A 62-year-old Madison County man was arrested Saturday on a charge that he severely injured another man by hitting him in the face with a walking cane.

Hubert L. McElreath was charged with aggravated battery and cruelty to children, the latter charge filed after deputies said the attack was witnessed by the victim’s young child.

Deputies went to the victim’s home on Pine Street in Ila, where the deputy reported the man was having difficulty explaining what happened due to his injuries. Three of the victim’s teeth were knocked out and his lip was split open, according to the report.

The victim told the officer that he, along with his mother, girlfriend, and his 3-year-old child, were traveling on Young Harris Road on July 31, when his vehicle ran out of gas at the rural location near the Franklin County border.

A motorist passing by pulled the victim’s vehicle to McElreath’s yard.

The report didn’t provide a reason, but while they were at the location, deputies said McElreath went up to the victim and hit him in the mouth with his walking cane.

The victim was able to flee the location and he contacted authorities the next day, according to the report.

McElreath remained in the Madison County Jail on Monday with bond set at $19,900.

The University of Georgia Small Animal Teaching Hospital will be renamed for a Massachusetts philanthropist and dog breeder, pending approval by the state Board of Regents.

Cora Nunnally Miller, who died last year, donated $13.5 million to UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Those donations included $7 million for the construction of the hospital, part of the college’s Veterinary Medical Center on College Station Road, according to information in the Board of Regents agenda for Wednesday’s monthly meeting. Construction costs for the center were funded partly through state appropriations, partly with private donations.

Miller died at her home in Otis, Mass., Hound Hill, in July 2015, five months after UGA officials dedicated the 300,000-square foot medical center, which includes a large animal teaching hospital and an education center as well as the small animal teaching hospital.

Miller was the daughter of Winship Nunnally, Sr., an Atlanta businessman who was on the boards of directors of the Coca-Cola Company, the Trust Company of Georgia, a predecessor of Sun Trust Bank, and Delta Airlines, among others, according to her obituary. Nunnally, whose father founded the Nunnally Candy Company, was also a multimillion-dollar supporter of UGA.

Miller’s philanthropy went beyond the College of Veterinary Medicine. She also was a donor to the Hugh Hodgson School of Music; Hodgson, the longtime head of UGA’s music program, was her stepfather. She was also a donor to the Audubon Society and left the property surrounding Hound Hill to the Massachusetts Audubon Society to be protected and undeveloped, according to her obituary, published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other newspapers

Miller also left a $1 million bequest to the American Kennel Club’s Canine Health Foundation .

Miller learned how to ride horses at Lazy River, her father’s farm outside Atlanta, but gave up competitive riding after breaking her back in an accident, according to the obituary.

She then became a successful dog breeder and trainer, and was a founding member and lifetime director of the Whippet Health Foundation and a president of the American Whippet Club.

The Board of Regents meets Wednesday in Atlanta.

Follow education reporter Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH or https://twitter.com/LeeShearer.

Athens-Clarke County police are investigating an early Monday attempted armed robbery of an eastside convenience store.

A gunman entered Golden Pantry on Barnett Shoals shortly after 3 a.m., pointed a pistol at the clerk and demanded she open the cash register, according to police.

The clerk, a 29-year-old Athens resident, told police she was at the drink station when the robber came in, holding a gun in one hand and a bag in the other. He was wearing gloves on both hands, the clerk observed.

The bandit no sooner made his demand when he bolted out of the store, apparently spooked by a customer who just pulled up in a vehicle, according to police.

Police said the clerk described the suspect as a thin black man about 5-feet, 7-inches tall, possibly with a goatee, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants and black and white sneakers, police said.

Monday afternoon police released an image of the suspect taken by a convenience store security camera.

Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information helping police identify the suspect.

Police asked anyone with information to call Sgt. Mark Malueg at (706) 613-3888, ext. 298. Anonymous calls can be made to the Crime Stoppers confidential tip line at (706) 705-4775.

Follow Criminal Justice reporter Joe Johnson at www.facebook.com/JoeJohnsonABH or www.twitter.com/JoeJohnsonABH.

WIB Breasts & Vests Safety Seminar: 6:30 to 8:30 a.m., Oconee State Bank Operations Center, 7920 Macon Highway, Watkinsville

Northeast Georgia Workforce Development Board meeting: 8:30 to 10 a.m., Northeast Georgia Regional Commission, 305 Research Drive, Athens

Open House: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Athens Neighborhood Health Center-West, 3320 Old Jefferson Road, Building 300, Athens. Refreshments. For more information, (706) 255-4292, www.athensneighborhoodhealth.com

Bingo at East Athens Community Center: 10 a.m. to noon, 400 McKinley Drive, Athens. (706) 613-3593

Coffee Catch-Up: 11 a.m. to noon, Rook & Pawn, 294 W. Washington St., Athens

Hungry Howie’s #VIP Pizza Party: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Hungry Howie’s Pizza, 529 Baxter St., Athens

The Lounge Gallery: Deepanjan Mukhopadyay: noon to 9 p.m., Lyndon House Arts Center, 293 Hoyt St., Athens

Needlecrafters: 1 to 3 p.m., Madison County Library, Danielsville, 1315 Georgia Highway 98, Danielsville

Museum Mile Tour: 2 p.m., Athens Welcome Center, 280 E. Dougherty St., Athens. Reservations suggested by calling (706) 208-TOUR (8687). $20

Alcoholics Anonymous: 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Call (706) 389-4164 for location. www.athensaa.org

Summertime Dinner & Date Night: 5:30 p.m., The Foundry, 295 E Dougherty St, Athens. $40 (plus tax) per couple; includes appetizer, two entrees, a dessert and choice of four local beers (Southern Brewing Co., Terrapin or Creature Comforts) or a bottle of house wine. (706) 549-7051, thefoundryathens.com

“A Christmas Carol: The Musical” auditions: 6 to 9 p.m., Memorial Park, 293 Gran Ellen Drive, Athens. Reservations for auditions are underway by calling (706) 613-3628 to schedule audition appointment.

