The Macon Telegraph from Macon, Georgia • 2

Macon ffclcgraplj'' Ncius Saturday June 9 1990 LocalState 1B IB Insided EH Legal ads 3B6B Markets 4B5B National news 6B Twiggs official denies use of county tractor wrong By Colleen McMillar Macon Telegraph and New JEERSONVILLE The Twiggs County Commission chairman denied allegations that he did anything wrong in permit ting a county tractor to be used on private land owned by his uncle Chairman James Epps confirmed Thursday that he approved the action which was the subject of a closed door meeting Tuesday night when commissioners were asked to respond to questions raised by rank Cook owner of Cook Con struction Co During a commission meeting Cook asked commissioners the whereabouts of a Caterpillar tractor bought with a state grant The tractor was used at a county landfill until it closed in May 1989 While commissioners were (See TWIGGS page 2B) Police think tag tip in Coleman slaying a hoax By Dahlia Wren Macon Telegraph and Newt HAZLEHURST Authorities seeking the killer of an 18 year old woman spent two weeks checking license tags for four digits provided by an anonymous caller Now they believe the call to have been a hoax the person had really wanted to help he would have given us the chance to talk to said Jeff Davis County Sheriff Mark Hall The telephone tip May 24 to the Macon Telegraph and News was one of many that department and GBI agents have sifted through since the body of Rhonda Sue Coleman was found May 20 in a wooded area in Montgomery County A man who would not identify himself called the newspaper the day after funeral and said he saw a dark blue and white pickup truck the night Coleman disappeared He claimed a light was flashing over the license plate but he was only able to see four digits 8374 The caller also said the driver was a man wearing a striped shirt with a patch on the left sleeve After receiving the call a newspaper reporter called the Jeff Davis County Sheriffs office and relayed the information Last week investigators requested that the man call again and promised that his identity would remain unknown He called howev er Hall said Authorities still want people to call with anything they can remember that might be in some way related to the slaying that might not seem important might be something we could put with the other information we Hall said The Jeff Davis High School senior disappeared May 17 about 10:30 pm as she drove toward her home She had been in Hazlehurst with a group of friends working on a senior banner for the June 2 graduation exercises Her car was found with its lights on and the motor running Police believe her killer was someone she knew Wheeler starts negotiations on waste contract By Dahlia Wren Macon Telegraph and News ALAMO Wheeler County offi cials began negotiating the terms of a proposed contract this week that would open the door for a multimil lion dollar waste treatment opera tion want a good tight contract we can control and protect the County Attorney Russell Clark said Clark County Commissioner Mau rice Johnson and members of the Resource Recovery Devel opment Authority met with Trust Company Bank representatives who will handle sales of the tax free bonds that will finance the project and representatives of King and Spaulding an Atlanta law firm expected to act as bond attorneys is a great deal yet to be Clark said desire is to have a recycling plant not a burn and bury Development authority members are investigating a proposal from Millen based Georgia American Re source Recovery Corp to build a $326 million waste disposal and recycling facility in Wheeler Coun ty Georgia American president Charles Carswell has said the plant will employ 1500 people at an annual payroll of $25 million and would pay Wheeler County an annu al fee of $35 million Authority members happy with the proposed contract Clark said verbal promises have been made that in the contract I want to see in writing that there will be no smoke and no seepage into the Also at question is whether Car swell can produce the money to pay for a $1 million feasibility study Johnson said Johnson and the five other au thority members visited plants in Iowa lorida and South Carolina that are similar to components of the proposed Wheeler County plant want to put in the contract that what we get in Wheeler County will be what we saw in those other he said jr i' 1 1 'rtvy f' 'X I 5 It fcx Dancin' in the park Cornielus Pendleton and Wendell Collier entertain a crowd of city employees and their families during picnic at Central City Park With Phillip Sullivan MARYANN BATESMacon Telegraph and News they are part of the trio inest who are Macon police officers They were taking part in the adult lip sync competi tion at the picnic Greer taking a sabbatical from Mercer By Audrey Post Macon Telegraph and News The dean of Mercer College of Liberal Arts announced this week that she is taking a yearlong sabbatical beginning