Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

* • FI 1 I- rl'l* *1* r 1(1 i % * •Sports Preuieuj section •Wildcats 1-0 on se v-athens ga ** PROJECT doaifct * *»n rv inside this meek - Wildcats, gameSatun GEORGIA NEWSPAPER 4 * * * Trojans & Softball •Lady Wildcat WW. OF / ut ATHENS,.^ jow •Trojans ready to play •toePage* -1-99 Wednesday, September 1, 1999 tlhc lea&er -{Tribune Vol. No. 110, Issue 35 5 Sections, 62 Pages ACH Inside ut Pep Rally A pep rally for the Fort Valley State University Wildcats will be held downtown Friday in Fincher Park at 5 p.m. Free hot dogs, cokes and music. Tax Assessors The regular meeting of the Peach Board of Assessors will be held on September 2nd at 6:00 p.m. in the County Com¬ missioners’ Public Meeting Room at the Peach County Courthouse. Blood Drive There will be a Blood Drive on Monday, September 13 from 3- 7 p.m. at Chamlee Baptist Church. There is a great need for blood donors right now so please help! HESPTO Hunt Elementary School Open House/P.T.O. Meeting Thursday, September 2, 1999 at 6:30 p.m. at the Hunt Elemen¬ tary Cafeteria. Volunteer Training Volunteer Training for Children’s Bereavement Program, Sat., Sept. 18, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 19, 1-5 p.m. Peach Regional Medical Center Conference Room. Pre-register by call¬ ing 477-0335. Bereavement Support A bereavement support group will begin Sept. 9 and continue through Nov. 11. Every Thursday night from 6:30-8 p.m. for 10 consecu¬ tive weeks at Thomas Public Library. Must attend all 10 classes. Pre-register by call¬ ing 477-0335. Alicia Wilson will lead the program. Want to adopt? Thinking about investing? Invest in the future of Georgia’s children. Help provide security to Georgia’s children and their families ... for the rewards. If interested call the Peach Coun¬ ty Department of Family and Children Services at (912) 825- 6428. Hospice Training Volunteer Training for becoming a Hospice Volun¬ teer, Sat. Sept. 25. 9 a.m. - 12 noon., Peach Regional Medical Center Conference Room. Call 477-0335. Self-Defense class HODAC’s Victim Resource Center is sponsoring a Com¬ mon Sense Self-Defense Class for womm on Thursday September 9, 1999. The class will be held c* HODAC, 2762 Watson Blvd., from u.uu p.m. • 8.00 p.m. Participants wil learn to identify survival sig nals and basic self-defense Reservations required. Cal 953-5675 to make reservations. Drive on for records archive Adina Bailey spearheads The days of travelling all over the county to gather information may be coming to an end. Edna Bailey, of the Fort Valley Utilities Commission, presented a report at this month’s quarter¬ ly intergovernmental meeting on a proposed records management system for Byron, Fort Valley, Peach County and surrounding counties. Bailey said that out of the eight governmental units contacted there were five that said yes immediately and three possibles depending on how much it’s going to cost. The eight units include Reynolds, Butler, Marshallville, Oglethorpe and Montezuma, Taylor and possibly Crawford Peach County's source of local news, advertising and sports for over 100 years • • • Two accused here of ‘indoor growing’ The Peach County Sheriff’s Department raided the “biggest indoor growing operation in Peach County” last Thursday morning. Major Terry Deese, of the sher¬ iff’s department, referred to last week's seizure of 42 pounds of marijuana from a trailer on Price Road. Deputies executed the warrant at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 26th. The raid was a co- ■ % . € 3PP ii i,” mlt r I tl uij h lMsi >. HI— : : ■ } | it. - mm | U *3 ** ill 0 la * ir„* w 1 : f i / ,» . V- W'-y' i HI t . > i / II mg ■ r ft A I 1 ] l In »» $1100 in cash was found at the scene. Less than 100 attend first tax forum By Jarry Murtagh The Lmadmr-Tribunm Peach County Commissioners took their search for a county¬ wide water and sewer system to the Byron Elementary School last Monday evening. Fewer than 100 residents attended the public forum designed to rally support for a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) which will be voted up or down at a spe cial election to be held on September 21st. Commissioners hope to use the one cent sales tax to raise $12 million over a period of five years as “seed” money toward the first phase of the proposed and Roberta. Bailey said that Andy Taylor not the one from Mayberry, the one from the Georgia Archives Department, “is talking with the archives board to see if we could get more money by the county’s and cities working together. If that’s not going to get more money,” Bailey said, “then he’s going to recommend that the counties and cities pursue sepa¬ rate grants” Bailey explained that the grants are to pay for surveying records to determine the volume and types of records which would need to be archived. Mayor John Stumbo suggested that if each unit applied for their own grant it would be poe- erffo/t (tett’t krtrtr unli hiA^t thmx * operative venture among the Warner Robins police depart ment, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Peach County Sheriff’s office. David Porter, 36, and Roxanne Barrett, 40, were arrested in the raid. Porter was charged with manu facturing marijuana and posses sion of a firearm during the com mission of a felony. His bond was set at $10,000 and he is being water and wastewater treat ment system. Peach