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Sports: IB Summer baseball schedule begins June 4,2008 The Banks County News 504^ Homer, Banks County, Georgia 30547 • A Publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. • mainstreetnews.com • 22 Pages, 3 Sections Plus Supplements • Vol. 39 No. 43 Concerned citizens' group formed in Budget, code enforcement among concerns aired to council BY SHARON HOGAN A citizens’ group has formed in Baldwin and their concerns include the budget and code enforcement. Several members of the group, named Concerned Citizens of Baldwin, attended the council meeting on Tuesday night, May 27, to offer their services in addressing these issues. “I am here to let you know that a group of concerned citizens have gotten together at a meeting at my house and we want to offer you our services,” said Andrea Harper, who lives on Willingham Avenue. “We are concerned about certain issues, such as code enforce ment and budgets.. .We are here to help you and support you. We don’t have any issues with ya’ll individually. We’re just concerned about Baldwin and want to make it a great Baldwin.” Another member of the group, Elsie Sumner, of Crooked Pine Trail, said, “I want to echo what Andrea said. I think our con cerned citizens’ meeting was to share ideas. We want to work with you and support you. I personally have faith in each and every one of you and I believe all of us do.” Sumner said the citizens’ job is to attend city meetings and city workshops and learn from the council. Sumner also said one request she has is to have a minister come to the council meet ings to give the invocation. Sumner said this would help to involve churches and perhaps church members. “There is just no better people to get to work than people who are involved in church,” she said. An invocation is already given during each council meeting by someone in attendance. At Monday’s meeting, acting Mayor Ray Holcomb gave the invocation. Holcomb said he had already started to work on this. “I have already started implementing this,” he said. “Pastor Craig Lee, Fellowship Church, was invited tonight, but was a little late getting here.” Holcomb asked Lee to lead a second invo cation during the meeting. Sumner also asked the council about the possibility of the citizens’ group being able to hold their meetings in the courtroom at the police department. “Just consider it and if you have to vote on this, OK,” Sumner said. “Would it be a good thing to incorporate concerned citizens’ meet ings with council work session meetings?” Holcomb told Sumner that work sessions and council meetings are both open to the public. “It’s a very good idea to get the citizens involved and we’d like to see more of it,” Holcomb said. City attorney David Syfan said the coun cil would like to accommodate the citizens’ group because they are 95 percent of the citi zens. He added that it is “the five percent that Baldwin ruins it for others.” “If you start allowing public facilities to be used for public speech and we don’t charge you, anybody with cause can request to use the same facilities,” Syfan said. Syfan said the city might be able to work it out but would have to put some regulations in place to help with the five percent that may cause problems. Pastor Lee said, “We allow the use of our church facility. All you have to do is call and request it.” Council member Robert Bohannon asked Syfan if the citizens’ group was considered a “planning committee” whether that give them the opportunity to use the facilities. “If it’s about a board, then yes, but you’d have to create the board,” he said. Baldwin plans special election for Sept. 16 The City of Baldwin will have a special election on Sept. 16 to fill the mayor’s seat. Mark Reed resigned recently as mayor to seek a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. At a meeting last week, the city council unanimously approved the second reading of the special elec tion ordinance. The ordinance sets the special election for Tuesday, Sept. 16, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at city hall, located at 130 Airport Road. Qualifying will be held on Monday, July 21, through Wednesday, July 23, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a one-hour lunch break beginning at 12:30 p.m. each day. The qualifying fee is $35. The last day to register to vote is Monday, Aug. 18, by 5 p.m. The ordinance allows for a write-in can didate. The individual would have until the week after qualifying to become a write-in candidate. Folk potters coming to town this month POTTERY FESTIVAL PLANNED JUNE 21 The eighth annual North Georgia Folk Potters Festival will be Saturday, June 21, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Banks County Middle School gym, 712 Thompson Street, Homer. There will be 40 