Newspaper Page Text
BUT AMIIHMI ■
x industries EBB
i war
1 st imports . %
16E 5A
VOLUME LXXVI—NUMBER 76
City workers
will soon be
punching
the clock
By Chuck Thompson
News editor
Acting in response to a U.S. Su
preme Court ruling extending federal
wage guidelines to local government
employees, the Cumming City Coun
cil voted Tuesday night to acquire
time clocks for city employees.
The Garcia decision requires that
local government employees earn at
least $3.35 per hour and be paid time
and-a-half for overtime. The ruling
went into effect April 15 and outlaws
compensatory time, which involves
giving time off instead of overtime
pay.
City Manager Gerald Blackburn
told the council he had been to a
number of meetings on the ruling,
and that the major emphasis has
been on keeping good records. In
order to do this, Blackburn said, time
clocks are necessary.
Updates on three major construc
tion projects affecting the city were
given to council members in Tuesday
night’s meeting.
One of these is a road-widening
project on Ga. 20 west, set for comple
tion in May, 1986.
The project involves the addition of
a third lane on the highway beginning
just west of Hickory Ridge subdivi
sion and continuing in that direction
around the foot of Sawnee Mountain
to a point just west of Sawnee El
ementary School.
A number of city fire hydrants
along the highway have been relo
cated to make way for the widening
project.
But, according to Blackburn, the
work is not over. Once fill material is
in place along the highway at the foot
of Sawnee Mountain, city water lines
there will have to be relocated.
Cumming Mayor Ford Gravitt em
phasized that the road-widening pro
ject is being conducted by the state.
He said the city is having to relooate
water lines for the project at its own
expense, and receives no reimburse
ment from the state.
Blackburn said the Georgia De
partment of Transportation does not
plan to let bids for a second road
widening project on Ga. 20 until next
year. The project will extend from
Hickory Ridge subdivision to down
town Cumming.
Clearing of land already has begun
for an expansion of Cumming’s sew
age treatment plant on Castleberry
Road, Blackburn said.
The project will almost double the
See CITY, Page 7A
Lake Lanier Islands
hopes for $25 million
to lure conventions
By Laura McCullough
Managing editor
If all goes as planned, Lake Lanier
could be a major convention site in
Georgia by as early as 1988.
A $25.7 million expansion project to
build a hotel, convention center, golf
course and water park has been pro
posed for Lake Lanier Islands by the
Lake Lanier Islands Authority.
According to Roy Burson, director
of the Islands, these plans resulted
from a feasibility and marketing
study conducted last year. The state
legislature budgeted $360,000 for this
purpose.
Plans are now being made to re
quest $25.7 million to be budgeted
during the next General Assembly as
a loan to the Islands for the expan
sion.
“If implemented this will make
Lake Lanier Islands self-supporting
and we won’t have to rely on a suppli
ment from the state,” said Burson.
“It should also generate $1.6 million a
year in taxes for the state and should
Forsyth CountyNew^|
vJ' ~ 1
S K \ jsgj jBPf Jgmf - intfg *
„•!«>< — fV.. , .....:.. ■ at..— -*1
Staff Photo Norman Baggs
Fred Hicks raking hay off Majors Road: Agribusiness is still vital in county
Judges tour agribusinesses
For state competition
By Chuck Thompson
News editor
Forsyth County was the first stop last week on a
judges’ tour of five counties competing for top honors
in a statewide agribusiness recognition program.
Known as the “Agribusiness Development and
Leadership Program,” the competition is designed to
promote agribusiness throughout Georgia.
It is sponsored by the Cooperative Extension Serv
ice, Georgia Power Company and the Georgia Agribu
siness Council.
To become one of the five finalists in the competi
tion, Forsyth County had to finish first among the 17
counties of the North-Central Extension District.
Other district finalists are Gilmer, Houston,
Toombs and Decatur counties.
The Forsyth County tour was conducted Tuesday by
Hugh McMillian and Clark Beusse, with the local
Extension Service office.
It began at Forsyth County Bank with presentation
of plaques to the Forsyth County Extension Service,
the Cumming-Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce
and the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners.
