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SEE PAGE 1B SEE PAGE 11A Locals Win Honors At Young Farmers' Show Vol. 132 No. 41 26 Pages 3 Sections Commerce News Wednesday NOVEMBER 21, 2007 mainstreetnews.com 50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875 Steve Perry To Be Honored At Reception The Commerce Board of Education will host a reception at its Thursday, Dec. 6, work session to honor outgo ing chairman Steve Perry. Perry did not choose to run for re-election. The event will be held in the Commerce High School media center at 7:00 p.m. Steve Perry Atlanta Opera Bringing 'Cold Sassy Tree' To Commerce The Atlanta Opera plans a special performance in Commerce. Four vocalists and a pianist will put on a 55-minute show of excerpts and highlights from the operatic version of Olive Ann Burns’ novel, “Cold Sassy Tree,” which is set in Commerce. The tentative date is Tuesday, Jan. 8, reports Hasco Craver, executive director of the Commerce Downtown Development Authority. “They received a grant (to per form “Cold Sassy Tree”) and one of the stipulations is that they have to do arts outreach,” Craver said. “How better to do community outreach with “Cold Sassy Tree” than to go to Cold Sassy itself and perform in Commerce?” Please Turn to Page 3A I N D E X Church News 6B Classified Ads . . . 1-4C Calendar 3A Crime News .... 7-8A News Roundup . . . . 2A Obituaries 9A Opinions 4A School News. . . .8-10B Sports 1-4B Social News . . 10-11A WEATHER OUTLOOK THURSDAY FRIDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY Showers: Partly cloudy: Low, 36; high, 45; Low, 34; high, 57; 40% chance rain 10% chance rain SATURDAY SUNDAY Partly cloudy: Showers: Low, 32; high, 56; Low, 34; high, 56; 10% rain chance 40% chance rain CONTACT US Phone: 706-335-2927 FAX: 706-387-5435 E-mail: news@mainstreetnews.com mark@mainstreetnews. com brandon@mainstreetnews.com teresa@mainstreetnews.com Mail: PO. Box 459, Commerce, GA 30529 A Long, Cold Night In Chickamauga For those who endured the long drive to Trojans stole a 16-14 victory on a last-second Gordon Lee High School last Friday night, it desperation pass and a roughing-the-passer was a long, cold evening. Commerce Tiger fans penalty to eliminate Commerce from the Class did their best to keep warm as the Gordon Lee A playoffs. See pages 1B and 3B. City Council Moves December Meetings Back By One Week Council Wants More Time To Mull Crucial Electricity Purchase Decision The Commerce City Council has moved its December work session and regular meeting back one week. The work session will be held Monday, Dec. 10, and the regular meeting Monday, Dec. 17. The council expects to approve its contract with the Municipal Electric Association of Georgia (MEAG) for participation in the construction of the new nuclear power turbine at Plant Vogtle in December. The deadline for returning a signed contract to MEAG is Jan. 1. The city would like to buy up to 10 megawatts of base load (always available) power, which is due to come online in 2015 or 2016, said City Manager Clarence Bryant. What the city can buy depends upon the number of megawatts the MEAG cities sign up for. A megawatt is a unit of electricity equal to one million watts. “We are eligible for 3.2 mega watts if everybody took their full share, but not everyone will,” said Bryant. The most recent numbers suggest that Commerce could get at least 4.9 megawatts, but officials will attend a MEAG meeting Wednesday, Dec. 12, that will be the final opportunity for cities to opt into purchasing power. Bryant thinks more cities might drop out, freeing up more of the capacity for those who participate, and the city council meetings are being moved so the city can act on the basis of the Dec. 12 meeting. Commerce’s current MEAG base load is around 14 mega watts, said Bryant, and its aver age usage is close to that figure. “We’re in perfect posture. The people who made the MEAG contract decision in the 70s did a great job,” he said. But with its usage right at its allocation, the city must buy power for times of peak demand. The city council recently signed a contract to buy peak power until its Vogtle allocation comes online. As for the Vogtle share, Bryant says buying too much power is preferable to buying too little. “The feeling is that with the price of electricity, if you have excess, you’ll be able to sell it and make money,” he explained. When Vogtle was built, the owners had to get a construc tion permit to build it and an operating permit once construc tion was completed. But, dur ing the course of construction, the requirements of the operat ing permit continued to change, forcing changes in construction that inflated the cost of the plant by billions of dollars and delayed its completion by years. That is not expected to occur as the new reactor is added, Bryant said. “The bottom line is it looks like all of the permits will be in place prior to construction,” he said. Maysville Debates Rescue Building Repairs By Chris Bridges Maysville rescue chief Richard Parr made a plea to the town council last week for repairs to his department’s headquarters build ing. Parr said the 15-year old build ing has never had any work done to it and has reached the criti cal stage. Mayor Jerry Baker had asked Parr to get two quotes on needed repairs, and both were in the $20,000 range. Parr said the problems include leaky ceilings, no training room, out-of-code bathrooms which are not handicap accessible and the building is not air conditioned. A sink in the building is falling off the wall. Parr was asked if a grant could be applied for to help with the cost for repairs. The chief said grants can only be used for pur chasing equipment, and since the city owned the building grants are not available. City clerk Barbara Thomas said the city might be able to apply for a grant but the rescue department could not. Please Turn to Page 3A What If There's No Rain By May? 'Drought Emergency Exercise' Used To Get State, Local Officials Thinking What would happen if the drought worsens, the Bear Creek Reservoir and Lake Lanier run dry and hundreds of shallow Jackson County wells dry up? That’s what local and state officials tried to anticipate in a “tabletop drought emergency exercise” last Wednesday morn ing at Jackson County’s emer gency operations center (EOC). The point of the exercise — attended by about 30 city, coun ty and state officials — seemed to be as much to acquaint par ticipants with each other and to get them thinking ahead as about making definite plans for handling the drought. Jackson County does not have a drought management plan, Scott Carpenter, director of Jackson County EMS , pointed out, nor even a priority list for water service. “The purpose of the exercise is to show our weaknesses and to build training,” he said. “One of the biggest disasters is nobody being on the same page.” With nine municipalities, at least seven public water sup pliers, a host of private water systems, a county government, the Environmental Protection Division, various law enforce- Please Turn to Page 6A Glenn Richardson To Speak To Kiwanis Club Author Of Proposed Constitutional Amendment To Raise Georgia Sales Tax Georgia House of Representatives Glenn Richardson will speak to the Commerce Kiwanis Club Thursday, Dec. 6, at noon at the Commerce Civic Center. Richardson, a Republican from Douglas County, is the author of House Resolution 900, a proposed constitutional amendment that would eliminate most property taxes in exchange for an increase in the state sales tax to 6.5 percent. The proposal, opposed by most local governments and boards of education, is generating a lot of interest — and controversy — in part because opponents foresee a likely revenue shortage in Georgia, in part because the sales tax would be extended to cover a lot of items not currently taxed (including doctor’s visits, prescription drugs and groceries) and partly because under the new system, the state would effectively control all local school board budgets. For information, contact Keith Ariail at 706-335-5519. Dry Fall, But Very Colorful Georgia may be in a record drought, but the fall leaves in Jackson County have been spec tacular. The fall foliage hit its color peak last week, with brilliant hues of red, orange and yel low almost every where. These leaves were on trees on Commerce school property along Lakeview Drive.