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PAGE 2A -FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS-WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1990 Forsyth County News Customer Service Policy Miss your paper? We hope not, but if you subscribe and live in Forsyth County we will deliver a replacement copy to you. On Sunday, call us from 8 a.m. to noon. We will have carriers available to deliver your paper. FRIENDS Friends would like to share your good news. For your conven ience. use these coupons when sending us information or photos. How to announce your achievement Friends would like to congratulate you. Use the coupon below to tell us about your accomplishment and we’ll publish it, along with a photo when possible, in Cheers. Sorry, photographs cannot be returned. NAME: AGE: CITY Described your achievement Submitted by Day phone Friends would like to congratulate you on a job well done. Use the coupon below to tell us about your occupation and we’ll contact you for more information and a photo. NAME; OCCUPATION; PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT; Address City WORK HOURS; PHONE NUMBER; MAILING ADDRESS; To have your club profiled in Friends submit the following infor mation and a correspondent will contact you for details NAME OR ORGANIZATION; MEETING PLACE; DATE & TIME; COMMUNITY PROJECTS & FUND RAISERS; Submitted by; Day phone; Students in grades K-12 can send their drawings in crayon, marker or pencil to be included in the Friends Student Gallery. NAME; ADDRESS; CITY; SCHOOL; TEACHER; TITLE OF ARTWORK; PHONE; Send to Friends, Forsyth County News, P.O. Box 210, Cumming, GA 30130 DO YOU HAVE AN IMPORTANT NEWS TIP? Call the newsroom of the Forsyth County News. Camming: 887-3126 Atlanta: 523-7303 take a Forsyth County News v ' J break! On Wednesday you can call from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. if you did not re ceive your newspaper and we will deliver it to you that day. Our office hours are Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to S p.m. The phone number is 887- 3126 or 523-7303. ZONEcontinued from page 1 values, said Robert S. Stubbs, council to Forsyth County The appraisal of land value is deter mined under the practice for apprais ers, but “the difficulty of rezouing property from AGII to other uses may impact on an appraiser’s determina tion of market value of property clas sified as AGII. If there is a distinct difficulty in rezoning property from AGII zoning, then that may decrease the market value, which should thus translate into a lower tax value for that land,” said Stubbs in an opinion to Forsyth County tax assessors and county commissioners. The new A-II zoning addressed a number of problems in Forsyth County. There are nearly 8.000 agricultural zoned parcels in the county, but many of these are owned by developers or are being held for speculation to be sold for residential, commercial or in dustrial uses and will be rezoned For example, Technology Park has 176 undeveloped acres in Forsyth County zoned agricultural. That land is worth a good deal more than the same amount of land in the same area which a fanner plans to continue to farm, yet they are taxed about the from page 1 In other business the commission accepted as presented the 1991 bud gets of departments which depend partially on county funds. Forestry was granted $3,336; the Department of Family and Children’s Services, $178,704; Public Health, $168,893; Forsyth County Public Library, $64,780; and Mental Health, $34,134, pending the submittal of a budget The board also accepted bids for the water line projects on Atlanta Highway, Watson/Tribble Roads and Hubert Martin/Oak Grove Circle. Fred Hawkins, of Rindt-McDufTAs sociates Inc., the county’s engineering from page 1 Then in November the group suf fered a defeat when a referendum to raise more money for the center through property taxes was turned down by a 600 vote margin. Roughly 3.000 people voted in the election. Had it passed, county residents would have seen a .4 mill increase in their SPRING & SUMMER FABRIC CLEARANCE Thousands of C ] f r*\\ yards reduced V 1 "1 _ for this sale! 1 [3o*-S(E | OUR ENTIRE STOCK OF SPRING & SUMMER FABRICS Sale prices good Thurs., June 14 through Wed., June 20. We will honor all competitor’s coupon prices on like merchandise. LANIER CROSSING SHOPPING CENTER 655 Atlanta Rd.- Suite 607 889-7308 > same. “Speculative land sales are driving up the land assessments of family owned farms and I just don’t like that" said Hillgartner. a supporter of the A-II zoning. Many fanners and owners of family land have to sell small parcels one at a time to pay taxes, Hillgartner said. There is nothing illegal about tax ing all the agriculture land the same, "but it is immoral,” he added Another purpose of A-II zoning is to retain the rural lifestyle of Forsyth County. “My promise when I was campaign ing was to try to preserve our rural environment as long as possible,” said Michael Bennett who introduced the A-II zoning. The board recently voted unani mously to rezone 137 parcels from A-l to A-11. To be eligible for A-II zoning the property must have state preferential assessment which means it is used for agricultural production including timber, and cannot change zoning without penalty. The preferential as sessment taxes farm property at 75 percent of its normal assessment which should be close to 40 percent of the market value. firm, congratulated the commission ers for being $260,000 under the pro jected cost in the last nine road projects. The county also signed Local Assis tance Road Program agreements with the Georgia Department of Transpor tation for funds to resurface 12 roads including: Akins Way, Branch Drive. Charleston Park, Heards Circle, Hick ory Hills Rd„ Holly Court, Sharon Cir cle, Sharon Drive, Technology Drive, Wills Wood Circle and Worley Road. The county also has received verbal agreement on funds for an additional nine roads. properly taxes over the 15-year time span of the bonds. Many local observers believe the opposition of Cumming Mayor