Newspaper Page Text
SEE PAGE 1B
SEE PAGE 5A
Tiger Wrestlers
Win Tourney
At Apalachee
School Board
Chairman
Bids Farewell
Vol. 132
No. 44
26 Pages
3 Sections
Commerce News
Wednesday
DECEMBER 12, 2007
mainstreetnews.com
50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875
Facade Removed
Lee and Gina Hagan had planned to remove the facade and
awning from Giftworks at the Joy Shoppe on South Broad Street,
but not until after Christmas. But nature took things into its own
hands, and the Hagans noticed the facade separating from the
building last week. When the gap grew significantly overnight,
they blocked off the area and called in a crew to remove the
facade before it fell. After a couple of days where the only access
to the store was through the back door, the business is again
fully accessible.
Schools May Make
Students' Grades
Available Online
Commerce Council Nixes
Cheaper Pouring Licenses
Police Take
$290,000 From
Truck On I-85
The Commerce Police
Department confiscated
$296,200 in cash from a south
bound tractor-trailer rig on
Interstate 85 last Wednesday.
Detective Chad Knight said
his officers were getting train
ing from Lowndes County
officers in drug interdiction
techniques when they pulled
over the truck for an expired
tag on the trailer.
Because the truck was trav
eling between two known
“source” cities, New York
and Laredo, Texas, because
of excessive downtime in the
driver’s log book and because
the driver would not make eye
contact with officials, police
asked for consent to search
the truck. The driver, Jesus
Tomas Vela Jr., complied.
Officers found 30 packs
of currency heat-sealed and
wrapped with sheets of fab
ric softener and duct taped
behind the wall of the sleeper,
Knight said. The department’s
drug dog later alerted on the
currency, confirming that it
had contained drug residue,
according to Knight.
“The driver didn’t know any
thing about it,” said Knight
with a laugh. “He signed a dis
claimer on it, and we contact
ed the federal authorities.”
Federal agents will conduct
a currency investigation, but
it is expected that the depart
ment will be able to suc
cessfully condemn the cur
rency. If that happens, the
Drug Enforcement Agency
will keep 40 percent of the
money, and Commerce and
Lowndes County will split
the rest.
I N D E X
Births 6B
Church News 5B
Classified Ads 1-4C
Calendar 3A
Crime News 7-8A
News Roundup 2A
Obituaries 9A
Opinions 4A
School News 6-8B
Sports 1-4B
Social News 6-7B
WEATHER OUTLOOK
THURSDAY FRIDAY
Few Showers; Partly cloudy;
Low, 44; high, 75; Low, 41; high, 66;
30% chance rain 10% chance rain
SATURDAY SUNDAY
Showers; Partly cloudy;
Low, 33; high, 54; Low, 35; high, 49;
60% chance rain 20% chance rain
CONTACT US
Phone: 706-335-2927
FAX: 706-387-5435
E-mail:
news@mainstreetnews. com
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brandon@mainstreetnews.com
teresa@mainstreetnews.com
Mail: PO. Box 459,
Commerce, GA 30529
Program Would Let
Parents More Closely
Track Kids' Progress
By Ben Munro
A student’s worst nightmare
might become reality: Parental
access to their grades at all times.
A long-awaited online system for
Commerce parents to instantly
check students’ grades could be in
the works — if the money is there,
of course.
City schools superintendent Dr.
James E. “Mac” McCoy said the
Commerce High School council
has been requesting this technol
ogy for over two years. He’s put
the expense in the budget for the
program, but couldn’t make any
promises.
“I told them the best I could do
is present this to the board and I
would put it in the budget,” McCoy
said. “But at the end of the day, it
would be one of those things that
if we can afford it, we’ll put it in. If
we can’t afford it, it will just have
to go to the back burner.”
The superintendent called this “a
big ticket item.” “Parent Connect,”
which the CHS council initially
requested, would cost $18,000 for
K-12. But less expensive, more
user-friendly, alternate programs
are now on the market. The newer
programs start out at around
$10,000.
The CHS school council has
long yearned for an intelligence
program that would allow them
to frequently monitor their childs’
grades.
“It has been on their stove boil
ing for two and a half years, I
know,” McCoy said.
The council had considered
raising the money itself for the
service before finding out the
program’s cost. McCoy said the
council backed off the idea for
about a year, before asking if the
school system could fund it.
“It is still a growing concern to
them and they’d like to see us try
to put that in our budget,” McCoy
said .
Teachers might have to alter their
usual practice in entering grades
to fit the system if it became a
reality.
McCoy said the program requires
teachers to focus on entering
grades on a regular basis. Because
once parents — who would need a
parental code and the child’s code
to access the grades — are aware
the information is out there, they’ll
constantly check.
“They will worry you to death,”
McCoy said.
McCoy said that while work
ing for another school system
that used this type of program,
he remembered that procedures
being written for teachers to enter
grades every two weeks. Some
entered them daily.
“You have to stay on top of it
because parents stay on top of it,”
he said . “It is a great program for
parents.”
