Curnow reassured coun cil that the county has been working on a possible solu tion and that there have been steps taken to address the possibility of utilizing the precincts that would best serve their residents. Councilman Mike King told council he spoke with Darryl Hicks, chair of the county selection committee. He said that, according to the conversation, Fayette County had been divided into three separate districts. Keeping that in mind, King placed emphasis on the re duction of voting precincts and focus on ensuring that the reduction does not hin der voting. “We really don’t know right now if our neighbor hoods have been cut in half for voting lines... All that needs to be hard hashed out... From what [Hicks is] telling me, their number one priority over the next year is to get this done so that we don’t have the inconvenience and the lack of voting of sev eral voters in this county vot ing at city elections that vote in one precinct for one elec tion,” King said. King said the real prob lem is when the issue would be fixed. While Hicks guar anteed that he was working on the problem this year, the true resolution would be seen most prominently dur ing the national or state elec tion in 2024. Brown took to the po dium to discuss what she had prepared, but not with out expressing a piece of knowledge that she felt res idents of Peachtree City needed to know. “Every elector, who lives inside of a municipality, when you register to vote, they assign you a county pre cinct number and they as sign you a municipality precinct number. Having those two be different is what created the problem,” Brown said. Brown began her presen tation by stating that she was most concerned about the “2,380 Peachtree City cit izens who live in the Rising Star County Precinct, the 14 Peachtree City residents who live in Dogwood, and the 17 Peachtree City residents who live in Whitewater County precinct.” “Each of those 2,411 city residents are assigned to a [county precinct location] outside the city boundary and a municipal precinct with a [voting location] in side Peachtree City,” Brown said. “If they voted on elec tion day in November and December, they had to go to two separate poll locations to cast both ballots. That was not the case if they voted early.” Brown provided a spreadsheet that would as sist in alleviating the prob lem and would allow for residents to have the same voting locations and increase voter participation. Brown also highlighted that the county’s board of elections has already considered re drawing the precinct lines to reduce voting locations from 36 to 19. “For the record, Fayette County has had the same precincts for 19 years and it’s highly likely the people in power have never done re districting before. So, do we want to rely on them to make drastic changes within the entire county without mak ing any mistakes?” Brown asked. Brown reminded that she sent each member of the council a solution that would allow for Peachtree City to be made aware of the redistrict ing and that Peachtree City residents would be able to vote at the same precincts for all elections. At the end of Brown’s presentation, Mayor Kim Learnard opened the floor for council to comment and discuss the presentation and information provided. Members of council agreed that a letter should be drafted to the elections board as well as possibly sending a member of the council to the upcoming board of elections meeting. The council agreed that there were questions for the elections board from the council and citizens, so send ing a member would be pru dent. MOWELL FUNE RA L HOME @@7^ Cremation Service 180 N. Jeff Davis Drive FAYETTEVILLE, GA 302 14 770-461-764 1 • FAX:770-460- 1 003 FYTOFFlCE@MOWELLS.COM 200 Robinson Road PEACHTREE CITY* GA 30269 770-487-3959 * Fax:770-487-59S9 PTCOFFICE@MOWEI_LS.COM Fayette County Schools Kindergarten Enrollment Fayette County is now accepting school year 2024 enrollment applications (for cur rent Fayette County residents) for kinder garten students. Additionally, students who currently live in Fayette County and attend private school, home school, or a non-Fayette County school and plan to attend Fayette County Public Schools in the fall, can also register now for the 2023-2024 school year. Visit the Enrollment and Records Center page on the school system’s website (https://www.fcboe.org/Page/237) for ad ditional information regarding the required online registration and enrollment doc uments. Carmichael - Hemperley Funeral Home and Crematory 135 SENOIA ROAD, PEACHTREE CITY, GA 30269 770-631-9171 OFFICE * 770-631-9144 FAX We have had our crematory onsite since 1996. T)ct*Ast Dignity " C5mI MOHIAI / SOUTHERN CRESCENT FINISH FAST TECHNICAL COLLEGE ENROLL IN CLASSES FOR THE Earn FULL CREDIT in HALFTIME III www.sctech.ed u/m i n i m este r Classes Begin March 9,2023 FAYETTE COUNTY NEWS P.O. Box 96, Fayetteville, Ga. 30214 ■ Phone: 770-461-6317 Fax: 770-460-8172 ■ fayette-news.net Award-winning member of the Georgia Press Association and the National Newspaper association. The Staff Leah Banks Investigative reporter • leah@fayette-news.net Sydney Spencer News Reporter • sspencer@fayette-news.net Jennifer Lyons Legals Editor, Classifieds • legals@fayette-news.net Luke Haney Editor, Digital Media Coordinator • support@fayette-news.net Debbie McClain Publisher, Co-owner Bridge Turner Managing Editor, Co-owner Fayette County News (USPS 188-420) is published Wednesdays for in county rates of $40 yearly. Georgia out-of-county is $50, and out-of-state is $60. Published by Upson Newspapers, Inc., 219 Thomas Street, Thomaston, GA 30286. Periodicals postage at Fayetteville, GA, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Fayette County News, P.O. Box 96, Fayetteville, GA. 30214. Our Goal: Fayette County News is proudly published for the citizens of Fayette County and East Coweta by Upson Newspapers, Inc., owned and operated by Debbie McClain and Bridge Turner. Our goal is to produce qual ity, community-oriented publications of which our readers can be proud. We will attain that goal through diligence, teamwork, and dedication to printing the truth in an accurate, fair, balanced, and objective manner. Our Policies: Signed letters to the editor are welcomed and encouraged. We do not edit for content, only grammar, spelling, and punctuation when necessary, as designated by Associated Press style guidelines. Unsigned, li belous, or profane letters will not be published. Please limit letters to 400 words or less and to only two letters per month. Liability for errors in ad vertising will not exceed the space occupied by the error. We reserve the right to edit all submitted materials. The Meeting Place Fayette County Board of Edu cation meets the third Monday of the month at 7 p.m. Fayette County Commission meets the second and fourth Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. Fayette County Planning Com mission meets the first Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. Fayetteville City Council meets the first and third Thursday of the month at 6 p.m. Fayetteville Planning Commis sion meets the fourth Tuesday of the month at 6 p.m. Fayetteville Work Session meeting on the last Tuesday of each month at 9 a.m. at Fay etteville City Hall. Peachtree City Council meets the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. Peachtree City Planning Com mission meets the second and fourth Monday of the month at 7 p.m. Tyrone Town Council meets the first and third Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. Tyrone Planning Commission meets the second and fourth Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. Tyrone Downtown Devel opment Authority meets at 9 a.m. on the second Monday of the month. Brooks Town Council meets the third Monday of every month at 6:30 p.m.