H. Ford Gravitt helped sink the referen dum. In November Gravitt said he op posed the referendum because of the property tax increase. JpABRICjpAIR BS from page 1 into streams and lakes. More tests described as “routine” will be done on the lake this week, said Mike Miller, Chief of Natural Resources Management for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The corps oversees Lake Lanier, as well as five other regional lakes. Parts of the lake found to have me dium potential for fecal coliform problems will be tested again around July 4, Miller said. Several beaches around Lanier have turned up read ings in the single digits. Miller said, and they will only be subject to spot checks for the rest of the summer. The fecal coliform tests consist of four water samples being taken from different parts of the lake. The fecal Hometown thoughts By Jan Hamilton Special to the Forvyth County New* Tonight, about an hour ago, I was thinking about home and some of the nice memories from 20 or so years ago. Because many of the memories are about Forsyth and Dawson Counties, this is a simple reflection. Down the street from the present Lanierland Country Music Park upon the right side ofthe hill, stood a wood en house with a front porch. There was a country vegetable garden on the right side ofthe property. Further to the left of the home above the weeded and wooded landscape was a small chicken house. It was in the 1950 s and my sister and I picked fresh berries and fruit Grandma lived there in this wooden house in For syth County, upon the hill. Oh! someone could get really in volved and think back to 1958. Cum ming was by zoning standards a small village. During that year. State Senate Bill No. 310 went into effect The Bill cre ated an act to change the pay of the Sheriff and the Clerk of the Superior Court of Forsyth County from the fee system to a salary system. Both section two and three of this Bill stated the Sheriff and the Clerk of Superior Court would be paid a salary of $8,500 per year according to Georgia Laws of 1958, Vol. Two. The Act became effective April 1, 1958. During this spring season, I was 10 Mon-Fri. 9:30 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. Sat. 9:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m. Sun. 1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. 4 coliform count of each ofthe samples is averaged and compared to the lev el established by the state. The state’s permitted maximum is 200 fe cal coliform per 100 milliliters of water. The highest fecal coliform level detected so far at Lake Lanier has been 25 fecal coliform per 100 millili ters, Miller said. “We tested 19 beaches, and every thing looked really, really excel lent” Miller said. On the other hand. Lake Allatoona has shown higher fecal coliform lev els than Lake Lanier, Miller said, but they have not exceeded state stan dards so far this season. years old. The area was still a very rural countryside where cattle graced the hillsides and old fash ioned roses covered many unpainted wooden front porches. In an environment, my sister and I realized early to be entangled be tween poor and middle classes, we were characterized by our own inse curities. The phrase old family mon ey was unheard of and obviously there was very little new money. By the early 19605. the sun shone differently upon the landscape. Be cause Lake Lanier was creating hope our insecurities would be replaced with knowledge and confidence about an expanding world beyond boundaries of county lines. The growth and potential of the area were not completely under stood. By August of 1970, the Sawnee Electric Membership Corporation had a total of 13,065 consumers. The number was up almost a thousand from the previous year according to one of their filed documents. Georgia Power Company consumer figures were not available at this writing. On June 17. 1972, an old general store which was built around 1897 succumbed to memories. Located at the intersection of hwys. 369 and 306. the general store was filled with vin tage heirlooms. They included such items as a grasshopper muzzle, de pression glass, home furnishings, clothes, Sunday bonnets and straw hats, among other things. When the contents were auctioned off. the For syth County News covered the event and ran the story on page seven in their June 29 edition. By the fall of that year, a new contemporary store was constructed. The faded R.C. Cola posters nailed to the old wooden stores are now bur ied deep within our reflections. But it is quite nice to reach out and em brace the past A past which includes beautiful memories of Forsyth County at my grandmother's house upon a hill. Jan Hamilton is a former Staff Writer for the Forsyth County News. She now lives in Loch Arbour, New Jersey. CALLING ALL HOME MAKERS Brought To You By Carter Pruitt FREE STANDING FURNITURE ORA BUILT-IN? When you’re thinking about a wall unit of any kind, or a book case, it’s good to consider advan tages of free standing units as opposed to built ins for many worthwhile rea sons. Now, we’re not saying that built-ins aren’t good, too, but free standing units do give you so much. For one thing, be cause they are not built-in they can be put on different walls whenever you decide to re decorate or change a room around. The same applies if you ever move. Built-in shelves usually have to be left behind, but cabi nets, bookcases and other wall units can go with you and be used in your new home. Not only do you have the great versatility with free stand ing units, but there are so many attractive ones today that are re ally beautiful pieces of furniture. Etageres, bookcases and wall units are available - not only to hold and display the things you want them to-but also to '’stand on their own” de coratively. And such pieces can be used not only against a wall, but many may also be used, if you wish, as room or area divid ers away from the walls. It all adds up to a way of decorating you might consider, and we’ll be nappy to help you. PRUITT'S ■ tUKMiuht t v Arf iiANOrrs 606 Old Buford Rd. Cumming 887-7551 » Pruitt