Domestic violence support group: 6 to 8 p.m., Project Safe Inc., 995 Hawthorne Ave, Athens. Call for location. Dinner at 6 p.m. Childcare provided. Call Project Safe at (706) 543-3331.

Olive Oil Tasting: 6 to 7 p.m., The Olive Basket, 297 Prince Ave., Athens. Free. www.olivebasketonline.com

Athens Petanque Club: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., 1000 Faces Coffee, 555 Barber St., Athens. Free

Bingo: 7 to 9 p.m., Ted’s Most Best, 254 W. Washington Street, Athens. Free. www.facebook.com/tedsmostbest., www.tedsmostbest.com

Block Party Picnic Featuring Classic Hip-Hop & ’80s Boogie Vinyl From DJ Osmose: 7 to 10 p.m., Georgia Theatre, 215 N Lumpkin St., Athens. Free, all ages

Board of Commissioners meeting: 7 to 8 p.m., Historic Courthouse, 30 N. Broad St., Winder

Full Contact Trivia: 7 p.m., The Savory Spoon, 705 Sycamore St., Jefferson. Free. (706) 367-5721

Dirty South Trivia: 8 p.m., Taqueria Tsunami, 320 E. Clayton St., Athens. Free. www.dirtysouthtrivia.com

Full Contact Trivia: 8 p.m., Johnny’s New York Style Pizza, 1040 Gaines School Road, Athens. Free

Locos Trivia: 8 p.m., Locos Grill & Pub, 2020 Timothy Road, Athens. Free. www.locosgrill.com

Swing Night: 8 p.m., Dancefx, 396 Foundry St., Athens

Trivia: 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., Locos Grill & Pub, 1985 Barnett Shoals Road and 2020 Timothy Road, Athens. Westside and Eastside locations. www.locosgrill.com., (706) 208-0911

Trivia: 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., Hi-Lo Lounge, 1354 Prince Ave., Athens. Free. www.hiloathens.com

Walker Lukens on the Rooftop at Georgia Theatre: 10 p.m., Georgia Theatre, 215 N Lumpkin St., Athens

Athens IT Professionals Meet-up: Monthly Meet-up about Technology for IT Professionals: 10:30 p.m., Roundsphere, 1 Press Place, Athens

Trivia at the Rail: 10:30 p.m., The Rail Athens, 1120 Mitchell Bridge Road, Athens. Free. (706) 354-7289

For more events or to add an event to a future calendar, visit events.onlineathens.com.

An Athens daycare center was forced to send more than two dozen children home on Monday after nearly half the staff walked out after learning they would not get the paychecks they were due.

Meanwhile, an anonymous notification of the sudden closure of the daycare operation at Little Ones Academy at 3180 Atlanta Highway prompted the Child Care Services Division of the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning to launch an investigation into the incident. According to an agency spokesman, a division representative was slated to speak with the facility owner either late Monday or sometime Tuesday.

Janet LaFave, owner of Little Ones Academy, said “six or seven” staff members walked off the job Monday after learning they would not be paid. The staff was last paid two weeks ago, and their next checks were due Monday, LaFave said. As those employees left the daycare center, LaFave and her remaining staff began notifying parents they would have to pick up their children.

A number of children, under the supervision of those remaining staff members, remained at Little Ones Academy awaiting pick-up late into Monday afternoon.

The daycare facility is scheduled to reopen Tuesday with some fill-in personnel, LaFave said. Little Ones Academy also operates a pre-kindergarten, which was not affected by the employee walkout because those classes had not begun on Monday, according to LaFave.

LaFave blamed the delay in issuing paychecks on delayed reimbursement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Child and Adult Care Food Program. Also, LaFave said, some of the daycare center’s clients, whose costs are subsidized in part by the federal government, had not paid their bills. The Little Ones Academy staff was notified on Thursday there could be a delay in issuing their paychecks, LaFave said Monday.

The nutrition program money is processed through the state, and on Monday, Department of Early Care and Learning spokesman Reg Griffin confirmed there was a federal delay in issuing the reimbursement funds. Griffin said he expects those funds to be available late this week or early next week.

And while it is not a focus of their investigation — the state is most interested, Griffin said, in determining whether Monday’s walkout jeopardized supervision of the children — Griffin did say using nutrition funds to cover payroll costs, with the exception of paying a cook, could be a problematic application of that money.

It’s possible, Griffin said, that an argument could be made that the facility’s staff spends some of its time serving food to children, and applying the nutrition funds to payroll expenses is thus an acceptable use of that money, but that interpretation would not represent best practices for a daycare facility.

“This is not a pleasant experience,” LaFave, who has been in the childcare business for 24 years, said Monday, going on to note that in her years in the business, this was the first time she faced a reimbursement delay that jeopardized employee paychecks.

“We’ll get it,” LaFave said of the federal nutrition program funds. “This is very unusual.”

LaFave called the delay in issuing paychecks “terribly, terribly embarrassing. My staff works hard, and they have bills to pay.”

LaFave would not comment in detail on the employment status of the workers who walked off the job on Monday, except to note that some of them have been with Little Ones Academy for 15 years, and “they will have jobs.”

Oconee County once again has a bookstore.

Walls of Books started out in Athens, but moved recently to a storefront in Watkinsville, said Greg Phillips, a Warner Robins native who owns the store with wife Stephanie.

Walls of Books is a franchise that grew out of middle Georgia’s Gottwals Books, which began as a single store in Warner Robins in 2007. After Shane Gottwals’ store grew to four stores in middle Georgia, he began franchising his business model about four years ago. Now Walls of Books counts 14 stores in Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., Louisiana and Kansas, either operating or on the way, Gottwals said.

Phillips came to the book business after a career in restaurants, he said. But he is an avid reader, as is Stephanie, who teaches dental hygiene at Athens Technical College. In Warner Robins, he became friends with fellow business owner Gottwals.