McCoy said this program “spread
like wild-fire” when he worked at
Buford and said he expected that
it would trickle down if introduced
in Commerce.
“It won’t be long before parents
are screaming for it in the middle
school and elementary school
and the primary school,” McCoy
said .
In other business conducted
Thursday night, the board of edu
cation:
Please Turn to Page 5A
The cost for a license to sell
alcoholic beverages by the drink
isn’t coming down after all.
The Commerce City Council
voted 4-2 to defeat a motion by
Ward 4 Councilman Bob Sosebee
to slash the cost of a mixed drink
pouring license by 80 percent.
Only Ward 5 Councilman
Richard Massey supported
Sosebee’s motion. Mayor
Pro Tem Dusty Slater, Ward 1
Councilman Wayne Gholston,
Ward 2 Councilman Donald
Wilson and Ward 3 Councilman
Mark Fitzpatrick opposed it.
Sosebee raised the issue, argu
ing that since the city had received
no license applications in the two
years mixed drinks have been
legal, that the license fee must
Rep. Glenn Richardson is on
a mission. He says he wants to
replace all property taxes in
Georgia with sales taxes, and
he brought that campaign to the
Commerce Kiwanis Club last
Thursday.
Richardson, a Republican from
Paulding County and speaker of
the Georgia House, has written
legislation to amend the Georgia
constitution to that effect. There is
also speculation that Richardson
has raised the issue primarily to
Four days after Commerce
officials heard Rep. Glenn
Richardson explain his proposed
constitutional amendment to
change state funding for schools,
they passed a resolution in oppo
sition to the bill.
House Resolution 900, spon
sored by Richardson, who is
speaker of the Georgia House of
Representatives, aims to increase
the state sales tax as a means of
eliminating property taxes.
Mayor Charles L. “Buzzie”
be too high. He made the motion
that the fee be dropped from its
current $5,000 rate to $1,000.
“I’ve talked to people in the
downtown about it and no one
thinks they can justify the fee
we set,” he said in making the
motion.
Considering the subject was
alcohol, there was little discus
sion.
Wilson asked if “this is going
to open a lot more problems?”
to which Sosebee said, “We don’t
have any. No one has gotten a
license yet.”
Fitzpatrick said he does not see
cost as the issue.
“I just don’t think money is
what stopped it,” he said. “I just
don’t think we’ve had the right
HR 900 a subject at cham
ber breakfast PAGE 11A
gain name recognition for a run
for governor. He spoke as a guest
of Keith Ariail to approximately
100 people — most of them guests
of the Kiwanis Club.
His talk was heavy on his phi
losophy of taxation and light on
details as to how a revolution
ary change in the way Georgia
schools and city and county gov
ernments are funded will affect
Hardy Jr. noted that during his
presentation, Richardson “also
insulted a lot of folks in the
room” during a presentation last
Thursday at the Commerce Civic
Center.
Hardy said the resolution will
be sent to Richardson and to the
local legislative delegations.
“We don’t like it,” he said of the
tax plan. “We don’t like anything
about it. We’re against it in any
form.”
HR 900, if passed by the
people come.”
The vote proves once again that
sentiments expressed in a work
session don’t necessarily trans
late into action when it comes
time to vote.
At the Dec. 3 work session,
neither Slater nor Gholston
expressed any opposition to the
concept when Sosebee brought it
up. Their nods of apparent agree
ment suggested that they would
be likely to support the issue.
Fitzpatrick and Wilson were not
present at the work session.
Also at the work session, the
council had discussed the pos
sibility of licensing package sales
of liquor in Commerce. That
matter was not on the agenda
Monday.
taxpayers or the entities that
spend the tax money.
The motivating factor for the
proposed constitutional amend
ment is Richardson’s belief that
the taxation of property — land,
houses, businesses, vehicles and
inventory — is illogical and that
Georgians would be better served
if every citizen paid taxes as they
consume — or spend. He calls
property taxes “regressive.”
General Assembly, would go
before the voters for an up or
down vote . The resolution start
ed out as a means to remove all
property taxes, but Richardson
has pared it down in presenta
tions across the state to the
point that in its first year it
would eliminate only taxes
for education in exchange for
removing almost all of the sales
tax exemptions and turning all
education funding authority
over to the state.
Litter Removal Project
Members of the Commerce Kiwanis Club
and Commerce High School Key Club picked
up their one-mile stretch of the U.S. 441
bypass Saturday morning under the Adopt-
A-Road program sponsored by Keep Jackson
County Beautiful. Left to right are Kiwanians
Mark McCannon (president), Keith Ariail, Don
Moore, Brian Vandiver and Teresa Holcomb;
Key Club members Maddison Knick, Bree
Haggard, Matthew Dahlke (advisor), Deep Patel,
Tennyson Shropshire; and Kiwanian Hasco
Craver.
House Speaker Finds Commerce
A Tough Sell For Big Tax Change
Glenn Richardson Brings HR 900 Plans To Kiwanis Meeting
Please Turn to Page 11A
Council Passes Resolution Opposing HR 900