“It’s going to be a real heavy agenda,” said Teresa Watson, executive secretary to the Board of Commissioners. “It just worked out that way, just because of the timing and issues.”
One of the major issues on the agenda is the resurrection of the request from the Georgia Department of Transportation to convert North McDonough Road into part of Georgia Highway 155. The measure was tabled in December due to local opposition to the conversion, which would bring trucks on roads that residents thought were too hilly to accommodate them.
Dave Phillips was one of the commissioners who opposed the possibility of the conversion. He does not believe that taking the measure off the table will accomplish anything.
“We can talk about the Civil War again but that isn’t going to change what happened,” he said. “I see no logic in disturbing between 130 and 140 people trying to sleep at night when (the trucks) can go through an empty downtown or take the (Georgia Highway) 16 exit.”
He said the industrial park is on Arthur K. Bolton Parkway and that converting North McDonough Road to a truck route will not even get the trucks there - North McDonough Road becomes South McDonough Road when it crosses High Falls Road and it is South McDonough Road that actually connects to Arthur K. Bolton.
“The logic just isn’t there,” he said. “This is a wish rather than a necessity.”
Another item on the agenda is the approval of a conceptual and architectural design plan for the future Senior Citizens Center and Parks and Recreation Department headquarters and the execution of the agreement with the Griffin architectural firm Manley Spangler Smith Architects.
“I think I like that,” Phillips said.
He said he hates how the senior citizens feel shortchanged, but the county had been doing its best. He said with the sale of certain county properties and the receipt of certain grants, the project is doable.
Also on the agenda is the recommendation from the Spalding County Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission to amend a previous ruling in order to allow youth associations to play travel ball throughout the season instead of only after the season is concluded, although it would be limited to only 10 tournaments.
Phillips said he can support the measure if it is intended to help out the girls’ softball team but said county sports policy is not the Board of Commissioners’ business.
The commissioners will also consider the request of Laura Longsworth to film the documentary “The People v. Leo Frank” at the old Spalding County Jail, which is now a Cooperative Extension Service office.
According to the Crime Library Web site, Frank was lynched in Marietta in 1915 after being accused of murder, an incident that led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League to fight anti-Semitism.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Monday at the Spalding County Courthouse Annex, at 119 E. Solomon St.
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