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THE ACKSON H Wednesday, September 29, 2021 ERALD VOL. 147 NO. 16 24 PACES 2 SECTIONS PLUS INSERTS Merged in 2017 with The Commerce News A PUBLICATION OF MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. JEFFERSON, JACKSON COUNTY GEORGIA S0549 $1.00 COPY County planners Planners approve special use for kids camp plans A major summer camp facility for children with special needs and their families could soon start construction in Jackson County. The long-planned camp known as Camp Hooray is to be located on 79 acres in South Jackson and is part of the program of Ex tra Special People. Inc. of Watkinsville. The camp got an enthu siastic thumbs-up by the Jackson County Planning Commission on Sept. 23 with a recommendation of approval for a special use permit for the prop erty, located on Strick land Lane off of Jefferson River Rd. and New Kings Bridge Rd. The idea behind the camp is to have full access for campers who have a variety of disabilities. At build-out, the camp would serve over 200 campers per week during the sum mer and would also be used on a weekly basis throughout the year. Students from both the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech have been involved in the concept designs for the camp. Sev eral local organizations, including the Jefferson Rotary Club, have made donations to the camp. ESP currently serves around 30 counties in the Northeast Georgia area with programs for those with disabilities, includ ing around 50 children from Jackson County. OTHER ACTION In other action Sept. 23. the JCPC approved: • rezoning 19 acres at 3110 Ila Rd. from A-2 to R-l for a subdivision. • rezoning 4 acres on Mauldin Rd. Jefferson to divide the property into two tracts. • rezoning 5 acres on Chandler Bridge Rd. to divide the property into two tracts. Concept plan for Camp Hooray. Farm to Table The Commerce Downtown Development Authority hosted its fifth annual Farm to Table community dinner on Tuesday, Sept. 21. Chef Catalina Zuni ga and her team prepared a locally-focused meal for attendees. The event raised funds to go toward the construction of a farmers market pavilion. As of Sept. 21, the city was about $4,000 shy of reaching its goal. Those wishing to donate should contact Natalie at nataliet@commercega.org. l ■ ■ i l ■ Vj A crowd turned out to support the Commerce Farm to Table community dinner on Sept. 21. The annual event raised funds for a future farmers market pavilion for the town. Pictured are: Zoey Zellner, Sandra Haggard, Ann Whitfield, Tina Ervin, Wanda Dean, Lisa Cochran, Tracy Wilson and Angie Redmon. See more photos on page 3A. MAILING LABEL COVID update COVID cases down significantly; 9 more deaths confirmed Nine more Jackson County residents have died of COVID-19. accord ing to a state update on Monday, Sept. 27. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 173 con firmed COVID deaths in the county and 13 proba ble COVID deaths. There have been 12,257 COVID cases among Jackson County residents since the start of the pan demic. making Jackson the fifth highest county in the state per capita. But there is some good news this week: The num ber of COVID cases has A vaccination clinic is planned Oct. 2 from 3-6 p.m. at the Empower Center. See page 2A for details. dropped significantly over the past couple of weeks. Jackson County has had 585 new cases over the past two weeks. That’s still higher than the state aver age on a per capita-basis, but it’s significantly lower than it has been in recent weeks. See COVID, page 2A Moratorium Moratorium may slow new projects, but won’t stop those already approved Jackson County’s one- year moratorium on resi dential rezonings may slow new developments, but there are a lot of residential lots already in the works that may not be affected by the moratorium. A study by county offi cials of existing lots and land in unincorporated ar eas of the county that could be used for housing showed that development is likely to continue in the coming months. According to the study, the unincorporated area of the county currently has 917 lots platted and ready to be built on and that are only awaiting a building permit. On top of that, the county has another 1,300 lots zoned for residential that are in the process of getting the vari ous permits needed to build on. That means that over 2,100 new homes could be built without any rezoning approvals. In addition to that, the county has around 4,800 additional acres that are not platted, but that are zoned for residential use. The only restriction on that property now would be in obtaining a county-issued land dis turbance permit, something that has time-based restric tions under the new morato rium. “I believe the moratori um will slow “new” devel opment, in terms of items needing to be properly zoned, considering the year long timeframe on map amendments and rezoning applications that would be applicable to this,” said county development manag er Jamie Dove. “Those will take some time themselves to get through the process once it is opened back up, but in terms of LDPs slow ing down and dirt moving, I don’t believe there will be See Moratorium, page 2A Nov. 2 election Voter registration deadline Oct. 4 The deadline to register for the Nov. 2 general mu nicipal election is coming up on Monday, Oct. 4. Elections are planned in Arcade, Braselton, Com merce, Hoschton. Jefferson and Nicholson. In Arcade, four people qualified for two at-large council seats, including in cumbents Debra Gammon and Ron Smith, along with challengers Leah Hollett and Steven Kirby Lavender. All three of Braselton s races are contested. In the mayoral race, Hardy John son, former councilman in District 4, will face Kurt Ward. Mayor Bill Orr is not seeking reelection. James Murphy and Jeff Gardner qualified for the Braselton Town Council District 4 seat. And District 2 incum bent, Peggy Slappey, will face challenger Richard Harper. In Commerce, Eric Gatheright and Andre Rol lins are vying for the Com merce City Council Ward 1 seat. Incumbent Archie Chaney is not seeking re- election. City Council Ward 2 incumbent, Darren Ow- ensby, will face challeng er, Brad Coker. Commerce residents will also have a chance to vote on a refer endum on whether to allow the sale of distilled spirits in town. In Hoschton, Lauren O’Leary is challenging in cumbent mayor Shannon Sell. In Jefferson, City Coun cil District 2 incumbent Malcolm Gramley will face challenger Dawn Maddox. In Nicholson, Thomas Gary, incumbent; Dusty Durst, incumbent; and Josh ua Burkhalter qualified for two at-large council seats. Jefferson Jefferson adopts budget and millage rate By Kyle Funderburk kyle@mainstreetnews. com After multiple discus sions, the Jefferson City Council adopted its FY2022 budget and a millage rate of 5.3 mills on Sept. 27. Both budget and millage were passed unanimously by the council. The 5.3 mill rate was originally controversial with some council members who wanted a lower rate. However, finance director Amie Pirkle and city man ager Priscilla Murphy told the council that the 5.3 mill rate was needed to avoid budget cuts. FY2022 BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS The FY2022 budget at $12.99 million and includes additional spending in the fire and police departments. The fire department bud get includes the hiring of three new fire captains, one for each shift. Fire chief Mark Duke’s rationale for the budget request was that the department needed to grow with the city. See Jefferson, page 2A Commerce planners Church bells could ring in Commerce Church bells could soon be ringing again in Com merce following action on Sept. 27 by the Commerce Planning Commission. The board gave a rec ommendation of approval to a decibel level variance for First Baptist Church of Commerce to install a digi tal system that would chime bell sounds in town. Todd Chandler, the church’s min ister of music, said that un like real bells, the volume of sound with a digital system could be controlled. “It’s been a long time since we had church bells ringing in Commerce,” said vice-chairman Andre Roll ins about the system. The church plans to in stall a 3,200 watt Caril lon Bell System with four See Commerce, page 3A