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PACE 2A THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1 3, 2008 Development Authority to purchase Geographic Information System (GIS) CONSIDERS GIS MAPPING The Banks County Development Authority met with Faith Jones, Georgia Mountains Regional Develop ment Center, on Monday to discuss a Geographic Information System (GIS) for Banks County. Shown (L to R) are: Banks County Board of Commission Chairman Gene Hart, DA members Stan Stewart, Gram Hodgkins and Scott Ledford, Jones, DA chairman Wayne Abernathy, Banks County Admin istrative Officer Angela Sheppard, DA members Jack Banks and Bill Griffin and clerk Erin Decker. Photo by Sharon Hogan '■ . <*"• : Vv i A CHOCOLATE FAIR PARTICIPANTS GET READY Participants in the Banks County Convention and Visitors Bureau’s annual Chocolate Fair held on Monday, Nov. 10, are shown getting their dishes ready for the judges. This year there were 25-plus entries into the event. Photo by Sharon Hogan Chocolate Fair winners announced CHOCOLATE FAIR WINNERS Winners from the Banks County Convention and Visitors Bureau Chocolate Fair were: (front row, L-R) Sawyer Pace and Marshal Pace; and (back, L-R) Sandra Campbell, Jenny Murphy and Michelle Madden. BY SHARON HOGAN The Banks County Develop ment Authority approved spend ing $113,733 for a Geographic Information System (GIS) for the county at the meeting on Monday, Nov. 10. DA member Jack Banks made the motion to take the funds out of the Industrial De velopment Authority to pay for the “orthophotography and LiDAR” mapping system for Banks County. Faith D. Jones, informa tion services director, Georgia Mountains Regional Develop ment Center, said she is work ing to get nine of the 13 counties in District 3 to commit to this system. Jones said the GMRDC has applied for several grants to help with the $1.18 million total cost for the project. Any grant money that is received will be applied to the total and this will reduce the individual cost for each county, Jones said. We should know about the grants in January or February, 2009,” Jones said. Banks County Administra tive Officer Angela Sheppard said, “We have a lot of demand for this. “We've had real estate agents and developers to ask for this.” Jones said some of the needs across the region for this map ping service are: Current acces sible orthophotography (GPS rectified), accurate topography data, oblique photography and accessibility of neighboring ju risdictions data for analysis pur poses. Jones said the orthopho tography needs to be acquired at least every three years. Other layers of data can be added for access such as: Par cels, transportation, utility infra structure (water, gas, sewer and electric), service delivery areas, tourism and recreation sites, community facilities, natural resources, historic resources and census information, Jones added. LiDAR is Light Detection and Ranging, a remote sensing system used to collect topo graphic data. LiDAR data can be used for: Elevation and con tours, calculation of slope, best buildable areas, floodplain map ping, water, sewer and stormwa ter projects/placement, planning and designing of transportation and 3-D modeling and analysis and visualization of line-of-sight studies and view shed studies. Jones said if the fly-over is done in January or February, 2009, after word on the grants is received, the county should receive the data in November, 2009. DA member Stan Stewart said, “I've seen this system work. It is one of the most ef ficient economic development tools out there.” The county will charge a fee for this and any funds generated will be kept in a separate fund for updates to keep this as an on going project, Sheppard said. Board of Commission Chair man Gene Hart said, “I don’t see why we can’t do this, it would be a matter of bookkeeping.” Banks said the county would need some restrictions or every body will be trying to access the information. The Banks County Board of Commissioners voted in sup port of this action at its monthly meeting on Tuesday night. OTHER BUSINESS In other business at the de velopment authority meeting on Monday morning, Sheppard said she attended a meeting with economic development directors in Atlanta recently and a discus sion was held on the tier structure for each county. Sheppard said having Banks County in a Tier 4 category is not an accurate be trayal. She asked the Department of Community Affairs to look at some other factors in determin ing the tier for each county. Cur rently, poverty, unemployment and median income are the fac tors used in determining the tier. The smaller the tier, the larger the tax credit for employers. The next regularly scheduled DA meeting is set for 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 17, at the Banks County Courthouse An nex Building. Winners from the Banks County Convention and Visi tors Bureau Chocolate Fair have been announced. The “Chocoholics Choice” award winner was Michelle Madden with her Earthquake Cake. The “Most Creative Choco late Creation” award winner was Sandra Campbell with her Banana Split Pudding Cake. The “Best Overall Chocolate” award winner was also Sandra Campbell with her Dreamy Chocolate Mousse Cake. There were two new catego ries for this year’s competition - a “Best Sugar Free Choco late” category and a “Best Par ent/Child Chocolate