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JANUARY 14, 2021
Madison County Journal
Merged with The Comer News and The Danielsville Monitor, 2006
MadisonJoumaITODAY.com
Vol. 37 No. 50 • Publication No. 1074-987 • Danielsville, Madison County, Georgia 30633 • A Publication of MainStreet Newspapers Inc. • 16 Pages, 2 Section Plus Supplements
$1.00
HEALTH
Drive-through
vaccine clinic
opened
People age 65 and older and
first responders — including
law enforcement — are now
eligible to receive the COVID-
19 vaccine.
(Previously, the vaccine was
only available to healthcare
workers and residents of long
term care facilities.)
In order to meet the
increased demand resulting
from expansion of the first tier,
the Northeast Health District
began an appointment-based,
combination COVID-19 test
ing and vaccination drive-
through at a new site, located
at 355 Oneta Street in Athens
Jan. 12. The Northeast Health
District had also operated
drive-through COVID-19 test
ing sites on Mitchell Bridge
Road in Athens and at the
Winterville Center for Com
munity and Culture. Both of
those sites are now closed.
Both testing and vaccination
will be provided free of charge
at the new site, but appoint
ments are required. To make
an appointment for either test
ing or vaccination, visit Pub-
licHealthAthens.com or call
706-340-0996. Priority will
be given to those who live or
work in the Northeast Health
District, which includes Bar-
row, Clarke, Elbert, Greene,
Jackson, Madison, Morgan,
Oconee, Oglethorpe and Wal
ton counties.
“The response has been
enormous — which is both
wonderful and overwhelming.
We are asking for the public’s
patience at this time,” noted
District Administrator Emily
Eisenman. “We have greatly
expanded our hotline both in
terms of staffing and provider
support, but we are receiv
ing thousands of calls a day,
and hold times are still long.
Anyone who is eligible and
submits a registration form
on our website will be called
within a few days to schedule
an appointment, which may
be a better option for many.”
W&A Engineering and
Southern Mills Partners
See “Vaccine” on 2A
Index:
News — 1-2A
Crime — 3A
Opinions — 4-5A
Obituaries — 6-8A
Sports — 1-2B
Classifieds — 3B
Legals — 4-7B
Social — 8B
Contact:
Phone: 706-367-5233
Web: MadisonJournal
TODAY.com
News submissions:
zach@
mainstreetnews.com
COUNTY GOV’T
Madison County BOC Chairman Todd Higdon is pictured in his office during his
first week on the job.
New BOC chairman talks
county issues in 2021 and beyond
By Zach Mitcham
zach@mainstreetnews.com
New county commission chairman Todd Higdon
opened his first days of the job walking through the
county government complex in the mornings,
checking in on the departments.
“I try to go around in the mornings and catch
most of them,” he said. "Hey, how are y’all doing,
any questions? You need to keep those communi
cation lines open.”
Higdon sat down Friday to talk about his out
look on 2021 and the future of Madison County.
He spoke of roads, the budget, personnel and pay,
county growth, the Chamber of Commerce, meet
ing policies and county facility needs. Just as his
predecessors have seen, the chairman’s job entails
a wide range of topics.
ROADS
The new chairman said he has a list of about 15
roads with severe maintenance issues that need to
be addressed.
“I like to look at them myself,” said Higdon.
“Because I may see something different as to what
may need to happen, bigger, wider, smaller, just so
they (the road department) know out of the gate
what my expectations are for the next four years.
Not that they don’t know how to do their job,
because they do. But everybody has a certain way
of doing things. And I would like for it to meet my
standard.”
Higdon pointed out that sometimes a road is
only partially maintained because certain property
owners won’t let the road department go onto their
right of way.
“I’ll be personally working with the property
owners on that so that we can get down these roads
and make it the best it can be for all,” he said. “I
think it's just a communication thing. It’s my job to
acquire those (rights of way).”
Higdon said he wants a right-of-way clearing
crew and a patch crew, adding that county road
work isn't going to stop at city limits.
‘Take for instance Carlton,” he said. “A small
city doesn't have any maintenance, no way to
keep side streets cut back. What I proposed was
we’ll take a Bushhog and go through there and
cut one time and come behind it with a sidearm.
You take that same Bushhog and come behind
that sidearm to cut up the debris. It's going to be
about a five-man crew. Once you open everything
up you can see what damage is below. Right now,
you can’t see it because the right of ways haven't
been cut back."
He also said county residents will see more grav
el poured on dirt roads than before.
“We’re probably going to spread more gravel in
this first year than they’ve spread in any five com
bined,” he said. “We have a number of dirt roads
that have been maintained and they have really
good bases under them, but now we need to make
the finished product.”
PERSONNEL OVERSIGHT
Prior to Higdon taking office, the county com
missioners voted to remove the chairman’s power
to hire and fire personnel. The chairman has the
authority to reprimand employees but the board
controls hiring and firing decisions.
Higdon said he is OK with this setup.
‘J don’t have a problem with the board making
the decisions on the hiring and firing as long as
I advise them,” he said. “I take the resumes and
look over them good with the department heads.
I don't mind being a recommending body. And
the firing, as long as I bring a good case and the
department head has a good written record of why
this person should be terminated, I’m fine with the
board doing that also. If nothing else, it made my
See “Chairman” on 2A
COVID-19
NOV. 12
COVID MAP
COVID red
DPH map shows virus
surging across the state
Madison County COVID-19 cases have surged,
along with the rest of Georgia, in recent weeks.
