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www.MadisonJournalTODAY.com JUNE 11, 2009 Vol. 24 No. 23 • Publication No. 1074-987 • Danielsville, Madison County, Georgia 30633 • A Publication of MainStreet Newspapers Inc. • 30 Pages, 3 Sections Plus Supplements EDUCATION Initial report: Six of seven schools make AYP MCHS still shy in 3 categories By Ben Munro ben@mainstreetnews.com Preliminary reports show all five Madison County elementary schools and the middle school making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) marks. “While we’re going to continue to improve, the news is pretty good,” Madison County Schools Superintendent Mitch McGhee said. Madison County High School missed AYP for a fourth straight year, accord ing to the initial report. Last year, three schools — Danielsville Elementary School, the middle school and the high school — did not make AYP on the ini tial report. Danielsville Elementary and the middle school, however, reached AYP over the summer with CRCT retakes. McGhee called this year’s report a “marked improvement” over 2008. “The middle school and the elementary schools really did a great job,” he said. As for the high school, — See “AYP on 2A Puppy love Kelsey Belbey, 2, plants a kiss on shelter mascot “Sassy” a young German shepherd up for adoption at the Madison-Oglethorpe Animal Shelter’s fundraiser Saturday at Memorial Park in Danielsville. (Sassy was adopted by the end of the day.) See more photos on Page 10B. Margie Richards/Staff CREME Investigators seek the indentity of the driver of this vehicle. Anyone with information related to local bank robberies is urgedtocall 706-795-6202 or 706-542-7901. Hunt for bank robber continues By Zach Mitcham zach@mainstreetnews.com Local law officers hoped a photo of a car in the Merchants and Farmers parking lot in Ila May 22 would shed light on who robbed the bank that day, but that hasn’t happened, at least not yet. “We had one call on a car that looked simi lar but turned out not to be the right one,” said Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent — See ‘Robbery’ on 2A TAXES BUSINESS Assessment notices expected soon ... but computer software upgrade must come first By Zach Mitcham zach@mainstreetnews.com Madison County property assessments should hit mailboxes in the next few weeks. When exactly? Well that depends on the timing of a computer program upgrade. New county chief appraiser Robin Baker said Monday that his office is waiting for a mandated upgrade from WinGap, the primary appraisal software used in Georgia. The software upgrade was necessitated by the state’s passage of HB 233, which froze property values for two years. The updated sys tem will put a hold on inflationary increases. “Everything on our end is looking good right now,” said Baker. “We"re just in kind of a holding pattern, wait ing for an update to our system from WinGap. They’re telling us we’ll have it by the 15 th (of June) ... We’re ready to send notices as soon as we get our update from WinGap and get any inflationary value increases rolled back.” Madison County’s new chief appraiser, who began work April 13, said he aims to have the digest done in time to get tax bills out in 2009. He said he hasn’t had time to evaluate the overall uniformity of property values in the county. “Honestly, I haven’t really gotten into that,” said Baker. “We’ve been so busy trying to get everything caught up and notices out that I — See ‘Taxes’ on 2A INSIDE Index: News—1-3A Opinions—4-5A Crime— 6A Socials —8-1OA Sports— 1-2B Schools— 3B, 8B Obituaries— 4-5B Churches— 9B Legals— 4-1OC Contact: Phone: 706-795-2567 Fax: 706-795-2765 Mail: P.O. Box 658, Danielsville, GA, 30633 Web: MadisonJoumalTODAY.com Correction: The story on local barber Bill Wood’s service in Vietnam — particular in the battle for “Hamburger Hill,” contained an error. Hill was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division not the 82nd Airborne Division. City, country split Editor Zach Mitcham discusses differing attitudes on animal control in Madison County. — Page 4A Bank name change set for October Merchants and Farmers will become x First Citizens Bank and Trust Merchants and Farmers Bank has branches in Comer, Colbert, Danielsville (pictured), Hull, Ila and in Ingles on Hwy. 29.. By Zach Mitcham zach@mainstreetnews.com The new signs will go up in October. And Merchants and Farmers Bank will then be known as First Citizens Bank and Trust. First Citizens bought Merchants and Farmers last year, but the 74-year-old Madison County bank kept its name in the deal, though only on a tem porary basis. “When the transaction hap pened last summer, it was always the intention that the signs would change, but at that time it was not something that was going to be done right away,” said Merchants and Farmers President Johnny Terrell. “But now there is time for their (First Citizens) acquisitions team to get this done now. They’ve got some open space now and that is one of the reasons that it hap pened before anybody thought it would happen. But in my mind, it was always going to happen.” Angela English, corporate communications director for First Citizens Bankcorp Inc., said the name change was always understood as the next step in the acquisition. “We just didn’t quite know the timing of it,” said English. “So now we have agreed upon a time of mid-October for that conversion to occur.” English said the change will give Merchants’ customers greater access to banking ser vices offered by First Citizens’ 180 branches in Georgia and South Carolina. “It actually gives us the ability to link Franklin, Stephens and Hart counties and give custom ers a broader array of products that they may not have had with Merchants and Farmers,” said English. — See ‘Bank’ on 3A CITY NEWS Young candidates discuss bid for Hull council seat Hull City Hall FINANCES BOE to take input on budget By Ben Munro ben@mainstreetnews.com Regardless of who prevails in Hull’s city council race, the winner will likely become one of the state’s youngest elected officials. Twenty-year-old Randell A.C. King squares off against 25-year-old Brandon Fortson in a special election Tuesday for Hull’s vacant council post. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Hull Civic Center. “Yeah, it is kind of unusu al for younger people to be interested in such a position,” Fortson said. In Hull’s case, interest from any age group lately has been unusual. Hull tried to hold a special election in March for the seat, but no one qualified. The post has remained vacant since September. Both political newcomers — who aren’t much older than the minimum age requirement of 18 — say they’re running because no one else wanted the job. — See ‘Hull’ on 2A By Ben Munro ben@mainstreetnews.com The county school board will take public comments and vote on its proposed $39 million bud get June 22. The public hearing is slated from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., fol lowed by a vote on the finalized budget at 7 p.m. This year's budget calls for $39,155,135 in spending, down from last year’s $40.1 million spending plan. The Madison County Board of Education (BOE) approved the tentative budget figures Tuesday night. “I would point out that it’s a couple million dollars less than last year’s budget,” BOE chair- — See ‘BOE’ on 2A