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VOLUME LXXXIII —NUMBER 11
Caught in the act
Teenagers
are charged
in burglary
attempt
By Kara Sproles
Staff Writer
When two youths reportedly tried to
burglarize Leonard Bottoms’ flea
market he didn’t let them get away
with it
In fact it was the Dixie 400 Flea
Market owner himself who responded
to a burglar alarm and held two sus
pects at bay until deputies arrived on
the scene.
“The officer was here after I called
them and he took over,” said Bottoms,
who has owned the shop for almost
four years.
Bottoms added that nothing was
taken from his store.
“We’re open only on the weekends
and have hours until 6 p.m. but they
were doing a little midnight shop
ping,” the lifetime Forsyth County
resident said.
Two 15-year-old juveniles and two
teens who are legally adults were
charged in connection with incident
The adults, who were allegedly
waiting in an automobile near the
store to pick up the juveniles, were
apprehended by another officer “be
fore they got on (Hwy.) 400,” Bottoms
said.
Daniel Lanier Hall, age 19, and Joh
nathan Merritt Brister, age 18, both of
Forsyth County addresses, were ar
rested on Jan. 30 in connection with
the attempted burglary, Forsyth
County Sheriff Wesley Walraven
reported.
Both juveniles have also been
charged. One is in the custody of juve
nile authorities and one was released
to the custody of parents, Walraven
stated.
The sheriff added that those arrest
ed have been linked with other thefts.
“Forsyth County investigators fol
lowing additional leads solved a Jan.
30 Forsyth County burglary involving
the two juveniles and three burglaries
in Towns County involving the two ju
veniles and Daniel Lanier Hall,” the
sheriff reported.
Walraven said so far several stolen
items have been recovered in those
incidents.
Both Hall and Brister were re
leased on SIO,OOO bond in Forsyth
County and are awaiting charges in
Towns County, Walraven added.
Weather:
Brrrrr!
Before our chance of showers
ends on Thursday, there’s a
chance it could turn to snow.
Temperatures are to drop into
the 20s with highs in the upper
30s. That’s for Thursday. Friday
continues partly cloudy and cold.
INSIDE
Abby 8C
Business 4B
Church Briefs 4C
Classified 6B
1anC0wie......2C
Deaths 7C
Editorials 7A
Events 5C
Food & Nutrition 4A
Horoscope 8C
Grover J0hn50n.....,8A
Joyce Jordan 7A
On Campus IC&7C
Sports 1B
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Industrial fire leaves 102 without work
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Firemen push through the burned factory rubble Saturday morning.
A sad weekend
By Kristin Jeffries
Staff Writer
James Harrington, Jr., and his wife,
Jerry, wandered around the smolder
ing site of Forsyth American Manu
facturing on Saturday.
It was a sad weekend for them.
Begun in 1960, the building was the
home of Forsyth Industries, owned by
James Harrington, for 21 years.
“See that blue steel door over
there?” said Harrington, pointing to
the door still standing in the charred
wall. “That was my escape route from
my office when things got real bad. I
could go to find someplace to pray or
something.”
Harrington recalled often spending
16 hours a day, six days a week in the
plant. He always checked every ma
chine before leaving at night to see
the workers had shut them down cor
rectly, he said.
“I was really married to Forsyth In
dustries,” he said, at least until 1971.
“It is like losing a member of the
New county
map available
next week
By Kristin Jeffries
Staff Writer
New Forsyth County road maps
should be available in the county
Planning and Zoning Office as early
as next week.
The new updated maps were pre
pared by Keck & Wood Engineering of
Lawrenceville, for $3,200. The compa
ny presented a copy to commissioners
at the public forum Monday evening.
The map is now at the printers and
2,000 copies will be delivered to the
county on Friday. Copies will be sold
to the public for $2 each.
The price of the contract with Keck
& Wood included putting the informa
tion on a computer so roads can be
easily added and deleted by planning
staff.
Many other subjects were dis
cussed by residents at the public fo
rum. These meetings occur the first
Monday of each month in the commis
sioners meeting room at 7 p.m. They
are open forums for residents to dis
cuss topics of concern other than zon
ing matters with the commissioners
and various department heads.
Last Monday Mike Houston, presi
dent of Concerned Citizens of South
east Forsyth County addressed the
commission about the number of law
suits being filed against the county.
Houston said it seemed to him For
syth County was suffering from many
lawsuits being filed and threatened.
He named lawsuits concerning quar
ries and landfills as a few pending
situations with which he was
concerned.
“If we don’t stand up to lawsuits and
show them we are not an easy target it
is going to get worse,” said Houston.
He encouraged the board to pro
vide legal experts in the areas in
'* Please see MAP, Page 2A
Forsyth Woman Special Section D
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1992-CUMMING, GA 30130-46 PAGES 4 SECTIONS
family,” said Mrs. Harrington who be
came involved in the plant when she
and James married in 1971. “It feels
like a funeral here.”
“Some of the hardest and most en
joyable years of our life were put into
this building,” said now Forsyth
County Commissioner Harrington.
Harrington began the first company
in the building, Forsyth Industries, in
1960 with eight employees. It became
the one of the largest employers in the
county between 1971 and 1981 with as
many as 400 employees at its peak,
said Harrington.
He recalls the building was built
and enlarged, room by room as the
work force enlarged, by Clyde
Pendley.
“It was a labor of love to build it,” he
said.
The plant sewed almost every type
of ladies’ sportswear and some of its
biggest accounts were Sears and J.C.