“We hit it off, as small business owners,” Phillips said. Phillips watched Gottwals’ book business grow, and after moving to Athens three years ago, decided to give the book business a go after watching Gottwals’ business grow.

In some ways, Walls of Books is like many bookstores — the business sells both new and used books. Customers can bring in books in “gently used” condition for store credit, and the store will also take back books they’ve sold someone for credit.

Store credit is good for up to half of what customers pay for used books, and since the prices of the used books are deeply discounted, customers can get the books they want for a lot less than if they bought them new, or even buying used books online, Phillips said.

When customers buy books in the 1971 Hog Mountain Road, Suite 130 store, there are no shipping costs, and store credit cuts the cost in half, he explained.

Phillips finds a different kind of joy in running a bookstore than he did in the restaurant business.

“I get more joy when people come and find a new author, or find a book they’ve been looking for, or a particular edition they’ve been looking for. That’s what you enjoy the most,” he said.

He also likes it because of his own reading habits.

“That’s another reason I love selling books — finding new authors,” he said.

The store does maintain a small stock of rare and collectible books, but aims first of all to keep authors in stock that are in high demand. They don’t always every book by every author, but one of the advantages of being a Walls of Books franchise is they can get it in from somewhere else.

Repeat customers are the mainstay of a book business, Phillips said.

“The key customer for us is the reader who is on a budget,” he said.

Walls of Books also works with schools and textbooks, and one goal, once they get fully settled in, is to work with book clubs, Phillips said.

Follow education reporter Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH or https://twitter.com/LeeShearer.

ATLANTA | The incarcerated Georgia parents of a badly abused infant were given permission by a judge to visit her before she was taken off life-support.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the process began just after noon on Monday and 5-month-old Dinah Paige Whited was pronounced dead at 3:09 p.m. She had been on life support three months.

Justin Whited is charged in the assault of his daughter, who suffered bleeding on the brain, two broken collar bones and breaks in all but three of her ribs. Her mother, Jamie Carson Whited is facing child cruelty charges because authorities say she failed to protect the baby.

Walton County Juvenile Court Judge David Dickinson allowed the pair to visit Dinah because neither has been convicted in the crime and both agreed to terminate life support.

The parents' charges may be upgraded now that their daughter has died.

DALLAS | Delta's travails, and those of its customers, move into day two with the airline canceling of another 300 flights.

The disruptions Tuesday follow about 1,000 cancelled flights Monday and, according to FlightStats, about 2,800 delayed flights, after an outage at Delta's Atlanta headquarters instigated a global meltdown of its booking and communications systems.

The airline was back online after a number of hours Monday, but the outages were so widespread that it is still dealing with the ripple effects a day later. FlightStats, a flight tracking services, puts delayed flights Tuesday at close to 600, and cancelled flights closer to 330.

More than 1,000 people spent the night at Narita airport outside Tokyo because of the shutdown and, while flights were resuming Tuesday, Delta spokeswoman Hiroko Okada said more delays are expected.

Delta also extended to Tuesday travel waivers issued to the stranded.

The airline posted a video apology by CEO Ed Bastian. And it offered refunds and $200 in travel vouchers to people whose flights were canceled or delayed at least three hours.

Delta's challenge Tuesday will be to find enough seats on planes during the busy summer vacation season to accommodate the tens of thousands of passengers whose flights were scrubbed.

Airlines have been putting more people in each plane, so when a system of a major carrier crashes, as has happened with others before Delta, finding a new seat for the waylaid becomes more difficult.

Last month, the average Delta flight was 87 percent full.

Confusion among passengers Monday was compounded as Delta's flight-status updates crashed as well. Instead of staying home or poolside at a hotel until the troubles blew over, many passengers only learned about the quagmire only after they passed through airport security.

They were stuck.

The disruption was so deeply rooted Monday that at one point, the airline warned travelers that information on its website, its app, and even given by its own employees in airports, may be outdated.

"By the time I showed up at the gate the employees were already disgruntled, and it was really difficult to get anybody to speak to me or get any information," said Ashley Roache, whose flight from Lexington, Kentucky, to New York's LaGuardia Airport was delayed. "The company could have done a better job of explaining ... what was happening."

• RELATED: Complexity makes airline computer systems vulnerable

Delta spokesman Trebor Banstetter said that after the power outage, key systems and network equipment did not switch over to backups. The investigation of the outage is ongoing, but Banstetter said that there is no indication that the problems were caused by a hack or intentional breach of the system.

Georgia Power, which controls the system where the outage began, said it appears that a failure of Delta equipment caused the airline's power disruption. No other customers lost power, a spokesman said.

Delta Air Lines Inc. is the third-largest in the world by number of passengers carried, with 138.8 million travelers last year, according to industry group IATA, but it ranks just behind American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

Airlines depend on huge, overlapping and complicated systems to operate flights, ticketing, boarding, airport kiosks, websites and mobile phone apps. Even brief outages can now snarl traffic and, as the Delta incident shows, those problems can go global in seconds.

Last month, Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights over four days after an outage that it blamed on a faulty network router.

United Airlines suffered a series of massive IT meltdowns after combining its technology systems with those of merger partner Continental Airlines.

Lines for British Airways at some airports have grown longer as the carrier updates its systems.

Delta employees were forced into something of a time machine as they did their best to get people to where they were going.

Agents at many airports were using pen and paper to create boarding passes. In Tokyo, a dot-matrix printer was resurrected to keep track of passengers on a flight to Shanghai.

Some passengers said they were shocked that computer glitches could cause such turmoil. Others took it in stride.

Ryan Shannon, another passenger on the Lexington-to-New York flight, said passengers boarded, were asked to exit, waited about 90 minutes and then got back on the plane.

Once Delta cleared flights to take off, "we boarded and didn't have any problems. There is always a delay, or weather, or something. I travel weekly, so I'm used to it," Shannon said. 

Little things might often go unnoticed, but small gestures by an Athens-Clarke County police officer made a lasting impression on a woman who recently found herself stranded on a highway with three children in her car.

