About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 13, 2018)
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13,2018 | $1.00 | GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA | gainesvilletimes.com Four Chefs face off in food fight. GET OUT, 6A Honestly Local Bumps being smoothed in jail system Sheriff’s Office seeing greater efficiency with new records management software BY NICK WATSON nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com Breaking up is hard to do. As the Hall County Sheriff’s Office moved toward its new records management and jail management systems, it meant a “divorce” between the department sharing information with the court house through the Comprehensive Justice Information System. “We’ve been married for so long together, that since we broke up we’re all having to relearn and do duties that we never used to have to do,” said Lt. Stephanie Gilbert. But with a few weeks under their collective belts, Sheriff’s Office officials are reporting greater effi ciency in the new system. CJIS, which linked jail and arrest information to the Hall County court system, was first implemented in the 1980s. The Sheriff’s Office is now using Superion’s ONESolution Records Management System, Jail Man agement System and Mobile Field Reporting. “In recent years, it became apparent that CJIS would not meet the demands of the county as it experiences continued growth,” Sheriff Gerald Couch said in a statement. “One example of CJIS’s limitations was the amount of data entry required to keep it up to date.” Beginning with making reports, deputies now have an online sys tem that alerts them if they make a mistake before sending it along to a supervisor. “It will not let you submit to a supervisor until you’ve corrected all the mistakes,” Gilbert said. The report can also be tracked in real time, and any supervisor can sign off on a correction to a report. The result is cutting the lag time on giving reports to the public by three to five days. Deputies have in-car terminals with access to warrant informa tion, previous calls to a certain location and more. Along with the jail management system, Capt. Sean McCusker said this can be vitally important for deputies working with inmates or suspects that have been known to be violent or have anger issues. “In the past, you had to read and get to a screen and hopefully in the notes somebody put (that) in there,” McCusker said. Sgt. Ryan Daly can place a per son’s ID into a reader that auto populates information on the monitor in his patrol car. “I wish we had it eight years ago when I started. It’s a huge ■ Please see SYSTEM, 8A Midtown fire under investigation Photos by SCOTT ROGERS I The Times Investigations are underway to determine what caused the fire in a vacant building at Bradford Street and Industrial Boulevard around 2:30 p.m Tuesday. Cause of blaze in vacant building unknown, could take time to discover BY KELSEY RICHARDSON kricliardson@gainesvilletimes.com Investigations began at 11 a.m. today to determine what caused the fire that could be seen throughout Gainesville on Tuesday. The fire was detected in a vacant build ing at Bradford Street and Industrial Bou levard around 2:30 p.m. by Chad Payne, the Gainesville Fire Department’s fire marshal. Keith Smith, division chief of the Gaines ville Fire Department, said 30 firefighters arrived on the scene and finally contained it around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. The fire spread throughout the 16,000-square-foot building, and trans formed it into a heap of metal and wood. Smith said the building had been vacant for years and was once called Sign Fabrication. Smith said the fire could have been caused by a homeless person or an electri cal malfunction, but it may take some time ... , , , , Investigations are underway to determine what caused the fire that destroyed ■ Please see FIRE, 8A a vacant building and could be seen throughout Gainesville on Tuesday. ‘Brunch bilT to take effect early February BY MEGAN REED mreed@gainesvilletimes.com Starting Feb. 3, diners in many parts of Hall will be able to order alcohol at restaurants at 11 a.m. Hall County and several local city governments plan to vote on changes to local alcohol ordinances in Janu ary so that laws reflect the November referendum on the “brunch bill,” which allows for earlier Sunday alco hol sales at restaurants. Voters in Hall, Gainesville, Flowery Branch, Oak- wood and Braselton approved the change on Nov. 6. The next step is for the local governments to make it official by adjusting their alcohol ordinances. Ordinances must be amended by the governments to reflect the change before restaurants can start serving. In these locations, restaurants will be allowed to start selling alcohol at 11 a.m. on Sundays. A bill signed by Gov. Nathan Deal in May allows municipalities to hold a referendum to decide whether to allow earlier sales. Previous state law only allowed alcohol sales starting at ■ Please see BRUNCH, 8A Sales agreement for inland port property approved BY JEFF GILL jgill@gainesvilletimes.com An agreement with the Georgia Ports Authority to buy land for the inland port off Ga. 365 in northeast Hall County was formally approved by the Gainesville and Hall County Development Authority Wednesday morning. The price for the 108-acre tract was nearly $5.6 mil lion, said Tread Syfan, lawyer for the Development Authority, which sold the land to the Georgia Ports Authority. The Northeast Georgia Inland Port, which will be in Gateway Industrial Centre, will serve as a regional ter minal for cargo heading from the Port of Savannah to area companies. It could open in 2021. The authority’s Dec. 12 action was a ratification of a purchase agreement approved in an earlier executive session. ■ Please see PORT, 8A □ 40901 06835 8 INSIDE WEATHER 2A DEATHS 9A Advice 5B Get Out 6A i X -i- High Low 53 44 Cheryl Baker, 74 Jeanne Laramee Lester Smith, 85 Bridge 5B Lottery 2A Lisa Bennett, 57 Junior Ledford, 76 James Tackett, 81 Business 4B Opinion 4A Betty Borders, 82 Leroy Littlejohn, 70 James Thomasson, 84 Calendar 2A Our Region 8A Calvin Cooper, 90 William Looney, 61 Lois Walls, 86 Classified 8B Sports 1B Pamela Davenport, 59 Mary Lowry, 91 John Wesley, 96 Comics 6B TV/puzzles 5B Lake Lanier level: 1,071.15 feet Matthew Fritch, 43 James Marlowe, 86 Full pool 1,071. Down 0.18 feet in 24 hours Loy Gaddis, 80 Shirley Sims, 78 there’s a new practice in town Now accepting internal medicine patients. See page A10 for more information. 770-219-8583 ^ Northeast Georgia PHYSICIANS GROUP
