Newspaper Page Text
SEE PAGE IB
SEE PAGES 5-9B
Tigers Open
Region Play
At Home Friday
Schools Celebrate
The Birthday
Of Dr. Seuss
Vol. 133
No. 4
24 Pages
3 Sections
Wednesday
MARCH 12, 2008
mainstreetnews.com
50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875
School Board Set To
Unveil New CHS Design
Site Plan, Architect's Rendering To Be
Presented At 7:00 Monday Night
Volunteer Donnie Pitonyak adjusts the Commerce Public
Library’s “fund-raising train” to reflect the $120,000 donation
made by the family of Dr. and Mrs. Narasimhulu Neelagaru. The
library is now within $75,000 of meeting its goal.
Gratitude For Library
Led Dr. Neel, Family
To Donate $150,000
Commerce City Council
Split Votes Lead To Re-Zoning,
Annexation For Councilman
City Must Wait
For Promised
County Money
For The Library
That $120,000 the
Jackson County Board of
Commissioners voted to send
to Commerce for the library’s
capital fund drive?
The check isn’t exactly in
the mail.
Jackson County sent the
city $54,576 and promised the
rest as the SPLOST revenue
dedicated to libraries trickles
in over the next four or five
years, said Mayor Charles L.
“Buzzie” Hardy Jr.
The way the mayor sees it,
Jackson County had $175,000
in library SPLOST money on
hand when it voted last spring
to give $120,000 to Commerce
for its library expansion. Then,
other libraries made requests,
which the commissioners also
granted. Rather than send
Commerce the full amount
promised ASAP as the city
hoped, the county parceled
out the money it had among
all of the requests and issued
an IOU for the rest.
‘That’s just the kind of poli
tics she likes to play,” said
Hardy, referring to the delay.
BOC Chairman Pat Bell
explained the situation in a
letter to Hardy, suggesting that
allocating the whole $120,000
would create cash flow prob
lems and saying that histor
ically, the BOC divvied up
SPLOST money on a “per
centage basis.”
INDEX
Births 1 1A
Church News 1 0A
Classified Ads 1-4C
Calendar 3A
Crime News 7-8A
News Roundup 2A
Obituaries 9B
Opinions 4A
School News 5-8B
Sports 1-4B
Social News .... 1 1 -1 2A
WEATHER OUTLOOK
THURSDAY FRIDAY
Mostly sunny: Few showers:
Low, 47; high, 74; Low, 54; high, 70;
10% chance rain 30% chance rain
SATURDAY SUNDAY
Thunderstorms: Sunny:
Low, 43; high, 73; Low, 39; high, 66;
40% chance rain 10% chance rain
Reservoir Levels
Commerce: 698.8 (1.2 feet above full)
Bear Creek: 695 (full)
Rainfall this month
2.60 inches
CONTACT US
Phone: 706-335-2927
FAX: 70N3 87-5435
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
Because Dr. Narasimhulu
Neelagaru grew up poor, the
Commerce Public Library’s
Building Fund is $150,000 richer.
Known locally as “Dr. Neel,”
the Commerce cardiologist, who
is so highly regarded in his field
that Georgia Baptist Hospital
used to fly him in and out of
that facility by helicopter, recently
announced the largest donation
of the library’s fund drive. The
money puts the facility within
$75,000 of reaching its goal to
leverage state funding for a $2
million expansion.
The Commerce City Council
officially accepted the donation
Monday night.
“That’s quite a gift from Dr. Neel.
We are quite indebted to him,”
commented Mayor Charles L.
“Buzzie” Hardy Jr. Monday night
after the city council voted unani
mously to accept the money.
That Dr. Neel is highly regard
ed professionally is due in equal
parts to his zeal for learning and
the availability of books in the
public library in his hometown,
Bellary, India.
Poor in a poor country, the
library was his ticket out of pov
erty.
“My father always said the way
to get out of this situation is to
have education, so education is
extremely important to me,” Dr.
Neel explained.
And the library was a crucial
part of that education.
“I used to spend days, some
times months, like eight hours a
day, every day, six to seven days
a week going to the library during
the holidays, reading everything I
could,” he recalled. “I owe a lot to
the library. Oftentimes, the librar
ian used to see me as the first one
in the morning and the last one
to leave.”
Dr. Neel says he can still picture
the librarian, “the man walking,
the way he dressed. I have this
picture in my mind, so clearly,”
Dr. Neel
he said.
Anyone trying to find a connec
tion between reading and educa
tion need look no further than
Dr. Neel. At graduation from high
school, he was ranked 10th in his
state, and thus given a scholar
ship to the university of choice in
his state. He went to the medical
school in his hometown right out
of high school, saving the cost
of room and board by living at
home.
In medical school, he had the
option to take an exam to come
to the United States, and in 1973
he came to New York City where
he did his internal medicine
residency at New York Medical
College, followed by a cardiology
fellowship in Bridgeport, CT, after
which he practiced in Wisconsin.
It didn’t take long before he
looked south.
“I used to come to Atlanta for
meetings. I liked the weather, and
Wisconsin is cold and more cold,”
he said. “Also, I wanted to bring
my children to a small town and
wanted to live in a small town.”
