Newspaper Page Text
Recreation
Seasons Begin
The Commerce
Parks and
Recreation
Department’s base
ball and softball
seasons got under
way Saturday.
Teams are pictured
preparing for the
opening ceremony.
See Page 1B
Vol. 133
No. 7
26 Pages
3 Sections
Wednesday
APRIL 2, 2008
mainstreetnews.com
50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875
Compromise Seems Likely On New School
Superintendent Says New
Plan Will Satisfy Concerns
About The Gymnasium
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A compromise in the mini
furor over the design of the new
Commerce High School may be
in the works.
Superintendent of
Schools Dr. James
E. “Mac” McCoy
told the Commerce
High School Council
Monday night that offi
cials “are very close to
working out a compro
mise everybody would
be happy with.”
McCoy was one
of about 10 people,
including students and
parents, who sat in as
the school council dis
cussed the issue, listed their com
plaints or concerns and offered
ideas they thought would resolve
the issue.
At issue is the gymnasium. The
original plan called for the con
tractor to build a new gym to
completion, then demolish the
existing gym and begin construc
tion of the main facility. At the last
minute, that plan changed as the
Mac McCoy
D E X
Births
7B
Church News
5B
Classified Ads
1-4C
Calendar . . .
3A
Crime News .
7-8A
News Roundup 2A
Obituaries. . .
6B
Opinions. . . .
4-5A
School News.
. . . .9-1 1A
Sports
1-4B
Social News .
7-8 B
WEATHER OUTLOOK
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
Showers:
Scattered T-storms:
Low, 59; high, 74;
Low, 59; high, 74;
50% chance rain
50% chance rain
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
Thunderstorms: Mostly sunny:
Low, 48; high, 59; Low, 48; high, 72;
40% chance rain 10% chance rain
Reservoir Levels
Commerce: 699.5 (1.9 feet above full)
Bear Creek: 695 (full)
Rainfall In March
5.2 inches
CONTACT US
Phone: 706-335-2927
FAX: 70G3 87-5435
E-mail:
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Mail: P.O. Box 459,
Commerce, GA, 30529
architects told the school board
it could save up to $1.5 million by
demolishing the gym and building
the school all at once.
The problem was that
the school would be
without a gym for 12
to 24 months in the
new scheme.
“The board did hear
(the complaints),”
McCoy said. “They lis
tened and they asked
me to try to make
things work.”
There had been
speculation that the
school council would
draft a letter to the
board of education opposing the
plan. Instead, on a motion by Joe
Leffew, the council voted 4-0 to
have member Dr. Carlton Allen
draft a letter to the board support
ing McCoy’s efforts and insisting
that the board “involve the people
from this point forward.”
The first portion of the meeting
was devoted to members’ con
cerns, which appeared to be split
between the architects and the
issue with the gym.
But member Joe Leffew went so
far as to draw a schematic for a
new, larger school he said would
require no demolition of any exist
ing structures, mostly by building
on the back side of the school
property, and could be built in a
single phase.
_
Commerce High School Council members
(clockwise from front) Dr. Carlton Allen, Kay
Haugen, Donnie Drew, Sonny Austin, Joe Leffew
and Bill Sims discuss a schematic for a school
layout created by Leffew. The group ultimately
voted to send a letter to the school board sup
porting Superintendent James “Mac” McCoy’s
efforts to reach a compromise and asking the
board to seek public input throughout the rest
of the process.
“Can you do it without disturb
ing the students?” Leffew asked. “I
say, yes you can, without disturb
ing the students or the faculty or
the staff or the facility. Yeah we
can, we can build it on the back
and on the side and have a much
bigger school than is currently
planned ... faster, cheaper and bet
ter than what is currently on the
plan.”
Allen pressed McCoy on wheth
er the architects offered any other
scenarios, and the superintendent
replied that the company took
input from teachers and followed
a board mandate “not to build
something that in 50 years will
look like it was built around some
thing else.”
Allen asked why other architec
tural firms were not considered,
and McCoy replied, “Money,” say
ing they did not stay within the
board’s budget with their propos
als.
That exchange led Allen and
Chairman Bill Sims to both sug
gest that the school system had
been “baited” with a promise of
a school within a budget, only to
later be told that it would take a
rearrangement of the construction
process to meet that budget.
“My real concern with the firm
based on their presentation was
that they did not seem well-pre
pared,” Allen said. Leffew had
made a similar observation.
Sims agreed, saying that during
the March 24 presentation to the
school board, the architect pre
sented nothing done to scale.
Sims also told McCoy that had
the public been told the school
board needed more money to
build the school, the board could
have passed a larger bond issue.
“You could have asked for $25 or
$30 million and they would have
voted for it,” he said.
“I do feel like I’ve been bait
ed,” he added. “We were told one
thing, then given another.”
