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SEE PAGE IB Basketball Seasons Begin This Weekend SEE PAGE 5A County May Lengthen School Day SEE PAGE 5A Authority Plans For More Drought Vol. 133 No. 40 18 Pages 2 Sections 50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875 MaysvOle Considering Hefty Water Rate Hike By Justin Poole Facing an income shortfall due to declining demand, the Maysville City Council is consider ing a 40 percent hike in water fees. The current minimum average bill of $14.50 per month would jump to $20.30 under the plan. Last Thursday, the council continued work on its budgets for 2009 and focused on the city’s water and sewer depart ment where the town proj ects a $184,000 shortfall without a rate increase. Stephan Lewis, Lyn Villyard and Mayor Jerry Baker met earlier with Chip McGaughey from Engineering Management Inc. to discuss the water and sewer budget. McGaughey said that the Please Turn to Page 3A THURSDAY, NOV. 20 Sunny: Low, 28; high, 60; 0% chance rain FRIDAY, NOV. 21 Sunny: Low, 24; high, 49; 0% chance rain SATURDAY, NOV. 22 Mostly sunny: Low, 26; high, 50; 10% chance rain SUNDAY, NOV. 23 Sunny: Low, 35; high, 55; 0% chance rain Local Reservoir Levels Commerce: 697.7 (.1 feet above full) Bear Creek: 686.5 (8.5 feet below full) Rainfall this month .74 inches Rainfall This Year 41.01 Inches INDEX Church News 7B Classified Ads 4-6B Calendar 3 A Crime News 6A News Roundup 2A Obituaries 9A Opinions 4A School News 1OA & 8B Sports 1-3B Social News 7A General Election Runoff Early Voting Under Way For Dec. 2 Election Three statewide seats will be on the ballot in the runoff election Tuesday, Dec. 2. Early voting is already under way this week. Voters will have three seats to decide: •United States Senate: Saxby Chambliss (R) and Jim Martin (D). Chambliss is the incumbent. •Public Service Commission: Lauren “Bubba” McDonald (R) and Jim Powell (D). •Court of Appeals Judge: Sara Doyle and Mike Sheffield, both non-partisan. Early voting is being held through Friday of this week in the Administrative Building in Jefferson. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Next week, advance vot ing will be held Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Administrative Building on Athens Street in Jefferson. Commerce Public Library patron Mary Smisson looks over the new books at the Commerce Public Library. The library is 13th in line for state funding for a $2 million expansion, but it could be three to four years before the money is available. Quick Funding Of library Expansion Not Very Likely By Mark Beardsley With most of the local funds in hand or commit ted, the expansion of the Commerce Public Library is a matter of waiting on state funding. And no one knows how long a wait to expect. To date, the local fund raising effort has sur passed $500,000 and is about $75,000 short of its $583,000 goal, according to Susan Harper, Commerce library director. That’s the local match needed to “qualify” for Board of Regents money — about $1.5 million. The plan is to add 5,000 square feet. Commerce is currently 13th in line among quali fied library projects. Funding takes place when the governor releases capital outlay bonds. Last year, Gov. Sonny Perdue released funding for six libraries. “One time they funded 10,” commented Alan Harkness, director of the Piedmont Regional Library. “It is not unusual for three to five libraries to go through.” But these are unusual eco nomic times. With the state slashing budgets and the city on a spending freeze, what are the odds of sub stantial funding for library construction? Surprisingly, Harkness thinks they may be good. Because library con struction funding comes from bonds, not out of the state’s operating money, Harkness says he believes Perdue may be “more likely to continue paying for con struction, whereas he’s cut ting everything else. “The governor knows con struction is good for the state of Georgia,” he adds. Just how soon Commerce gets approved depends upon how many projects the governor funds and whether some other project gets inserted ahead of it. “There are those well- connected people who put their pork projects in,” Harkness acknowledged. “Last year, the governor said he would respect the list, and he denied the pork. We would anticipate that will continue.” If so, it could take three to four years before Commerce gets its money. By that time, cost estimates on the proposed addition will be dated, and it is not clear whether the library board will be able to adjust its cost (and therefore both its match and its grant) or whether it will have to make do with dollar figures calculated years earlier. At the Commerce Library Board’s meeting Monday night, Harkness said the funding application for the library expansion was Cont. on Page 3A library Making Huge Array Of Practice Tests Available Online By Mark Beardsley The Piedmont Regional Library has unveiled a powerful educational tool avail able for anyone with a library card. Learning Express is available through the regional library website — www.prlib.org. There one can find tutorials and practice exams for a huge variety of standardized tests, from the SAT to the Civil Service exam, from the fourth grade diagnostic tests in every subject to the ASYAB (mili tary) tests. “It is a way to reach people we don’t normally reach,” Alan Harkness told the Commerce Library Board Monday night. “I am really pushing this. I think it’s a great way to reach users.” The regional library funded access to the site, but it costs partici pants — all public libraries in Jackson, Banks and Barrow counties, and their patrons — nothing. “All you’ve got to have is a library card,” Harkness explained. Library patrons can find Learning Express at the regional Please Turn to Page 3A Alan Harkness Owners Slow To Allow Access To Reservoir Sites Water Authority Plans 'Town Hall Meeting' To Convince Property Owners To Let Surveyors On Land By Mark Beardsley Officials trying to survey three potential sites for a Jackson County reservoir are finding folks reluctant to let them on their prop erty. “We’re still working on getting permission to get on the property,” report ed Rob MacPherson of Prime Engineering, the company conducting the water resources study for Jackson County. The goal of the study is to identify one or more sites for drink ing water reservoirs. MacPherson made his comments at the Nov. 13 meeting of the Jackson County Water and Sewerage Authority and called access to property “the biggest problem” his company encounters. According to the authori ty’s chief in-house engineer Fred Alke, only 42 percent of 134 property owners on or adjacent to the sites have granted access. Surveyors must get on the property to get accu rate readings on the terrain so the engineers can calcu late volume, yield and cost factors as they determine the feasibility of each site. All of the sites are in the general vicinity of Nicholson. One is near Hardman Creek, and sec ond is on Little Curry Creek and the third is between the first two. The authority sent let ters to all property owners whose land would be likely to be affected. The mailing included a return envelope and a release form grant ing access for surveying. Some residents granted access, some denied it — in a few cases very angri- Cont. on Page 3A Paper To Go To Press Early; Deadlines Advanced The Commerce News will go to press a day early next week, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. That means all deadlines will be earlier. The classified and display ad deadlines for the Nov. 26 issue will be at noon Friday, Nov. 21. The news deadline will be 4:00 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21. The newspaper will be printed Tuesday, Nov. 25, will be available at local stores that evening and will arrive in Wednesday’s mail for local subscribers. Two Annexations On Planning Panel's Agenda The Commerce Planning Commission should make short work of its agenda Monday night. The planners, who make recommendations to the Commerce City Council, meet at 7:00 Monday in the Peach Room of the Commerce Civic Center. They’ll have two items to consider. Both are annexa tion requests. Rodney Gary wants to annex a vacant 1.086-acre lot at 234 Stark Road. Ali Kahn, who bought the Commerce Land Company lot on U.S. 441 North, would like to do the same thing. It’s less than a half acre. Neither request should require much time. The plan ning commission has not, in its recent history recom mended that an annexation request be turned down. The Commerce City Council will act on the recom mendation at its Dec. 8 meeting at 6:30 in the Commerce Room of the Commerce Civic Center.