A slide show on agribusiness in Forsyth County, put
together by the local Extension Service office, was
shown to judges.
This was followed by a tour of three agribusinesses
in Forsyth County Tyson Foods, Joe K. Smith’s pine
give us enough revenue to pay back
the loan.”
Currently Lake Lanier Islands re
ceives $500,000, with a projected in
crease to $900,000 a year by 1990.
Burson said over a million tourists
visit the Islands each year and pro
jects over 1.5 million by 1990 with
these improvements and almost 2
million by 1992.
The first phase of the four-phased
expansion project would include a
260-room hotel with a conference cen
ter, an 18-hole championship golf
course, two new beach areas and a
water park with a large wave pool
and a tube ride.
Along with these expansions
comes the need for additional parking
and extended sewer lines. This is also
included in the $25.7 million price tag.
Burson said the hotel and golf
course is projected to open by 1988
and the water park and beaches in
1987.
“We’re optimistic, cautioftsly so,
about the project,” said Burson. “It’s
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1985—CUMMING, GA. 30130—56 PAGES 3 SECTIONS
BBT -» , /- 9 I
Sail boats in front of Pinelsle on Lanier Islands
a good project for the state as a whole
and will make Lake Lanier Islands
more of a destination resort than just
day use.”
———————————————————————————————————— — .-ws
■UUJWBI WIN m
Forsyth clips Eagle’s wings /
page ib - ™ mmfiT'
bark operation and Kennemore’s Nursery.
Judges for the competition were J. Lamar Branch,
former state supervisor, vocational agriculture,
Georgia Department of Education; Cecil R. Spooner,
division director, Georgia Department of Agricul-'
ture; and Penn Worden, secretary-treasurer, Georgia
Foreign Trade Zone, Inc.
The judges’ choice for statewide winner will not be
announced until Nov. 22 at the annual Harvest Ball in
Atlanta.
Agribusiness and agriculture account for more than
50 percent of Georgia’s economy.
And, more than 45 percent of the state’s jobs are in
fields directly related to agribusiness, the state’s
largest industry.
Agriculture includes 55,000 farms, while agribusi
ness involves thousands of commercial operations
throughout Georgia.
The land area of farms in the state amounts to 15
million acres, and farm employment accounts for 82,-
000 workers.
Each year, more than $3 billion is spent in Georgia
on “agricultural production inputs,” which range
from seed and feed, fertilizer and lime, to labor and
agricultural finance.
In manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing agri
cultural products and the items that produce those
products, Georgians derive more than $6.3 billion in
payrolls alone.
Nearly 300,000 Georgians earn their living in proc
essing agricultural and forestry products, or in pro
ducing the equipment used in processing.
Burson added that 65 percent of the
business from the hotel is expected to
come from groups and only 35 per
cent from resort business.
Lack of coaches
prompts protest
from S. Forsyth
By Laura McCullough
Managing editor
A group of angry parents from
south Forsyth appeared before the
Forsyth County School Board Thurs
day night demanding to know why the
junior high school for that area had
only two football coaches for a pro
gram involving 80 youngsters, when
other junior high schools in the
county were given four or five
coaches.
Jimmy Hamrick, spokesman for
the group and representing the South
Forsyth Athletic Boosters Club, told
board members that the school had
the same coaching shortage last year
and was promised it would be taken
care of.
It was just a couple of weeks prior
to the opening of football season that
a coach was assigned to South For
syth giving them only two coaches for
the entire program, according to
Hamrick.
Keith Harrison and Troy Collins
coach the team, which is now 3-1 with
only two games remaining in the
season.
Prior to the debate, the board had
approved the hiring of Raleigh Pas
trick, a social studies and math tea
cher who would also help coach
football and basketball.
“Anything you do at this point is
next to nothing,” said Hamrick. “We
need football people at South, not just
good people.”
Hamrick said 70 youngsters went
out for the team but 20 dropped out
because of the “lack of participation”
by coaches.
Hamrick also handed the board a
petition on the request, signed by 640
residents, primarily from the south
end of the county.
Other booster members cited a
“lack of commitment” by the board
to the athletic programs in the
county, especially the football pro
grams.
