The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current, September 08, 2008, Image 1

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Newspaper Page TextJSlflND€R_ • Dave Barry -10 • Editorial Back Talk -16 • Health - 7 • Movie Review The Traitor -11 • Pew News -14 Surfin’ the News Published by Permar Publications • P.O. Box 20539 • St. Simons Island, Ga. 31522 • 912-265-9654 • ssislander@bellsouth.net September 8, 2008 Established 1972 Vol 36 Issue 36 Downtown upgrade The architectural rendering of the proposed renovation of 1404 and 1406 Newcastle Street in downtown Brunswick, which was approved by the City Commission last month. The com mission approved a height variance allowing the owner to increase the building height by 9 feet over the 60 ft. maximum. Rendering by W.G. Pitts Architecture New owner puts new face on old downtown building By Matthew J. Permar Part 1 St. Simons Tree Ordinance By Don Gardner Glynn UGA Extension Agent Editor's Note: The Glynn County Tree Advisory Board has developed a draft copy of a proposed tree ordinance for St. Simons Island. The draft ordinance is cur rently being reviewed by Glynn County's St. Simons Island and Mainland Planning Com missions. Both groups will hold public hearings on the ordinance before forwarding it to the County Commission for final review. The county commission will also hold a public hearing on the document before taking action. Glynn County University of Georgia Extension Agent Dr. Don Gardner, who worked with the Tree Board on the ordinance, has written a series of articles explaining various aspects of the ordinance. This week is Part One and covers trees on county ease ments versus those on private property. Trees - Private vs. Public When a hue and cry arises in Glynn Comity over trees, it usually starts on Saint Simons and wafts westerly over the Frederica River. This time it was a little dif ferent because the complaints came from west of 1-95. I thought those highlanders did not care about trees? Recently a developer caused a bit of a ruckus when he cut down a number of oak trees on the old Turkey Farm property off of Hwy. 341. I got the usual calls: folks who cannot believe the County would let someone cut down those beautiful oak trees. This might be a good time to look at some history and facts before the aspersions get cast much farther. Now, I am not an attor ney, and none of what follows should be construed in any way to be legal advice, but there is misunderstanding about who has the right and responsibility to do what. So Turn to Page 6 SSI Tree Ordinance School system Out-of-Zone rule changes considered The Islander Newspaper "Out of Zone is out of con trol," said Glynn County School Superintendent Dr. Michael Bull. Dr. Bull presented a propos al for changes to the system's out-of-zone rules at the Board of Education Facilities meet ing on Tuesday, September 2. The reasons he presented the proposal at the facilities committee meeting is because in some cases out of zone stu dents have caused the system to need additional classrooms, which are facilities related, and to hire additional teach ers. The system will hire 4.5 additional teachers which is caused in part by out of zone students. Dr. Bull stressed that the changes are only in the pro posal stage; that he welcomes further input from BOE mem bers. Turn to Page 5 Out-of-Zone proposal GPTV to air Permar film on Vince Dooley By Matthew J. Permar Pam's and my brother, Andy Permar, was a cinematogra pher and taught film at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism. Andy was also an indepen dent film maker having pro duced and directed documen taries on former Georgia gov ernors Carl Sanders and Zell Miller, along with an award winning film about 'Hills and Dales,' the home of Fuller E. Callaway in La Grange, Geor gia, all of which aired on Geor gia Public Television. When he lost his battle with cancer on November 6 of last year, he was working on and almost finished with perhaps his crowning achievement, a documentary on the life of legendary University of Geor gia football coach and athletic director Vince Dooley. After 11 months of hard Turn to Page 2 Dooley documentary Both the Brunswick City Commission and the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) have high hopes for the contin ued revitalization of downtown Brunswick with a proposed major building renovation at 1404 and 1406 Newcastle St. The building, which was most recently the Level 3 night club, was purchased from the previous owner by the DDA and then resold to Moshe ‘Mike’ Waanounou, a local business man who owns several busi nesses on St. Simons Island. Originally a two-story build ing, J.C. Penny Co. bought the building in the 1940’s and turned it into a three-story building without increasing the overall height. J.C. Penny operated their department store there for a number of years before moving to a new and larger building at the other end of Newcastle St. on the site of the old Oglethorpe Hotel. Since sometime in the 1980’s the building has been home to a number of night clubs includ ing The Hop, The Deep, Turtle River Beach Club, Level 3 and others. Waanounou’s plan is restore the original two floors and add three more floors making it a five story building. The bottom floor will be a restaurant, the second and third floors will be offices and the fourth and fifth floors will be residential. In order to do this, Waa nounou needed to be able to increase the building height to 69 ft., which is 9 ft. higher than the city’s zoning ordinance Turn to Page 5 City height variance

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The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current, September 08, 2008, Image 1