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Governance Board
www.MyMCR.net • Vol. 51 • No. 30
■ 4 Sections, 28 Pages • Wednesday • July 27,2022 • $2.00
INSIDE ► ►►
Chief blames Hall for police woes
By Will Davis
publisher@mymcr.net
A defiant Forsyth police
chief Eddie Harris told
the Reporter on Tuesday
that he’s not the reason the
police department is losing
officers, and said he wants
to fix it before he retires.
“I want to make it clear
all of this stuff going on, it’s
not my problem,” Har
ris told the Reporter. “I’m
not the cause of all these
officers leaving. These guys
are leaving because... they
feel like the city manager
and everybody doesn’t have
their back.”
The police department is
reportedly down to 7 road
officers after two more
notified chief Harris of
their plans to leave over
the weekend. Full-time
officer John Bogdan is
leaving to go to the Monroe
County sheriff’s office and
part-time officer Darius
Patterson is leaving as well.
Officer Jeremy Malone had
recently moved from full
time to part-time after tak-
See POLICE Page 5A
Are you ready
to go back
to school?
SEE SECTION INSIDE
NEW SUBSCRIBERS
OF THE WEEK
Sue Barkley
Haley Newnan
Judy Sigurdsson
Joe Tammaro
Jerry Davis
Jim Reeves
Sam Henderson
DEATHS »>6A
Philip Cawthon
Jeff Myhand
Elizabeth Laster
Hattie Olgetree
While Georgia Power bows to pressure on coal, the remaining
Plant Scherer owners tell Reporter they’re not going anywhere
By Will Davis
publisher@mymcmet
While Georgia Power’s plan to
shutter almost all of its coal units won
state approval last Thursday, it looks
like Plant Scherer’s remaining two
units will stay open for the foreseeable
future, good news for Monroe County
taxpayers.
MEAG and Oglethorpe Power,
which together own 90 percent of
Units 1 and 2 at Plant Scherer, told the
Reporter this week they have no plans
to join Georgia Power and Florida
power companies in closing their units
at the plant.
“That sounds like great news to me,”
said Monroe County chief tax assessor
Bobby Gerhardt. “I think it’s fantastic.
Anything to support the tax base helps
everyone. I was fearing the worst.”
In fact, as Georgia Power had an
nounced it was all but abandoning
coal, Gerhardt had been calculating
what it would cost Monroe County
taxpayers to lose its biggest taxpayer.
In the worst case scenario, if somehow
Plant Scherer’s value dropped from
its current $443 million to zero, every
taxpayer in the county would face a
60 percent tax hike, said Gerhardt. If
Plant Scherer’s taxable value was cut
by 50 percent, county taxpayers would
face a 30 percent tax hike just to keep
revenues the same, said Gerhardt.
But Oglethorpe Power, which owns
60 percent of Units 1 and 2, told the
Reporter on Tuesdsay it has no plans to
abandon Plant Scherer.
“As the majority co-owner of Units
1 and 2,” said Oglethorpe spokesman
Blair Romero, “we currently have no
plans to retire these units any time
soon, and we anticipate they will
continue to be a part of our diverse
portfolio into the future. These units
add resiliency and reliability to our
generation portfolio and give us the
ability to store coal inventory on site,
which is important in a weather crisis.”
And MEAG, which owns 30 percent
of both Units 1 and 2, also told the Re
porter it has no plans to retire its Plant
Scherer units.
“MEAG Power plans to continue to
invest in and operate Scherer Units 1
and 2,” MEAG spokesman John Marsh
told the Reporter. “MEAG Power’s
ownership in coal-fired generation -
and on-site fuel storage at coal plants
- enhances the security, fuel diversity,
See SCHERER Page 5A
Hmmmm:
Trucking
magnate
buys 1-75
tract for
$4 million
A trucking company
owner who lives in River
Forest has bought 92
acres on 1-75 at John-
stonville Road for $4.6
million. But owner Frank
Perez said he doesn’t have
any immediate plans for
the property.
Perez told the Reporter
he bought the land at
1-75 and Johnstonville,
on the west side of the
interstate and extending
south, just to hold for a
while with no immedi
ate plans. He bought the
land on June 10 from
Mike Snow and Patricia
Dumas. The property
abuts a large tract owned
by H&H Timberlands
that was recently annexed
See LAND DEAL
Page 7A
This map shows the 92-
acre tract River Forest
resident Frank Perez
bought for $4.6 million.
Cell phone, pot found in Burruss shakedown
fl DflaDS
Kroger, CVS
8 *0 4879 16264
Publix, Dollar General, Circl
Special operations
officers confiscated a
cell phone, 3 cell phone
chargers and 93 grams
of marijuana during
a shakedown at the
A1 Burruss prison in
Forsyth on Thursday
I which the Reporter was
allowed to join.
The Georgia Depart
ment of Corrections
(GDC) special opera
tions unit conducted
3 a “quick strike” shake-
K down of the M-l
building of the prison,
which houses 50 of the
prison’s 634 inmates.
Officers found a cell
phone stuffed in a sock
inside a mattress in Cell
211. And in Cell 206
they found 93 grams of
marijuana.
Such shakedowns
may have taken on
added urgency after
Fox 5 in Atlanta did
a story last week on
an inmate cell phone
video showing a fellow
inmate
who had
died and had not yet
been found by staff
at the state prison in
Waycross. In response,
GDC told the Reporter
that while they could
have done some things
better in that situation,
like many large entities,
they are short of per
sonnel and that’s why it
took a while to discover
the inmate had expired.
However GDC was
quick to add that the
See SHAKEDOWN Page7A
GDC special ops officers frisk inmates at Burruss during a shakedown
last Thursday. (Photo/Park Davis)