Newspaper Page Text
O
O
THE
ACKSON
MW.
H Wednesday, May 26, 2010
ERALD
www.JacksonHeraldTODAY.com
VOL. 135 NO. 49 48 PACES 4 SECTIONS PLUS INSERTS A PUBLICATION OF MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. JEFFERSON, JACKSON COUNTY GEORGIA 30549 75c COPY
— Inside —
Area news:
•JCCHS graduation
page 12A
Op/Ed:
•'Cronic makes bad
move' page 4A
Sports:
•Jackson County wres
tling club gets underway
page 1B
Features:
•Let the summer
reading club begin
page 1C
•Oconee River SWCD
has been at conserva
tion work 72 years
page 1C
Other News:
•Public Safety
pages 6-7A
•Legals
pages 10-28C
•Church News
page 7B
•Obituaries
pages 4-5B
•School News
pages 8-11 A, 6B
O -s
BOE reverses PT employment vote
Hires coach turned down earlier after Cronic changes his mind
BY KERRI TESTEMENT
THE JACKSON County Board of
Education reversed its earlier “No” vote to
hire three retired teachers part-time when
it voted to hire one of them as a part-time
employee and girls’ basketball coach.
The action, led by BOE member Michael
Cronic who changed his vote, took place
Tuesday night at a called meeting of the
board just before graduation ceremonies
at Jackson County Comprehensive High
School.
In a 3-2 vote, the board agreed to hire
John Hawley as the varsity girls’ coach
and a JCCHS PE/health teacher on a
part-time basis. Hawley is retired from the
Gwinnett County School System and is
the husband of Rise Hawley, the assistant
superintendent for teaching and learning
for the JCSS.
Board members Jill McEver Elliott,
Lynne Massey-Wheeler and Cronic voted
to approve Hawley’s employment, while
board chairperson Kathy Wilbanks and
member Tim Brooks voted in opposition.
Hawley was hired for two years.
Hawley’s employment, along with that
of two other teachers who wanted to
work part-time, had earlier been rejected
by the BOE in a 3-2 vote. But Tuesday,
Cronic, who earlier voted against hiring
Hawley and the other teachers, said he had
changed his mind after being contacted by
some parents. He said some of the parents
of the girls’ basketball team had threat
ened to take their players to Jefferson
High School if the JCCHS program didn’t
become more stable.
“It may not be in the interest for our
continued on page 3A
DIPLOMA — AND A HUG — FROM MOM
Sky Porter received his diploma and a hug from his mother, Jody Porter, at the
Jefferson High School graduation Friday night. Mrs. Porter is a teacher at JHS. For
more photos from graduation, see page 8B.
Mayor, Nicholson council member
disagree on city charter revisions
BY KERRI TESTEMENT
A NEW Nicholson coun
cil member wants to take time
revisiting the city’s charter — a
proposal that clearly didn’t settle
well with the town’s mayor.
In a sometimes tense exchange,
council member Chuck Wheeler
and Mayor Ronnie Maxwell
debated on Thursday whether to
take a second look at Nicholson’s
charter.
Georgia law requires incor
porated cities to have a charter,
which includes its fundamental
laws. Changes to a charter often
require adoption by the General
Assembly during its 40-day leg
islative session.
The state approved changes
to Nicholson’s charter in 2009,
after the city held several public
hearings.
Wheeler said he wants several
meetings to address the charter
— such as possibly reducing the
requirement that the city seek
bids for projects costing more
than $100,000 to $2,000.
He also said he wants more
citizen input on the hiring and
firing of city employees — pos
sibly through a citizens board.
But Maxwell took issue with
Wheeler’s proposals.
“You took an oath on Jan. 3 to
uphold and defend that charter,”
Maxwell said. “You didn’t make
it part of your campaign, when
you ran (for election), to change
the charter,” Maxwell said.
The mayor also said Wheeler
—who had previously served six
years ago on the council — was
the only council member to have
any problems with the charter.
Wheeler said his proposal on
reducing the amount that the city
would require to seek bids would
just be a few words changed in
the charter.
He said the revision was simi
lar to Maxwell’s proposal ear
lier that evening to change a
few words in the city’s ethics
ordinance.
Maxwell said Nicholson needs
to revise its ethics ordinance to
delete the requirement that it
have an attorney serve on its eth
ics committee.
If the change isn’t made quick
ly, the city could lose its charter
and City of Ethics designation,
Maxwell warned.
Wheeler said he wanted to
table action on the revision for 60
days to coincide with potential
changes to the city’s charter.
