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Coweta says ‘yes’ to SPLOST BY SARAH FAY CAMPBELL sarah@newnan.com
Cowetans voted overwhelmingly last week to extend the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for another six years. Coweta voters originally said yes to SPLOST in 1986, and have approved it everytime it came back up for a vote. T he newly-approved SPLOST will begin after the current one ends on Dec. 31, 2018. The final vote count on election night was 3,381 votes, or 65 percent, in favor to 1,818, or 35 percent, against. Turnout was light – 6.04 percent of Coweta’s registered voters cast ballots for the special election, which included the county-wide SPLOST vote as well as several city elections.
The Coweta County Republican Party mounted a late campaign against the sales tax renewal, with a promoted video on Facebook and 20,000 phone calls.
The 1-percent sales tax is expected to raise $140 million over six years. The money is divided amongst Coweta and its cities and towns, and goes to fund capital projects that have already been determined. SPLOST lists include specific projects as well as general cat-
egories such as road repair and maintenance. The Coweta County Republican Party mounted a late campaign against the sales tax renewal, with a promoted video on Facebook and 20,000 phone calls. “The people have spoken,” sa id GOP Cha irma n Bra nt Frost V after the vote. “I am thankful to all my fr iends a nd t he people of Coweta who went to the polls to vote for SPLOST,” sa id Joan Martin, who is active in the Save Madras School campaign. “We love Coweta and are blessed to have this 1-percent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax to continue adding great things to our great
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PHOTO BY SARAH CAMPBELL
Ernie Wingfield and Ashley Gay upload voting results at the Coweta Elections Office on election night.
SENOIA CITY COUNCIL
Walking Dead filming wraps Nov. 22 Senoia approves new sign ordinance
BY SARAH FAY CAMPBELL sarah@newnan.com
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NOVEMBER 15 - NOVEMBER 21, 2017
Times-Herald
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Breast Cancer Awareness Month
PHOTO BY SARAH CAMPBELL
The intersection of Happy Valley Circle with Jim Starr Road will become a three-way stop.
Three-way stop coming to Happy Valley, Jim Starr BY SARAH FAY CAMPBELL sarah@newnan.com
The intersection of Jim Starr Road and Happy Valley Circle will soon become a three-way stop. Currently, there is only a stop sign on Jim Starr Road. There is a left-turn lane from Happy Valley Circle, which will become a striped median when the three-way stop goes into effect. The Coweta County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously last week to approve the change, after a presentation from Tod Handley, Coweta’s direc-
tor of transportation and engineering. Handley said he was contacted by a resident who lives in the curve at the intersection with some concerns. The man asked the county to consider a three-way stop to help with safety getting out of his driveway. The county did some traffic counts and found that traffic on Jim Starr, in particular, has increased dramatically in the past few years. A lot of the increase likely stems from the opening of Brooks
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Filming for the last episode of Season 8 of “The Walking Dead” is set to begin Friday. The filming should wrap up by Nov. 22, said Mike Riley, location manager for the show. Riley asked the Senoia City Council for permission to close a portion of Seavy Street on Nov. 20 for potential filming. The closure will be along the area of Seavy between Johnson Street and Hwy. 85, and was requested for 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Actual filming of the scene will only take an hour or hour and a half, Riley said. And it may not take place on Seavy Street at all. That will depend on the scheduling of other filming, Riley said. If filming is taking place at the Alexandria set at the Gin Property downtown, Seavy Street will be used. If filming is taking place at the studio on Chestlehurst Road, Crook Road will probably be used, Riley said. Also, the Senoia City Council approved final passage of the city’s new sign ordinance. The ordinance is more detailed than the previous one, and includes billboard prohibitions that should stick.
The city’s previous sign ordinance defined billboards based partially on the content of the sign’s message. That was a problem, because content-based sign regulations aren’t lawful, and sign ordinances aren’t allowed to favor commercial speech over non-commercial speech, under case law. That meant that the city council didn’t have a legal leg to stand on when a billboard company, Railroad LLC, asked to erect a billboard in the city. On the advice of attorneys, the Senoia City Council voted in June to approve the billboard on Ga. Hwy. 16 across from the Cumberland Village shopping center. The council then immediately put a moratorium into place on most sign permits, so that a new ordinance could be crafted. The billboard that was approved will be a two-sided, V-shaped sign. The old ordinance defines a billboard as “an outdoor, off-site sign.” An off-site sign is defined as a sign that is not located on the premises of the business or entity indicated or advertised on the sign, or a sign which advertises or calls attention to something that is not related to the
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