Newspaper Page Text
SEE PAGE IB
Wrestlers Gear
Up For Area
Tournament
Jackson Leads League In Teen Births — Page 5A
County Elementary Schools May Drop ABCs — Page 12A
Realtor Stays Optimistic About Opportunities — Page 6A
Planning Director Fired, No Reason Given — Page 6A
Vol. 132
No. 53
28 Pages
3 Sections
Wednesday
FEBRUARY 13, 2008
mainstreetnews.com
50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875
Barbecue Restaurant Eyes Downtown
DDA To Lease Off-Street Parking
Spaces For Restaurant's Smoker
BOC Dedicates
12 Hours To
Write Mission,
Vision Statements
The Jackson County Board of
Commissioners will meet for
12 hours in March to figure out
what its mission should be and
how it should view the future.
The commissioners’ goal is to
develop a mission and vision
statement.
The “retreat” will be held from
8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday
March 18, and from 8:30 a.m.
to noon Wednesday March
19. The commissioners will
meet at the Hurricane Shoals
Conference Center and
Museum in Jefferson.
Action taken by the Commerce
City Council Monday night is
expected to help bring a barbe
cue restaurant to a long-vacant
South Broad Street building.
The council voted to deed
part of the parking lot between
the civic center and the cul
tural center to the Downtown
Development Authority which
plans to lease one to two parking
spaces to the restaurant for the
location of a smoker.
“It’s a really good exchange to
lose one to two off-street parking
places to get a new restaurant
downtown,” said councilman
Bob Sosebee, who also chairs
the DDA.
The potential owner plans to
open at the 1682 South Broad
Street building owned by Bob
Yarbray, who renovated the build
ing years ago with the idea of
opening a restaurant but never
opened it. Yarbray and his wife
live in an apartment over the
restaurant.
Mark Fitzpatrick made the
motion to deed the property to
the DDA.
Mayor Charles L. Hardy Jr.
expressed the opinion that the
restaurant deal is all but com
pleted .
“He’s ready to open. He wants
to get going,” the mayor said.
Hasco Craver has been work
ing with the restaurant owner
and with Yarbray for several
weeks as they’ve hammered out
the details. A sign in the win
dow of the building advertises a
“turnkey lease,” meaning that the
building is equipped and ready
to utilized for food service.
“A lease has not been signed
yet,” cautioned Craver. “He has
expressed great interest in want
ing to secure the facility.”
In a related matter, the coun
cil heard Sosebee plea for the
renovation of the parking lot
that would serve the store. He
pointed out that the city has
planned for a number of years
to make improvements and said
it is time “to put it back on the
front burner.”
“We can’t ask our business own
ers to put back doors on their
businesses and park back there
if it’s not safe and well-lighted,”
he said.
Walgreens Gets
OK To Cut Trees
In other business Monday
night, the council agreed to let
Walgreens cut down 41 trees
on its future store site, located
at the corner of Homer Road
and North Broad Street, ranging
from six-inch pines to a huge
oak near the Pittman House. A
number of pecan trees will also
be removed.
Under the city’s tree ordinance,
the developer is required to plant
Please Turn to Page 3A
No New Houses
For Second
Straight Month
The Commerce Department
of Building Inspection did
not issue a single permit for a
house during January.
In fact, it didn’t issue a per
mit for the construction of
any new buildings in either
December or January.
The department issued per
mits for two additions or alter
ations to houses — valued at
$73,300; and permitted four
additions to commercial build
ings worth only $34,765.
The $108,465 in permitted
construction compared to
$600,000 worth of work per
mitted during January 2007.
INDEX
Births 6B
Church News 1 0A
Classified Ads 1-6C
Calendar 3A
Crime News 7-8A
News Roundup 2A
Obituaries 1 1A
Opinions 4-5A
School News 8-10B
Sports 1-3B
Social News 6-8B
WEATHER OUTLOOK
THURSDAY
Sunny:
Low, 33; high, 58;
20% chance rain
SATURDAY
j
Few showers:
Low, 46; high, 58;
30% chance rain
Reservoir Levels
Commerce: 698.4 (.8 feet above full)
Bear Creek: 695 (full)
Rainfall this month
.9 inches
CONTACT US
Phone: 706-335-2927
FAX: 70N387-5435
E-mail:
news@mainstreetnews.com
ma rk@ma i n streetnews. com
brandon@mainstreetnews.com
teresa@mainstreetnews.com
Mail: P.O. Box 459,
Commerce, GA 30529
FRIDAY
Partly cloudy:
Low, 43; high, 65;
20% chance rain
SUNDAY
Thunderstorms:
Low, 37; high, 55;
60% chance rain
Getting Ready
Drought or no drought, Commerce gardener Ron Craven will have a full garden.
