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ling Wednesday: Christmas Cookbook recipe collection KVIII —NUMBER 98 county prepares for Dec. 15 sales tax vote Opposition fears growth follows water By Kathey Pruitt Staff writer “We’re really up the creek. And it’s dry.” Bebe Burkhardt laughs ruefully as she relates the water situation at the house she and her husband are build ing in northeastern Forsyth County. With the structure two-thirds com plete, the Burkhardts called in well diggers to p r :* *he water running. Like most of n . county, homes off Ga. 369 near the Hall County lines, aren’t ser viced by public water. After digging more than 760 feet through solid granite, well diggers hit water a trickle that wouL yield about five gallons an hour, or about enough to flush a toilet once during the same time period. With a pump and a storage tank to collect the flow, the completed well will cost about SIO,OOO, Burkhardt said. And still she and her family will have to look to other sources to supply adequate water for their retirement home. City and county officials say the Burkhardts aren’t the only family frustrated in efforts to secure private sources of water. Two years of drought have dried up many local wells and caused the water table to drop, officials say, and the increasing number of wells needed to serve re cent population influxes have made the situation worse. But all county residents don’t be lieve the decreasing supply argu ment, and they say their vote on Dec. 15 will be against a 1 percent sales tax increase to pay for a countywide wa ter system. “I don’t think the water table has dropped off that much,” said Kenneth Grizzle, who lives in an area where several other residents are complain ing of dried up wells. “My well is 14 feet deep and there’s plenty of water in it. We may have a problem in the future, but I don’t think it will be until the next century when we pump that much water out of our system.” Grizzle said families who can’t reach water through a bored well should try drilling to extend the well shaft deeper and perhaps reach the water table before they turn to a pub lic utility system. The advantages of private water supplies over public utilities are worth the extra expense, he added. “I’ve had bitter experiences on sev eral occasions with public utilities, and I’d rather be independent,” Griz zle said. “Once they get public water lines, they’ll say we can’t have wells. When they have a monopoly, they get arrogant. A lot of people are moving here from Atlanta, I assume to get away from some of the things of the big city, but they seem to want to make this just like it is down there.” Preventing growth is the core argu ment for many county residents op posed to the sales-tax-for-water pro gram. But that opposition has remained on an individual basis, ac cording to local officials and sales tax Please see OPPOSITION, page 2A Hospital is cracking down with up-front money policy By Laura McCullough Managing Editor Area hospitals are getting tough with patients who won’t pay their bills. Now, those wanting non-emer gency surgery will have to take care of the costs before being admitted, say hospital administrators. Increasing revenue losses have forced a change in pre-admission fi nancing policies at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, and a similar revision is coming in January at Lakeside Community Hospital in Cumming. Northeast Georgia now requires an 80 percent deposit, either self-paid or guaranteed by insurance, before a pa tient enters the hospital for elective surgery, which is all surgery other than emergency. The 20 percent bal ance is due upon discharge. If the pa tient has a history of bad debt, a 100 percent deposit is required prior to admission. “In the past three years our bad debt has grown to $36 million that’s tripled. It can’t continue,” said Cathy Forsyth County News *- Mr cwß f jHV Sir i / km mm ' ~ / I - SH-l. Ijjf Iga & H M / tiniHj w ' fpy ; : Water line installation may become a common sight if sales tax is approved Bowers, spokesperson for Northeast Georgia. Northeast Georgia will conduct a fi nancial assessment to determine the cost upfront, said Bowers. “It won’t be exact, because it varies by so many things,” she said. “If the cost is over we will refund the difference. I doubt that will happen, though. We would be more inclined to underestimate, than to overestimate.” The policy will not affect emergen cy admissions. Also, the patient’s physician will determine if the sur gery can wait until finances are ar ranged, said Bowers. The deposit is for hospital costs only. Lakeside Community Hospital is taking a serious look at Gainesville’s policy revisions. An SBOO deposit for non-insured patients is now required for elective surgery, said administra tor Steve Hitt. However, changes are in the works for 1988. “We do have a lot of indigent care and as this number gets larger there are more problems,” said Hitt. “Hall Please see HOSPITAL, page 11A SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1987-CUMMING, GA. 30130 80 PAGES 3 SECTIONS *, r ' '•* J fFi • f-'- Randall Norton (left) and his brother Roger, who will be tried at a later date, talk while waiting for a verdict in Randall's ag gravated assault trial last week. Staff Photo Kathryn L. Babb Stiff Photo Kathryn L. Babb Water plan goes to voters By Kathey Pruitt Staff writer After years of dispute, Gumming and Forsyth County officials are put ting before voters a measure that would use pennies to pay for water lines. A Dec. 15 referendum will let voters decide whether to raise the existing 4 percent sales tax by another penny on-the-dollar