Jessicah Mcelheney last Saturday was on the way to the store with her kids to purchase supplies for the new school year when her car broke down.

Officer Edward Herron responded to the scene, where he stood in the middle of the road to stop traffic as a truck maneuvered into position so Mcelheney’s car might be jump started.

It turned out the woman’s car troubles were much more serious and she would later learn a head gasket had blown. Mcelheney and her children, ages 1 to 5, ended up being stuck on the highway for about an hour until the car was finally towed.

In the meantime, the police officer did what he could to make things a little more bearable for the children.

“I was just amazed at how helpful and caring this man was because other police I have dealt with would just make sure I wasn't in the road and then leave,” Mcelheney said.

Herron got the kids out of the heat and into his air-conditioned cruiser and provided them with drinks.

“He seemed like he was really concerned with my kids staying cool and being hydrated,” Mcelheney said. “He even held my youngest and helped her drink Gatorade while I helped to try to fix my car.”

When Herron overheard Mcelheney say her phone was about to die, the officer hooked it up to a charger in his patrol car.

With police getting lots of negative publicity nationally, Mcelheney said she wanted others to know about her recent positive experience with a cop.

”I was touched by his kindness, I will forever be grateful,” Mcelheney said.

Follow Criminal Justice reporter Joe Johnson at www.facebook.com/JoeJohnsonABH or www.twitter.com/JoeJohnsonABH.

Athens-Clarke County police arrested a suspect in a series of armed robberies that terrorized residents of a westside apartment complex and later branched out to a second neighborhood.

After 24-year-old Savion Reante Taylor allegedly committed three hold-ups last month at Tallassee Club Villas, and police identified him as the suspect when investigating his alleged fourth armed robbery in the Stonehenge subdivision.

The first robbery occurred July 17 at Tallassee Club Villas when three friends were hanging around in the parking lot after returning home from work. They were just paid and carrying money on them because they did not have bank accounts.

When the gunman approached the group he reportedly pressed a silver revolver to the head of one of the men and demanded their money. He struck one of the victims in the head with the gun when the man moved, police said.

The three victims surrendered their money, which police said totaled $1,250.

Holding an ID from the wallet of one of his victims, the gunman reportedly warned that man not go to the police because he knew where the man lived.

The next robbery at the apartment complex off Westchester Drive happened two nights later, when a resident of Tallassee Club Villas was walking his dog. A man wearing a ski mask and carrying a silver revolver threatened to shoot both the man and his dog if he did not surrender his money. The victim gave the gunman his wallet and followed orders to lie on the ground and look away while the suspect ran off.

Police said the third related crime at the complex occurred July 23. The 35-year-old victim told police he was arriving home from work at about 5:30 a.m. when the masked bandit approached from behind and demanded money at the point of a silver revolver.

As the man attempted to get inside his apartment the suspect reportedly struck the victim with his gun, knocking him to the ground. Once inside his home the victim pushed on his side of the door to keep out the gunman, who pushed from the other side trying to get in. The suspect eventually gave up and ran away.

When police arrived they said they found the victim bleeding from a laceration to his forehead, and observed blood on the wall and floor in the entrance to the apartment. Paperwork the victim was carrying was scattered about and stained with blood.

Three days later, police announced a cash reward was being offered for information helping them to identify a suspect.

A turning point in the investigation occurred after an armed robbery occurred July 31 in the Stonehenge subdivision off of Atlanta Highway, where four friends were hanging out on Altarstone Drive. A bandit wearing a ski mask approached the group and while brandishing a silver handgun demanded money. When his demand was not immediately complied with, police said he fired his gun into the ground and threatened to shoot one of the victims, at which time all four friends gave the gunman their cash.

Police said one of the victims provided the description of a car believed used in the robbery. The car was later located at Tallassee Club Villas. Although police said the car did not belong to Taylor, they made a connection between the suspect and vehicle.

“Investigators were able to piece together enough information and evidence to positively identify and confirm that Savion Taylor was responsible for committing all four reported armed robberies,” said Lt. Mike Tyundell, commanding officer of the Athens-Clarke County police Robbery Homicide Unit.

Taylor was arrested Aug. 1 and charged with four counts of armed robbery and three counts of aggravated assault. Additional charges are expected after investigators finish interviewing victims in the armed robbery spree, Tyndell said.

Follow Criminal Justice reporter Joe Johnson at www.facebook.com/JoeJohnsonABH or www.twitter.com/JoeJohnsonABH.

A divided Athens-Clarke County Commission decided last week to steer additional funding to the construction of a new commercial terminal at Athens-Ben Epps Airport, but not before two commissioners suggested either abandoning the project or whittling it down to fit its original budget.

Approved by voters in November 2004 as part of a package of projects to be funded with a 1 percent special-purpose local option sales tax, the commercial terminal was originally slated to receive $3.5 million in SPLOST funds.

The project was delayed for years, though, as uncertainties in the aviation industry made it difficult to determine whether Athens can attract and retain regular commercial air service.

Over the years, the county has had sporadic service from small airlines linking Athens to airline hubs in Charlotte, Atlanta and Nashville. But that service relied on the federal Essential Air Service program, which subsidizes airline service to and from smaller communities like Athens as long as the airlines maintain certain required passenger loads.

The last airline to provide service from Athens-Ben Epps Airport was Oregon-based SeaPort Airlines, which lost its EAS subsidy two years ago after failing to meet passenger-load requirements and left the airport on Sept. 30, 2014.

“I am not convinced we need a terminal,” Commissioner Jerry NeSmith told his commission colleagues at their Aug. 2 meeting, prompting some commission discussion with Athens-Clarke County Attorney Bill Berryman about the mechanics of abandoning the project.

According to Berryman, there would have to be some formal finding that the project is, in fact, not feasible before it could be abandoned. At that point, Berryman said, the funding earmarked for the terminal would have to be steered into the few projects on the 2004 SPLOST list with work remaining to be done, including a project aimed at improving infrastructure along the county’s major road corridors.