Pictured hoeing a row of collard greens, Craven and his wife, Jacqui, are already
growing plants for the Commerce Public Library’s annual spring plant swap and
sale Saturday, March 22, to benefit the library’s building fund. Also on that day,
they’ll host a seminar on gardening in a drought, also at the library.
Drought Response
Jackson Set To
Ease Level Four
Water Restrictions
As of Thursday morning, water
restrictions for Jackson County
will be lessened slightly, and by
April 1 county residents can
expect to be allowed to undertake
limited irrigation of landscaping.
The Jackson County Water and
Sewerage Authority was due to
meet this (Wednesday) evening
after its regular meeting Thursday
was cancelled due to schedul
ing conflicts. Restoring the level
four exemptions in the authority’s
drought management plan was on
the agenda.
The authority’s members agreed
at their work session Feb. 7 that
restoration of the exemptions,
most of which affect construction,
should be restored since the Bear
Creek Reservoir is full and the
river supplying it has sufficient
water to replace all withdrawals.
The authority, facing the possi
bility that the Bear Creek reservoir
was failing, voted last October to
eliminate most of the exemptions,
including use of water for soil
compaction, in construction, on
newly-installed landscaping, by
garden centers and other uses.
The only exemptions retained at
the time were for hydro-seeding,
for car washes (if they cut con
sumption by 50 percent) and for
mixing mortar.
At that time, the reservoir
was 14 feet low and the North
Oconee River a trickle. Times
have changed, Gov. Sonny Perdue
Use Exemptions
To Be Restored
The following exceptions
to the level four drought
response plan have been
reinstated and these uses of
outside water are now per
mitted:
• newly-installed landscap
ing for 30 days after instal
lation
• use during the installation
of irrigation systems
• sod producers
• ornamental growers
•fruit and vegetable grow
ers
• retail garden centers
• hydro-seeding
• power washing
• at construction sites
•the production of food
and fiber
• car washes
•watering in of pesticides
and herbicides on turf
has even stated that — if the local
water supplier agrees — swimming
pools may be filled and some yard
watering is allowed.
“What the situation will be later
in the summer, we don’t know,”
cautioned authority vice chair-
Please Turn to Page 3A
Commerce Seeks Way Out Of State's Drought Management
Commerce wants out of the
state’s drought emergency plan.
Specifically, city officials want
the Environmental Protection
Division to remove the Savannah
River Basin — of which Commerce
is a part — from the 61 counties
whose water use is being managed
by the EPD.
“We want to write a request and
give them a history of our sys
tem,” said City Manager Clarence
Bryant. “We will probably discuss
this with the other governments
in the Savannah River Basin and
see if we can’t get a joint letter on
behalf of the basin.”
The way the city looks at the
situation is that its reservoir was
largely unaffected by the drought
— and that the Savannah River
Basin as a whole escaped the
worst of what is now considered
Georgia’s worst drought.
Its reservoir did fall a foot, but at
the time, the city’s drought man
agement plan did not call for any
action until the reservoir reached
two feet below full pool. However,
by mandate of the EPD and Gov.
Sonny Perdue, Commerce was
forced to limit water usage just
like areas much more severely
affected.
The city supplied up to two mil
lion gallons a day this past fall
to Jackson County, much of it
going to Jefferson, whose reser
voir ran dry. It also provided water
to Banks Crossing and Maysville.
With the winter rains filling both
the Jefferson and Bear Creek res
ervoirs, those sales have fallen off,
and the continued restrictions on
use are further hurting the city’s
bottom line.
While Perdue eased some
restrictions on the outdoor use of
water — filling of swimming pools
will be allowed starting April 1,
limited hand-watering of existing
landscapes is permissible and the
irrigation of newly-installed land
scapes is now exempted from
the state’s level four mandates
— suppliers must still meet the
governor’s 10 percent reduction in
water use. Commerce has yet to
meet that target.
Local restrictions — that may,
as in Commerce and Jackson
County, be more restrictive than
the state’s — are still in force until
the local utilities remove them.
Meanwhile, the city’s director
of water and sewer operations
confirmed that for the second
month, Commerce failed to meet
the 10 percent target reduction.
For December, the city managed
almost a nine-percent reduction,
but for January, sales were cut
by only five percent, said Bryan
Please Turn to Page 3A
