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About The Commerce news. (Commerce, Ga.) 1???-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 17, 2008)
SEE PAGE IB SEE PAGE 5A Eagles Rally Late For First Region Victory Jackson Man Tries To Unseat Rep. Paul Broun Vol. 133 No. 31 22 Pages 2 Sections 50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875 Art In The The Aug. 26 Tornado Park Festival This Weekend A silent auction and miniature golf are new additions for the Art in the Park festival. The 18th annual event will be held Sept. 20-21 at Hurricane Shoals Park, located between Jefferson and Maysville. The festival hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, and noon to 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21. Silent auction items will include two Georgia foot ball game tickets, a kids’ bicycle and a canoe made from trees at the park. The silent auction will be held at the Tumbling Waters Society booth. The new “Spirit of the River" miniature golf course at Hurricane Shoals Park will be open during the festival. Carved bears, Native Americans and replicas of the chapel and cabins at the park are depicted in the course. A wide variety of food, Please Turn to Page 3A THURSDAY, SEPT. 18 Sunny: Low, 59; high, 83; 20% chance rain FRIDAY, SEPT. 19 Mostly sunny: Low, 60; high, 80; 20% chance rain SATURDAY, SEPT. 20 f Partly cloudy: Low, 58; high, 78; 20% chance rain SUNDAY, SEPT. 21 Partly cloudy: Low, 58; high, 77; 20% chance rain Reservoir Levels Commerce: 697.1 (0.1 feet above full) Bear Creek: 689.8 (5.2 feet below full) Rainfall this month 3.00 inches Rainfall This Year 37.15 Inches INDEX Births 7A Church News 6B Classified Ads 1-4C Calendar 3A Crime News 6A News Roundup 2A Obituaries 6B Opinions 4-5A School News 9-1OA Sports 1-3B Social News 7-8A Volunteers Still Needed For Repairs Volunteers take a mobile home down to its frame to repair a roof damaged by the Aug. 26 tornado. Volunteers are needed to help complete the work, organizers say. Submitted photo Three weeks after a tor nado touched down in Commerce, volunteers struggle to repair the dam age to local residences. “We are still working on homes. We still need volunteers to come out," said Barbara Pattman, who as secretary of Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church has found herself coordinat ing volunteer efforts. The storm damaged approximately 36 resi dences, almost none of which were insured. Local United Methodist churches are matching volunteers with work to be done. Last Saturday, said Pattman, 25-30 volunteers from Warren Chapel United Methodist Church, Powder Springs United Methodist Church, the First United Methodist Church of Athens, and Chapelwood United Methodist Church, Athens, replaced roofs on two homes. “We’re expecting vol unteers from Griffin and Blairsville this Saturday," Pattman said. The biggest challenge is to dry in damaged mobile homes where limbs or trees came through roofs, fol lowed by rain. The workers have had to go back almost to the frames to repair the damage. The work could last a couple more weeks, but Pattman says it would go a lot faster if there were more workers. “If we can just get enough people out to help us — about five teams we could put in different areas — we could get a lot done," she said. She also pointed out that the sooner the resi dences are dried in, the less the repair will entail. “We’ve still got roofs and floors to put in," she said. “I went to one Saturday where a tree had caved it in. You couldn’t see the dam age from the road, but the living room was caved in. They had to go down to the frame, almost." Pattman said there may be other residences whose owners or occupants have no insurance but who are not yet scheduled to receive assistance. She’s been through the neigh borhoods trying to find those people. Anyone who has storm damage that is not covered by insur ance should contact her (706-870-4195) or Tommy Rainey of New Salem United Methodist Church (228-363-1223) for assis tance. City To Take Budget Hit From LP's Shutdown Loss Of Natural Gas Sales Could Cost City $170,000 A Helping Hand In Hoschton Commerce officials recently contributed seven scarecrows (one for each elected official) to Hoschton’s world record effort. Left to right are Bob Sosebee, Commerce city council member; Bill Copenhaver, Hoschton mayor; Charles “Buzzie” Hardy, Commerce mayor; Hasco Craver, executive director of the Commerce Downtown Development Authority; and Richard Massey, Commerce council member. The official word is not yet in, but Hoschton offi cials believe they have broken the record. Photo by Kerri Testement Drought Response City Seeks Cheap Way To Add Reservoir Capacity By Mark Beardsley If it can get the blessing of state agencies, Commerce could add 100 days of capacity to its reservoir for less than $50,000. That’s a considerably large “if," however. A minor item at a recent city council meeting was a budget amendment of $19,000 to hire Schnabel Engineering, Alpharetta, to conduct a feasibility study on raising the elevation or the reservoir. The hope is that Commerce can raise the water level of its 305-acre Bob Waters Reservoir in Banks County by two feet. Each foot of increase would amount to almost 100 million gallons of water. Before that can happen, the city has to get the approv al of the Safe Dams divi sion of the Environmental Protection Division and the Broad River Soil and Water Conservation District. It may be a case where the cost of the project is less than that of the engineer ing. It’s not the mechanics, but the permitting process that raises the most concerns. “We feel like the dam can handle it," commented Bryan Harbin, director of water and sewer operations for the city. And the permitting?" “I have no idea with today’s environment," Harbin said. “Look what happened to Jefferson." Jefferson has been work ing 10 years on its Parks Creek Reservoir, but once the EPD indicated it intend ed to approve a withdrawal permit, the Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority peti tioned the EPD to delay issuing the permit so it can have more time to raise Please Turn to Page 3A By Mark Beardsley The Commerce City Council set its tax rate in a called meeting Monday night, but the budget it sup ports is already in trouble, thanks to the closing of Louisiana-Pacific’s plant in Center. “We’re looking at about a mill of taxes," said City Manager Clarence Bryant. In English, that means the closing of the oriented strand board plant will cost the city about $177,000 in profit from the sale of nat ural gas. That’s about the value of a mill of taxes. LP is (was) the city’s larg est natural gas customer. Although the city’s prof it per unit (a unit is an mcf — 1,000 cubic feet of gas) is very small, the vast amount purchased makes it a major contributor to the city’s income from gas sales. Essentially, LP’s clo sure means that the city’s General Fund will have about $177,000 fewer dollars per year. Profits from the gas and electric sales are transferred to the General Fund every year where they provide revenue for most city ser vices, from the library to the police department. Typically, $850,000 to $900,000 per year is trans ferred out of the Gas Fund to the General Fund. “We’re looking at a pretty good hit,” Bryant comment ed late last week. “There is really no way to overcome it in our rate structure. It would take raising every body else a dollar a unit to overcome that." LP’s closing could be temporary. Its product is used primarily in the housing industry, which has been strangled by the economic slowdown. A recovery might induce LP Please Turn to Page 3A Free Movie In The Park Friday The Downtown Development Authority will present “Shrek the Third" as a “movie in the park" Friday night, Sept. 19, at dusk. The movie will be shown in Spencer Park at about 8:00 p.m. There is no admission charge and free popcorn, soda and candy will be available as well. Attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs or blankets. The Movie in the Park had been scheduled for Aug. 22 and billed as a back-to-school event. It was rescheduled because of the weather and set this Friday to coincide with an open date for the Commerce Tiger football team.
