About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 2020)
LOCAL The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Weekend Edition - September 12-13, 2020 9 A Workers busy realigning road off Spout Springs BY NICK WATSON nwatson@ gainesvilletimes.com A Gainesville man and reg istered sex offender has been charged with rape and other sex offenses against a girl after a nearly four-month investigation conducted by Flowery Branch Police and the Hall County Sher iffs Office. Raymond Daniel Morales, 39, was also charged with aggravated sodomy, aggravated child moles tation and enticing a child for an indecent purpose. No attorney information for him was available Thursday, Sept. 10, from Magistrate Court. The investigation started in late May after the girl’s mother told Flowery Branch Police she suspected her daughter was molested, Flowery Branch Police Investigator Robin Kemp wrote in an email. The girl had a forensic inter view at the Edmondson Telford Child Advocacy Center, and inves tigators determined incidents had taken place in unincorporated Hall County at Morales’ home and a residence in Flowery Branch, though the exact number of incidents was unclear, according to the Hall County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities said Morales knew the girl prior to the incidents. Morales was booked Wednesday, Sept. 9, in to the Hall County Jail, where he remains with out bond. The case is still under investigation. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Morales was convicted in 2002 in Michigan for fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. BY JEFF GILL jgill@gainesvilletimes.com A key side street off Spout Springs Road in South Hall could be completed by summer 2021, months before the first phase of the long-awaited Spout Springs widen ing is finished. Workers are busy realigning Elizabeth Lane so that it ties into Lake Sterling Boulevard, at the main entrance to the massive Sterling on the Lake subdivision. The Hall County Library System’s Spout Springs branch is also at that intersection. If the new Elizabeth Lane is com plete by spring or summer, “(the rest of Spout Springs) would be done in the fall,” Georgia Depart ment of Transportation district spokeswoman Katie Strickland said Thursday, Sept. 10, during a visit to the site. The existing Elizabeth Lane, which is a few hundred feet south of where the new road will be, is a heavily used road, leading to other neighborhoods until it ends at Cash Road, another busy traffic artery. It also runs past the back entrance to Cherokee Bluff High School. The new stretch of Elizabeth Lane that’s being realigned runs about 1,600 feet, spanning from Spout Springs at Lake Sterling to a point just south of the Cherokee Bluff driveway, said Michael Cross, project manager with the contrac tor, G.P.’s Enterprises Inc. At that point, the existing Eliza beth Lane will take over. Once the new Elizabeth Lane opens, the old stretch between Spout Springs and the high school will be demolished, Strickland said. The traffic light at Spout Springs and the old Elizabeth Lane will be taken down, he said. The new Elizabeth Lane will be two lanes until it reaches Spout Springs Road. At that point, it will have a right-turn lane, a thru lane to Lake Sterling and two left-turn lanes, Cross said. Also under construction is a lane that will allow Spout Springs drivers to turn right onto Elizabeth Lane. Plus, a new traffic light will be put up at the intersection with Lake Sterling, replacing one already there. The $32 million widening is oth erwise moving along, with work ers grading, putting in curbing and retaining walls and even starting to pave. The multi-million-dollar project, which is set for a November 2021 completion, calls for widening the road from two to four lanes with a 20-foot raised median and side walks between Hog Mountain Road and Union Circle. Hall County is planning a sec ond phase that would continue the widening from Union Circle to the Gwinnett County line. That $26.2 million project doesn’t have a schedule yet, as funding hasn’t been identified. Right of way acquisition on the second phase of Spout Springs Road’s widening project is now projected to begin in the fall of 2023 — three years later than had been expected. Jail puts work details on hold after inmates test positive for COVID-19 BY NICK WATSON nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com The Hall County Correctional Institution stopped work details for the past two weeks after three inmates tested positive for COVID-19. They will resume on Monday, Sept. 14. Warden Walt Davis said the first positive case was Aug. 24. All of them have finished quar antine and are back in general population, Davis said Thursday, Sept. 10. “We wanted to nip it in the bud, and we did,” Davis said. “We had those three cases and we’ve had no new positives since then. ” The Georgia Department of Corrections COVID-19 dashboard shows three positive cases for inmates at the facility, which has a maximum capacity of 240 inmates. Davis said they followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on testing only symptomatic people. Only the three inmates exhibiting minor symptoms were tested. Visitation to the prison has been limited, with attorney vis its suspended through Oct. 10, in addition to suspensions of tours and volunteer visits, according to the department of corrections’ COVID-19 response page. The prison on Barber Road usu ally sends out more than 40 differ ent inmate work details, though they limited these work details in April. Davis said they had been run ning regular details since the first part of July but stopped on Aug. 28 out of an abundance of caution. “The quarantine was effective in stopping the spread of the virus in the institution,” Davis said. Registered sex offender charged with rape in multi-agency investigation Morales A FIRST FOR HERNIA SURGERY IN GEORGIA. As Georgia’s first accredited Hernia Surgery Center of Excellence, Northeast Georgia Medical Center offers you access to the most advanced robotic and minimally invasive surgical techniques for hernia repair - right here at home. Our team of experienced surgeons are nationally recognized by Surgical Review Corporation for their commitment to improving the quality of care for patients who undergo hernia surgery. 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