Please Turn to Page 3A
By Brandon Reed
The public will get to see plans
for the new Commerce High
School next Monday.
Superintendent Mac McCoy
announced at Monday night’s
meeting of the Commerce Board
of Education that a called meet
ing will be held on March 24 for
the public unveiling of the plans
City Councilman Donald
Wilson got his lot and two
houses rezoned and annexed
Monday night on 3-2 votes that
overrode the recommendations
of the Commerce Planning
Commission.
Wilson owns two rental hous
es on a single lot on Westview
Drive. He sought to have them
rezoned from A-2 in the county
to R-l in the city so his tenants
could save on water and sewer
age rates and the city schools
could receive tax revenue from
the houses, he said.
The planning commission rec
ommended denial of the request
because of both the size of the
lot and the fact that there are two
houses on one lot.
Wilson left the room Monday
night and did not participate in
the matter.
Commerce has made an offi
cial request to be exempted from
water restrictions forced upon
61 drought-stricken counties in
Georgia.
In a letter to Dr. Carol Couch,
director of the Environmental
Protection Division, Mayor
Charles L. Hardy Jr. presented
the city’s argument that since its
water supply was never imper
iled by the drought last fall that
it should be exempted from the
state level 4 requirement.
“A Drought Contingency Plan
was approved in November 1998
that established procedures to
be followed when the reservoir
reached certain pool elevations,”
Hardy wrote. “This was based on
the expected yield of the reser
voir during low flow conditions.
The drought plan was modified in
November 2007 to more closely
follow the EPD Level 2 and Level
4 outdoor water use guidelines.
The plan activates with restric
tions (Level 2) when the reservoir
drops 1.0 foot from full pool, then
a drop of 2.0 feet will activate
mandatory restrictions (Level
4). As previously stated, during
for the new facility. The meeting
will be at the high school at 7
p.m.
The plan is to begin construc
tion on a new high school short
ly after the current school year
ends — on the same campus
where the school is now. The
project is being funded by a bond
issue being repaid by the sys-
Ward 4 Councilman Bob
Sosebee pushed for the annexa
tion of the lots and an R-3 zon
ing, arguing that without taking
the property in, the city risks the
creation of a future “island” of un
annexed property should other
nearby lots be annexed.
Ward 3 and Ward 5 council-
men Mark Litzpatrick and
Richard Massey both opposed
the rezoning and annexation on
the grounds that the property
would not conform to the city
zoning ordinance in any zoning
class.
Massey made a motion to
accept the planning commis
sion’s recommendation and
deny the request. It died for lack
of a second.
Litzpatrick made a motion to
send the matter back to the plan
ning commission, but later with-
this drought
period the
reservoir only
dropped 0.8
feet.”
Hardy also
pointed out
that the city
reservoir was
able to help
Jefferson
and Jackson
County at the
worst of the drought.
“The city’s ability to provide
water to the surrounding com
munities was very evident when
the City of Jefferson’s reservoir
dropped critically low as well as
the Bear Creek Reservoir which
serves the JCWSA (Jackson
County Water and Sewerage
Authority). The provision of
water to these systems averaged
0.9 mgd. The production at the
treatment plant still only reached
50 percent capacity.”
Then, the mayor explained why
the city wants out of the restric
tions, noting that expansions of
the water treatment plant and the
wastewater plant since 1996 have
tern’s share of the SPLOST (spe
cial purpose local option sales
tax) for education.
Also on Monday night, the
board learned that the eighth
grade writing test results showed
a 14-percent gain over last year. In
2007, 73 percent met or exceed
ed goals, and in 2008, 87 percent
met or exceeded. Seventy-eight
percent of students met the goals,
while 9 percent exceeded.
McCoy informed the board that
Please Turn to Page 5A
drew the motion.
Mayor Pro Tem Dusty Slater
made the motion to rezone the
property R-3. Sosebee seconded
the motion, and with the support
of Ward 1 Councilman Wayne
Gholston, the council rezoned
the tract to R-3. Litzpatrick
and Massey voted against the
motion.
On the same split, the council
voted 3-2 to annex the property.
In the other zoning-related mat
ter, the council decided to ask
the planning commission to give
more thought to its proposed
amendment regarding utility
buildings.
The plan was to allow up to
two utility buildings per lot in the
three zoning classes with the larg
est single-family lots — AR, R-l
Please Turn to Page 5A
Commerce Eases
Water Restrictions
The Commerce City
Council restored the exemp
tions to level four water
restrictions Monday night.
The action reverses a vote
taken Nov. 11, 2007, at the
peak of the drought.
Most of the exemptions
dealt with commercial use of
water, and few of them actu
ally came into play.
But while property own
ers still cannot water their
yards, they can wash in
newly applied herbicides
and irrigate newly-installed
landscape (if installed by a
professional).
Water may also be used
in construction and for the
production of sod or orna
mental plants.
left the city with a debt service of
$13 million.
Please Turn to Page 3A
Mayor Asks EPD Director
To Remove City From Level 4
Mayor Charles
L. Hardy Jr.