Penny.
Please see SAD, Page 2A
By Kristin Jeffries
Staff Writer
In a 4-1 vote Saturday the Board of
Tax Assessors reversed a 1990 move
made by the previous board which
will result in a charge of nearly
$20,000 to a business owned by former
tax assessor Bobby Wallace.
Members voted to charge Wallace
with back taxes plus interest and pen
alties for private property taxes not
paid on Tuff-Bilt Tractors in 1984.
“This is the last skeleton in the clos
et,” said Tax Assessor Harold Bolton.
Apparently, Wallace’s accountant
failed to fill one blank on a personal
property tax form and as a result Tuff-
Bilt did not receive its Freeport ex
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Board votes for charging back taxes
Photo by Porflrio Solorzano
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James Harrington and wife, Jerry, look over the ruins of the burned plant.
emption on goods stored on the
premises.
The board at that time did every
thing within the law to grant Freeport
to Wallace, said Jerry Grogan, who is
the current chairman of the board
and was also a member of the board
during the 1980 s.
Then in an Aug. 6, 1990 meeting,
assessors Billy Evans and the late Au
brey Greenway voted to go back and
grant Wallace his Freeport exemp
tion, forgiving him of taxes, interest,
and penalties. Although a member of
the board at the time, Wallace did not
vote on the issue.
The board needs to take a good
strong look at other cases as well as
his, said Wallace.
By Kara Sproles
Staff Writer
The raging fire which swept
through an Atlanta Hwy. industry Sat
urday morning had finally turned into
a dying smolder by Monday as investi
gators tried to pinpoint its cause and
origin.
“All we know is that the general
area in which the fire started is to
wards the back of the building,” said
Forsyth County Fire Chief Norris
Bennett
On Monday, fire officials gathered
at the gutted Forsyth American Manu
facturing Corporation building,
marked by a sign above the front door
that reads Georgia 400 Industries, to
monitor the site and plan an investi
gation into the tragic incident
The fire, which left 102 people with
out a place to work, was one of the
county’s largest in recent history,
Bennett stated.
According to Bennett, the corpora
tion’s insurance company, State Fire
Marshall’s Office and local investiga
tors today began to determine the ini
tial cause of the fire.
The blaze, which Bennett said took
“about three or four hours” to extin
guish, was reported around 1:30 a.m.
Saturday, Feb. 1. by a passer-by who
used a payphone to call officials.
Bennett said the caller reported
“They better go back and clean up
the whole slate,” he said.
He said there were many cases in
which applications for Freeport ex
emptions were accepted a day or so
late, including one for Thomas
Lumber.
Chief Assessor said the board had
no choice in accepting the Thomas
application because the Tax Asses
sors’ Office had failed to stamp it with
the date received and Thomas signed
an affidavit that it was mailed before
the deadline.
Payne said he knew of no other
cases of this type.
Last Saturday’s dissenting vote
came from Billy Evans, the only prior
that fire was showing through the roof
of the building located at 2024 Atlanta
Hwy..
Although firefighters were admin
istered oxygen while extinguishing
the flames, no one was severely in
jured, Bennett said.
Five local fire stations along with
the Alpharetta Fire Department
which brought a tower ladder and two
chief s cars to the scene helped to put
out the flames.
More than 50 firefighters were re
portedly on the scene facing 25 mile
per hour winds during the height of
the blaze.
“It was out by daylight,” the fire
chief said
Bennett added that to the best of his
knowledge, this was the building’s
first major fire.
Meanwhile, the Cumming-Forsyth
County Chamber of Commerce has
been diligently working to help the
company find a new home, said Exec
utive Vice President Bill Sawyer.
“They are looking at it as a tempo
rary setback which is what it is,” he
said.
Until about a year-and-a-half ago.
Sawyer said, the building was occu
pied by Oxford Industries.
“(They) went out of business and the
chamber worked hard to get another
Please see FIRE, Page 2A
Zoning vote
favors plant’s
concrete plan
By Kristin Jeffries
Staff Writer
Martin Marietta obtained a favor
able vote from the Planning Board
last week in its bid to rezone nine
acres of its quarry for a concrete
plant
The nine acres must be zoned heavy
industrial, M-2, to accommodate this
use.
Martin Marietta was requested to
apply for rezoning by the Board of
Commissioners when the board re
fused to amend its mining ordinance
to allow concrete and other mining
related plants in the mining zone.
According to testimony at recent
commission meetings, these uses
Please see ZONE, Page 5A
member remaining on the board. He
refrained from commenting on his
stance even to board members.
“It was an unfortunate mistake but
we can’t bend the law,” said Assessor
Kathy Totten.
“This county shouldn’t pay for his
accountant’s mistakes,” said Assessor
Harold Bolton.
The current board points to legal
opinions from both the county attor
ney and an assistant to the Georgia
attorney general stating the 1990
board had no authority to grant the
waiver to the back taxes.
Wallace said he does not plan to pay
the back taxes.
“They will have a court case on
their hands,” he said.
Construction
progresses
on schedule
Traffic on Pilgrim Mill Road will con
tinue to take a detour route for about
three more weeks while a new cul
vert is installed, according to Direc
tor of Public Works Jim Redmond.
Snell Bridge Company of Snellville,
Ga. has been under contract to do
the $130,00 job, funded by the De
partment of Transportation. The ob
ject of the work is to replace a culvert
pipe serving Pilgrim Mill Creek that
was too small for the job with a new
culvert, Redmond explained.
25 CENTS