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SEE PAGE IB
SEE PAGE 8B
Camp Offensive
To Area
Football Players
Camp Wellspring
Caters To The
Developmental^ Disabled
Commerce News
Vol. 133
No. 23
22 Pages
3 Sections
Wednesday
JULY 23, 2008
50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875
Advance Voting
For Runoff
Begins Monday
In Jefferson
Advance voting for the Aug.
5 primary runoff elections
will begin Monday and last all
next week — for people willing
to drive to Jefferson.
Locally two races con
tinue in the Republican pri
mary. Hunter Bicknell and
Ron Johnson face off for
the chairmanship of the
Jackson County Board of
Commissioners, and Donna
Golden Sikes and Brad Smith
are locked in a runoff for dis
trict attorney for the Piedmont
Judicial Circuit, which com
prises Jackson, Barrow and
Banks counties.
Advance voting was available
at the Commerce Recreation
Department office on Carson
Street, the Jackson County
Administrative Building in
Jefferson and the Braselton
Public Safety Complex for
the July 15 primary, but for
the runoff, voters will have to
travel to the Jackson County
Administrative Building on
Athens Street in Jefferson.
Hours are 9:00-7:00 daily.
Bicknell led a three-candidate
field for the BOC chairman
ship’s post, garnering 2,393
votes to 1,757 for Johnson.
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W
THURSDAY FRIDAY
Sunny: Partly cloudy:
Low, 68; high, 92; Low, 71; high, 92;
10% chance rain 20% chance rain
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
Isolated T-storms: Isolated T-storms:
Low, 71; high, 92; Low, 71; high, 92;
30% chance rain 30% chance rain
Reservoir Levels
Commerce: Not Available
Bear Creek: 693.5 (1.5 feet below full)
Rainfall this month
3.75 inches
Rainfall This Year
25.85 Inches
11 N D
EX
Church News .
.... 7B
Classified Ads .
. . . 1-4C
Calendar ....
.. . . 3A
Crime News . .
. . . 7-8A
News Roundup
. ... 2A
Obituaries....
. . . . 9 A
Opinions
. ... 4A
School News. .
. . . 7-8 B
Sports
. . . 1-3B
Social News . .
.... 6B
CONTACT US
Phone: 706-335-2927
FAX: 706387-5435
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
Water Authority: Please Water Your Lawn
County Authority Needs Increased Sales To Improve Cash Flow; 1-Day-Per-Week Watering Allowed
By Mark Beardsley
After months of warning customers not
to water their lawns due to the drought,
the Jackson County Water and Sewerage
Authority has changed course.
It not only allows the watering of yards,
but encourages it. In fact, officials are all
but begging their customers to turn on their
sprinklers.
Recovery of the Bear Creek Reservoir,
extremely effective conservation measures
and cash flow problems from lack of water
sales all contribute to the reversal.
On July 1, the authority got the go-ahead
from the Environmental Protection Division
to reduce the level four water restrictions
that had been in place since last fall. The
EPD gave approval for lawn watering one
day a week.
Water sales promptly dropped by 300,000
gallons a day. If that trend continues, it will
cost the authority about $35,000 a month in
revenue it desperately needs.
Jackson County Water and Sewerage
Authority officials want their customers
to avail themselves of the opportunity
to water their lawns and landscapes
one day each week.
The county’s major water supplier is at a
loss for an explanation.
“I came across a landscaper who didn’t
know he could water,” noted Chairman
Hunter Bicknell at a called meeting of the
authority July 17. “If a landscaper is not
When You Can Water
The following schedule provides for
one-day-a-week watering of yards
and landscapes for customers of the
Jackson County Water and Sewerage
Authority. It is based on the last digit of
the property's address.
Watering with sprinklers and irrigation
systems is permissible from midnight to
10 a.m. the appropriate days.
Address
Day
01
Mondays
2-3
Tuesdays
4-5
Wednesdays
6-7
Thursdays
8-9
Fridays
aware, then the word is not getting out.”
Finance Director Judy Davis pointed out
that the authority and its customers have
“done a good job” of cutting water usage in
response to calls for conservation.
Maybe too good a job. Sales are down 40
percent. That makes it hard for the author
ity to cover its expenses.
“If you’re in the business to sell water and
can’t sell water, it’s like Ingles not being able
to sell groceries,” observed member Andy
Goodman.
Goodman also speculated that confusion
over state and local regulations — which
differ with every different water provider —
doesn’t help.
For example, Commerce residents can
water their yards from midnight to 10 a.m.
three days a week on an odd-even address
schedule — and can wash their vehicles and
operate power washers. Customers of the
Braselton system still cannot use sprinklers
or irrigation systems or wash vehicles.
‘The rules are so ambiguous that nobody
knows what is going on,” Goodman sug
gested.
City Ends Fiscal Year
$1.8 Million In The Black
Cash From Operations: $653,800
More Revenue Than Expenditures
On paper, the city of Commerce had a great year financially, tak
ing in $1.8 million more in cash than it spent.