“Don’t think the problem is that the
board hasn’t committed money to the
athletic program, we have com
mitted lots of money,” said board
member Johnny Stone. “While we
don’t give top dollar compared to
coaching salaries at other schools
like a Warner Robbins or a Clarke
Central, we are certainly well above
average.”
Several parents asked why coaches
from other schools couldn’t be trans
fered to help South Forsyth and why
two teachers at the junior high school
Jenkins considering
bid for U.S. Senate
By Chuck Thompson
News editor
A spokesperson for Congressman
Ed Jenkins said last week that the
north Georgia Democrat is consid
ering a bid next year for Mack Mat
tingly’s U.S. Senate seat.
Jackie Sose
bee. with Jen
kins’ ..
Washington of- Hr
fice, said the^K
Congressman 1
is considering ' f i
the Senate bid
out of respect
to people Jm ■
who’ve asked I j
him to do so.
She said Jen- .
kins had no RBp - •* enkins
plans of his own to enter the Senate
race.
Georgia Democratic leaders feel
Jenkins would be good competition
for the Republican senator. Mattingly
was elected in 1980 to his first term in
the Senate, beating the Democratic
incumbent, Herman Talmadge.
At present, only three candidates
are officially seeking the Democratic
were coaching at the high school.
Superintendent Robert Otwell ex
plained that contracts had already
been given to these coaches with
specific duties of where to coach and
where to teach and these contracts
couldn’t be broken.
In other business, the board voted
to buy a portable building for Midway
Elementary to house a new class of
third graders. Rebecca Lee was hired
as the teacher.
The cost of the 11X14 building is
$11,282. The building will be pur
chased from Bennie’s Homes.
This gives Midway seven portable
classes. Money is available from the
state to construct nine new class
rooms there and eight rooms at Saw
nee Elementary which also houses
seven classes in portables.
The board gave Otwell approval to
submit architectural plans for the
classrooms to the school plant serv
ices and then advertise them for a
bid. Otwell said he would like to have
the bids in by the first of November.
Board member Edsel Orr com
mented, “We need to make the class
rooms a priority. We would have
saved SII,OOO if we had had them
built.”
In other business the board took the
following action:
• Nominated Joan Hill to the Lake
Lanier Regional Library.
• Approved minor changes in seve
ral school policies, including home
attendance, special education, joint
enrollment and giving Criterion Ref
erence Tests to third graders.
• Made final approval on the 1985-86
school budget of $18.2 million. And
also approved salary scales. The tax
millage rate has still not been set.
• Approved annual fundraisers for
Coal Mountain Elementary, Cum
ming Elementary, Otwell Junior
High School and South Forsyth Junior
High School.
• Approved the transfering of Pat
McCord from Mashbum Elementary
to Forsyth County High School as a
librarian.
• Approved the following faculty
employments: Melinda Castleberry,
third grade at Chestatee Elemen
tary; Elizabeth Barrows, second
grade at Mashbum Elementary; Su
san Hopkins, kindergarten at Mash
bum; Rebecca Lee, third grade at
Mashbum; Sandra Kirkland, Chap
ter I at South Forsyth and Pastrick,
social studies and math at South
Forsyth.
nomination for U.S. Senator from
Georgia. They are attorney David
Garrett, 111, of Atlanta; Gwinnett
County attorney Robert Durden and
state Rep. John Russell, D-Winder.
Jenkins represents Georgia’s Ninth
Congressional District, which con
sists of 22 counties, including Forsyth
and Dawson.
Ms. Sosebee said people began ap
proaching Jenkins about the Senate
race a few weeks ago, but that he
hasn’t been able to give serious consi
diration to the matter because of his
involvement with a bill to limit textile
imports.
Jenkins authorized the lull, which
has brought him national and interna
tional recognition.
Ms. Sosebee said two important
considerations for the Congressman
in regard to the Senate race will be
loss of his position in the U.S. House,
which he has “acquired through a lot
of work,” and the opinion of his
family.
The 52-year-old Jenkins serves on
two of the three most powerful House
committees Ways and Means, and
Budget. Congressmen are allowed to
serve on no more than two of those
committees at one time.
35 CENTS