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Mrs. Ethel Barnes of the Living Center shared a smile
with Mrs. Norma Trotter of Decatur, dressed as a clown.
i)/O'fault study
Wreck victims sometimes
have no motive to work
ATLANTA (AP) — Employees in
jured in automobile accidents have “no
motive to return to work” because they
can collect more money from workers'
compensation and no-fault insurance, a
panel created by state Insurance
Commissioner Johnnie Caldwell
reported Wednesday.
“There are many instances in which
an employee receives workers’ com
pensation and nofault benefits,” the
report said. “On some occasions, the
injured party also collects through
legal action.”
The committee, made up of insurance
company representatives and
businessmen, was appointed by
Caldwell to find out why premiums
Georgia employers pay for workers’
compensation insurance have been
increasing in recent years.
“The total benefits received from
workers’ compensation and no-fault
give the employee no motive to return
to work. In effect, the employee could
be making more money from his in
surance benefits, which are exempt
Critics, backers agree
food stamps in tangle
ATLANTA (AP) — Whether they’re
for or against some form of federal
nutrition assistance, both sides seem to
agree that the current food stamp
program is an example of bureaucracy
in its most tangled state.
“It leaves people so frustrated and
hungry they are almost tempted to eat
the red tape,” Mississippi anti-poverty
activist Rick Abraham told a regional
meeting of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
The USDA meeting was one of a
series of regional public forums on
proposed changes in the program.
More than 100 food stamp recipients,
hunger-fighting organizations and state
and local officials attended the hearing,
which produced 12 hours of testimony
Tuesday.
Abraham, a spokesman for the
Mississippi Hunger Coalition, told
USDA officials there is only one food
stamp caseworker for every 1,000
DAI WS
Clowning around
Griffin, Ga„ 30223, Thursday Afternoon, October 13, 1977
from income tax and Social Security,
than he would make working and
receiving a salary,” the report said.
Meanwhile, a special state Senate
committee said it is preparing
legislation to abolish nofault insurance
and return to a system of voluntary
auto insurance cover ge.
The Senate Motor Vehicles Accident
Reparations Study committee said it
could find “nothing good” in the no
fault system, which requires all mo
torists to carry liability insurance.
The major problem with the two
year-old system is that 40 percent of
motorists do not carry the insurance
even though it is mandatory, said Sen.
Paul Broun, D-Athens, a member of the
committee.
Following a committee meeting
Tuesday, Broun said that under a bill
being prepared auto liability insurance
would not be required but changes
would be made to encourage such
coverage and insurance companies
would be required to offer broader
coverage.
eligible persons in his state. He said the
lack of manpower coupled with endless
paper work means it takes from two to
six weeks to review an application,
even if it is an emergency.
He also accused food stamp ad
ministrators of being “poorly trained,
insulting and racist.”
Qiyamah Al-Nur, a young Atlanta
mother, testified she was “harassed
and interrogated” by insensitive
Georgia caseworkers.
She also complained that bu-.
reaucratic hitches in the program and
late mail deliveries of food stamps had
forced her to go hungry for more than a
week and to turn to friends for the
feeding of her child.
Roy Lloyd, an official of the South
Carolina Department of Social Ser
vices, cautioned the USDA to write
whatever new regulations it adopts in
clear language “rather than in the
vague and devious wording that is often
employed.”
GRIFFIN
The visitor brought smiles to patients at the center and the
Griffin-Spalding Hospital. More Pictures on page 24.
Courts would be empowered to
suspend the driver’s license and auto
tag of a person not covered by in
surance if he was at fault in an auto
accident, Broun said.
“The only way that person could get
his license and tag back would be to
make restitution to the innocent victim
in the accident,” he said.
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Open house at this new Fairmont Community Center which had been scheduled Sunday had to be
postponed. It will be rescheduled.
At Williamson
Ruling on curfew
won’t stop patrol
Judge voids
curfew rule
in Eatonton
EATONTON, Ga. (AP) - A federal
judge has struck down this city’s 13-
year-old 11:30 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew as
unconstitutional, saying that despite its
intention to curb crime the curfew is an
“infringement of individual liberties.’’
