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Vol. 141, No. 28 - Waynesboro, Ga. 30830
Established in 1882
Wednesday, September 1,2021 - $1.00
BOE Chairman Johnny Jenkins dies at 78
A beloved community leader has died fol
lowing a battle with COVID-19.
John “Johnny” Jenkins, Chairman of the
Burke County Board of Education, passed
away Saturday, Aug. 28.
Family says Jenkins had planned to receive
the vaccine for the virus but had a knee replace
ment in April and was waiting to get stronger
from the surgery.
He was 78 years old.
A family and community oriented man, Jen
kins was elected to the BOE in January 1979,
spending more than 42 years in his seat. He
was one of the longest serving chairmen in the
state of Georgia.
“I wish to express the deep sense of loss of
our school board member, beacon of this com
munity, husband, father, brother, neighbor and
friend,” said school superintendent Dr. Angela
Williams. “Our thoughts and prayers are with
his family and friends and all who knew and
loved him. Mr. Jenkins was an unwavering
supporter and advocate of our students and
employees, always striving to ensure the dis
trict was positioned to best serve the children
of Burke County. We are comforted knowing
the tremendous impact he had on the lives of
young people for over four decades.”
In addition to his tenure with the BOE,
Jenkins had also been owner and operator
of Goldberg’s Furniture and was currently a
realtor with Meybohm Real Estate. He was an
active member of the First United Methodist
Church of Waynesboro, as well as the Waynes
boro Exchange Club.
Fellow Exchangite and Waynesboro Fire
Chief Robert Parrish recalls how Jenkins called
him in July to wish him a happy birthday.
“That’s just the type of person
he was; he really cared,” Parrish
said, adding how the annual
fair won’t be the same without
SEE
JENKINS,
10A
John “Johnny” Jenkins, Chairman of the
Burke County Board of Education.
Volunteers and officials visiting and learning about plans to preserve the old Girard Elementary School in
December, 2020.
Old Girard school gets historic recognition
The old Girard Elementary
School has been added to the
National Register of Historic
Places. The Historic Preserva
tion Division (HPD), housed
in the Georgia Department of
Community Affairs, administers
the National Register of Historic
Places program in Georgia.
According to a news release by
the agency, nominations for these
listings “are in line with HPD’s
mission of promoting the preser
vation and use of historic places
for a better Georgia. By sharing
the importance of this listing,
HPD hopes to encourage the
preservation of historic proper
ties through public awareness and
an appreciation of the impactful
roles they play in our social and
economic lives.”
As of August 13,2021, Georgia
has 2,192 listings comprising 89,917
resources in the National Register of
Historic Places.
The school, constructed in 1955, is
located slightly northwest of Girard,
Georgia. The building’s one-story
floor plan includes four classrooms, a
library, and a combined cafeteria and
auditorium as well as support spaces
that include a kitchen, administrative
offices, and a clinic.
In the 1950s and 1960s, in an ef
fort to maintain a racially segregated
educational system, southern states
built new schools termed “equaliza
tion schools” for African Ameri
can and White students. Georgia’s
Minimum Foundation Program for
Education funded the construction
of the schools throughout the state.
Georgia built more schools for
African Americans than any other
state. Nearly 500 new elementary
and high schools, including at
least one new high school in each
county, were built during this era.
Burke County was the first
county approved for funding un
der the program. Burke County
opened seven new schools in
1955, six of which, including
Girard Elementary, were for Af
rican American students.
The construction of Girard
Elementary School allowed for
the consolidation of several one-
and two-room African American
schools operating in the area and
provided a new educational and
community resource for African
Americans while also reinforc
ing and expanding the county’s
segregated
educational
system GIRARD SCHOOL
Equaliza- 10A
COVID cases here
"extremely high"
COVID 19 cases here have in
creased recently and are extremely
high, according to the Georgia De
partment of Public Health and the
CDC. The total reported for the past
week was the highest of the pandem
ic. The number of hospitalized Covid
patients has also risen in the Burke
County area. Deaths have remained
at about the same level. The test posi
tivity rate in Burke County is very
high, at 25.3%, suggesting that cases
are being significantly undercounted.
According to a report in The New
York Times, because of high spread,
the C.D.C. recommends that even
vaccinated people wear masks here.
Only 37% of the county’s population
is fully vaccinated.
An average of 28 cases per day
is being reported in Burke County,
a 66 percent increase from the
average two weeks ago. Since the
beginning of the pandemic, at least
1 in 7 residents have been infected,
a total of 3,289 reported cases. Right
now, according to the report, Burke
County is at an extremely high risk
for unvaccinated people.
August was the month with the
highest number of cases since Janu
ary 2021 in Burke County.
Make
Plans!!!!!
The Farm Festival 2021
booklet, sponsored by
Waynesboro Shrine Club
is inside this issue of
The True Citizen. Make
plans to attend Satur
day, Sept. 11.
Blight tax may affect more than condition of downtown buildings
SHELLIE SMITLEY
thetruecitizen.shellie@gmail.com
The Downtown Development
Authority met August 25 and dis
cussed the creation of a Waynesboro
ordinance that may address blight
beyond dilapidated commercial
buildings in the downtown area.
When the idea of implementing
a blight ordinance came to light, it
originally was intended to pertain to
the downtown corridor only. How
ever, Director Don Lively, who also
holds the position of Coordinator of
Historic Preservation, is writing the
rough draft of the ordinance that he
wants to see apply to more than just
the exterior appearance of commer
cial buildings in the downtown area.
Whether a new blight ordinance
will affect low-income residential
property owners throughout the city
remains to be seen.
“It could or it could not,” Lively
said. “We don’t know what is going
to be in the ordinance yet.”
The idea behind a blight tax is to
motivate property owners to stabilize
and improve the blighted conditions
of their properties or sell to others
who are willing to do the work. It
seeks to penalize owners who leave
their properties in a dilapidated state
by charging them an increased mill-
age rate.
Lively said he is using a template
provided by the Georgia Municipal
Association, fine tuning it to meet the
city’s specific needs. Once drafted,it
will be presented to the City Council
for approval.
“I hope to have it done so they can
look at it mid-October,” Lively said.
He told the DDA panel that he
wants to try and avoid a situation
that occurred in Statesboro, where
the mayor overrode the council and
severely reduced the tax penalty
from 7-fold to only a minor penalty,
according to a 2019 article in the
Statesboro Herald.
“He basically gutted it. You may
as well not even have an ordinance,”
Lively said.
Bill Tinley, who also sits on the
council, felt confident that Waynes
boro would not face a similar cir
cumstance.
“If we can put it together, it will get
passed,” he said. “I will make sure
he passes it. I have been working on
dilapidated properties since 1969 and
I haven’t given up yet.”
Additionally, Lively said he be
lieved it was important to add to
Waynesboro’s ordinance that com
mercial buildings could not be uti
lized to store furniture
or other unused items. SEE
“We have a couple BLIGHTTAX,
places in downtown 9A
Acting Mayor James Chick Jones
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