County Water and Sew er Authority (PCWSA) Chair¬ man Melvin Walker provided an overview of the history of the proposed project beginning with the appointment of the PCWSA in July of 1997. Beginning with the first meeting of the PCWSA in August of 1997, Walker said, “We started to look at all of the service providers in the coun¬ ty...people in the cities were being served but there were people in the rural areas that weren’t. There was the area along 1-75, the economic corri dor, that we hadn’t done much about. Warner Robins was beginning to annex parts of Peach County in that area.” Walker explained that the authority used a $25,000 grant from the state legislature, obtained through the good offices of Senator Hooks, Repre¬ sentatives Robert Ray and Lyn more James, to retain the Macon engineering firm of Tribble and Richardson to develop a prelim¬ inary plan for a countywide water and sewer system. Tribble and Richardson put together a document savine “here’s what you need...and what you need doesn’t have to all be built at the same time. You need some of it within five years, some in ten and some in twenty...they came up with a sible to pool their resources for the creation of a central archive. “I think that Mr. Taylor pointed out before that if we did this col¬ lectively we would be able to get more grants and more help but if we did it individually it would be too costly. The plan would be to form one archive for the surrounding counties and cities with one manager. Everyone would have there own security system for their records and could make their own decision about how long to keep records and when to send them to the archives.” Bailey added that all that’s down the road, the first thing we have to do is conduct a “survey of our records” as a first step in the process toward forming an archive. (See RECORDS. Page 2A) «£» * * ■ i j ■' Wm am ::Xi . > T/ !\ ■ < I H ■ I i •vc- 4? i t /• / \ g ./ / me The loot conviscated from the home. held at the Peach County Law Enforcement Center, Barrett was charged with man ufacturing marijuana. She was released on $5000 bond. Deese said the three bedroom mobile home was well set up for manufacturing drugs. The walls had thick insulation to keep the heat from being detected by police helicopters and the grow ing lamps were set to operate only between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Two of the mobile home’s three bedrooms were devoted to grow¬ ing marijuana and the third was used as a drying room for the plants. , Deese said that the marijuana seized was very pure. He added that Porter had allegedly been selling it for $3000 a pound as compared to a normal street price of $1200 a pound for “home grown” marijuana. Deese noted that the 42 pounds seized left Porter and Barrett eight pounds short of being charged with trafficking which carries a mandatory five year penalty and a $100,000 fine. Other items seized in the raid included $1100 in cash, two grow lamps with power units, a thermometer, a humidity gauge, a green ammo box with ammu nition. * Remington Model 591 cal. 22 rifle ser#1138117, a Stevens Model 62 cal. 22 rifle, scr#L189200, a Mossberg Model M835, 12 gauge shotgun, an SKS cal. 7.62x39 rifle, a RedStar 4x20 scope w/mounts, a smoking pipe, a metter electronic balance, an April issue of High Times magazine, a small pill bottle with Marijuana residue, a Trion Ilf hat is Peggy Herbert doing? i d out inside this ft eek on Page 7fl Electronic Air Cleaner, 2 packs of cigarette rolling papers, a pair of sci I a Gerber baby food conta ^'mtaining Maryuana seeds, brass smoking pipes, one large amount of foam wall insulation, and 20 light bulbs. If convicted, Barrett and Porter face a minimum of five years in prison and/or a $20,000. There sentence could be as much as 20 years. five year, ten year and twenty year plan. Their recommendations suited us fine,” Walker added, “ because the price tag on the total 20 year project was estimated at $80 million. If we had to build that all at once, we’d be up the creek without a paddle.” The authority explored the possibility of funding the first phase of the project with loans, according to Walker, but even assuming the lowest interest rates, “There was no way the residents of Peach County could pay the rates necessary to fund the project.” In an effort to devise methods for funding the project, Walker said, the authority looked at sev- CssS . • X -.as “JSi i 1 £■ ' ' ' ■-v.. 1 * Trojan time Steve and Roberta Smith were on the scene bright and early Satur¬ day morning painting Trojan heads on the streets near the high school. In fact, when the photographer arrived at 7:15 a.m., they were the only ones around. The Trojans kick off their season, Friday in Warner Robins against the Northside Eagles, 7:30 p.m. 50c Per Copy eral other counties that had dealt with a similar situation. “We looked at a number of plans where they had done such things, we went up to Clayton County, we looked at seven or eight examples of county’s like us...McDuffie County and Thompson, they’d done this and when they finished...they ended up coming out with very little debt left.” At that point, Walker explained, we began to look at getting “seed” money for the pro¬ ject through SPLOST. “We can use that money as leverage...to obtain grants and assistance for funding the remaining portion of the first phase of the project.” (See FIRST, Page 2A)