About The wiregrass farmer. (Ashburn, Ga.) 1984-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 17, 2014)
Property taxes are due Dec. 20 Serving Turner County Since 1902 Wednesday, December 17, 2014 ASHBURN,GA, 31714 VOL 109-No. 51 *500 www.thewiregrassfarmer.com (Around Town\ Subscribe to The Wiregrass Farmer Delivered in your mail every week Call 567-3655 for information. Santa Letters Letters to Santa may be given to The Wiregrass Farmer for printing in our Christmas Edition. We’ll then forward them to the North Pole in the usual manner. PO Box 309, Ashbum 31714 wiregr as sfarmer @ yahoo.com Ribbon cutting A Ribbon Cutting for Liberty Tax Service will be held this Thursday, Dec. 18th at 11:30. Coat drive The Sycamore Police Department is sponsoring a winter coat drive for needy people. Coats of all sizes may be dropped off at City Hall Garbage going up in Sycamore Similar hikes likely for County, Ashburn and Rebecca If the price goes up, the price goes up. What are you going to do? Councilman JC Harris by Ben Baker Editor Garbage rates in Sycamore are going up 500 effective the first of the year. The rate hike is being passed along to Sycamore res idents by the City. Sycamore has a contract with the Crisp Solid Waste Authority for garbage collection. That con tract allows the Authority to raise rates twice a year. This raise is the cost of liv ing adjustment. A mid-year hike is also allowed for in creased fuel expense. The Council needed to raise rates by around 320 to cover the increased cost from the garbage service. The decision to raise by 500 was done antic ipating mid-year increase. By going up 500 now, the Council hopes to not raise rates this summer. “We can pass this along or the City will eat this,” Mayor Woodruff said. The total increased cost to the City is $1,008 a year, $84 a month figuring 300 garbage customers. “If the price goes up, the price goes up. What are you Hike needed 320 Hike in place 500 New rate $19.50 going to do?” said Councilman J.C. Harris. “I don’t think we have a choice,” said Councilman Fred Eister. “We hate to have to do it,” said Council member Brenda McNair. MID-YEAR HIKE The contract allows rates to be adjusted twice a year to re flect fuel costs. The announcement from the Authority also included a drop in prices based on fuel. Resi dential containers went down 30 each and commercial con- (See HIKE Page 2) BEST PARADE ENTRY American Legion Post 98 won the best overall entry in the Ashburn Christmas parade over the weekend. Here, Chamber President Stevi Thompson presents the trophy to Legion members John Y. Christian and Odis Reese. More pictures inside and on our Facebook page. Sycamore goes online Sycamore is getting a web site. It’s going to cost the City $1.500 for the initial setup. After that it’s $15 a month for hosting and $25 a year for the do main name. The City won’t be accepting fine payments online for two main reasons. 1) A distrust of online payment systems 2) The City doesn’t generate enough in out of community tickets to merit the additional $500 charge for accepting online payments. “I am leery of paying bills online anyway. It’s hard to get a receipt unless you print one off,” said Councilman James Galt-Brown. “Everybody lives within a rifle shot of City Hall” anyway. Mayor Wayne Woodruff said he was re cently contacted by a resident of Panama City, FL, who got a ticket in Sycamore. The driver will either have to come back to Sycamore to pay the fine or mail in a money order. The Council amended the budget later in the meeting to cover the expense for the website. $1500for site setup $15/month hosting $25/year domain Benefit yard sale Yard sale will be held Dec. 20 at Katz Veterinary Clinic. All proceeds will benefit Karen Royal and family. Karen is recovering from a recent stroke. Dona tions for the sale will be ac cepted and can be dropped off at either the Ashburn clinic or the Cordele clinic. Call for more info at either clinic. Food drive The New Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church will be partnering with the Second Harvest of SGA to host a Mana/Food Drive and clothes give-a-way on 12/20/2014 starting at (See BRIEFS Page 10) Obituaries Mrs. Desi A. Proctor, Ashburn Craig George Zabriskie, 59, Ashbum Complete obituary information is on Page 5 Newberry chosen to represent Turner as EAGLE student Samantha Newberry, center, was chosen recently to represent Moultrie Technical College’s (MTC) Turner County Adult Education and GED® test preparation program as its EAGLE representative. The Technical College System of Georgia, through its Office of Adult Education, sponsors the annual Ex ceptional Adult Georgian in Literacy Education (EAGLE) Leadership In stitute. Newberry competed for this year’s final Moultrie Tech EAGLE position with students from the Col lege’s service delivery area of Colquitt, Tift and Worth counties. The Adult Education students were evaluated through a speech and interview process. Legree was ulti mately chosen to compete for the state EAGLE title and will do so in Spring 2015 in Atlanta. EAGLE is the first statewide program in the nation that recognizes and rewards excel lence among students enrolled in the adult education and literacy pro grams. For more information on Moultrie Technical College’s Adult Education program in Turner County and on ob taining a GED diploma, contact in structor Mary Denham at (229) 567-8781 or log onto the college’s website at www.moultrietech.edu . Newberry competed for this year’s final Moultrie Tech EAGLE position with students from the Col lege’s service delivery area of Colquitt, Tift and Worth counties. Sycamore employees to pay half cost of uniform expense The Sycamore Council ap proved several budget amend ments, including one that raises the employee cost for uniforms. Sycamore city employees who have uniforms pay half the weekly cost for uniform rental and cleaning. Sycamore pays the other half. For a few years now, that policy has been out of balance. Mayor Wayne Woodruff said he checked into the figures and saw employees were paying about 25 percent of the cost. Councilman Fred Eister, the man behind most of this year’s budget, apologized, saying he made some incorrect assump tions . (See $$$ Page 2) The chief is to be commended. She ques tioned me. She interrogated me. I am highly impressed that she cares enough about her budget to break it down like that. Mayor Wayne Woodruff FILL SANTA’S SLEIGH with a gift from PARKER Chevrolet, Buick, GMC Inc 567-3306 •517 Gorday Drive www.parkerchevrolet.com Shop local Put local people to work and keep your tax dollars at work at home. Cloudy Q 0 People want everything and want to pay for nothing. They panic if they think about their taxes being raised, but if their garbage collection is a day late they scream and yell. Michael Schur
