About The wiregrass farmer. (Ashburn, Ga.) 1984-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 2024)
CONSTRUCTION TOUR Getting a look at the new school, inside. Wiriorass Farmer Wednesday, November 20, 2024 ASHBURN,GA, 31714 VOL 109 - No. 47 • 750 www.thewiregrassfarmer.com ^Around Town' Subscribe to The Wire grass Farmer Delivered in your mail every week Call 567-3655 Post 98 meets Who: American Legion Post 98 What: Regular Meeting is 2nd Tuesday of each month When: 7 p.m. Where: Turner County Elections Building, Sycamore GA. All Veterans are welcome to attend! POC: Commander Jimmy Whiddon, 229-567- 1754. 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. All meetings are at 6 p.m. Teddy bears The Kiwanis Club is col lecting teddy bears for public safety to give to children. The bears are to help frightened kids. New bears may be dropped off at The Wiregrass Fanner. Stray dogs Ashburn residents are re minded that pets must have a collar and current rabies tag. Animals without tags will be collected by Animal Control. A copy of the City's animal or dinance is available at City Hall and the Police Depart ment. Animal control number is 567-0313. Separate debris If you pile leaves and limbs at curbside, please sep arate limbs from the leaves and pine straw. The City's street vac can pick up the leaves and straw. The boom truck can pick up limbs. When you separate the leaves and limbs, pick up goes faster and takes fewer employees. Siren Test The Turner County weather warning siren is tested the first Wednesday of the month, good weather per mitting, at noon. If weather is bad, the sys tem will be tested at noon on the next clear day. V J HOMETOWN NEWS SINCE 1902 Sycamore Park policy VETERAN’S DAY Sycamore now has a policy and use agreement for the newly named Woodruff Park. The policy comes after the City has seen some misuse and abuse at the park. USE AGREEMENT Anyone who wants to use the park and the covered pavilion for an event now must sign a liability waiver. The waiver comes with a $25 refundable deposit. You get your money back after the park is in spected and found to be clean. The agreement also requires an “appro priate insurance” policy to cover the City. The agreement does not say what an ap propriate policy is. USE POLICY The new policy says dogs and alcohol are not permitted in the park. The list of rules posted at the park entrance are also included. Police Chief Ben Reeves said the City needs something to allow officers to stop inappropriate activity there. NEW NAME The park, long known as Sycamore Park, is now Woodruff Park, named for Mayor Wayne Woodruff. The matter was brought up last month, but no action was taken. The vote at the November meeting was unanimous. Mayor Pro Tem Fred Eister suggested the name change. He said there is not need to wait until the (See PARK Page 2) REACH Scholars announced The 2024 REACH Scholars were announced at the Nov. 11 BOE meeting. The scholars this year are Natalia Callejas, Anna Trujillo, Kemestrie Currelley and Jermari Cooley. REACH stands for Realizing Edu cational Achievement Can Happen. The program picks 4 8th graders each year. If the students follow the schol arship requirements, they get $10,000 for college. Some Georgia colleges will double that amount and a few triple it. The students were selected from a large number of applicants. Among other things the students have to be good academically and have no be- Natalia Callejas, Anna Trujillo, havior referrals. Kemestrie Currelley and Jermari Cooley. ATTENDANCE CHAMP TCES has implemented an at tendance incentive program for the 2024-2025 school year in an effort to improve attendance and reward students for coming to school every day and on time. Each month, students who have great attendance receive a different incentive. For each nine weeks, a bicycle is being awarded to one lucky student, sponsored by an anonymous donor. The names of all students who had great attendance for the first 9 weeks were entered into a drawing and the student whose name was drawn to receive the bicycle was 2nd grader Jor dan Lopez in Mrs. Guess & Mrs. Beasley’s homeroom! Congratulations Jordan! We really ap preciate our anonymous donors for their sponsorship of our attendance program for the 2024-25 school year! Part of the JROTC’s Veteran’s Day observance on Nov. 11 in cluded this tribute to the fallen and missing in action. See video of the event on YouTube at The Wiregrass Farmer channel. Below, the American Legion held a spaghetti Bingo supper fundraiser at the elementary school. Veterans attended for free. Land work step toward fixing Ashburn’s sewer problems More sewer line work is about to begin in Ashburn, but this is not working on lines below the ground. One part of the work is getting some manholes above a water line around Zorn Pond. The other is clearing the City rights-of-way along sewer line easements. Money to pay for the work comes from a grant the City received for sewer project work. Shon Hampton is the engineer working with the City on these proj ects. He told the Council that some manholes in the area needed to be raised. Two are currently underwater thanks to a beaver dam that backed up water and flooded the area. One is above water but has no top any more. A 4th is missing a top because a willow tree has pushed the man hole around. The work has to be done because the City is under a consent order from the Environmental Protection Division. That order says too much rainwater is getting into the City sewers and causing flooding. The EPD has fined the City once and could do so again if the Council does not follow the consent order. "This is part of the corrective ac tion plan and the consent order," Mr. Hampton said. Councilmen member Andrea Pierce said she did not want the EPD coming back to Ashburn to hand out more fines. CLEARING PROJECT The second item is a land clearing project on City rights-of-way for sewer lines. Four companies bid on the clear ing project. One company was the low bidder but did not provide a 10% bid bond as required under the contract for work. The Council went with the 2nd lowest bidder, who pro vided the 10% bond. "He was made aware of it at the bid opening. He did not comply," said Mayor Sandra Lumpkin. Mr. Hampton recommended the 2nd lowest bidder, which the Coun cil accepted. "The other contractors could say, 'We bid it this way and it wasn't awarded,"' he said. He said the City Attorney might want to weigh in on the Council's decision. Attorney Winston Denmark did not comment. The low bid was $46,515. The high bid was $192K, more than 4 times the price of the low bid. (See SEWER Page 2) 8 66670 00023 750 - tax included Wed AM clouds sun q iti 74 42 e ® Weather for Turnei 1 Co 20% Thurs Sunny Fri Sunny Sat Sunny Sun Sunny <*> u o This space available. Your ad runs 4 or more weeks. Get your business noticed! Call 567-3655 Let me ask you, sir, when is the time for brave men to exert themselves in the cause of liberty and their country, if this is not? - George Washington Never was so much owed by so many to so few. - Winston Churchill
