PAGE 2-A
HOGANSVILLE HOME NEWS -THURSDAY, SEPT. 29, 2005
BLESSED BROOM? - Ron Clemmer shows off his ability at crafting hand-made
brooms, which he'll be displaying during the upcoming Hummingbird Festival, Oct.
15-16. Clemmer is shown here finishing one of his hand made hearth brooms.
Clemmer along with potter John Roller, Hogansville's own Francis Robinson, butter
churner in period custom, and many paint and sculpture artists will be demonstrating
theire techniques as well as their creations at the 8th annual Hogansville Hummingbird
Festival October 15-16.
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Tree Seedling Orders Taken
The Georgia Forestry Commission is
accepting orders for the upcoming 2005-2006
tree planting season this fall and winter.
Seedling order forms and a current price
list can be downloaded from the website
www.gfcstate.ga.us or they can be obtained
from any Georgia Forestry Commission
Office statewide.
Hopefully, placing oi'ders early will
ensure that you get what you need and want.
Many species will sell out quickly..
You can schedule and reserve the tree
planters for your particular planting date by
contacting your nearest Georgia Forestry
Commission County Unit
Call or visit your local Georgia Forestry
Commission Office at 845-4122 or 675-3568.
Elections for Council No Cakewalk
Continued From Page 1A
clear exactly why he would
prefer Stankiewicz: It's time
for more major business
experience among the city's
leadership, he said. There are
no problems between him and
Martin, Leidner emphasized.
The city just needs more
council members experi-
enced in dealing with major
business operations, prima-
rily because Hogansville
needs more commercial and
industrial development in
addition to the flurry of res-
idential development already
under way in the city.
"We desperately need
folks with more business
expertise in City Hall," he
said.
.... The world will be com-
ing here offering us all sorts
of 'deals,' said Standkiewicz,
"and we have to be able to dis-
tinguish between the good
ones, the not so good and the
downright lousy ones. As a
CFO, taking deals apart to see
how they work financially,
was my specialty, so I can
help there."
BUT THE RACE for
Place 2 on the City Council
will also be interesting:
Incumbent Bobby Joe
Frazier has been one of the
city's biggest boosters of
development and has gener-
ally sided with Mayor Wilson
St. Clair, Leidner and
Councilman Thomas Pike on
controversial issues- such as
development.
Yet now he faces two for-
mer council members -
Peggy Harris and Larry
Dorrough, in addition to Joel
Van Byars, who is making his
first bid for public office in
Hogansville.
Van Byars and his wife
Jackie own a Main Street auc-
tion house, a bed and break-
fast and a thrift shop, all in
the downtown area.
Harris and Dorrough
may be linked in some minds
to former administrations
that may raise questions
about how they would fit'with
incumbents who are general-
ly considered •progressive on
development and social
issues - such as reducing util-
ity rates and holding proper-
ty taxes in check.
That of course will
depend on the public debate,
which has yet to get under
way here.
VAN BYARS, has been
here for about 13 years and
he and his wife Jackie are
considered major boosters of
development and rejuvena-
tion of the downtown shop-
ping district.
Van Byars was on the
verge of qualifying for
mayor, but backed out after
Clemmer qualified for that
race.
Van Byars didn't want to
get into what might be a
white-black race against
Jackson, and may have
backed out of that race after
learning that Clemmer at
least'more or less had the
blessing of the local power
structure in the mayor's race,
Even so, Van Byars this
week made it clear: He's seri-
ous about wanting to serve
on the City Council.
He's had his own run-ins
with City Hall, but says he's
running to help lead the town
forward, and not against any-
body.
He is former long-time
Phenix City, Ala., police offi-
cer and has held hlgh-level
positions in security opera-
tions in major retail estab-
lishments such as Circuit in
Atlanta, where he oversaw an
operation that spanned the
Southeast and west as far.
west as Texas.
He and Jackie, who've '' 4."
been' married 26 years and
have four children, speak * *"
almost as one about what
Hogansville needs:
Downtown shopping that
can hold browsers and shop-
pers for entire afternoons; a
variety of restaurants and
food in central business shop s
and attractions that will hold
visitors - hopefully families
- overnight.
And- as just about every-
body agrees - attracting new
shops to the empty store
fronts on Main Street - and
keeping them here.Just how
to do that may be a subject
for.the public debate that is
bound to come as election day.
moves closer.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Last
week we incorrectly identi-
fied Joel Van Byars, who is
a candidate for Post 2 on the
HogansviUe City Council. We
wrongly said he was his own
son - which of course would"
hare been impossible.
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Troup County Locations
Hogansville Office: 111 High Street * LaGrange Main Office: 101 North Greenwood Street
LaFayette Parkway Office: 1417 LaFayette Parkway ° Lee's Crossing Office: 1795 Vernon Road
Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lenden (c) 2005 Flag Financial Corporation.
