The wiregrass farmer. (Ashburn, Ga.) 1984-current, February 14, 2024, Image 1

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The wiregrass farmer., February 14, 2024, Image 1

About The wiregrass farmer. (Ashburn, Ga.) 1984-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 2024)

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Newspaper Page TextJROTC Rifle team Inside takes honors Fmer Wednesday, February 14, 2024 ASHBURN,GA, 31714 VOL 109 - No. 7 • 750 www.thewiregrassfarmer.com ^Around Town N Subscribe to The Wiregrass Farmer Delivered in your mail every week Call 567-3655 Tags due by April 30 Vehicle tags are due April 30. Please have your tag number or vehicle identifi cation number and proof of insurance when you come to renew your tag. You can come in anytime during our working ours. You can also renew your tag online by visiting: www.eservices.dri- ves.ga.gov . Food & books Feb. 6th-March 12th on each Tuesday from 5:30-7 p.m.Victoria Evans Memo rial Library will host a Prime Time Family Reading Series for families with chil dren 6-10. A nutritious meal will be served and free transportation is available. Two free books will be given to each family and door prizes will be given! Registration cards for the program are available at Turner County Elementary School and Victoria Evans Memorial Library. Road closure The dirt portion of Fire Tower Road, off Highway 112 E. is now closed. The Commissioners voted unan imously to close that part of the road at the request of the property owner who owns the land on both sides of the road. School accredi- dation School accreditation is almost complete for each of the Turner County Schools. Superintendent Craig Matthews said the process this time "was a little more indepth than it has been in the past for the high school." A bit more paperwork was needed for the elementary school. Mr. Matthews said that was a minor matter. Meetings County Commission, last and 1st Tuesday of the month. Ashburn Council, 1st Thursday of the month. Sycamore Council, 2nd Thursday of the month. School Board, 1st and 2nd Monday of the month. HOMETOWN NEWS SINCE 1902 350K for new Health Dept. Health Department Nurse Mary Anne Pope got her wish for a big ger building. Last week, the County Commission voted 4-1 to buy the old Phoebe Clinic on E. Monroe Ave. for $350K. Com missioner Brad Calhoun voted against the purchase. The Commissioners held a brief closed session for real es tate before coming back into open session and voting to buy the property. The Board is expected to close on the property in 60 days. The money will come from an expected increase in fines and forfeitures from the Sheriffs Office. "I worked with the Sheriff on numbers. His collections are up substantially from what they have been being. It will more than cover it," said County Commission Chair Nick Denham. THE NO VOTE Commissioner Calhoun said he is in favor of the property buy. His concern is the money. "It is going to be a good thing, ain't any question. It's just the money. I'm tight," he said. The Commissioners thought they had a deal on the old hos pital property. The buyer, of fering $299K, backed out of that deal just before the County Commission meeting last week. No reason was given. Mr. Calhoun said that was why he voted no. The other Commissioners expressed concerns that the property could be sold to someone else if the Board waited. "We all want the same thing. We just look at it a little different," Mr. Calhoun said. "I got out-voted. That happens in life." HOSPITAL PROPERTY Mr. Calhoun said he wanted to sell the old hospital property, now just vacant land, and use See BUILDING Page 2) 3 Ashburn roads to be resurfaced Barber, Hanner and Kennedy will get resurfaced in Ashburn thanks in part to state DOT money. Communities around the state get money each year from the Department of Transportation to do road work. How much money each local board gets de pends on the population served. In Turner County, the County Commission gets the most money followed by Ashburn, Sycamore and then Rebecca. This time Ashburn has $15,563.50 for the 3 roads. Doing all the work requires a matching $25K from the City. City Manager Daryl Hall said the City will apply for more grant money this year in hopes of doing more road work in the Hannerville neighborhood. In other business: • Two alcohol licenses were approved. The two businesses did not have their pa perwork in order as of the January meet ing. • Councilman Sheldon Smith gave the rest of the Council a copy of the Interna tional Property Maintenance Code. He asked them to look over the document and come to the March meeting to discuss it and possibly vote. • Mr. Hall said a recent trip to Atlanta was successful. The City will receive some money from the Governor's Discre tionary Fund. • The Council held a closed session to discuss litigation. See all local board meetings on YouTube @TheWiregrass Farmer Election, business signs in the right-of-way illegal Election season is un derway and in Turner County, election laws are already being bro ken. Campaign signs in the rights-of-way on public