Lormer BOE member Keith
Massey criticized the school
board for its failure to work with
city officials for a joint bond issue
to build “the kind of facility we
want,” and said it was time for
the BOE to get over its political
differences with the city council.
He also suggested that the design
should have been more “green,” or
environmentally friendly.
Massey faulted the design for
taking up part of the CHS practice
field, which could bump some rec
reation teams to another site.
Jennifer Sanders expressed the
opinion that the board and its
architects “haven’t looked at all
the angles, and they’re telling us
there are no other options.” She
called the loss of a gym for one to
two years “a major disruption to a
lot of lives.”
Members voting for Leffew’s
motion included Sims, Leffew,
Allen and Sonny Austin. Members
Kay Haugen and Donnie
Drew, both employed at CHS,
abstained.
Lor his part, McCoy said he
found the meeting helpful.
“I think it was important for
the group to understand that
the board heard their concerns
and is working toward a solu
tion,” he said later. “The issue
is displacement of the kids,
and I think we have a solution
to that.”
Hudgens: Amendment To Kill
Auto Tax Not Likely To Survive
Measure Would Cost Jackson County
School System $2 Million Annually
> c
Local school officials are breath
ing a little easier this week as a
proposal to eliminate the ad valor
em tax on automobiles appears to
have stalled.
“Appears” is the key
word. The proposal is
now in a House-Senate
conference committee
“log-jammed” between
House and Senate
negotiators, according
to Sen. Ralph Hudgens
(R-Hull). As of Monday
afternoon, no one
knew what, if anything,
might actually come
out of the committee.
“They’re trying to
Ralph Hudgens
come up with some kind of tax
relief program, but I don’t think
that’s (auto tax elimination) is
what they’ll end up with,” Hudgens
said.
By the time the bill got to the
Senate, Hudgens said, Lt. Gov.
Casey Cagle had “stripped out”
the provisions calling for a repeal
of the auto tax and replaced it with
reductions of the state income
tax.
“Right now, we’re at a log jam on
what we’re going to do,” the sena
tor stated.
Hudgens said he
favored eliminating
the auto tax, but pro
posed that it be done
via a state income tax
credit.
“I wanted for every
one who got a tag
to go ahead and pay
the county for the ad
valorem tax, then when
they file on the Georgia
income tax, they would
get a credit,” he said,
scenario would have
That
offered some advantages over the
original bill. Lirst, said Hudgens,
local governments and boards
of education would have gotten
their revenue without having to
depend upon the state for reim
bursement — a stumbling block in
the original proposal. Second, one
of the criticisms of the plan was
that people in the “underground”
(illegal) economy who do not pay
income taxes would also get the
break, something Hudgens’ pro
posal would have avoided.
The General Assembly has until
midnight Lriday to resolve the
matter. Regardless of the outcome,
Hudgens knows how he’ll vote.
“If it’s a tax reduction, I’m going
to vote for it,” he declared.
Schools Hugely Affected
The elimination of the auto tax
would hammer local school sys
tems.
Commerce Linance Director
Steve McKown said that accord
ing to the 2007 tax digest, removal
of the auto tax would cost the
Commerce School System about
$250,000 a year.
Multiply that by eight for
the Jackson County Board of
Education, according to Tax
Commissioner Don Elrod.
Based on the 2007 tax digest,
the county school system stood
to collect $2,077,476 this past year
from taxes on vehicles.
Even half that — assuming a two-
year phase-in as called for in the
Please Turn to Page 3A
like Commerce,
Basin Group Wants
Out Of Drought Plan
With two out of three of its indicators showing the drought in
decline, the Upper Oconee River Basin Water Authority has joined
other local jurisdictions in trying to get out from under Georgia’s
drought management plan.
Meeting last Wednesday, the authority voted to ask the
Environmental Protection Division to drop the four-county area
from the 61 counties where water usage is being dictated by Gov.
Sonny Perdue and the EPD.
It expects an answer by April 15.
The authority wants to operate under its own drought manage
ment plan — which would put the four counties at a level 2 status,
requiring a five-percent reduction in water usage. That management
plan, officials note, was approved by the EPD. Currently it is under
the state plan at a level four and the governor’s mandate to reduce
usage by 10 percent.
A level two status would allow homeowners to resume watering
their yards and washing cars on an odd-even-day basis.
The city of Commerce has made a similar request.
The decision is an outgrowth of a March 25 meeting among water
system operators and EPD officials in Braselton at which local offi
cials were able to present their cases individually to the EPD.
There, said Gary Dodd, manager of the authority’s Operations
Committee, EPD officials confirmed that the 61-county area was
created by a line “arbitrarily drawn” by the EPD based on the levels
of lakes Lanier and Allatoona.
The group was promised that if it made its request in writing by
April 1, the EPD would provide an answer by April 15.
“A lot of cities and counties are requesting to be removed,” Dodd
told the authority.
Dodd also said that the EPD concedes that the basin authority’s
Please Turn to Page 3A