As an alternative, Commissioner Melissa Link suggested whittling the project to conform to its original budget. That was an option, Athens-Clarke County Manager Blaine Williams told the commissioners, but given that the construction contract bid recommended by county management and SPLOST program management is almost $4.5 million — $1 million above the original budget — the change in the scope of the project would be drastic. To make up the shortfall, county management and SPLOST management were recommending at last week’s commission meeting that unallocated interest income, and unspent project funds, from the 2004-approved projects be used to make up the funding shortfall.

While the airport has failed to attract a sustained commercial service, it is seeing an increase in use by charter aircraft, according to Athens-Ben Epps Airport Director Tim Beggerly, who said recently that University of Georgia athletic teams are making wider use of charter flights.

Additionally, under the guidance of relatively new Athens-Ben Epps Airport Authority member Beth Higgins, a local working group is pursuing a strategy of attracting commercial service outside the confines of EAS service. A demonstrated local commitment to funding a commercial terminal is critical to that effort, Higgins told a recent meeting of the airport authority.

In the end, the commission settled on a funding approach recommended by Commissioners Mike Hamby, Sharyn Dickerson and Kelly Girtz. Under that plan, which falls closely in line with the county and SPLOST management recommendation, nearly $1 million in unallocated interest from the 2004-approved projects will be steered to the terminal project, with up to an additional $425,000 coming from the infrastructure improvement budget as contingency funding, if needed.

In return, though, the option approved by commissioners last week directs county management to steer up to $425,000 of SPLOST dollars that were allocated to, but not used for, construction of the new county jail, into a downtown infrastructure improvement project.

Registering their general opposition to the commercial terminal project, Link and NeSmith voted against the proposal. They were joined by Commissioner Jared Bailey, who expressed a general opposition to switching funds among projects as they were approved by county voters.

Investigators have made no arrest in the slaying of an 82-year-old man found dead Monday inside his home in Lavonia, according to a statement from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

The GBI has not said how Samuel Vernon Harbin of 180 Gilmer St., was killed, but his body was taken to the GBI Crime Lab in Decatur for an autopsy.

Harbin was owner of the South Point Mobile Home Park located off Georgia Highway 17 in Lavonia, authorities said.

Harbin’s body was found by an employee of the trailer park after Harbin failed to arrive at his office Monday, the GBI said.

Investigators have begun interviewing neighbors, family and associates to establish a time line surrounding Harbin’s activities over the last several days, the GBI said.

The investigation is a joint effort by the GBI, Lavonia Police Department, Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and the Hart County Sheriff’s Office.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Lavonia police at (706) 356-4848 or the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office at (706) 384-2525 or (706) 384-7118.

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who worked to engineer the March 1 “SEC Primary” that saw Republican voters across the South help Donald Trump to the Republican presidential nomination, seemed only moderately enthusiastic about that result in Monday comments to the Athens-Clarke County Republican Party.

“We went through a really long process” — the Iowa caucuses kicked off the presidential nomination process in February — “and we got the candidate we got,” Kemp, a Republican, told the Athens GOP at its regular monthly meeting.

“And he won fair and square,” Kemp, an Athens native who served in the state Senate before being elected secretary of state, added to punctuate his Monday remarks.

“I get where people are with Trump and some of the other candidates, but I’m a firm believer in the process,” Kemp said.

This year, that process included the “SEC Primary” (a reference to the fact that some of the states involved field collegiate athletic teams in the Southeastern Conference), which also earned the nickname “Waffle House primary,” an homage to the ubiquitous restaurant in towns across the South.

In that March 1 primary, Republican voters in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia cast ballots that gave Trump 192 delegates to the Republican National Convention, where the GOP last month officially made the New York real estate mogul their presidential contender.

“I don’t necessarily agree with everything that Donald Trump says,” Kemp told the few dozen Republicans who attended the local GOP session Monday, “but he’s a whole lot better than the alternative.”

At their convention last month, the Democratic Party nominated former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate.

In other comments Monday, Kemp — who as secretary of state has the responsibility of overseeing Georgia’s elections — said he doesn’t expect Georgia to become ensnared in any voting rights lawsuits as the November general election approaches, even as lawsuits are proceeding in nine states.

Most recently, in Texas, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling against a state voter ID law. At about the same time, a federal judge in Wisconsin issued a preliminary injunction against that state’s voter ID law, and there have also been voting rights cases filed in North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Kansas.

Last month, Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Project Vote filed a lawsuit against Georgia seeking additional information on the state’s process for rejecting voter registration applications, and in March, a federal district judge issued an interim ruling easing the state’s requirements for presidential candidates to gain access to the ballot in Georgia.

Kemp, though, pointed to a series of favorable ruling on voting rights issues in making his case that Georgia would be spared any additional legal challenges.

“We’ve already been through all of these lawsuits, and we’ve won every one of them,” Kemp said.

Kemp attended Monday’s local GOP meeting primarily to publicize the statewide rollout of a pilot project allowing Georgians to register to vote or check current voter information through text messaging. Eligible Georgia citizens can text “GA” or “Georgia” to “2VOTE” (28683) to link to the secretary of state office’s online voter registration site, check their “My Voter Page,” which provides information on their polling place and local, state and federal electoral districts, or call the elections division of the secretary of state’s office for assistance.

“This pilot project brings yet another technological innovation to Georgians’ fingertips so they can easily register to vote and stay informed throughout this important election cycle,” Kemp said in a news release on the pilot program.

Monday in Athens, Kemp put something of a partisan spin on the 2VOTE rollout, telling his fellow Republicans that it is “a great tool for you guys ... to make sure our folks are registered” to vote.

The pilot program follows the March 2014 of online voter registration in Georgia, which allows eligible Georgia citizens to submit an electronic voter registration application using their Georgia driver’s license number or state-issued identification card number.

The last day to register to vote in Georgia to be able to participate in the Nov. 8 general election is Oct. 11.