In reality, it was still a good year — but not that spectacular,
Finance Director Steve McKown told the city council.
It’s all a matter of how you look at it. McKown noted that the city
took in $687,500 more in SPLOST (special purpose local option
sales tax) revenue than it spent. Those funds are dedicated to spe
cific areas and the city used the past fiscal year to accumulate the
money toward some future project.
Additionally, Jackson County reimbursed the city $302,000 that
the city spent the prior year, inflating the 2007-08 revenue by
that amount. Another $112,000 came from “confiscated assets,”
mainly drug money seized off Interstate 85 that can only be used
to support the police department in upcoming budgets. And,
there was a $60,000 payment from the Jackson County Board of
Commissioners toward the expansion of the Commerce Public
Library.
“The actual revenues from operations are more representative of
the year we had,” McKown remarked.
That figure was $653,800 in revenue over expenditures.
“If you minus out the reserves, it’s about a half million dollars,”
McKown summarized. “That sounds like a lot of money, but on a
$32 million budget, it’s not.”
Hospital Denies Any
Part In Damages To
Plaintiffs In Lawsuit
Attorneys for BJC Medical
Center, answering a malpractice
suit filed against it and former
surgeon Dr. Keith Ash, say the
medical center did not contrib
ute to or cause any of the alleged
damages to the four plaintiffs.
The medical center seeks a
jury trial and an assessment of
costs against the plaintiffs.
The document was filed last
week in response to a suit filed
by Stephanie Floyd, Karen
Hunter, Billy Ray Hawkes and
Debra Kraft seeking actual and
punitive damages for alleged
malpractice by Ash.
The suit was filed June 10 in
the Superior Court of Jackson
County. Ash resigned as BJC’s
surgeon June 9.
The primary allegations of the
suit were against Ash; BJC was
involved it its capacity as the
institution that allowed Ash to
perform surgery. The plaintiffs
allege that the medical center
failed to do its due diligence
in checking Ash’s background
and providing him staff privi
leges. They also allege that the
facility engaged in “racketeering”
by supporting Ash and Ash’s
Commerce Surgical Associates.
The hospital’s attorneys
denied all of those charges in a
35-page paragraph-by-paragraph
response to the lawsuit. As for
the allegations pertaining to Ash,
his work on the plaintiffs and
their diagnoses, the response
was, in effect, that the hospital
was not in a position to know
whether the allegations are true
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DOT trucks dump the first asphalt on the and Apple Valley Road. The project is due to be
under-renovation intersection of Highway 15A completed in two weeks.
Public Safety
Commerce-Jefferson Road
Should Reopen In Two Weeks
By Mark Beardsley
The realignment of the intersec
tion of Georgia 15A and Apple
Valley Road is running ahead of
schedule and could be completed
in two weeks.
That’s the word from Don
Clerici, Jackson County’s capital
projects consultant.
That’s good news for people
who’ve been forced to take
long detours to get to and from
Jefferson. It’s also a benefit to
school children as the safety proj
ect will be done by the time school
buses roll Aug. 7.
Apple Valley Road is a major
feeder to the East Jackson school
complex. A lot of the traffic
crosses Hwy. 15A there, creating
fears of a major accident involv
ing a school bus. The intersection
routinely produced accidents as
motorists trying to cross on Apple
Valley Road pulled in front of oth
ers approaching the intersection
from Jefferson, where visibility
was obstructed by elevation and
a curve.
“We’re a tad ahead of sched
ule,” Clerici said Monday. “We told
everybody it would be 90 days.
We hope to beat the 90 days. It’s
starting to come together.”
Department of Transportation
crews were starting to put down
asphalt for the base Monday.
Paving was due to begin today
(Wednesday), Clerici said.
The project, budgeted at $1.1
million in case it had to be con
tracted out, will end up costing
Jackson County about half that,
Clerici predicted. The county had
to pay for the engineering, acqui
sition of right of way, grading,
storm drainage, erosion control
and for a portion of the relocation
of water lines. The DOT is respon
sible for the base, paving, striping
and signage.
Dirty Work
The project required the removal
of 22,000 to 25,000 cubic yards
of dirt as the hill on Hwy. 15A
just west of the intersection was
shaved down and the curve
straightened. The dirt was moved
to a “waste area” on the property
of Jeff Potts.
Clerici reported receiving a
number of inquiries as to why that
dirt wasn’t moved to the Jackson
County Airport, which needs fill
for its runway expansion project.
The answer, he said, was cost —
and the fact that when the project
began the airport did not have a
permitted place to dump the dirt.
The cost of loading the dirt into
dump trucks and hauling it to the
airport was the leading factor.
“You can scrape and haul dirt
10 times as fast as you can haul it
somewhere,” Clerici said, adding
that the county would have been
forced to contract the work out
or, by doing the hauling itself,
jeopardized the 90-day time frame
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