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SEE PAGE IB SEE PAGE 6 A Baseball Tigers Jockeying For Playoff Berth New East Jackson Park Is Dedicated Vol. 134 No. 11 20 Pages 3 Sections www.CommerceNewsTODAY.com The AP Commerce News Wednesday APRIL 29, 2009 50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875 Free Concert Set In Park This Friday The Commerce Downtown Development Authority will present its first event of the 2009 “Fridays After Five" series this Friday May 1. Lullwater will take the stage at 6:00 p.m. in Spencer Park, located in downtown Commerce, at the inter section of South Elm and Pine streets. Lullwater is an Athens alternative/south ern/ modern rock band. “This would be a great date night event. Stop by and pick up dinner from one of our downtown restau rants; bring your lawn chairs and blankets and enjoy fun music in our city’s beautiful downtown park," said Hasco Craver, director of the DDA “As always, the concert is free and Lullwater is excited about this opportunity to play in Commerce." Lullwater has just produced its first music video to its new song, “Whatever Happened." The video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=TzmrfoH5Lpg. To learn more about the band and to listen to some of its songs, visit www.mys- pace.com/lullwatermusic. All events in the Lridays After Live are co-sponsored by the Grassroots Arts Program, hirst Commerce Bank, the U nited Community Bank, and Community Bank & Trust. More informa tion about this event and other upcoming events can be found on the City of Commerce website: www. commercega.org. Daisy Festival This Weekend In Nicholson Nicholson will host its annual Daisy Lestival this weekend, with the festival opening at 5 p.m. Lriday, May 1, with a singing by The Maxwells. A cake walk, Nicholson Idol and the return of an Elvis impersonator will also highlight Lriday’s activities, hood, games, crafts and entertainment will be pro vided all weekend. By last Thursday, the city reported that 47 craft and food ven dors had already signed up and the city clerk said “they Please Turn to Page 3A CONTACT US Phone: 706-335-2927 FAX: 706-387-5435 E-mail: news@ma i nstreetnews. com mark@mainstreetnews.com Mail: 1672 S. Broad St., Commerce, GA 30529 A Premiere In Paris Amanda Kettles and Jamie Westbrook watch dancers during the East Jackson Comprehensive High School Junior-Senior Prom last Saturday night at the Commerce Civic Center. For more pictures, see Page 12A. Photo by Lynn Sengupta Officials Keep Eye On Spread Of Swine Flu After reports of a deadly strain of swine flu spreading from Mexico into several U.S. states, local officials say they’re keeping an eye out for the disease to spread into Jackson County. “The Georgia Emergency Management Agency has been in coordination with the Georgia Division of Public Health, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other emergen cy management partners in regards to the swine flu outbreak," advises Charles Dawson of GEMA in an e-mail to all local EMS direc tors. “The current health situ ation facing the nation must be taken very seriously and governments at all levels must be vigilant in monitor ing of the events." Locally, BJC Medical cen ter has 200 doses of Tamiflu on hand and its lab is pre pared to test anyone with flu-like symptoms, the facil ity announced. As of Tuesday, there were no cases of swine flu report ed in Georgia, and no fatali ties have been reported among the 40 people in the U.S. reported to have the disease. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has provided the below advice for state and local governments. _ • Encourage people to Please Turn to Page 3A Community Gardens Now Open To The Public $1.1 Million Of Stimulus Going To City Six people so far have availed themselves of 15 by 20 garden spots in the first “Community Gardens of Commerce” season. Six Of 16 Garden Spots Are Rented By Mark Beardsley The Community Gar dens of Commerce are officially open. So far, six 15 by 20 (300-square-foot) plots have been reserved. As of Monday, one was planted with four tomato and four pepper plants. As promised, the city provided steps over the earthen berm from the parking lot to the garden site. To access the gar dens, people will park in front of Badcock Lurniture and walk up the 10 steps to the site. The city also ran a water line to the site and installed a spigot in the center of the garden. The city has marked off and staked 16 garden spots, all of which have been plowed. There is room for more, if enough people sign up for the Cont. on Page 3A Roper Subsidiary To Locate Here Hansen Technologies Will Bring 50-60 New fobs To Commerce By Mark Beardsley Roper Industries is relo cating an Illinois subsid iary that manufacturers refrigeration equipment parts to Commerce late this summer. The move will bring in 50-60 jobs to the Commerce facility, says Walt Stadnisky, presi dent of Roper Pump Company. The announcement was made April 22 to Hansen Technologies Corporation employees at the Burr Ridge, IL, plant. Roper employees got the news the next day. The operation, which supplies refrigeration control valves and acces sories for industrial and commercial cold storage facilities that use ammo nia, will require about 30,000 square feet of the Roper building. “We are reconfiguring the inside and doing a couple of small addi tions," Stadnisky said. “We’re adding two receiv ing docks and extending the parking lot. We’ve got to look at the truck traffic and re-route the driveway because the inbound truck traffic and outbound truck traffic will roughly double." Approximately a dozen of Hansen’s Illinois employees will get a chance to relocate to Commerce. In addition to providing new jobs here, the relo cation of Hansen could Cont. on Page 3A By Mark Beardsley Lederal stimulus funds will help Commerce comply with a state consent order on its oxida tion ponds. The city council, in a called meeting Monday night, autho rized Mayor Charles L. Hardy Jr. to sign an application seek ing $1.1 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money. The question is how much of that will the city have to repay. The federal money flows to the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority, which doles it out to qualifying city and county gov ernments in the form of loans, portions of which are “forgiv able," meaning they do not have to be repaid. Commerce stands to be for given 40-70 percent. “We don’t know if it will be 40 percent forgivable or 70 percent," said city manager Clarence Bryant. “The city is in Jackson County, which qualifies for 40 percent, but the ponds are in Banks County, which qualifies for 70 percent." Commerce submitted six proj ects valued at $11.6 million for possible funding, but only one, valued at $2.1 million, made the short list. That was an inflow and infiltra tion study of the city’s sewer sys tem. However, the city amended its application, seeking to use $1.1 million of the money for the oxidation pond work. In the end, GEFA approved just $1.1 Please Turn to Page 5A Births 9A Church News ... 8 A Classified Ads ... 6-8 B Calendar 3A Crime News .... 6-7A News Roundup . 2 A Obituaries 4-5 B Opinions 4-5A School 11 - 12A, IB Sports 1-2B Social News .... 9 A Rainfall this month 4.63 inches Rainfall This Year 18.88 Inches 8 "04879 14141 THURSDAY, APRIL 30 Scattered T-storms: Low, 61; high, 83; 30% chance rain FRIDAY, MAY 1 Partly cloudy: Low, 62; high, 85; 10% chance rain SATURDAY, MAY 2 Scattered T-storms: Low, 59; high, 82; 40% chance rain SUNDAY, MAY 3 Scattered T-storms: Low, 59; high, 80; 40% chance rain