Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

SEE PAGE IB SEE PAGE 7 A Eagles Knock Off Region Leader Fannin Quilt 'Challenge' Winners Are Announced Vol. 133 No. 8 26 Pages 3 Sections Wednesday APRIL 9, 2008 mainstreetnews.com 50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875 Nicholson Hires Its First City Marshal By Brandon Reed The city of Nicholson now has a marshal’s office, and has hired its first marshal as well. The city council voted unani mously Monday to establish the marshal’s office and to hire Dan Crumley as its first marshal. Mayor Ronnie Maxwell stressed that the intent of establish ing the office had nothing to do with issuing traffic citations. “This is not for any traf fic arrests,’’ he said. “It’s to enforce the codes and our ordinances.’’ Crumley told the council members that he will take the resolution to the Peace Officers Standards and Training Council, which will acknowledge the cre ation of the agency, and give it credit and author ity as a law enforcement agency. The GBI will then issue an agency identifica tion number for the office, Crumley said, estimating that the process will prob ably take two months. Please Turn to Page 3A Dan Crumley INDEX Births 7A Church News 5B Classified Ads 1-6C Calendar 3A Crime News 6A News Roundup 2A Obituaries 9A Opinions 4-5A School News 5-7B Sports 1-3B Social News 8-9A WEATHER OUTLOOK THURSDAY FRIDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY Partly cloudy: Scattered T-storms: Low, 58; high, 80; Low, 57; high, 78; 20% chance rain 40% chance rain SATURDAY SUNDAY Scattered T-storms: Partly cloudy: Low, 47; high, 70; Low, 42; high, 60; 40% chance rain 20% chance rain Reservoir Levels Commerce: 698.4 (.8 feet above full) Bear Creek: 695 (full) Rainfall this month 1.65 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 Group Seeks To Have Input Before New High School Is Constructed Parents Excited About Commerce Education hopes to delay the planning for a new high school, pictured above, until its con cerns are addressed and questions are answered. Public, School Board, City Council Invited A group of citizens will meet Sunday at 3:00 in the hopes of “putting the brakes’’ on the con struction of a new high school until a consensus is reached on its design. Parents Excited About Commerce Education will meet at the First Baptist Church of Commerce’s Family Fellowship Center. It seeks attendance by the public, but also by the Commerce City Council and Commerce Board of Education. PEACE has no officers, but Dr. Clark Hill has found himself cast in the role of one of its spokes men. “We want to get everybody on the same page,’’ said Hill. “Let’s not build a school with every thing if we have to halfway do it. My concern is we’re not looking at all our options. We want the city council to come, we want the school board to come, we want everybody We’re not trying to organize an effort against the school board, we’re organizing an effort for the kids.’’ Concern about the school design arose when the school sys tem’s architects, Robertson Loia Roof, presented drawings at a pub lic meeting March 31. The first criticisms came about because a revised construction plan would leave the school without a gym for up to two years. Since then, how ever, people began to question other aspects of the plan. Those range from the “footprint’’ of the building to the size of the proposed performing arts center to the location and number (not shown on the plans) of retention ponds to concerns about failure to consider energy efficiency and “green’’ technology in the new school. “We want to educate the public as to what’s happening, what the concerns are and what the prob lems are,’’ said Hill. Hill believes that the meeting two weeks ago should have happened six months earlier and that paren tal and other concerns should have been taken into account before a final plan was offered. “The point is, there are a lot of questions, and they have to sell it to the public,’’ stated Hill, who said failure to get a consensus would have “catastrophic’’ conse quences in community support for the project. He also says there is no reason for the board of education to be in a hurry. “If we have to wait another year to get the right school, that’s fine,’’ Hill said. “What people want to see is that their concerns are met.’’ At the root of the concern, say Hill and others, is that the school board provided no public input into the design. While the board did get a committee together early on to present a “wish list’’ of ame nities important to a new school, Please Turn to Page 3A Saturday Is Recycling Day For Jackson County Residents Keep Jackson County Beautiful is calling on county residents to “join in and become a part of the Great American Cleanup’’ over the next two weekends. “The KJCB Board feels it is important for us to get the mes sage out to Jackson Countians that we would like each and every person to take an interest in the world around them,’’ said KJCB Director Susan Trepagnier. “Our mission is to educate the citizens, both students and adults, about litter and how it happens, why it appears on the sides of our roads and the environment and about recycling’’ KJCB has planned a Clean Out Your Files/E-Recycling/ Household Hazardous Waste Day April 12, and on April 19 and asks each Jackson County resident to take a part of their world and clean it up and beautify it. This Saturday Keep Jackson County Beautiful will hold its electronics recycling, paper shredding and paint recy cling day Saturday, April 12, at the county transfer station. The annual electronics recycling day will give individuals and busi nesses a chance to dispose — for free — of myriad electronics from computers and computer compo nents to old cellular telephones. Old television sets may also be recycled, but there will be a $10 charge per TV. All other items will Appliances, computers and accessories, old digital cam eras, batteries even latex or acrylic paint can be recycled, and business or personal records shredded Saturday. be taken for free. Those items should be taken to the county transfer station. At the