Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

AUGUST 17, 2023 Merged with The Comer News and The Daniclsvillc Monitor, 2006 MadisonJoumalTODAY.com Vol. 40 No. 28* Publication No. 1074-987* Danielsville, Madison County, Georgia 30633 • A Publication of MainStreet Newspapers Inc. *20 Pages, 2 Sections Plus Supplements $1.00 BOE ILA BOE rolls back millage rate to 15.25 mills By Hannah Barron hannah@mainstreetnews. com On Aug. 10, the Madison Board of Education voted to roll back its millage rate to 15.25 mills, a decrease from the current 15.49 mills. The new rate is the low est since 2000, board chair man Robert Hooper said. The board voted for the new millage rate 4-1, with District 2 board member Dan Lampe casting the dis senting vote. Lampe said in follow-up that the full rollback rate was determined to be 13.64 mills, which was needed to bring in the budgeted amount of roughly $16.4 million from property tax es. He said that the new millage rate will bring in approximately $2 mil lion above the budgeted amount. “The budget in my opin ion was already inflated,” he added about his vote against the new rate. “[In] 2017-2021, our budget went from roughly $12 million to $13 million, See Millage, page 2A INSIDE Football preview 1-8B Index News — 1-3A Opinions — 4A Crime — 6A Socials — 5A and 7A Schools — 7A Churches — 5A Obituaries — 8-9A Sports — 1-8B Classifieds — 10A Legals —11A Contact Phone: 706-367-5233 Email: hannah@mainstreet news, com Web: MadisonJoumalTODAY.com MAILING LABEL PROJECT: Ila looking to replace its city hall By Alison Smith was constructed in 1975, have been more modem structure. person, the new building would be Progress in Ila may include a unsuccessful. The estimates to re- City officials recently approved an updated and modest replacement new city hall during the next year, place the roof are expensive enough the advertisement for hiring an ar- of the current one. The spokesper- Repeated attempts to repair the that city officials are looking to chitect that would help in designing son said the new building would be roof of the current building, which replace the entire building with a the building. According to a spokes- S ee Ila, page 2A ANIMAL SHELTER MOAS at ‘max capacity 5 By Hannah Barron hannah@mainstreetnews. com If you have seen the Madison Oglethorpe Ani mal Shelter’s social media pages recently, “we are out of space” and “we are overflowing” seem to be the common theme. Since MOAS is a non profit open-intake shelter, it tends to ran full, but late ly the shelter has seen a definite uptick in numbers. “Our dog runs are full, with many at double occu pancy, and our puppy pits and cat cages are full as well,” director Erica Hen drix says. “Our wonderful foster homes are also full and we are constantly re cruiting more. One way to look at trends is to compare our year-to-date numbers. For example, in 2022, we had 1,300 animals surren dered to us between Janu ary and the end of July, but this year it was 1,493 in this same period, which is almost a 15% increase.” “Last month, we had one day where we had 31 pup pies surrendered in a span of two hours,” she contin ues. “We sent 42 dogs to an adoption event last May, and before our transport team even arrived at the event, all the runs we had just opened were full again with dogs. We have not had one empty ran for more than eight hours in the past 15 months.” The typical animals seen include injured ones and several who have been starved or have skin issues due to flea/mite infesta tions. These animals end up dumped in people’s drive ways or near their homes in isolated country loca tions and are then brought into the shelter. Others are surrendered because peo ple can’t afford to care for them or are losing their homes and can’t take pets with them. “It has been very sad to witness,” Hendrix says. “People are abandoning their pets in record numbers these past few months.” She encourages the use of multiple shelter programs put in place to help the stray animal population, save ani mals and provide better care for family pets — all part of the shelter’s mission. One example is the trap-neuter-retum (TNR) program where people can trap feral cats humanely and MOAS will spay/neuter and vaccinate the cats at no charge as long as they can be safely returned or relocated elsewhere. Those interested in learning more about TNR can visit https://www.moas- pets.com/feral-animals. MOAS has received many grants for its Spay it Forward program as well, which enables them to spay/ neuter the community’s pets for free. The program and application can be found at https://www.moaspets.com/ spayitforward. “What I really want our community to know is that spaying or neutering their pets not only prevents un wanted babies but also helps decrease the spread of disease,” Hendrix adds. “I cannot tell you how many people bring in litters of puppies or kittens that are sick.” Other services offered to provide better care include a community pet food bank to help those who can’t afford pet food, monthly low-cost vaccine clinics and low-cost heartworm treatment. ADOPTIONS AND VOLUNTEERING MOAS has been running several