|
mainstreetnews.com
Named
BEST WEBSITE
among
all
Georgia weekly newspapers
by the Georgia Press Association
June 29,
2001
|
mainstreetnews Home
Search Site
Area Sports
Business Directory
Classifieds
Place A Classified Ad
Banks Legal Page
Banks Opinion Page
Banks Obituary Page
MainStreet Photoshop
Archives
Subscribe
Send A Letter
List Your Business
Banks County Stats
Directions to Area Schools
Election Information
Sex Offender Registry
Go to Jackson County
Go to Madison County
OPINION
Phillip Sartain
Rochelle Beckstine
SPORTS
Directions to Area Schools
Banks County teams play state competition
The Banks County Recreation Department sent two softball teams
to South Georgia to participate in the state playoffs last week.
Neighborhood News...
JACKSON COUNTY
Schools gearing up for Aug. 2 start
More students, new principals and teachers and the opening of
a new school will all greet students as they return to classes
on Thursday, Aug. 2.
PD Theft Covered By City's Insurance
GBI Pegs Amount Missing At $227,000; Probe Almost CompleteIt
appears that former Commerce chief of police George Grimes stole
$227,000 from the city.
News from
MADISON COUNTY
Water relief
Blacks Creek residents seek Commerce water. Residents of the
Blacks Creek Church area began voting with their wallets Tuesday
night on whether to have water from Commerce piped into their
neighborhoods, where wells are no longer dependable.
Restaurant coming to Booger Hill Rd.
BOC approves rezoning for new eating establishment after lengthy
debate. GeorgeAnna House restaurant will open in an old Booger
Hill Road house near Hwy. 29 sometime in the fall. The owner
says it will be an upscale eating facility comparable to Social
Circle's Blue Willow or the Berryman House in Franklin County.
|
mainstreetnews.com
The Banks County News
Homer, Georgia
Telephone: (706) 367-5233
Fax: (706) 367-8056
NEWS / ADVERTISING
PRINTING
® Copyright 2001
MainStreet Newspapers, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright / Terms / Privacy
|
|
COUNTIAN
PARTICIPATES IN PILGRIMAGE
Marchers in the third annual Peace Pilgrimage
to Oak Ridge, Tenn., went through Banks County over the weekend.
The group included: Ginger Cash, Atlanta; Buddhist monk Brother
Gyoshu Utsumi, Atlanta; Buddhist monk Sister Denise Laffan, Atlanta;
Yano Setsuyo, Japan; Yoric Erb-Summers, Banks County; Marcus
Atkinson, Australia; and Atsuko Nogawa. They are shown passing
the cemetery across from Harmony Baptist Church on old Hwy. 441
north heading for Baldwin.
|
Sunday School Celebration
set for Saturday
The Sunday School Celebration, the longest-standing tradition
in Banks County, will be held Saturday at the Homer Town Square.
Beginning at 9:30 a.m., choirs from across the county are scheduled
to share their favorite hymns and gospel songs. The celebration
is the longest-standing, one-of-a-kind Christian Sunday School
gathering in the world. Gifts for the youngest, oldest, and furthest
traveler will be presented during the day-long event. There will
be a reading of the Biblical ABCs. Sherry Ward will be making
the memorial sign again this year.
This year the committee anticipates a crowd of 350 and has planned
to provide barbecued chicken for lunch. All people attending
are asked to bring covered dishes to share, chairs to sit on
and dress comfortably.boxboxbox
Schedule of events for
Sunday School Celebration
9:30 a.m. -- Opening address
9:40 a.m. -- Opening song and prayer
9:50 a.m. -- Homer United Methodist Church
10:10 a.m. -- Homer Presbyterian Church
10:30 a.m. -- Beaverdam Baptist Church
10:50 a.m. -- Community Men's Brotherhood
11:10 a.m. -- Homer Baptist Church
11:30 a.m. -- Homer Alliance Church
11:50 a.m. -- Mount Sinai Congregational Church
12:10 p.m. -- Homer First Baptist Church
12:30 p.m. -- Dyer Family
12:35 - 1:40 p.m. -- Lunch
1:40 p.m. -- Mount Carmel Baptist Church
2 p.m. -- Presentation of gifts to oldest attendee, youngest
attendee and attendee from furthest away; Biblical Alphabet
2:20 p.m. -- Hickory Flat United Methodist Church
2:40 p.m. -- Mount Bethel United Methodist
3 p.m. -- Charity Baptist Church
3:20 p.m. -- Rock Springs Baptist Church
Banks County may get
pilot program for recycling project
Banks County may be the site for a pilot program which will use
recycled rubber from tires for paving roads.
Banks County Board of Commissioners chairman Kenneth Brady reported
at a Friday morning work session that he and county administrative
officer Michael Fischer met with representatives from the Georgia
Department of Environmental Protection Division and the Department
of Transportation to discuss Banks County being the site of the
project. The area that is under consideration for the project
is 4.68 miles on West Ridgeway Road. The road would be the first
in the state to use crumb rubber for paving. The surface has
been heavily used in Florida, Arizona and California.
There are still obstacles in the way before approval of the project
is given, including there being no local supplier of the crumb
rubber asphalt. West Ridgeway has been chosen as an ideal spot
for the pilot project and negotiations and planning will continue,
Brady said.