potters from across the southeast, as well as from the Banks County arts depart ment, selling their creations. There will be also a giveaway for the Banks County art department. Each potter who attends donates one of their creations to the art department. The art department will be selling $1 tickets. News - 2-3A •Investigation continues at BCES — page 2A Op/Ed • ‘Motivation, quality teaching keys to success’ — page 4A Feature •Jackson County, N.C., a get-away spot - page 10A Other news •Social News — pages 5-6B •School News — page 7B •Public Safety — page 6A • Legals — page 8-9A • Church — page 4B • Obituaries — page 7A Antique Corvette stolen from local motel parking lot Florida resident in county for Super Chevy Show at Atlanta Dragway BY CHRIS BRIDGES A Florida man arrived in Banks County late last week with a prize antique Corvette, but some one decided to help themselves to the classic car valued at more than $100,000. Banks County sheriff Charles Chapman said his office received a call early Saturday morning from a guest at the Hampton Inn who went outside at approxi mately 7 a.m. and noticed his truck and the trailer which con tained the 1965 Corvette gone. The man was driving a 1983 Chevrolet truck and pulled an enclosed trailer with the Corvette inside. Everything together was val- ued at $121,000 although the Corvette accounted for the bulk of that amount. The man was able to give the license plate numbers and identification numbers for the missing vehicles. Alerts were put out immedi ately for the missing truck, trail er and Corvette, Chapman said, although nothing has material- ized at this point. The sheriff said theft of vehicles during the Super Chevy Show has become a problem in recent years. He noted several of the vehicles have been recovered. Anyone with any information concerning this theft is asked to contact the sheriff’s office at 706-677-2248. Maysville Downtown Development Authority sets goals Town park, clean-ups, recording history planned by city's new group BY JUSTIN POOLE A new citizens’ group in Maysville formed to guide the development of the downtown area listed the Veteran’s Park, community clean-up and record ing the history of the town as among issues to be addressed. The first meeting of the new Maysville Downtown Development Authority was held Monday and the goals for the group were among the items discussed. Other goals discussed by the DDA included seeking grants, stimulating pride in the com munity, contacting residents to encourage input in meetings, setting objectives to overlap with the city council, working with Banks and Jackson counties to garner better working relation ships, settling issues from the previous DDA and starting a website or other ways to increase community involvement. The Maysville City Council earlier approved six residents to serve on the DDA, includ ing Mary Hart, Kay Daniel, Catherine Daniels, Charles Floyd, Melody Stancil and Marilyn Sherry. Council mem ber Lyn Villyard will serve as the city council representative on the DDA. All the appointed members of the DDA were at the first meet- ing, as well as resident Kathy Nix. Mayor Jerry Baker addressed those in attendance, but did not stay for the meeting. “The DDA is very, very important to our town,” he said. “Without the DDA acting func tional like it should, our town is lacking greatness.” The next meeting of the DDA will be June 9 before the regular city council meeting. 40 BCMS students to retake CRCT BY CHRIS BRIDGES Banks County School System officials said Monday approximately 40 eighth grade students will have to retake portions of the Criterion- Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) in order to advance to the high school level. Summer school was sched uled to begin Monday and school officials were looking for most, if not all, of these students to be attending. These students will have to retake portions of the math and/or reading sections. An estimated 62 percent of the state’s eighth grade stu dents passed the math portion of the CRCT test while 80 percent of the eighth graders in Banks County successfully passed the test. Only preliminary data is cur rently available on the CRCT results from this past school year. Overall, BCMS had the highest passing rate among all area schools, local officials said last week. This includes match, reading, English/lan guage arts, science and social studies. Chamber plans political forum The Banks County Chamber of Commerce will hold a politi cal forum from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 19, at the Banks County High School auditorium. Health board to meet Tues. The Banks County Board of Health will hold its regular quarterly meeting on Tuesday, June 10, at 9 a.m., in the confer ence room of the health depart ment. The public is invited to attend.