to experience the LCAAcademy story at Loganville Christian Invites you to experience the LCA story at Preview Day Preview Day Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 8:45 am January 13th 8:30AM
To register, visit www.lcalions.com - 2575 Highway 81, Loganville 770-554-9888
The story of your life since 1865
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Vol. 152, No. 2 $1
Rooted in Newton
Covington Town Center moves forward after zoning approval Jackie Gutknecht jgutknecht@covnews.com
Jackie Gutknecht | The Covington News
NCSO officials, friends and relatives of Deputy Justin White celebrate the tree planting.
NCSO Deputy Justin White memorialized with tree planting Jackie Gutknecht jgutknecht@covnews.com
The memory of Newton County Sheriff ’s Office (NCSO) Deputy Justin White will continue to take root in Newton County as he was honored Tuesday morning with the planting of a tree by the Dalton Police Department (DPD) as part of the Planting Brotherhood initiative. “It means the world to us,” Morgan White, Deputy Justin White’s wife said. “It means a lot just to see all the love and support.” Morgan White said her daughter, Charlee, will enjoy being able to visit the tree in honor of her father. “She loves to go visit daddy at his grave,” she said. “She’ll lay with him, she’ll talk with him, she’ll play with him, she’ll tell me he’s our angel and we can’t see him.” Morgan White said Deputy Justin White always aspired to go into law enforcement.
Jackie Gutknecht | The Covington News
Newton County Sheriff Ezell Brown helps plant the tree.
“He loved what he did; he loved his job,” she said. “He would come home and tell me stories of stories where he helped save somebody, just whatever, he loved it.” She said Deputy Justin
White would have loved the tree planting ceremony. “He was always one that it was always all about him,” she said. “He probably had the biggest grin on his face – just smiling – because for once it
was all about him.” Newton County Sheriff Ezell Brown said Justin’s memory will live forever with the planting of the tree.
u See tree, 4A
Banes chairs first meeting, makes history Jackie Gutknecht jgutknecht@covnews.com
Recently elected Marcello Banes chaired his first meeting for the Newton County Board of Commissioners (BOC) Tuesday night in the Historic Courthouse. The night was filled with historic events as Banes is the first-ever African American chairman to be elected to the board. Another historic event to mark the night was the appointment of Commissioner J.C. Henderson as co-chair, making the pair the first pair of African American leaders on the board. “This is a history-making board,” Henderson said. “I just feel honored that you’ve
allowed me to be a part of history.” Banes said he had a lot of fun in his first meeting and was proud to represent all of Newton County, not just the African American voters, during the meeting. “I think we’re headed in the right direction,” he said. Banes’ first meeting lasted a little more than two hours in regular session.
Commissioners excited from new start Commissioner Lanier Sims said he was excited for the direction the board was headed with the recently-elected commissioners and chairman during the commissioners comments portion of the meeting.
“When I came here tonight, I was talking to a few of the citizens and said I was excited and I don’t think I’ve been excited to be at a board meeting in quite some time,” he said. “I really look forward to working with all of the new board members and the new chairman. We’ve got a lot of tough issues coming up in 2017, I know we’re all dedicating to representing the citizens and their best interests.” Many of the board members echoed Sims’ comments of excitement. “I look forward to serving with everyone in this horseshoe and also continuing to work with the citizens of Newton County
u See banes, 4A
The City of Covington approved a zoning change and special zoning overlay district for the proposed Covington Town Center, a conceptual plan to bring a dining and shopping center location to the city, during Wednesday night’s meeting. The council met Wednesday – rather than its typical Monday meeting time due to the New Year’s holiday – first in a work session, where it heard a presentation from the developers. Harry Kitchen, president of The Foxfield Company, is leading the way to bringing more commercial business to Covington. “The idea is a mixed use project that would have retail, hotels, office, restaurants and kind of a point of destination,” he said. “One of the issues is right now in our community, we lose 50 percent of the retail buying power to stores outside our community here in Covington, so we will have a point of destination that will have not only keep more dollars here in the community and create jobs, but we’ll have people from outside our community here coming to shop.” Kitchen said the site needed to be large enough, instead of building another freestanding store like Walmart of Home Depot, to create a “point of destination.” He said the company looked at a lot of sites before landing on its current location. Located on Alcovy Road and City Pond Road, the size and location of the site were thought to be perfect for the site. “Once we’ve identified the different pieces of the development, whether it be hotel or office or retail or restaurant, we try to go out and very aggressively identify the best in class of those individual uses,” he said. “We don’t just put a sign out here ‘Call The Foxfield Company if you want some information.’ We’ll be very proactive in going out and identifying them.” Councilman Chris Smith said his constituents are begging for retail and restaurants, and not necessarily office buildings. Kitchens informed the council that only a small percentage of the project is planned for office space, which could include medical office space. “If you look at 700,000 feet of retail, versus 100,000 feet of office and 310 rooms of hotel, which is a two/two and a half acre hotel site, it’s not a lot,” Kitchens said. Kitchens said his company has conducted a market study and come back with a plan of what it thinks the city needs. Kitchens said he has, at minimum, a $12.5 million investment in the project through grading the land and adding the roadway infrastructure. “We have a big financial commitment and
u See zoning, 4A
Jackie Gutknecht | The Covington News
Ryan Thompson, of Thomas and Hutton, an engineering firm, presents details of the overlay district to the council.
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