The ruling by U.S. District Court
Judge Wilbur Owens Jr. came in a suit
brought on behalf of Michael Grant, a
Vietnam veteran who was killed in an
early-morning scuffle with an Eatonton
policeman last November.
“The city’s desire to nip crime in the
bud may be accomplished by less
drastic alternatives which do not sweep
so broadly into the rights enjoyed by its
citizens,” Owens ruled.
“It is a fundamental principle that
where government wishes to adopt
regulations that may burden or infringe ,
on individual rights and freedoms, the'
government must not only have some
significant reasons for adopting the
regulations, but must also tailor the
regulations so that they meet the
specific need without unnecessarily in
fringing individual freedoms,” said the
ruling, which was handed down last
week.
Attorneys for the Southern Regional
Office of the American Civil Liberties
Union, which filed the suit, contended
the ordinance had potential for abuse
and smacked of “police state” tactics.
Eatonton Mayor James P. Marshall
said the city would not appeal Owens’
order.
“I’m pleased that it is over with,”
Marshall said. “I’m completely
satisfied with it (Owens’ ruling). Judge
Owens certainly knows what he’s doing.
I fought in World War II for the Con
stitution. If this is not constitutional, we
don’t want it. I think you’d find all the
others (on the city council) feel the
same way.”
Vol. 105 No. 243
The Country Parson
by Frank (lark
mgy
JWMy fl * M
“A fellow should begin to
question his position when some
folks start to agree with him.”
STAR
teacher
resigns
HOGANSVILLE, Ga. (AP) - Mrs.
Mildred Burdette, Georgia’s STAR
teacher of the year, has resigned her
teaching job after being cited for in
subordination for remaining in the
classroom instead of attending a
seminar.
“My time spent this year in the
Hogansville schools has made me very
much aware that the children in our
schools were without the continuous
presence of qualified teachers,” Mrs.
Burdette, a teacher at Hogansville
Elementary School, said Wednesday.
“I found I could not spend three more
days in activities which I deemed of
little value.”
Mrs. Burdette, who also was assigned
to direct the city school system’s gifted
student program, said she had received
School Superintendent Louis Brum
mett’s approval of her written request
to be excused from the last three days
of a weeklong seminar on “transac
tional analysis.”
Weather
FORECAST FOR GRIFFIN AREA -
Fair and cold tonight with scattered
frost and lows in the upper 30s. Sunny
and cool Friday with highs in the low
60s.
LOCAL WEATHER - Low this
morning at the Spalding Forestry Unit
40, high Wednesday 65.
Pike County Sheriff Billy Riggins
said today his deputies would continue
to keep an eye on Williamson, at night,
despite the ruling of a federal judge that
seems to void curfew laws.
The Williamson City Council had
asked the sheriff’s department to en
force curfew the city had had on the
books many years.
People who gathered in Williamson
after midnight in what appeared to be
drinking parties concerned the
Williamson Council.
Williamson Mayor Bobby Harrison
told the weekly newspaper Reporter in
Pike County:
“Some things were going on that had
to be stopped.”
He said there was littering and ex
cessive noise by groups of teenagers
who gathered nightly in front of a local
business.
The mayor pointed out there was a
report of vandalism to the Williamson
United Methodist Church.
Harrison said things have been quiet
since the area has been under the watch
of the sheriff’s deputies.
Sheriff Riggins said he would con
tinue to keep an eye on the situation,
despite the ruling against the Elberton
curfew.
He said there were other recourses
open to law officers to maintain peace
in Williamson and in other county
areas.
Mayor Harrison, a rural mail carrier,
could not be reached by phone this
morning for comment.
People
••• and things
Old doormat of auto dealership still in
front of city garage on East Solomon
street: "Putting you first keeps us
first.”
One liner on message board at
Presbyterian Church: “By not giving
up, the snail made it to the ark.”