Sept 1 ends Greer said not sure going to happen It would be saying more than I Greer has faculty tenure at Mer cer and thus could return to a teaching position but deans serve at the pleasure of the adminis tration Continuing faculty protests calling for the resig nation of President Kirby Godsey have increased fric tion between Greer and her bosses In report to the board of trustees in April he noted his continuing conflict with the faculty and men tioned Greer indirectly the case of a university the (See GREER page 2B) nnf ro college Sammye Greer told the liberal arts faculty Tuesday that she likely will i turn as head of the but stressed that she has not resigned Contacted riday Greer said she is not ready to announce how she will spend her sabbatical Sammye it win oe chiefly scholar Greer she said Asked whether she would be coming back when her sabbatical lutJL Despite requests from CAS Godsey will attend ceremony Kirby Godsey By Don Schanche Jr Macon Telegraph and News ATLANTA Mercer Atlanta liberal arts college will hold its final commencement today with President Kirby Godsey presiding over the faculty and students who blame him for closing their school Godsey and James Coom er the senior academic vice president were asked by faculty and students of Mer cer's Cecil Day College of Arts and Sciences not to attend the ceremony but both men are coming any way In a letter to the faculty Godsey said "I do understand the grief and the pain associated with the closing of CAS However I believe that my responsibility within the university requires that I be However Kathi Stearns one of about 200 graduates and lead stu dent plaintiff in a lawsuit to keep the CAS from being shut down said of Godsey plans to attend: just think highly inap propriate me it almost seems like waiting for the person to pull the plug like the executioner going there to administer the last few volts after been sentenced to she said Stearns will be speaking at to ceremony as will Jean Hen dricks a Mercer professor in Macon who was the first dean of CAS (See GODSEY page 2B) Plant Vogtle accident preventable NRC says the Associated Press WASHINGTON A special Nucle ar Regulatory Commission investi gation concluded riday that a potentially serious accident which cut electrical power to safety sys tems at a Georgia nuclear power plant last March could have been prevented But the investigators praised op erators at Plant Vogtle near Way nesboro for their skill in restoring power to a reactor's cooling system within 36 minutes after a truck accident knocked out one power system and a backup generator then failed twice to kick in automat ically personal opinion is we ought to congratulate those NRC Chairman Kenneth Carr said after the special investigative team briefed the commission on its find ings "They were operating without a full deck of cards and they did a heroic job to get it back in 36 he said The accident occurred March 20 when the Unit 1 reactor at the plant was shut down for refueling Two of the four electric "power sources for Unit 1 safety systems were out of service at the time and the reac cooling system was open for maintenance A fuel delivery truck knocked out one of the two remaining power sources when it backed into a support column in an electrical switchyard at the plant And during the 36 minutes it took to get the backup diesel generator started the temperature in the reactor cooling system increased from 90 to 136 degrees ahrenheit The accident also triggere automatic shutdown of the Un reactor which was operating at full power because of a wiring error that had gone undetected since the plant was constructed Carr said there never was real serious that the loss of the Unit 1 reactor cooling system would have damaged reactor core and resulted in a release of radioac tivity Ken McCoy Georgia Power Co vice president in charge of Plant Vogtle agreed with assess ment and with the investigative conclusion that the accident could have been prevented The investigation concluded that the power outage also was responsi ble for the failure to notify state and local authorities of the incident within prescribed time lim its The emergency commu nications system is on the same electrical circuit as its safety sys tems Al Chaffee who headed the inves tigation said the three main factors that contributed to the accident were the lack of control over activities in the switchyard its decision to take two safety system power sources down for mainte nance at the same time and its failure to respond to a long history of problems with sensors in the backup diesel generators vr 71 I WIH Li jLti 5 MiwIiw IrXi a WCaWaHMfei Cooling off ssce Anderson SC firefighter Russell McClellan cools off Assistant ire Chief Rodney Lowe after they fought a forest fire in southern Anderson County With tempera tures reaching into the 90s and a lack of significant rainfall in the area firefighting has become a very hot profession.