Madison County Sheriff’s investigators are trying to determine who damaged 16 mailboxes in an area north of Danielsville.

The damaged boxes were found Sunday morning along Georgia Highway 174, Manley Martin Road, James Springs Road and James Adams Road, deputies said.

One resident in the area reported that not only was their mailbox damaged, but the culprits rolled a tree in the yard with toilet paper.

Deputies were able to identify some potential suspects as some teenage boys who live in the Shiloh community.

Investigator Darren Sartain said Tuesday that no one specifically was identified as the perpetrators, but quite often mailbox damage is done by teenagers.

A rash of mailbox damage was reported during July in Barrow County, according to Barrow County Sheriff’s report.

On July 31, deputies found several damaged mailboxes along Midland Court near Winder. One woman had a surveillance camera that shows a dark-colored car stop and a white girl, possibly a teenager, get out of the car cause the damage, according to a report.

On July 16, deputies were called Riverwalk subdivision in Bethlehem, where numerous mailboxes were damaged. A resident reported seeing a black Ford Mustang in the neighborhood, where many boxes were knocked off the posts.

In Bethlehem, during this time span there were several mailboxes damaged along Ellington Court area with others damaged on Rebekah Drive, Dyland Way and J.B. Owen Road.

“By the number of mailboxes on each side of the road and other reports in the county in different neighborhoods on the same date, it is reasonable to believe the suspects were in a vehicle,” a deputy wrote in his report.

Neighbors reported hearing loud noises outside their home between 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m., but the damage was not discovered until the next morning.

Hungry Howie’s Pizza, a restaurant founded in 1973 which now boasts almost 600 locations in 21 states, is opening its first store in Athens.

Located at 529 Baxter Street, Hungry Howie’s Pizza hosts for its opening a ribbon-cutting with the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, is offering a special deal (large one-topping pizzas for $7.99), and making a charitable donation to Children First Inc., a not-for-profit organization providing safe homes for children.

The franchisees of the Athens location are the husband-and-wife team of Tisha and Chad Cepuran. 

“We moved here from Florida where we fell in love with Hungry Howie’s. We decided we needed to bring it with us to Athens. We’re eager to be a part of the growing number of Hungry Howie’s locations,” said Tisha Cepuran.

The Athens location will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Sunday.

A Walton County man remained in the intensive care unit of Athens Regional Medical Center on Tuesday following a golf cart mishap last month near Statham that left him in a coma and the driver charged with DUI.

Jason Hunter Jones of Monroe was seriously injured on July 29 and went into a coma after his head hit the pavement along Rat Kinney Road, according to a Barrow County Sheriff’s report.

The driver of the cart, Russell Andrew Prewitt, 44, of Statham, was charged with DUI and serious injury by vehicle, deputies said. Prewitt was arrested the evening of the incident and released from jail on Aug. 3 on an $11,500 bond.

Deputies were dispatched to the 2300 block of Rat Kinney Road shortly before 8 p.m. in response to a man who fell from a golf cart and hit his head, officers said.

The deputy interviewed Prewitt who said he was driving the electric cart on the road when he and Jones located a street sign in the yard of a new house, according to the report. Jones, who is in his 40s, picked up the sign, which was connected to a post, and they were returning to Prewitt’s home when the pole hit the ground and it vaulted Jones from the cart where he landed on his head, deputies said.

The deputy noted in the report that while talking with Prewitt he could smell a strong odor of alcohol and that Prewitt’s speech was slightly slurred. The deputy saw four opened bottles of beer in the cart, according to the report.

Prewitt initially declined to take a breath-alcohol test, but after he was placed under arrest for DUI, the deputy determined he would transport him to Barrow Medical Center to get a blood sample by means of a search warrant. Prewitt then volunteered to the breath test, which read 0.89, the report shows.

The deputy made an inquiry about Jones’ condition that night and learned he had a skull fracture and was in a coma, according to the report.

Despite public protestations that included one young girl claiming it “will be the end of 4-H,” Athens-Clarke County commissioners decided recently to build a new county office for the Cooperative Extension Service on the far west side of the county, where it will share a 7.48-acre tract with a planned new fire station.

An outreach initiative of the University of Georgia, the Cooperative Extension Service provides a host of services — from landscape and gardening information to educational programs to the 4-H youth development program and information on a host of consumer issues — in counties across Georgia.

At their Aug. 2 meeting, commissioners voted 7-3 in favor of the site at Cleveland Road and Callaway Drive as the site for a new Cooperative Extension building that will, like the fire station, be funded with proceeds from a 1 percent special-purpose local option sales tax approved by Athens-Clarke County voters in a November 2010 referendum.

Opposing the recommendation of a citizens’ site selection committee chaired by Commissioner Harry Sims were Commissioners Andy Herod, Melissa Link and Jared Bailey.
The Cleveland Road site was one of six sites initially examined by the committee. The other sites were a South Milledge Avenue tract that the University of Georgia eventually pulled from consideration, another westside site on Ben Burton Circle, and sites on Gaines School Road, Lexington Road and Research Drive.

Eventually, the site selection committee whittled that list down to three choices — Lexington Road, Gaines School Road and Cleveland Road. The committee noted the Lexington and Gaines School sites were too small to accommodate the full plan for the new Cooperative Extension building, and only by co-locating the Extension Service and the fire station on the Cleveland Road tract would the budget and space be adequate for constructing the Extension building as envisioned in the sales tax spending plan. That plan includes an auditorium with a seating capacity of 200 people, a demonstration kitchen, nearly a dozen offices and a number of storage areas. In all, the building will cover 8,486 square feet.

The young woman who protested the Cleveland Road site would be the end of the 4-H program told commissioners the travel time to and from the new location — the Cooperative Extension Service is more centrally located in the county, off West Broad Street — likely would cut into meeting times for some members of the program.

Much of the discussion of the Cooperative Extension Service siting decision featured various commissioners noting the travel times they logged in test drives from their homes to the Cleveland Road site, with some comparison with travel times to the existing West Broad Street site.