Ware Continues Support for Landfill
Continued From Page 1A
two-day hearing on
Greenbow's lawsuit against
the county in August.
Lee's bill alone totaled
$14,145.14 and will be paid
over several months,
Meriwether County
Administrator Robert Hiss
said on Tuesday.
Still to come are those
from August for the Atlanta
law firm that has taken the
lead in the defense of the
Greenbow lawsuit, Hiss said.
The August hearing was
on Greenbow's request for a
temporary injunction to stop
the county for interfering
with is plans for the landfill.
Ware is one of the four
plaintiffs in the lawsuit - the
others are Greenbow and
Hogansville attorneys Mack
Reynolds and Ken Gordon,
both of whom own some of
the land in question off
Interstate 85 and .both of
whom have homes even clos-
er to the site than does Ware.
WARE RECENTLY
received notification that the
defense attorneys in the case,
who include Meriwether
County attorneys Rob and
Tom Morton want to take
more depositions, including
one in which they want to ask
him the age of his children
and where he's lived for the
last 10 years.
Hiss acknowledges that
the county's lawyers would
like to have more time for
"discovery"- fact-finding
before Superior Court Judge
Marion Cummings of the
Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit
rules on the injunction
request and other issues in
the Greenbow case.
Ware says the county
attorneys' attempting to drag
out the lawsuit by requesting
more discovery time and
seeking more depositions - is
ridiculous.
He owns most of the land
near Hogansville where
Greenbow hopes to build a
300-acre landfill, and all of
the land involved in a second
proposed site on Georgia 362
some seven miles north of
Greenville High School.
The land at both sites is
selling for some $7,000 an
acre. Ware owns some 1,020
acres of the proposed site
near Hogansville and all of
the 1,706 acres in an alterna-
tive site on Georgia 362.
Reynolds and a company
he started and Gordon own
the remainder of the approx-
imately 1,700 acres in the site
near Hogansville, but aren't
involved with the land at the
alternative site.
The lawsuit was filed in
May after the County
Commission, under pressure
from opponents of a region-
al landfill near Hogansville,
refused to modify the coun-
ty's water source watershed
protection ordinance to bring
it into compliance with the
state law dealing with water
shed protection as the coun-
ty's attorney had recom-
mended.
MEANTIME, the county
had bought new liability
insurance that left the local
government unprotected
against any lawsuit in which
plaintiffs did not sue for mon-
etary damages.
Insurance against such
lawsuits was too expensive,
commissioners decided.
That choice meant that
unless plaintiffs sue for mon-
etary damages, the insurance
company won't pay to defend
the county.
And because Greenbow
doesn't want monetary dam-
ages, the county is having to
foot the entire legal expens-
es associated with the case.
Ware has owned his
Hogansville home for years
and owns a second home in
Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., but
has only spent maybe 10 days
there in the last three years,
he said in refuting landfill
opponents' charges that he
really doesn't live in
Hogansville or near the site
close to his house.
HE OWNS maybe 60,000
acres of land in West Georgia,
sand said: "I wouldn't do any:
thing that would harm my
investment or any other
land."
He says the Meriwether
County Commission's refusal
to negotiate with Greenbow
raises the question: "Are the
attorneys running the coun-
ty?"
The lawsuit "is very
expensive to everybody and
they will spend a lot of tax-
payers money on legal fees,"
he said.
"NOW the county's attor-
neys are gong to make the
county spend a lot of taxpay-
er money on things that prob-
ably are unnecessary
because the issues are pri-
marily legal issues.
"Some peopl.e are, so
engrossed in talking against
the landfill that they're not
recognizing the benefits
from a $200 million develop-
ment (near Hoga'nsville),"
Ware said.
"Not only is Greenbow
going to pay $1 million a year
in host fees, give ball fields,
a place for an ambulance sta-
tion, and pave a road for the
county, but in addition there
will be the tremendous
amount of revenue that would
be brought in by a $200 mil-
lion development" . to
Meriwether County and to
Hogansville.
As for the landfill oppo-
nents?
As for the people that are
opposing the landfill - sever-
al from outside bbth
Hogansville and Meriwether
County, "I think a valid ques-
tions would be 'what have
they done for the county,' "
Ware said.
HOGANSVILLE would
also benefit from Greenbow-
paid improvements to ,its
sewer treatment plant and
from revenues generated by
the residential, commercial
and industrial development
on land near the site, Ware
contends.
He says legal fees are
"going to be astronomical" if
the lawsuit continues and the
County Commission doesn't
rein in its attorneys.
Hiss said tlat
Meriwether County's attor-
neys are paid $125 an hour
and that the Atlanta attorneys
are paid $175 to $200 an hour,
depending on whether it's an
associate or a law firm part-
ner doing the work.