According to figures from the Georgia Depart
ment of Public Health, Madison County had 208
new COVID-19 cases between Jan. 5 and Jan. 12,
with two deaths and seven new hospitalizations
reported over the week. The county’s case rate over
the past two weeks is 1,316 cases per 100,000 peo
ple, which makes it one of the highest in Georgia.
The DPH reports 1,941 cases of COVID-19 in
Madison County since the pandemic began, with
19 confirmed deaths, seven probable deaths and
105 hospitalizations.
JAN. 12
COVID MAP
SCHOOLS
Masks
required
In-person instruction, scheduled to begin
Jan. 19, but with masks in class
By Zach Mitcham
zach @ mainstreetnews.com
Madison County students are scheduled — as of
Tuesday night — to return to in-person instruction Jan.
19. Meanwhile, the county school board agreed Tuesday
to require masks in classrooms when social distancing is
not possible.
The board approved the measure 5-0, agreeing that the
requirement will be temporary, with the mle being revis
ited as the community COVID-19 situation improves.
Board members voiced concern about the rising case
numbers and the increasing health toll on people in the
community, as well as the strain on local hospitals.
“We’re just in a different time,” said school board chair
man Robert Hooper. “It’s hitting a lot closer to us. And I
think we need to respond to if”
School board members said they also want to offer
students breaks from masks in the classroom. Superin
tendent Michael Williams said that for a 50-minute class,
that might include a 10-minute break and 20 minutes
of break time for a 90-minute class. The logistics of the
See “BOE” on 2A
COURT
In the
force
courts: Did poultry price-fixing scheme
Madison Co. farmers out of business?
By Zach Mitcham
zach@mainstreetnews.com
Four former Madison County poultry produc
ers, who sued Pilgrim’s Pride claiming they were
wrongfully forced out of business, are seeking tes
timony from a Pilgrim’s Pride executive, but must
wait as criminal charges against the company’s two
former chief executive officers play out in court.
David P. Echols, Stanley L. Dove, along with
James and Teresa Dove of Trinity Farm of Madison
County are suing Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation in the
United States District Court for the Middle District
of Georgia Athens Division.
The ongoing suit, filed in July 2018, alleges that
Pilgrim’s Pride initiated a plan in 2017 “to force out
a number of older and smaller family farmers who
grew chickens for Pilgrims’ Athens facility.”
But the civil suit from Madison County farmers
is far from the only legal entanglement for the big-
time poultry company.
Chick-fil-A recently sued more than a dozen
poultry producers, including Pilgrim's Pride, accus
ing the companies of violating antitrust law by
colluding to artificially inflate prices after the chain
announced in 2014 that it planned to serve antibi
otic-free broiler chicken within the next five years.
Pilgrim’s Pride announced in October that it
would pay more than $110 million to settle chicken
price-fixing charges in a plea agreement with the
US Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. Two
former Pilgrim’s Pride CEOs — Jayson Penn and
Bill Lovette — face federal charges related to the
scheme.
Meanwhile, Madison County producers allege in
their suit that Pilgrim’s Pride breached their contract
to them by using Chick-fil-A’s no-antibiotic policy
as a guise for requiring small farmers to commit to
expensive upgrades they couldn’t make.
“Pilgrim’s made these demands for the purpose
of pushing the growers out of the chicken busi
ness,” wrote attorney Joel McKie in the plaintiff’s
complaint.
Pilgrim’s Pride countered that the plaintiffs made
a business decision not to upgrade and that Pilgrim’s
Pride could not be held liable for that decision.
“Plaintiffs' own expert, Dr. John McKissick,
shows plaintiffs would have profited if only they
had upgraded their poultry houses to AAA speci
fications and continued growing chickens in accor
dance with the option Pilgrim's gave them,” wrote
Pilgrim’s Pride attorney Clayton E. Bailey. “And
because plaintiffs would have profited from com
plying with Pilgrim’s upgrade demand, they cannot
prove they were injured by the demand. Instead, to
the extent plaintiffs were injured, that injury was
caused by their own respective decisions not to
upgrade their poultry houses and/or to inform Pil
grim's they no longer wanted to continue growing
poultry.”
Recent filings in the case show that the plaintiffs
seek to tie their situation to the bigger price-fixing
situation. Did the company need to cut farmers and
production in order to maintain artificially high
prices? The plaintiffs seek to shed light on that
with testimony from Pilgrim's Justin Gay, who, in
an August deposition, repeatedly invoked the Fifth
Amendment, which allows an individual to refuse
to answer official questions where the answer
might incriminate him or her in future criminal
proceedings.
“Gay holds unique, relevant information that
plaintiffs cannot obtain elsewhere,” wrote McKie
in court filings. “Gay was Pilgrim’s primary Chick-
fil-A contact. And he attended multiple high-level
meetings with Chick-fil-A during which Pilgrim’s
and Chick-fil-A discussed, among other things,
Pilgrim’s conversion to NAE (antibiotic free) pro
duction and NAE chicken pricing.”
The attorney said Pilgrim’s plea agreement with
the Department of Justice is an admission of a
price-fixing scheme.
“PPC (Pilgrim’s Pride) appears prepared to admit
to a price-fixing scheme with at least one customer
as part of plea agreement,” wrote McKie. “Second,
as to pricing, an inference can be drawn from Justin
Gay’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment.”
But the Department of Justice recently took the
unusual step of blocking Gay’s testimony while the
criminal proceedings are ongoing, a request granted
by the court.
The Department of Justice filing states that:
“The government’s grand-jury investigation into
the broilers chicken industry has produced charges
See “Lawsuit” on 2A