to pay for a spider-web configuration of water lines that will cover the county. The tax increase would be in effect a maximum of five years. Local officials in February agreed on va ?r line boundaries, which had he’ . previous attempts to provide a countywide water system, and this summer began engineering plans for a $22 million expanse of water lines and pumping stations to meet water demands past the year 2000. If voters approve the special use sales tax, area merchants will begin collecting the extra penny on April 1, and local coffers will receive the reve nue on a monthly basis. According to state law, the tax will cease after five years or, if revenues pour in at a fast er than anticipated rate, after $22 mil lion has been collected. The water lines financed by sales tax revenues will transport water tc areas of the county currently supplied by wells that are drying up due tc drought, local officials said. Public water service is now confined to areas supplied by the city of Cumming and about 1,000 customers who have tied on to the beginnings of a county water system. A $14.4 million share of the total rev enue will go to the county’s water sys tem to finance two loops of eight- and 12-inch trunk lines. The inner loop will follow the city/county service area along Bethelview and Dr. Bramblett roads and Ga. 369. Lines stretching along Ga. 369 dou ble back on themselves, forming the Please see WATER, page 3A Officials say tax only option By Kathey Pruitt Staff writer If Forsyth County residents vote down a 1 percent sales tax to pay for water system expansions, local offi cials say there is no backup means of funding the proposed countywide wa ter program. “I don’t know what the alternative would be if the sales tax fails,” said Forsyth County Commissioner James Harrington. “It might be to just sort of skimp along and let developers put in lines where they want to if the peo ple won’t authorize anything else.” County commissioners and Cum ming’s mayor and council began pro moting the sales tax measure earlier this fall as the funding mechanism for a $22 million water system of trunk lines and pumping stations across the county. Voters will go to the polls Dec. 15 to decide the issue. If the penny-per-dollar increase passes, anticipated revenues of $3.5 million annually will fund the installa tion of 200 miles of water lines during Jury deadlocks in trial of man charged in assault of marcher By Lindsey Kelly Staff writer It was a case of half a dozen in one and six in the other. A Forsyth County jury was unable to reach a verdict in the aggravated as sault trial of Toccoa resident Randall Norton this week, forcing Superior Court Judge Frank Mills to declare a mistrial after being informed that jurors were irrevocably divided at six to six. Norton was on trial for allegedly throwing an object at Dennis Alfredo Ed wards during the Jan. 24 “Brotherhood March” in Cumming. Edwards, a black man, was attempting to leave the scene of the march when he was struck in the head, suffering a severe skull fracture. District Attorney Rafe Banks said Wednesday he would bring the case to trial again, possibly during the January term. Norton’s brother Roger was also charged with aggravated assault in con nection with the incident and will be tried separately at a later date. A | I Jy ■■ -OHOMIMP"' REFERENDUM AT A GLANCE y Voters will decide Dec. 15 whether to approve a pen ny-increase in the sales tax to fund a 5-year expansion of the water system throughout the county. s City and county officials say the expansion is needed to accommodate future water demand, control growth, and protect against drought. s Opponents most often cite the fear of uncontrolled growth and revenue misman agement as their main concerns over the tax package. a five year period. According to state tax laws, when five years have ex pired or when $22 million has been col lected, the tax will cease. If a majority of Forsyth County’s 13,340 voters turn thumbs down on the sales tax increase, however, local of ficials say the only alternative is to continue with a five million gallon per day city system and a conglomeration of wells and spring water for county residents. If the tax is defeated, it cannot be voted on again in the county for at least one year. Calling the special use sales tax the “fairest tax possible,” city and coun ty officials have repeatedly stressed that other funding measures aren’t feasible in the near future, although they added that growing water de mands in the next decade would force development of a water system. General obligation bonds, which counties frequently use to finance road or water projects, aren’t viable Please see TAX, page 2A A mistrial was declared shortly before 4 p.m. Wednesday after the jury had been in deliberations for approximately nine hours. After five hours of deliberations, the jury reassembled in the courtroom around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning to inform the court of a deadlocked vote. At that time Mills urged jurors to keep try ing to reach a decision, saying five hours was not enough deliberation time to war rant declaration of a mistrial “in a case of this length and complexity.” Wednesday morning the jury foreman told Mills that “some people are not con vinced beyond a reasonable doubt, in their own minds, of the sufficiency of the evidence.” Norton’s attorney Martin Findley said after a mistrial was declared that it was “definitely a reasonable doubt case.” “There was no physical evidence link ing Randall to the crime except his pres ence,” Findley said. The state’s case suffered a major set- Please see NORTON, page 11A 35 CENTS