Team” cat egory. The “Best Sugar Free Choco late” award winner was Jenny Murphy with her Sugar Free Snicker Pie. The “Best Parent/Child Team Chocolate” award winners were Shannon Pace and Sawyer Pace with their Chocolate Cheese Ball. Everyone at the fair got to vote on their favorite choco late entry for the winner of the “People’s Choice Award.” The award went to the parent/child team of Shannon Pace and Mar shal Pace with their Cheesecake Surprise Pops. BJC Medical Center will no longer offer baby deliveries after Dec. 9 BY MARK BEARDSLEY Trying to shave its operating deficit, BJC Medical Center is closing its labor and delivery services, leaving three doctors scrambling to make alternative arrangements for patients. “December 9 is the absolute last day we will deliver a baby,” announced CEO Jim Yarbor ough. The cutback includes closing Commerce Women's Clinic, a hospital-owned OB practice run by Dr. David Sauls, whose contract with BJC expires Dec. 9. The move will also bring to an end the delivery of babies by doctors Bob Marshbum and Beth Sullivan. The move hits Sauls hardest. He's been working to get 14 pa tients scheduled for delivery into other facilities in Gainesville and Athens. “It was always more of a community service here,” Sauls acknowledged. “It never was a profitable office for providing these services.” Sauls said he'd realized that the long-term outlook for provid ing OB services was at risk, but he'd figured to get more notice if and when the service was termi nated. “I had hoped that if this were to happen, we would have many months to work things out in stead of one month,” he said. Sauls, who works a couple of shifts in the emergency room, said he may do more of that kind of work. He's ruled out starting a new OB/GYN practice in an other location, due to the cost. Ridgeway Family Practice and Medical Center Family Practice are also affected. Dr. Beth Sullivan said she’s been busy reassuring OB pa tients that Ridgeway Family Practice can continue to provide OB care. She's applied for emer gency privileges at Athens Re gional Medical Center. OB care accounts to 30 percent of her revenue, she noted. “We are asking patients that when they come in for an ap pointment, we will discuss what their options are,” said Sullivan. She reported 19 active OB pa tients. Dr. Bob Marshbum of Medi cal Center Family Practice un derstands the problem. “It's tough to keep an OB wing open with the nurses and high-tech equipment if you’re not delivering a volume of babies that justifies it,” he said. Marshbum expects to deliver two more babies before the unit closes; he has 10 other patients he will refer to other providers for delivery. “It's kind of sad,” he said. “I’ll miss that part of my practice. Quitting obstetrics will also af fect his practice's future patient mix, Marshbum predicted. “Prior to Hoyt Duncan pass ing, I had patients from 24 hours old to 105 years old.” Marshbum will continue to see pediatric patients, but since he will no longer deliver babies, he expects the pediatric component of the practice to grow smaller. Both Marshbum and Sauls also predicted that closing the OB service at BJC will lead to cases where women show up at the emergency room in labor. “You can have the EMS divert, but you're always going to have somebody who just drives up in labor,” Sauls said. “You’re bound by laws. You can try to transfer them, but if you can’t find a hos pital to accept them, you have to deal with it here.” Yarborough said closing the OB unit could trim the hospital’s deficit by $500,000 to $750,000, Yarborough explained. "We can no longer sustain OB services based on reimburse ments,” said Yarborough, who added that the hospital would have to deliver 300 babies a year - with an appropriate Medicaid mix - to break even. Last year it delivered 66. The move eliminates 12 po sitions at the hospital, but Yar borough speculated that some of those employees will be ab sorbed into other positions where vacancies exist. BJC was struggling financial ly before the current economic slump hit. It lost its general sur geon and has seen its percentage of indigent care and charity care cases rise as the economy wors ened. “We’re having to cut costs,” said the CEO. “We can only cut so much staff until we cut ser vices. We’ve had to cut a service that is not self-supporting.” BJC will continue to do OB ultrasounds and lab work, and OB patients will still be able to go to BJC for some outpatient services, Yarborough said. Figures for the most recent fis cal year are still up in the air, so it is unclear just how far in the red the facility is. The yet-to-be resolved audit issue is how much of the medical center’s accounts receivable are actually collect ible, and Yarborough said there is a spread of about $1 million between what the auditor says and what the medical center’s consultant believes. The dispute led to the resignation recently of the medical center’s chief finan cial officer. Yarborough said the facility hopes to have that number re solved by next week. ...Voters for your support of my campaign for Commission Chairman. There will be an open door policy to everyone with concerns. Again, Thank You! Jf/fc/tori/ Qfia/tori/ www.commercechrvslerdodgeieep.com COMMERCE CHRYSLER DODGE JEEP (706) 335-2800 NO HASSLE! NO HAGGLE! ' ALL REMAINING 2008 CHRYSLER DODGE ^ AND JEEP VEHICLES IN STOCK ONLY