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State school superintendent presents Whitlow Elementary with STEM certification. See story Page 5A Sports No. 7 Lambert beats West Forsyth to continue historic start to season. Page IB FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Midweek Edition-October 19-20, 2022 FORSYTHNEWS.COM forsythcountynews Q @ForsythNews (§) @ForsythNews $1.00 Suspect indicted in South Forsyth double homicide By Kelly Whitmire kwhitmire@forsythnews.com A suspect has been indicted on more than 20 counts tied to a double homicide in south Forsyth County earlier this year. In October, Juan Escalante - Alarcon, 35, of Marietta, was indicted by the Forsyth County Superior Court on 22 counts, including a total of six murder counts tied to the shooting deaths of Geovani Cruz Fidencio, 21, and Ivan Cordero Acosta, 35, in March. A juvenile was also shot but survived the incident. Escalante-Alarcon faces two counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, seven counts of aggravated assault, three counts of family violence aggravated assault, two counts of first-degree home invasion, two counts of first-degree burglary, one count of aggravated battery and one count of first-degree cru elty to children. The murder charges include a malice murder and two felony murder charges for each victim, and the felony charges come from the murders allegedly hap pening during an aggravated assault and “while in the commis sion of the offense of home inva sion.” According to the indictment, along with the murder victims, assault victims in the incident included the homeowner, Escalante-Alarcon’s juvenile child, the mother of the child and four other children under 18, including one who was shot in the foot. Three of the charges — one count each of first-degree bur glary, first-degree home invasion and family violence aggravated assault — came from an incident on Feb. 11, when Escalante- Alarcon allegedly entered the same home without authority and committed assault against his child’s mother. The crimes allegedly happened at about 5 a.m. Thursday, March See Indicted 13A 'Worked too long and too hard to just stop' Scott Rogers FCN Regional Staff Forsyth County News General Manager Norman Baggs, center, attends a luncheon in his honor with members of his family Wednesday, Oct. 12, at the Chattahoochee Country Club. From left to right are family members Kasey Jackson, Brennice Baggs, Norman Baggs, Stephanie Baggs and Lawton Baggs. FCN s Baggs reflects on career as he steps away from daily operations By Jeff Gill FCN regional staff With bylines older than many, if not most, of his employees, Norman Baggs is entering a new phase of a lengthy career that’s been devoted to making sure local residents get the news they need. On Friday, Oct. 14, Forsyth County News’ general manager stepped away from day-to-day newspaper operations for the first time in nearly a half-century of work and moving to what he calls a “reduced role,” working on cor porate special projects and as an adviser. “I’ve worked too hard and too long to just stop,” Baggs said dur ing a break recently from cleaning out his office, with newspapers See Baggs|6A Officials discuss TSPLOST, road improvements on the horizon By Ash lyn Yule ayule@forsythnews.com The theme was managing growth and infrastructure improvements at the county’s latest Transportation Summit on Thursday, Oct. 13. The summit featured panelists such as Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry, Rep. Rick Jasperse, Forsyth County Board of Commissioners Chairman Alfred John and Carter Patterson with the Forsyth County Chamber of Commerce. The event was held at Browns Bridge Church. County Manager Kevin Tanner also spoke, sharing with See TSPLOST14A Photo courtesy Forsyth County government Panelists discuss growth and infrastructure at a Forsyth Transportation Summit on Thursday, Oct. 13. Forsyth commissioners deny 44-acre mixed-use development in Cumming ByAshlyn Yule ayule@forsythnews.com Commissioners unanimously voted at a work session on Tuesday, Oct. 11 to deny a request to allow the City of Cumming to rezone approximate ly 44 acres for the purposes of building a mixed-use develop ment. The land in question is off Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Cumming and was purchased by the county for economic develop ment purposes. The proposal was sent to com missioners by the Forsyth County Development Authority and Inline Communities, and it included a possible 20,000 square feet of commercial space and a total of 404 residential units; 275 multi-family units or apartments, 9 live-work townhomes, 24 rear- loaded townhomes, 26 front-load ed townhomes and 70 single family detached lots. The proposed density for the project was 9.29 units per acre. During board discussion, District 3 Commissioner Todd Levent said he had an “interesting opinion on this,” stating that it would be hypocritical of the board to allow the proposal to move forward. “If we sit here and want to judge the city of Cumming when they do a project like this, and they annex something in ... to do the same thing we yell at them for,” he said. “The hypocrisy of it, I can’t live with it.” Levent also wanted to reassess this item, stating that he was con cerned about the density of the project and wanted to hold onto the property for a more commer cial use in the future. District 4 Commissioner Cindy Jones Mills asked County Attorney Ken Jarrard if the com missioners had been clear to the DA about their intentions with the property. She said she didn’t want to “act like they’ve done something bad if we didn’t ... tell them that direction,” but she wanted to clar ify that the intention for the prop erty was centered around com mercial development, not resi dential. See Commission 13A MV 57/31 Forecast! 2A Cumming City Center hosting pop-up market to celebrate fall 2A Forsyth County News app available for download Find the app at forsythnews.com/apps for local news at your fingertips. 90994 0400 Volume 113, Number 80 © 2022, Forsyth County News Cumming, Georgia BEST OF FORSYTH NDEiiljl CHEVROLET FIND NEW ROADS Established 1948 www.AndeanChevy.com LIFETIME POWERTRAIN WARRANTY AND LIFETIME OIL CHANGES AT NO COST TO YOU!! WWW.ANDEANCHEVY.COM