adoption specials since it’s still at “max ca pacity.” But most recently Roddy Sturdivant, a donor and supporter, offered to pay for all adoption fees for animals adopted through Sept. 8. One dog searching for her “furever home” is Canella, a nearly three- year-old Labrador mix who arrived at the shelter in February with an older dog named Canello. Both were owner-sur rendered and spent time in foster care before coming back to the shelter. Canel lo has since been adopted; Canella was adopted but returned to the shelter at no fault of her own. Canella is known as the “most adorable and af fectionate” pup and loves every human. She is also well-behaved, dog-friend ly, walks great on a leash and does well with cats and small critters. She is spayed and up to date on all her vaccines and heart- worm prevention. Available animals like Canella can be viewed on the shelter’s website at https ://www.moaspets. com/adoptionapp, or vis ited in person Sunday — Tuesday noon to 4 p.m. and Wednesday to Satur day noon to 5 p.m. Can’t adopt? There are many options to help the shelter’s animals whether it be donating necessary supplies, or volunteering. Volunteering can include laundry and other chores, socializing the animals, or taking photos so they can be added to animals’ adop tion profiles. “We love community involvement and are al ways looking for more volunteers,” Hendrix says. “Folks can stop by anytime the gate is open to fill out a volunteer form and get started helping.” Learn more about how to help animals find their furever homes at https:// www.moaspets.com/ under the “Ways to Help” tab. CARLTON Carlton takes up urgent matters By Alison Smith Two urgent matters moved forward last Thurs day with a special called meeting by the Carlton City Council. Stormwater run-off on Ninth St. is creating pos sible septic and foundation issues for up to three citi zens and the council voted to seek emergency funds from the Georgia Environ mental Finance Authority (GEFA). By declaring the issue an emergency, the city can access loans with lower interest rates than reg ular infrastructure projects. “Heavy rains we’ve had have taken a toll on these properties and it continues to happen again and again,” Mayor Cynthia Hobbs told the council before the vote. The council will apply for up to a $39,000 loan with the authority with terms at 1.9% for 20 years. City councilwoman Amanda Willis, who has headed the research into the loan, told the council that another rea- See Carlton, page 2A 911 911 dispatchers weather the storm By Hannah Barron hannah@mainstreetnews. com On July 13, a storm hit Madison County and dam aged property, trees and power lines in its wake. The summer shower’s chaos ensued, but like always, 911 dispatchers weathered the storm to an swer calls. “We had an extra dis patcher come in to help and in a 2.5-hour period we fielded more than 115 calls for service, which is more than an average entire day’s call volume with four dispatchers,” 911 director Brenan Baird said. “They handled the workload bril liantly, prioritizing calls and routing deputies, fire men, EMS, power compa nies, the road department, DOT and others to the most pressing then least pressing incidents, getting help to the person and locations that needed it.” With storms being com mon this time of year, that storm response has been a frequent occurrence in the daily lives of those working at the 911 center. Other common incidents dispatchers hear about in clude wrecks on Hwy. 72 with multiple vehicles in volved. “We will get five to ten calls and send five to six agencies,” Baird says. “That means the dispatchers (three at the most) will field five to ten phone calls while talking on three to four ra dio channels while paging the entities to go help all in a minute-and-a-half. Not many people can do that, even fewer can do it well.” Those and other emergen- See 911, page 2A DANIELSVILLE Danielsville approves repairs for Strickland well By Alison Smith A year is long enough. That’s what the Georgia Environmental Protection Division has told the City of Danielsville about its Strickland well. The city council vot ed Monday to approve $38,000 in ARPA funds to repair the well and bring it back online to produce potable water. The pump in the well has been in disre pair since last year and the EPD told the city it need ed to abandon the well and cap it or repair it and begin submitting water samples again. Mayor Michael Wide- man told the council that he thought the better invest ment in infrastructure was to repair the well rather than looking at the risks involved in prospecting for a new well location, which he said might cost up to $200,000. Records indicate the Strick land well is at least 700 feet deep and produces at least 15 gallons per minute be fore the pump replacement. “With the demand keeps going up, we’re best suited to put [the Strickland well] back online,” the mayor told the council. Agreeing, the council voted to have Fortson Well replace the outdated pump and also install a new alarm system, required by the state for its standards. OTHER BUSINESS In other business, the council: See D’ville, page 2A o