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Chance of showers
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High low-70s. Low 50s.
THIS ISSUE
Copyright © Fonyth County News
Experienced parents
share knowledge.
Page IB
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Central vs. South
in high school
action.
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Central winning
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LAKE LANIER LEVELS
L Date Level
Sept 14 1063.69 ft
Sept 16 1063.47 ft
> ;,|X 1063*37 ft
1 A7n rtA ft
INDEX
; Abby . 68
1 Births.... .4B
Business 11A
Classifieds ...4C
Deaths 2A
Events 6A
Forsyth Life IB
Horoscope 6B
Opinion 12A
Sports- 1C
e-mcrf oddness;
etftor@fwsytfmews.com
COMING
WEDNESDAY
Commentary Galore
Read Bill Shipp and
Phil Danner in
Wednesday's edition.
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HE
Forsyth Counts News
J Your "Hometown Paper" Since
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School system plans tax rate rollback
Vg ,90, No 138
By Laura Lavezzo Carrico
Lifestyle Editor
The county’s school board
Thursday night agreed to reduce
property tax millage rates due to
increased property values.
Due to the county’s property
reassessment last winter, both the
Forsyth County Board of
Commissioners and Board of
Education have agreed to lower
their respective millage rates for
Fiscal Year 2000.
At Thursday’s meeting of the
Board of Education, three school
board members voted to advertise
the millage rate at 14.9, half a mill
less than last year’s 15.4 mills.
Lake
keeps
falling
Three feet below seasonal
norm, may fall three more
feet over next two weeks
By Jim Riley
Staff Writer
With no appreciable rainfall this
summer, the water level on Lake
Lanier continues to drop. According
to Chief Ranger Mark Williams, the
lake is currently three feet below
normal for this time of year and
dropping.
On Friday, the lake level was
1,063.38 feet in elevation The U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers has pre
dicted that without significant rain
fall the lake will fall an additional
three feet by Oct. 8.
While the jecreational season is
nearly over, Williams has serious
concerns about lake levels next
spring. “When you get it this low,
you’ve got to get it all back,” he
said. “It’s going to take a lot of rain
fall to get this lake back by spring.”
According to Williams, the
corps’ water managers have
released the bare minimum amount
of water this summer. “They have
exercised water conservation man
agement techniques, eliminated
some navigation windows and uti
lized Lanier for power only as a last
resort to prevent brownouts,”
Williams said. ‘We didn’t waste the
water we released from Lanier this
year.”
Nevertheless, the low lake level
has had some effect. The corps will
not accept any requests for new pri
vate docks until the lake rises to
1,064 feet. This is due to the fact
that when the lake is this low,
requests cannot be evaluated for
proper spacing because existing
docks have been pushed out or relo
cated to temporary sites.
See LAKE, Page 5A
County postpones
lending support to
truck inspections
By Colby Jones and Jim Riley
Staff Writers
The Sheriff’s Office will continue inspecting
commercial vehicles, but not necessarily with the
blessing of Forsyth County commissioners.
The commission tabled a request this week to
sign a “memorandum of understanding” between
itself and the Georgia Public Service Commission.
“The county would like to conduct safety inspec
tions of and effect other enforcement activities for
commercial vehicles and their drivers to reduce
commercial vehicle crashes and improve highway
safety within its boundaries,” states the memoran
dum.
The Sheriff’s Office had requested the commis
sion sign the memorandum at its Monday night
meeting. The agreement would have made the
department eligible for grant money to fund the
inspections, while not costing the county any money,
said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Karleen Chalker.
See TRUCKS, Page 5A
Chairman Ben Benson, Don
Hendricks and Sherry Sagemiller
were in favor of that figure, while
board members Eddie Taylor and
Paul Kreager wanted to lower the
millage rate more, to 14.7.
The vote to set a specific mill
age rate will take place at 8 a.m.
on Monday, Oct. 11, just hours
before it must be presented for
adoption to the Forsyth County
Board of Commissioners.
The difference between the
two figures is roughly $653,000.
At a rate of 14.9 mills, the net
available tax revenue with 100
percent collection would be
approximately $48.6 million.
Russian Studies
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Photo/Jim Riley
Anurov (left) and Evgenyevich visiting in Cumming.
Russian officials study
democratic principles
By Jim Riley
Staff Writer
The effort by the U.S. gov
ernment to increase support for
democracy in Russia has result
ed in Congress paying to send
2,000 Russian politicians to the
United States.
While in the United States,
the officials will stay with host
families and observe our gov
ernment at every level.
Don and Joann Leifeste of
Cumming this week hosted
Vladimir Anurov and Ruzanov
Gennadiy Evgenyevich. The
visitors are two of 150 Russians
scheduled to visit the Atlanta
area this year.
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, Photo/Scott Rogers
Color me happy
Boots, bandanas and cowboy hats were the uniform of the day last week as
Chattahoochee Elementary School hosted its annual Reading Rodeo. The festivi
ties are designed to encourage family participation in school work. Above, Scott
Kirby and daughter, Crysta, work on their coloring. More photos, page 10A.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 1 ? 1999
A millage rate of 14.9 would
generate approximately SB.B mil
lion more in property taxes than
last year’s 15.4 mills, due to
increased property values.