same time, businesses and individuals can also take old financial records to be shredded, as a “shredder truck’’ will also be on hand. In addition, KJCB will accept up to five cans of paint — acrylic or latex — for recycling, along with household batteries. “We cannot accept automobile batteries,’’ Trepagnier points out. Residents may also bring news paper and office paper for recy cling, along with magazines. Those items can also be dropped at the recycling bins at Lanier Technical Institute, located on South Elm Street in Commerce. April 19 The following Saturday is the Great American Cleanup, when more than 30 miles of Jackson County roads will be cleaned by groups who participate in the Adopt-A-Road program. But you don’t have to have adopted a road to participate. Trepagnier said the board, Bill Ives, Harry Bryan, Jack Legg, Beth White, Dave Rosselle, Penni Tench, Dwayne Ansley, Durian Ives, Lisa Grice and Joshua Barnett, doesn’t care if people decide to take a mile of roadway, take the area around their drive way or if they take their whole homeowners group and clean the development, they want to know about it. “We’d really like them to pick up the phone and register their efforts so we can recognize them with a T-shirt,’’ she said. “To the Board of Keep Jackson County Beautiful — that’s what the Great American Cleanup is — a coming together of folks to take pride in their hometown, their county, their church, their school, their environment,’’ said Board Chairman Bill Ives. Keep Jackson County Beautiful will supply plastic garbage bags, disposable gloves and a few other goodies, including Great American Cleanup T-shirts, as long as they last, for help with the clean-ups. Call Trepagnier at (706) 708-7198 for more informa tion. Building Permits Down Sharply By Kerri Testement The number of new residen tial building permits in Jackson County issued during the first quarter of 2008 dropped more than 60 percent, compared to the same time last year. An analysis of building permits issued in the county and its nine cities confirms that the new resi dential market in Jackson County is slowing down. In the first three months of 2007, there were 337 new residential permits issued; for the same time period in 2008, that figure fell to 132 — accounting for a 60 percent drop. In Jackson County, cities issue their own building permits while the county approves permits for unincorporated areas. The three largest government agencies that issue building per mits — Jackson County, Braselton and Jefferson — also reflect a sharp decline in new residential growth. In the first quarter of 2008, Jefferson issued 10 new residen tial permits, compared to 63 dur ing the same time period in 2007. Jackson County’s permits declined by 56 percent, from 134 issued in the first quarter of 2007 to 58 in the first quarter of 2008. By the end of 2007, there were 989 new residential building per mits issued in Jackson County and its nine cities. For the first quarter of 2007 and 2008 (January through March), other cities reported issuing the Please Turn to Page 3A City Council To Be At 'Retreat' This Weekend If you don’t have a cell phone number, don’t expect to reach your Commerce elected officials this weekend. All elected officials, plus City Manager Clarence Bryant, City Clerk Shirley Willis and Finance Director Steve McKown will be at Smithgall Woods near Helen engaged in the city’s biennial retreat. The event starts with a recep tion at 5:30 Friday afternoon, followed by supper at 6:00, and an opening session at 7:00. The retreat will last all day Saturday and end with a “wrap- up session’’ Sunday morning, according to Bryant. Walt McBride of the University of Georgia’s Institute of Government is the facilitator. Exactly what will be on the agenda is not yet known. “The agenda won’t be set until Friday night,’’ Bryant explained. “They sent out a questionnaire asking everyone to list two or three things they want to get done. The facilitator will formu late what we will discuss all day Saturday.’’ Bryant expects the group to narrow the list down to approxi mately 10 things. “They might not be specific things. They might be things like setting sidewalk paving priorities, drainage priorities or curb and gutter priorities — how much to try to accomplish over the next five years,’’ he said. “It should be goal-setting as opposed to project setting’’ Bryant said he’s added the land for recreation and sewer rates to the discussion list. Most of the officials’ spouses will accompany them, but will not participate in discussions. light Agenda For City Council Meeting Monday Two recommendations from the Commerce Planning Commission will highlight what should be a short meeting of the Commerce City Council Monday night. The council meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Commerce Room of the Commerce Civic Center. The council gave all indica tion at its work session this past Monday night that it intends to accept the recommendations of the Commerce Planning Commission on two land-use related matters. The first is a request by Michael Scott for a variance so he can bring in three mobile homes older than five years to his Ashworth Mobile Home Park on Homer Road. A city ordinance prohibits bringing in mobile homes older than five years, hence the request for a variance. The planning commission rec ommended that the city deny the request. If any of the city council members support the move, they made no indication Monday night. “I don’t see a reason to change (the policy),’’ said City Manager Clarence Bryant. Councilman Bob Sosebee agreed: “What we’re all trying to do is upgrade the housing in the city,’’ he said. Scott said he needed the vari ance because his mobile home park is set up for single-wide mobile homes, and he cannot find newer single-wides on which owners can get financing. The other planning issue is a request from Dr. Ali Kahn to rezone 7.76 acres on Beck Road from R-l in Jackson County to C-2 in the city for the purpose of annexing it for development as an office and retail develop ment. Other items on the agenda for Please Turn to Page 3A