That discussion included some references to possible routes to the site, with the westside’s Commissioner Jerry NeSmith pointing out that using the access road that circles Georgia Square mall and Marilyn Farmer Way to access the Cleveland Road site would eliminate the need to travel down a congested stretch of Atlanta Highway to get to the new Cooperative Extension location.

NeSmith went on to argue that, even if one of the eastside sites — Gaines School or Lexington Road — was chosen, those sites likely would have been inconvenient for westside residents.

As part of the same discussion, Commissioner Kelly Girtz rejected the notion the site was inaccessible via the local public transit system. While there is not a bus stop, or even a bus route, immediately adjacent to the site, Girtz said a bus stop on the mall access road is just 800 feet from the new Cooperative Extension location.

Girtz, who was among the commissioners who logged miles to the new location, told the public and his commission colleagues, “I don’t see it as inaccessible at all.”

Bailey countered that, while he didn’t have any ideas as to an alternate site for the Cooperative Extension center, the Cleveland Road location “is about the worst place you could put it in the county.”

A report from the sales tax program management and county management to the committee acknowledged that the Cleveland Road site did receive the lowest marks in a decision matrix on the siting decision. But the report went on to contend that the 7.48-acre tract was the only place where both the Cooperative Extension office and the fire station, which will replace the fire station located at the intersection of Atlanta Highway and Mitchell Bridge Road, could be built within the available project budgets.

The fire station is just one of the projects included in a package of fire protection initiatives totaling $5.2 million, while the Cooperative Extension Service office is budgeted at almost $2.6 million.

WIB Breasts & Vests Safety Seminar: 6:30 to 8:30 a.m., Oconee State Bank Operations Center, 7920 Macon Highway, Watkinsville.

The Lounge Gallery: Deepanjan Mukhopadyay: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Lyndon House Arts Center, 293 Hoyt Street, Athens.

New mamas support group: 10 a.m. to noon, Bloom Community Space, 160 Tracy Street, Athens. Free. www.bloomathens.com.

J.O.Y. (Just Older Youth) Club of Tuckston UMC: 11 a.m., Tuckston UMC, 4175 Lexington Road, Athens. $7.50 per person. To make lunch reservations, please contact Brenda Smith at (706) 583-8954.

Military Order of the Purple Heart, NE Georgia Chapter No. 531 Meeting: 11:30 a.m., Hilltop Grille, 2310 W. Broad St., Athens. (706) 338-0086.

Athens Heritage Tour: 1 p.m., Athens Welcome Center, 280 E. Dougherty St., Athens. Reservations are encouraged. Price: $15 per person (706) 208-TOUR (8687).

Museum Mile Tour: 2 p.m., Athens Welcome Center, 280 E. Dougherty St., Athens. Reservations are encouraged by calling 706-208-TOUR (8687). $20 per person.

Hearings Board Meeting: 3 p.m., Dougherty Street Governmental Building, 120 W. Dougherty Street, Athens.

Early Care & Learning Strategic Action Team: 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., Early Learning Center, H. T. Edwards Building 2, 440 Dearing Extension, Athens. Free., www.fc-cis.org

Blue Sky Vinyl: 5 p.m., Blue Sky, 128 College Avenue, Athens. Free. (706) 850-3153

Alcoholics Anonymous: 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Call (706) 389-4164 for location. www.athensaa.org.

Anime Club: 6 to 8 p.m., Oconee County Library, 1080 Experiment Station Road, Watkinsville. (706) 769-3950 or visit www.athenslibrary.org/oconee.

Four Athens Happy Hour: 6 to 7 p.m., The World Famous, 351 North Hull Street, Athens. https://www.fourathens.com/.

Jazz at Porterhouse: 6 to 9 p.m., Porterhouse Grill, 459 East Broad Street, Athens. www.porterhouseathens.com. (706) 369-0990

Scream Free Parenting Class: 6:30 to 8 p.m., Grace Fellowship Church of God, 1120 Malcom Bridge Rd, Bogart. (706) 769-4001. $15.

Athens Popfest 2016: 7 p.m., Georgia Theatre, 215 N Lumpkin St, Athens. The 12th annual Athens Popfest will feature over 50 artists performing during the festival’s four days. Afternoon shows take place at Little Kings Shuffle Club and evening shows will be at the famous Georgia Theatre. This event is for ages 18 and up. $12-$48. (706) 850-7670, info@georgiatheatre.com, athenspopfest.com/

Athens Rising: 7 p.m., Live Wire Athens, 227 W. Dougherty St., Athens. Free. www.livewireathens.com

Open mic night: 7 p.m., Live Wire Athens, 227 W. Dougherty St., Athens. www.livewireathens.com.

Rabbit Box Storytelling: 7 p.m., The Foundry, 295 E Dougherty St, Athens. Tickets are $5 in advance or $7 at the door. For more information, visit www.rabbitbox.org.

Bingo: 8 p.m., Highwire Lounge, 269 North Hull Street, Athens. www.highwirelounge.com.

Cornhole Tournament: 8 p.m., Saucehouse Barbeque, 830 East Broad Street, Athens.

Dirty Bingo: 8 p.m., Grindhouse Killer Burgers, 1553 South Lumpkin Street, Athens. Free. www.grindhouseburgers.com

Dirty South Trivia: 8 p.m., Mellow Mushroom, 320 East Clayton Street, Athens. Free., 706-613-0892

Trivia: 8 p.m., Blind Pig Tavern, 312 Washington Street, Athens. www.blindpigtavern.com., (706) 548-3442

Full Contact Trivia: 8:30 p.m., Blind Pig Tavern, 2440 West Broad Street, Athens. Free., www.facebook.com/blindpigtavern

Karaoke: 8:30 p.m., The Office Lounge, 2455 Jefferson Road, Athens. www.facebook.com/OfficeAthens., 706-546-0840

Sports Trivia: 8:30 p.m., Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, 1860 Barnett Shoals Road, Athens. Free. (706) 850-1916

Karaoke: 9 p.m., The Office Lounge, 2455 Jefferson Road, Athens. www.facebook.com/OfficeAthens., 706-546-0840

Trivia: 9 p.m., Copper Creek Brewing Company, 140 East Washington Street, Athens. www.coppercreekathens.com. (706) 546-1102

For more events or to add an event to a future calendar, visit events.onlineathens.com.

