New marshal ready to roll

By Dave Williams
Bureau Chief
Capitol Beat News Service
    ATLANTA - The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday sided with Georgia in a lawsuit Florida filed in 2013 over the allocation of water that flows between the two states.
   In a unanimous 9-0 opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court ruled that Florida failed to prove its allegations that Georgia’s water consumption from the Chattahoochee and Flint river systems caused the failure of Florida’s oyster industry in Apalachicola Bay.
   “Florida allowed unprecedented levels of oyster harvesting in the years before the collapse,” Barrett wrote. “Georgia’s consumption had little to no impact on the bay’s oyster population.”
   Florida claimed originally that increasing water consumption in rapidly growing metro Atlanta was causing unacceptably low flows where the Chattahoochee River enters Florida at Lake Seminole.

Tate United Methodist Church is one of the oldest in Pickens, built in 1887. The original building is used as the sanctuary.

     As we approach Good Friday and Easter – arguably the most hallowed of holidays in the Christian tradition – churches are on our mind. It’s a running joke that there’s one on every corner here, and that doesn’t seem far from the truth on a drive around the community. From downtown institutions like First Baptist Church of Jasper, to modern buildings like Revolution Church, to the defunct Miracle Fellowship Church in Smoky Hollow, a look at our religious spaces here shows we’re in no shortage – and that protestant Christianity dominates. 

We set out to get a snapshot of our churches – how many, what kind, and how much property value and land they make up and take up in Pickens County. But finding out the exact number of churches here – or anywhere for that matter - is easier said than done. Since churches can request an exempt status for property taxes we thought a good starting point was the Pickens County Tax Assessor’s Office. The Progress received a list of 67 churches from their records, and in our own search of the tax assessor’s qPublic website we uncovered a few more churches under tax exempt status. 

     See print or online editions for full story. 

    (Front L-R) Major of Jasper Steve Lawrence and Kris Stancil, Pickens County Commission Chair. (Back L-R) Robert Kenyon, KPB Vice President and Adopt-A-Road Chairman, Cole Connel, new County Marshall, Kenneth Woodard, County Recycle Manager, and Vered Kleinberger, KPB President.

Submitted by KPB

Each year, Keep Pickens Beautiful sponsors a range of activities during the month of April as part of Keep America Beautiful’s Great American Cleanup.  This year, in addition to some of our usual programs, we’re also working with Pickens County and their Team Up to Clean Up initiative.  If we all work together, we can accomplish so much.

 Chris Pence of Impact Pickens picking up recall signature sheets at the elections office. 

        Two petitions filed in Pickens courts last week have halted efforts of Impact Pickens, the group that formed to recall school board members Steve Smith and Aaron Holland.  

Impact Pickens leaders allege Smith and Holland, as well as board chair Sue Finely, exercised gross fiscal irresponsibly and malfeasance with their vote to terminate the contract of former Pickens Superintendent Dr. Rick Townsend “without cause,” and buy out that contract for over $400,000. Among other allegations, they argue these board members violated the Georgia Open Meetings Act when they held a meeting where it appears they took action on  Townsend’s termination on January 15. 

See full story in this week's print or online editions.