roads are illegal. For that matter, illegally placing signs on the right-of- way is common occurence all year long, every year. Georgia Code 16-7-58. Pro hibited Placements of Posters, Signs, and Advertisements says, "It shall be unlawful for any person to place posters, signs, or advertisements: On any public property or build ing, unless the owner thereof or the occupier as authorized by such owner has given per mission to place such posters, signs, or advertisements on such property." Furthermore, each sign is considered a littering offense. "Each poster, sign, or adver tisement placed in violation of this Code section shall consti tute a separate offense. Any person who violates this Code section shall be punished the same as for littering under (See LITTER Page 2) Question - Which of these is littering? Answer, under Georgia law, both are. The pile of trash at left on Shingler Ave. and the two signs on McLendon next to a stop sign are both littering and illegal. APD traffic stop leads to federal charges after 4 years A traffic stop on 1-75 by the Ashburn Police De partment on Feb. 25, 2020, has led to a Florida man being con victed of ID theft charges in central Florida. The US Attorney’s office provided the following press release. Damien D. Dennis, 44, of Middleburg, Florida is already serving more than a decade in federal prison for committing fraud in his home state. He recently pled guilty to a new ag gravated identity theft charge in Southwest Georgia after being caught trading personal identifi cation information with indi viduals on the dark web and teaching others how to obtain fraudulent bank loans. Dennis pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated iden tity theft before U.S. District Judge Leslie Gardner on Feb. 7. Dennis faces a manda tory minimum of two years in prison to be served consecutively to 12 years impris onment imposed in the Middle District of Florida to be followed by three years of supervised re lease and a maximum $250,000 fine. Dennis is not el igible for parole. According to court docu ments, the Ashburn Police De partment pulled Dennis over for speeding on Feb. 25,2020; Dennis was driving with a sus pended license and was taken into custody. Inside Dennis’s car, officers found eight drivers licenses belonging to actual people living in seven states and one social security card. Officers also found blank W-2 forms, blank check papers, badge makers, printers, bank ID cards, security laminates and scotch business card pro tectors inside the car; these ma terials are some of the tools used to commit fraud and iden tity theft. (See ID Page 2) Hisfor Month* 1 Albert Murray CNN lists Albert Murry as one of the most impor tant thinkers of the 20th century. A profilic writer, Mr. Murray was most noted for his musings on race, commen tary that stated the facts as he Murray saw them and paid little heed to what others thought. He se riously launched his career as a writer in 1962 while living in New York “The United States is not a nation of black and white peo ple,” Mr. Murray wrote. “Any fool can see that white people are not really white, and that black people are not black.” He also refused to identify himself as anything but an American, a definition of himself that con tinued until his death in 2013. A report at Tuskegee Uni versity says, “In his writing, Murray presents an authentic analysis of African American life as he has known and lived it. As he does so, he neither ig nores nor apologizes for the negative elements in the com munity that cause people to de fine African Americans as social problems —elements such as the poverty and crime resulting from a long tradition of slavery, segregation, dis crimination, and racism. But he does strongly challenge the negative, oversimplified im ages that both blacks and whites represent as the com mon experience of all African Americans. Murray insists on portraying and celebrating the positive, nurturing qualities of African American life and the complexity of the culture.” His obituary in The Guardian, a newspaper pub lished in Great Britain, said, “The writings of Albert Mur ray, who has died aged 97, ex pressed his impatience with the modern stereotype of the African American as victim. Murray was equally suspicious of the chic status sometimes bestowed on black people and black culture by mainstream white society. In fact, Murray, who did not publish his first book until he was 54, disliked even the frequently shifting terminology. “I am not African,” he said. “I am an American.” (See MURRAY Page 2) Sycamore City Office City Government syc3 39 East Willis St. Sycamore, GA31790 229-567-4296 www. sycamorega. com 8 66670 00023 750 - tax included Wed Mostly Sunny Partly Cloudy 4 Weather for Turner Co 0% o 63 41 © / 0% Fri Cloudy PM showers Sat Overcast Showers Sun Cloudy This space available. Your ad runs 4 or more weeks. Get your business noticed! Call 567-3655 The greatest wealth is health. - Virgil • He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything. - Arabian Proverb Litter is disgusting. So are those who are responsible for this.