The BOC also reported that it is about to begin the process of
going through 36 applications it has received to fill the county
clerk's position held by Avis Lewallen, who will retire in January.
To expedite the process, the commissioners will select some of
the applicants from the stack of resumes as finalists. These
applicants will be interviewed by Fischer and Lewallen, who will
narrow the candidates to three to be interviewed by the BOC.
The process should take two to three weeks, leaders said.
OTHER BUSINESS
In other business, the BOC:
·set aside $2,000 out of the 2001 budget's contingency
money for adult education. Adult education had mistakenly been
left out of the budget, but the commissioners said they want
the program to receive the same amount of money as last year.
The illiteracy rate in Banks County was 42 percent in 1990 and
150 Banks County citizens completed the literacy program last
year, it was reported.
·agreed to grant the Georgia Department of Natural Resources
ranger Winford Popphan the authority to begin planning a parent
and child archery hunt on the county farm.
·re-appointed Gary Forrester to represent the county on
the Georgia Mountain Community Services board for a two-year
term.
·reaffirmed that the hotel and motel tax for Banks County
is five percent. The commissioners did this retroactive to 1981
for the purpose of codification of the county ordinances.
The BOC also agreed to seek bids for the following:
·the building and subcontracting work for fire stations
planned for Maysville and Gillsville. The buildings will be 40'
X 70' with 12' walls and three bays.
·a 12-ton trailer for the recreation department to transport
its backhoe.
·a two-wheel-drive, long wheelbase pick-up for Kenny Crumley
to use in his work doing the maintenance on the county's building.
Crumley has been working out of his personal vehicle for five
years, leaders said.
Judge
rules in favor of Baldwin in tax case
A Superior Court judge has ruled in favor of the City of Baldwin
in a lawsuit filed by Banks County residents who have been fighting
paying the city's property taxes.
Baldwin city attorney David Syfan reported this week that he
had received a letter from Habersham County Judge Ernest Woods
stating that his judgment was in favor of Baldwin.
"Judge Woods states our ad valorem tax ordinance was legal
and the petitioners were not entitled to a refund," Syfan
said.
Syfan said he called Chan Caudell, the attorney for the Banks
County residents who have been fighting paying the city's property
taxes. Caudell did not know whether or not his clients would
appeal the ruling to the state supreme court, said Syfan.
"We have won the Banks County suit," said Syfan. "The
attorney general affirmed what we did, and now the judge has
too."
BJC Medical Center
Authority meeting canceled Monday
The July meeting of the BJC Medical Center Authority, which was
scheduled for this past Monday night, was canceled because not
enough members could attend the meeting.
The authority manages BJC Hospital and BJC Nursing Home. It meets
the fourth Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the hospital
conference room.
A spokesman said a combination of illnesses and people being
out of town resulted in the inability to achieve a quorum.
|
Go to Banks
Community Page
Public Meeting Dates
On-Going Services
Northeast Georgia
Business Directory
Auto
Dealers
Auto Parts &
Service
Churches
Clothing
Financial Institutions
Furniture
Garden &
Agriculture
Industry &
Manufacturing
Insurance
Medical
Personal Care
Services
Real Estate
Recreation
Restaurants
Retail Stores & Outlets
Services
Anti-nuclear pilgrimage
passes through Banks County
Supporters of an anti-nuclear movement passed through Banks County
last weekend on a 277-mile Peace Pilgrimage from the Martin Luther
King Center in Atlanta to the site of the Y-12 National Security
Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Two Buddhist monks, Brother Gyoshu Utsumi and Sister Denise Laffan,
of the Nipponzan Myohoji-Atlanta Dogo, have taken an oath to
make the pilgrimage every year until bomb production ceases at
the plant. The weapons component plant is part of a national
security complex of 250 buildings spread over 811 acres that
has been in operation since 1943.
The founder of the Nipponzan Myohoji order, The Most Venerable
Nichidatsu Fuji, says, "We shall walk in order to solve
the disastrous threat of nuclear weapons. We will look to the
heavens, tread upon the earth and pray. Eventually, this will
become a great power that moves the entire world."
The group that walked through Banks County was, indeed, an international
and national contingency. The group included Yano Setsuyo of
Japan, Marcus Atkinson from Australia and Annie Fitz from Corpus
Christie, Texas. Over the journey, the group will be joined by
others on the walk to Oak Ridge. Some will walk only a few miles,
some a day or two, like Yoric Erb-Summers and his brother, Sylvin.
However long they stay, Laffan says, doesn't matter.
"It's that they came out to show their support," he
said.
They will meet up with the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance
in Oak Ridge on August 4. There, hundreds of people will take
part in peaceful demonstrations on August 5 and 6 to protest
the funding and start-up of weapons refurbishment at the Y-12
Plant.
"The plant is engaged in systematically upgrading the US
nuclear arsenal," say OREPA leaders. The Department of Energy
has plans to build a "highly enriched uranium storage facility
and a chemical processing facility," they say. Total cost
for the project carries a $4 billion price tag, according to
the DOE's inspector general's audit.
Over the past 60 years, $5.5 trillion has been spent on nuclear
weapons and weapons research, they say.
More information on the demonstration and on the Y-12 Plant can
be found at www.stopthebombs.org.
|
