Regional news briefs

At last night’s Demorest City Council meeting, council members approved an 18% bump to their water rates for customers.  This tops a 10% increase in water rates instituted by the city last year, which brought water bills to $16.50 for the first 2,000 gallons for inside-city residents and $30.77 for the first 2,000 gallons for outside-city customers, with additional charges for more water usage. The bump will bring the base bill to $19.47 per month for the first 2,000 gallons for in-city customers and $36.31 per month for the first 2,000 gallons for outside-city customers. . According to information provided by water department staff during a phone call, the average monthly water bill, considering both in-city and out-of-city customers, is currently $45 per month, which will increase to approximately $53 per month. This is on top of a ewer bill of $20 for in-city and $27 for out-of-city customers. 

As recently reported by WNEG News, Toccoa City Commissioners recently voted to increase base water rates $2 per month for in-city and outside-the-city residential and commercial customers. Prior to the increase, City of Toccoa water rates for the first 2,000 gallons of water were $15.75 per month for residential and commercial customers inside the city limits and $19.69 per month for residential and commercial customers outside city limits. The Toccoa rate increase was instituted to cover the surprise increase in annual cost instituted by Georgia Power for the city’s 6 MGD water withdrawal permit from Lake Yonah, which was abruptly increased this year from less than $8,000 per year, to $167,000 per year.

 

A reminder for parents and guardians of Lavonia Elementary School students: Beginning tomorrow, Jan. 4, there is a new route at the school for pick-up and drop off.

Under the new traffic system, parents will drop their students off at the back of the school building and buses will unload and load students at the front.

Parent vehicles will turn down Brickyard Road to the back entrance on Misty Mills Road, turn into the school back lot, drop off their students, then turn around and go back out onto Misty Mills Road, and make a right to the 77 Ext/Hartwell Road.

Lavonia Elementary School Principal Kasey Haley said new traffic signs will be posted, and no parent vehicles will be allowed to use the front entrance from 3:10 – 3:25 for pick up.

The plan for the re-route of the pick-up and drop-off traffic was initiated at a Franklin County Board of Education work session in December, where Haley told board members that she had been contacted by the Georgia Dept. of Transportation, who told her that the daily drop-off and pick-up of students at the school had become a major traffic issue on the 77 Extension.

 

WNEG News previously reported on the death of William Shane Haguewood, 47, of Fair Play, SC, whose body was found Dec. 30. Haguewood went missing on Dec. 27 when his kayak reportedly overturned in Lake Hartwell near the Port Bass Boat Ramp, across the state line from Tugaloo State Park. 

Yesterday, following an autopsy on Haguewood’s body, Oconee County SC Coroner Karl Addis declared that the manner of death was “accidental” and the cause of death was drowning. 

According to statements by Oconee County Service Director Scott Krein, witnesses who saw him fall into the water after his kayak overturned, Haguewood was not wearing a life vest.