A mill is one dollar of taxes for
every thousand dollars of a prop
erty’s assessed value. Under state
law, assessed value is 40 percent
of market value, less any applica
ble deductions.
When property values are
increased during the reappraisal
process, there is the potential for a
tax windfall if millage rates are
not subsequently lowered.
See MILLACE, Page 5A
The exchange is sponsored
by the Friendship Force, with
Dr. James H. Billington of the
Library of Congress coming up
with the original concept. The
United Methodist Church’s
Board of Global Ministries is
also involved in the exchange
program.
This is the biggest effort of
this sort the Friendship Force
has been involved with in more
than a decade. The group was
nominated during the early ‘9os
for a Nobel prize for its role in
bringing an end to communist
rule in the former Soviet Union.
See STUDY, Page 2A
Bond vote is Tuesday
By Laura Lavezzo Carrico
Lifestyle Editor
Forsyth County voters will
decide Tuesday the fate of a
$125 million bond to finance
school improvement.
Voter Registrar Melvin
Stancil said a large turnout is
not expected for the referen
dums Os the 47,834 registered
voters in the county, 42,000 are
considered “active,” meaning
they have voted in a recent elec
tion. Stancil said voter partici-
Attorney for sheriff
warns newspaper
of possible litigation
By Norman Baggs
Genera! Manager
An attorney representing
Sheriff Denny Hendrix has written
a letter to the Forsyth County
News in which he states that com
ments about Hendrix which have
been reported in the newspaper are
“defamatory” and that many are
“verifiably false.”
The letter puts the newspaper
“on notice of the potential of
future civil litigation” and asks
that the newspaper preserve all of
the materials gathered in the
course of its news reporting as
potential evidence in any future
litigation.
The newspaper also has been
asked to retain a written record of
the names of all persons contribut
ing to any article about the sheriff.
In an interview last week,
Hendrix referred questions about
the allegations of defamation and
false reporting to his attorney,
Steven D. Barnhart, who authored
the letter.
Neither Hendrix nor his attor
ney would say how the paper had
defamed the Sheriff.
Barnhart declined comment
when asked about any defamation,
adding he would “be glad to fol
low up later,” on the issue of inac
curate reporting.
“The letter is self-explanatory,"
Barnhart said.
He also said the “primary tar
get” of the letter is not the newspa
per.
“The primary target of our con
cern is not the newspaper. What
we’ve asked the newspaper to do
is to retain sources of information
that continue to appear in various
articles. If you would do that for
us, it would be very helpful,”
Barnhart said.
Hendrix said he felt the news
paper’s coverage of him had been
. pation Tuesday likely will be at
or below 5 percent, adding he
bases his prediction on the
number of absentee ballots sub
i mined thus far. As of Thursday
evening, only 35 absentees had
voted.
“People don’t turn out for
bond issues,” Stancil said.
“If we have a 10 percent
I turnout, that would be tremen
dous,” he added.
See BOND, Page 5A
Text of letter - 3A
unfair and that the paper had failed
to cover many positive aspects of
his administration as Sheriff.
“We’ve done nothing but good
in this Sheriff’s Office; $3 million
worth of grants; 101 more people
in this agency. Crime has dropped,
homicide is down 100 percent.
Residential/business burglaries are
down. We’re winning cases in
court we’re preparing. [We’re]
more professional. We don’t allow
officers to go out and injure peo
ple. We have internal affairs
have had 86 cases in two years
some of them deputies. Go back
and look at what I’ve done,”
Hendrix said.
Barnhart’s letter was addressed
to Dennis Stockton, publisher of
the Forsyth County News.
“The intent of our newspaper is
to provide fair and objective
reporting about issues of public
concern. If we make mistakes, we
expect to have them brought to our
attention so that we can correct
them. We are not perfect,”
Stockton said.
“However, the fact that stories
may portray a public official in
less than a flattering light does not
necessarily mean they are inaccu
rate. Since this letter addresses no
specific stories, it’s hard to know
what to make of it. The Sheriff
seems convinced that we are
somehow out to get him, and that
simply isn’t true,” Stockton said.
“It seems clear that the threat
of future litigation is meant to
intimidate us into changing how
we cover the Sheriff’s Office. That
will not work. We will continue to
cover the news as we always have,
in a fair manner,” Stockton said.
See LETTER, Page 3A
Charges
against
Suddeth
dismissed
By Colby Jones
Staff Writer
Former county commissioner
Lamar Suddeth breathed a sigh of
relief Friday when informed that
67 felony counts against him have
been dropped by the Gilmer
County district attorney.
Prosecutors also dropped
criminal charges against two of
his daughters, Kimberly Suddeth
and Diane Brooks.
The request to dismiss the
charges against Suddeth and his
daughters was signed by a judge
See SUDDETH, Page 2A