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SEE PAGE 10A SEE PAGE IB Tigers, Ladies Head To Tallulah Falls On Friday Bluegrass Country Christmas Coming Up At The Library Vol. 133 No. 42 18 Pages 2 Sections 50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875 Parade, Other Events To Usher In Christmas Breakfast With Santa, Secret Santa Workshop, Car Show Saturday; Parade Sunday A day of activities downtown Saturday and a parade Sunday will usher the Christmas season into Commerce. Hometown Holidays will comprise Breakfast with Santa, the Secret Santa Workshop and the Hometown Holidays Hot Rod and Antique Car Show Saturday. Breakfast With Santa The event leads with Breakfast With Santa from 9:00 to 11:00 at Stonewalls BBQ, South Broad Street. Co-sponsored by the Downtown Development Authority and the Four Seasons Garden Club, Breakfast With Santa gives children a chance to meet with Santa while their parents snap photos. The garden club will sell muffins and dough nuts for $1 apiece and juice or hot chocolate for $1 apiece. Parents will also be able to buy a photo of their child with St. Nick for $5. Proceeds will be donated to the Banks-Jackson Emergency Food Bank. Secret Santa Workshop From noon to 3:00, the DDA and the Pilot Club of Commerce will hold the Secret Santa Workshop at the Commerce School of Dance building on North Broad Street. Seven to 10 local vendors will have special merchandise — nothing over $10 — from which children can make gift selections. Pilot Club members will help children manage their money, and gift-wrapping will be provided at no charge. “The target age group is children 5 to 12," notes Hasco Craver, executive director of the DDA. Please Turn to Page 3A Commerce is considering forming a special police unit to enforce non-traffic trucking regulations on Commerce roads. City Eying Special Police Unit To Target Big Trucks Random Drug Tests Produce Just One 'Positive' In 4 Years At CMS And CHS New Hospital Would Be On Maysville Rd. By Mark Beardsley Should negotiations for the sale of BJC Medical Center to an Atlanta group bear fruit, the new owners plan to build a new BJC Hospital as part of a medical complex on the Maysville Road. Kevin Attarha, senior development executive for EDT Inc., indicates that Doctors Hospital of Georgia would take advantage of an offer of land made to BJC Medical Center by Dr. James Bouchard, who is devel oping Commerce Medical Village on the Maysville Road. Bouchard, a podiatrist, had offered to donate up to 65 acres to the BJC Medical Center Authority in 2007 after the authority announced plans to build a new hospital. The author ity ultimately decided to build on land donated by Please Turn to Page 3A THURSDAY, DEC 4 - Showers: Low, 28; high, 56; 40% chance rain FRIDAY, DEC 5 Mostly cloudy: Low, 29; high, 51; 10% chance rain SATURDAY, DEC 6 — Partly cloudy: Low, 30; high, 54; 10% chance rain SUNDAY, DEC 7 Sunny: Low, 27; high, 49; 0% chance rain Reservoir Levels Commerce: 697.8 (.2 feet above full) Bear Creek: 687.46 (7.54 feet below full) Rainfall this month .15 inches Rainfall This Year 42.67 inches INDEX Births 8A Church News 4B Classified Ads 5-7B Calendar 3 A Crime News 7A News Roundup 2A Obituaries 8A Opinions 4A School News 1OA Sports 1-2B Social News 8A 4 8 7 9 1 4 1 4 1 " 9 By Mark Beardsley Come July 1, the Commerce Police Department may target tractor-trailer rigs for safety vio lations. Commerce’s gov ernment is consid ering the creation of a “motor carrier compliance unit" focusing on heavy trucks, particular ly those that come through the downtown, but also trucks traveling on U.S. 441 and Interstate 85. The move is seen as a means of directing more traffic to the bypass and slowing truck traffic in the downtown. City Manager Clarence Bryant briefed the council during Monday night’s work session on discus sions with the police department about creating the special unit. He empha sized that it would require no additional manpower, but would cost $25,000 to $30,000 for equipment and a truck to haul it. The unit would enforce “DOT’’ rules, such as weight restrictions. By Mark Beardsley Ninety-two percent of Commerce High School juniors met or exceeded standards on the Georgia High School Writing Test given at the end of September. That’s one point above the state average of 91 percent, and a point lower than last year’s 93 percent, according to CHS counselor Elaine Roller. No decision has been made, Bryant told the council. “I told the group to keep getting data. Sometimes you can’t afford to buy a dress on sale,’’ he remarked, referencing the city’s budget challenges. He added that he would take a close look at the city’s financial picture after the first of the year. If implemented, the unit would start in July with the new budget year. But before then, the city must get the blessings of the state government and have an officer or officers trained and certified. Bryant pointed out that officers “don’t have to have a reason to pull a truck over’’ and that “there is hardly a truck you stop that you don’t write a ticket for.’’ Ticket revenue is cer- “Six students exceeded standards and eight did not meet them,’’ said Roller. All but one special educa tion student passed the test, said Roller, and a number of ESOL (English as a Second Language) did not, accord ing to Roller. Statewide, the percentage of students exceeding stan dards was up one point, while there were more sig nificant increases in the per- tainly part of the equation, and Bryant told the council that the “cost and revenue relationship’’ for such a unit is “favorable.’’ Bryant said the special unit would utilize the department’s canine unit and pointed out that the city’s largest cash confiscation — $160,000 — came from a truck. Councilman Bob Sosebee, who chairs the city’s Downtown Development Authority, backed the idea from the standpoint of downtown safety, saying he supported “anything we can do to reduce truck traf fic and speeding through downtown.’’ “From a DDA perspec tive, we’d like to see a reduction and a slowdown (of truck traffic) in the downtown,’’ he added. Councilman Mark Fitzpatrick advised Bryant to make application to the state for permission and to reserve classroom space for local officers. centage of developmentally disabled or “language learn ers’’ who passed. “Our high schools are doing an excellent job of teaching our students the importance of writing and the results are showing on the GHSWT,’’ said Kathy Cox, state superintendent of schools. “Using our new curriculum, the Georgia Please Turn to Page 3A By Mark Beardsley In four years of random drug tests conducted at Commerce High School and Commerce Middle School, only one student has tested positive for drugs. Implemented in 2004, the tests — 10 a month at CHS and five per month at CMS — are given to randomly- chosen students who are either in extracurricular activities or have driving permits. They consist of a mouth swab that is sent to an Atlanta company for testing. Tests can be taken at any time during school on any school day. “Everybody passes it every time,’’ said CHS counselor Elaine Roller, who keeps statistics for her school. The tests are admin istered by Sandy Davis, school nurse. The swabs are sent by UPS to Clinical Reference Laboratory, and results are usually back to the schools in 48 hours. The swab is designed to detect illegal drugs and narcotics. With four years of no negatives, the ques tion is, are the tests accu- Public health officials are interested in hearing from parents and others about Jackson County’s high rate of teen pregnancy. The Jackson County Teen Pregnancy Coalition will hold a discussion about the issue Thursday, Dec. 11, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the First Baptist Church of Commerce. RSVP with Maria Jackson at 770-532-6334, extension 3557. The meeting is an infor mal follow-up to the previ ous “teen pregnancy sum mit,’’ explains Beth Heath, Jackson County nurse manager. “At the last meeting, we had some people say we needed more paren- rate? “Am I surprised?’’ responded CHS assistant principal Terry Canup. “That’s hard to say. You like to feel like you’re deterring student drug use and the program is working’’ Just the same, Canup admitted that there is a possibility that the “win dow" between when stu dents use drugs and the test is administered may be a contributing factor. “We use a swab test that takes saliva from the mouth," he said. 'The test we use has to be adminis tered within 24 hours (of drug use)." In one incident, a stu dent refused to take the drug test. After the stu dent’s parents were con tacted and consented, the student was given the test — and tested negative for drug use. Roller says anecdotal evi dence suggests that drug use among students is “not a huge problem." “At least not during school," she qualified. “The kids may come back and Cont. on Page 3A want to know what their thoughts are and what they would like us to try to do." Heath stressed that the meeting will be infor mal, discussion-oriented. Participants may also be asked to fill out a survey. The Rev. Murray Brett of Grace Baptist Mission will speak briefly on “Recovering our Virtue" at the beginning of the meeting. The most recent statis tics indicate that Jackson County has the highest rate of births to teenagers in the 10-county health district — higher than the Georgia average, which is among the highest in America. Light refreshments will be served. 'There is hardly a truck you stop that you don't write a ticket for.' — City Manager Clarence Bryant 92 Percent Of CHS Juniors Pass Georgia Writing Test Group Meeting To Ponder County's Teen Pregnancy Rate Parental Input Sought On CausesSolutions tal input," she said. “We