Council member Lamar
continued on page 5A
Arcade vs. JCWSA
Mayor says authority should
not dictate water line locales
IT LOOKS LIKE another
round in the ongoing fight
between the City of Arcade and
the Jackson County Water and
Sewerage Authority may be
brewing.
At a meeting of local county
and city officials last week to
discuss the state-mandated ser
vice delivery document, Arcade
Mayor Doug Haynie issued a
blistering statement about the
JCWSA’s ability to run water
lines in the county.
“(The JCWSA is) not a vot
ing member of this (discus
sion.)” Haynie said. “They
don’t pass this strategy and
they’re not going to come in
and tell Maysville or Arcade
or any place else where we’re
going to run our infrastructure
and set our service delivery area
whether it was your administra
tion, the prior administration or
the administration before that.”
The blast was part of an old
dispute between Arcade and the
water authority. Several years
ago, a developer bought a large
amount of acreage in Arcade
for a residential development.
He promised at the time to build
a water system and to share the
revenues with Arcade. The city
then began demanding it be
given its own water service area
and that the county authority
be blocked from providing ser
vice, At the time, Arcade lead
ers said they wanted to “control
our own destiny.”
But the idea of a separate
Arcade water district was
continued on page 5A
EJCHS graduation test
results drop in all areas
BY KERRI TESTEMENT
THE PERCENTAGE of juniors passing a state-mandated grad
uation test dropped dramatically at East Jackson Comprehensive
High School. Students taking the test at the school this spring failed
at a higher rate than last year’s students and were under the overall
state average in all four subject areas.
At Jackson County Comprehensive High School, students this
spring did better in two of the four areas — English/Language Arts
and Science — than last year. JCCHS students were at or above the
overall state average in all areas.
At Jefferson High School, students this year were better in three
of the four areas than last year’s class and were above the state in
all four tests.
JHS was the strongest in Math with a 98 percent passage rate.
The school’s weakest area was Social Studies where 89 percent of
students passed.
continued on page 5A
Georgia High School Graduation Test (GHSGT)
Passing Rate*
English/Language Arts
2010
2009
JCCHS
90%
87%
EJCHS
80%
91%
JHS
94%
88%
State
90%
90%
Mathematics
2010
2009
JCCHS
91%
96%
EJCHS
85%
96%
JHS
98%
97%
State
91%
94%
Cities near agreement on SPLOST funds
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
JACKSON COUNTY’S nine municipalities
appear to be near to a resolution of how they’d
divide the cities’ share of a new six-year round of
special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST).
Commerce city manager Clarence Bryant report
ed at a May 20 budget work session that Braselton
town manager Jennifer Dees proposed a scenar
io for resolving differences between Commerce
and Jefferson that threatened to derail the entire
SPLOST.
At issue were population figures to be used to
divide the municipal portion.
Jackson County took the position that it would
take the same percentage of the total that it’s cur
rently getting — 63.31 — a percentage based on
2000 census numbers. The municipalities were left
to decide how to divvy up the rest. If 2008 popula
tion estimates were used, as proposed by some of
the cities, the county’s portion would have fallen to
60.4 percent.
Commerce also wanted to keep the formula
based on 2000 numbers, when it had 12.72 percent
of the Jackson County population and Jefferson
had 9.2 percent. Jefferson and Braselton in particu
lar favored using 2008 estimates that showed their
population percentages up substantially.
“The difference between 2000 and 2008 fig
ures, we’d lose $1.1 million,” Bryant explained.
“Jefferson would gain $972,000.”
Commerce offered to split the difference down
the middle; Jefferson countered offering a 75-25
split of the difference, with it getting the larger
part.
According to Bryant, Dees came up with a
spreadsheet that basically gives both Commerce
and Jefferson equal shares of the proposed SPLOST
— which works out to a 60.75-29.25 split of the
continued on page 5A
Social Studies
2010
2009
JCCHS
84%
90%
EJCHS
77%
85%
JHS
89%
90%
State
78%
87%
Science
2010
2009
JCCHS
94%
89%
EJCHS
88%
89%
JHS
94%
91%
State
90%
88%
*Percentages reflect 11th grade students who
took the tests for the first time.
Early deadlines set next week
MAINSTREET Newspapers will have early deadlines for
next week’s issue due to the Memorial Day holiday. The
deadline for news and advertising will be at noon on Friday.
The MainStreet Newspapers offices will be closed on
Monday in observance of the holiday.