Members of an Oconee County Christian group returned to the county’s board of education to press their request to teach Oconee County public high school students for-credit Bible classes.

Members of the group, Oconee County Christian Learning Center, have come to several board meetings asking the board to allow students at the county’s two high schools to leave those campuses to take for-credit Bible studies classes at the center.

The non-denominational group, which believes in Bible inerrancy, would operate under the umbrella of Prince Avenue Christian School, an Oconee County private school.

When Oconee County Christian Learning Center members came to a June meeting, board member Kimberly Argo asked if the group had a written agreement with Prince Avenue Christian concerning accreditation.

At Monday’s meeting, learning center advocate Rick Pettigrew said they had a verbal agreement with Prince Avenue. Prince Avenue head of school Seth Hathaway told him there will be a written agreement, however, Pettigrew said, assuring the board he would come back with that agreement.

The center is asking the school board to allow students to leave the campuses of North Oconee High School and Oconee County High School for “religious release time,” much the same as when students leave campus to work at jobs. They also want the school system to grant academic credit for the Bible classes, as an elective course.

Board members did not respond to Pettigrew’s plea, nor to a recent graduate of North Oconee High School, Kyle Clark. The learning center would make students feel loved, and that there is a better future, Clark said.

Pettigrew quoted the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in pleading the learning center’s case.

“When the state encourages religious instruction ... it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs,” Douglas wrote in a 1952 majority opinion.

“To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.

“We find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion,” Douglas wrote. “We cannot read into the Bill of Rights such a philosophy of hostility to religion.”

“To not accommodate our proposal,” Pettigrew said, “places your action or non-action in a non-neutral light.”

Follow education reporter Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH or https://twitter.com/LeeShearer.

Athens-Clarke County public works personnel are working through a significant backlog of “stormwater utility fee” appeals the interim director of the county’s Transportation & Public Works Department says has caught his staff by surprise.

“I don’t think anybody anticipated it,” said Steve Decker, who took over the department recently after the departure of long-time director David Clark, who left for a similar position in metropolitan Atlanta’s Fulton County.

Eleven years ago, the county government instituted a “stormwater utility” under terms of the federal Clean Water Act. Under the law, communities that don’t comply with stormwater permitting requirements can face monetary penalties, in addition to the prospect of not being able to obtain the federal permits needed to operate their water and wastewater systems.

The fees charged to property owners under the stormwater utility are based on the amount of “impervious surface” on a given tract — surfaces such as roofs, decks, driveways, walkways (and for commercial, industrial and institutional properties, things like parking lots, internal roads and other paved or covered surfaces) — from which stormwater drains into the county’s storm sewer system.

Money collected through the stormwater utility fee is used to help fund maintenance of the county’s stormwater infrastructure, water quality sampling, stormwater education programs and construction site inspection. Since 2005, stormwater fees have, along with special-purpose local sales tax revenue, funded three dozen stormwater improvement projects, including work on Lumpkin Street, Cleveland Avenue and Newton Bridge Road.

Under Athens-Clarke’s stormwater utility, multifamily, commercial, industrial and institutional properties are charged a fee based on the actual square footage of impervious surface on their respective tracts. (Unlike other county assessments, the stormwater fee is charged to local, state and federal government properties, including county government facilities, the University of Georgia, the Clarke County School District and the various federal offices located in Athens.)

Single-family residential properties, on the other hand, are charged under a more general formula split between small, medium and large properties. Small properties are those with less than 1,500 square feet of impervious area, medium properties are those with between 1,500 square feet and 4,000 square feet of impervious area, and large properties are those with more than 4,000 square feet of impervious area. A typical medium-sized single-family property in Athens-Clarke County is assessed approximately $42 annually.

For years, stormwater assessments were based on aerial photographs taken in 2003, from which county personnel determined the amount of impervious surface on a given lot and calculated the stormwater fee to be charged to the property owner. For the latest round of stormwater assessments, the county used higher-resolution photography from a 2013 aerial survey of the county to calculate the stormwater utility assessment.

That difference in photographic resolution has worked in many ways to create differences in stormwater assessments, Clark explained in a March interview with OnlineAthens/Athens Banner-Herald.

In some instances, the lower-resolution photographs found county staff members seeing shadows as impervious area, meaning in the latest round of assessments, some property owners actually saw decreases in their stormwater assessment.

Conversely, though, the lower-resolution photographs also obscured some impervious surfaces, meaning the more recent and sharper images resulted in increased stormwater assessments for some property owners, thus prompting the numerous appeals the Transportation & Public Works staff is now working to address.

Any property owners who believes their latest stormwater assessment is based on an incorrect calculation of the impervious surface on their property can start the appeal process by contacting the Stormwater Management Program at (706) 613-3440, or emailing stormwater@athensclarkecounty.com with their name, address, phone number and account number. In either case, a stormwater representative will review the account and will call the property owner “as soon as possible,” according to the Stormwater Billing Update section of the county government’s website, www.athensclarkecounty.com.

Decker could not say Tuesday how many appeals have yet to be reviewed by his department’s staff, but he did say he met with the department’s staff on Tuesday morning and is assigning more people to handle stormwater fee appeals. Decker noted candidly that his expertise is in traffic engineering, not public utilities, and he went on to note the department has also been hampered by some staff departures, and by the fact the department also has a new engineering coordinator.

“We are catching up with it,” Decker said of the backlog, but added the department is also searching for a permanent fix to the issues associated with handling stormwater assessment appeals. That fix may not come particularly quickly, Decker admitted, explaining, “I want to do it one time, and do it logically.”