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Wilkes County Board of Commissioners completes all business in brief meeting In what was one of the shortest meetings of the Wilkes County Board of Commissioners ever (14 minutes), only one piece of business was acted on while the rest of the meeting was devoted to various announcements and routine reports. The one piece of business was to update the Hotel/Motel Tax provision. County Administrator pointed out that the original motion did not include a reference to the Georgia Code and the the proposed amendment would straighten that out and allow the county to continue collecting the 5% tax. Commission Chairman Sam Moore said, "This just changes the wording to comply with state requirements." The Hotel/Motel Tax is collected by all lodging establishments, including bed & breakfast inns, in the county and the revenue is then used to fund the promotion of tourism through the Washington-Wilkes Chamber of Commerce. All of the commissioners were in attendance at the meeting including Divenski Lee, J.M. Sherrer, Donna Hardy, Jerry Stover, and Moore. There was also about a dozen visitors. Betty Slaton spoke briefly to the board in order to introduce the new director of the Mary Willis Library, Lilly Crowe, and her husband, Don Crowe. "Everything is going nicely at the library," Slaton reported, "So use it!" Crowe, speaking of her new position, said, "It's wonderful. The people are really nice." Tyler reported that Local Option Sales Tax funds for the month of June had been received in the amount of $73,140.59 and that 111,556.52 had been received in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for the same period. "Our sales tax figures continue to get higher and higher," Moore observed, "so that's good thing that's happening. This year, it has been up almost every month." Hardy commented that it would be interesting to see a graph showing the upward trend in sales tax collection for the county. Moore announced that the next regular meeting of the commissioners would be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday, October 12, with a work session to begin just prior at 1:30 p.m. He also announced that the Fall Conference is scheduled for September 27. Wilkes County EMS director Blake Thompson indicated that it had been a busy month for his deand partment and that he was expecting quite a lot of activity at a big motocross even at Aonia Pass during the coming weekend. He also reported that his department had recently donated two defibrillators and that four more were on the way. Some of those in attendance had just come from the ribbon cutting and grand opening ceremony at the Fountain Spa and Hardy reported that "it was a very nice opening with a lot of people attending." She commented that it is a "good partnership" opportunity for other businesses in the area and said that some bed & breakfast inns had already included some of its services in their packages. Hardy said that the LincolntonLincoln County Chamber of Commerce was represented at the opening to see what opportunities might exist "across county lines." Moore reported that one of the county's industrial prospects had visited on Tuesday, September 12, along with some state officials. We've been working with them for a little more than a year now," Moore said, "and I think it's going to go one way or the other pretty soon." At the prospect's request, the identity of the prospect was not disclosed. Hardy announced an important "Town Meeting" scheduled for Monday, October 2. Details are reported elsewhere in this issue. Hardy also announced that the second in a series of Wilkes Leadership meetings will be held on October 5 at the Senior Citizens Center. "We couldn't have asked for a better turnout at the first meeting," she said. "At the second meeting, we will begin to put to work some of those things we talked about at the first meeting," she added.
Local attorney Michael Horgan appeared before the board to announce his candidacy for Georgia State Representative from the 116th District. "I feel I can be a strong and persuasive voice for Wilkes County and I would appreciate your vote and support," he said.
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