County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner 

Q.  What is the latest on the Hemlock disease (hemlock wooly adelgid) in Union County?  Is it really a threat or just something that might happen?
A.  It is a real and a very serious threat.  We recently found it on all seven hemlocks located at my sister’s home near the Sears Store on the Blue Ridge Hwy.  We have treated the trees with the chemicals they suggest using.  You should look at your hemlocks, and if you see tiny white balls that are just a bit larger than a pin head, your trees need to be treated.  For more detailed information and use of the treatment applicator, please call Mickey Cummings, Union County Agent at 706-439-6030.

The hemlock is one of the most beautiful trees in the forest and while the chemical treatment is fairly expensive, it is necessary to help save this tree.

Q.  You have discussed the need for impact fees in the past and talked about how difficult they are to adopt.  Why is that the case?
A. Like many things, it can be related to money. The building industry has a very large lobby that has a fair amount of influence with the Georgia legislature.  In addition, some counties and cities have not always used the impact fees properly, so it is such a confining piece of legislation, it is hard for a small county to set it up.

Just this session of the legislature there is an amendment (HB 232) that will make it even more difficult.  I have included the wording of the legislation to give you an idea of the problem.   “HB 232 amends the Georgia Development Impact Fee Act by requiring projects to undergo a two pronged test before Impact Fees can be expended within a service area.  The governing authority must first consider the proximity of the improvement project to the impacting development. Secondly, it must consider what improvement project will have the greatest effect on the strains caused by the development.”

Q.  We are wondering why the county is spending taxpayer money at the Byron Herbert Reece home place and why we got a grant for improving that area instead of using it on other worthwhile county projects.
A.  First, the TE grant that was awarded to Union County to fix up the Reece Farm did not prevent us from getting any other grants.  We did not have a project that qualified under the TE grant specifications, so if we had not utilized it on the Reece property, the grant would have been lost.

Second, Union County is not utilizing taxpayers’ funds on the new projects at the farm.  The 9.3 acres of the Reece Family Property belongs to Union County and has been leased to the Reece Society to develop and maintain as the “Reece Farm and Heritage Center”. We occasionally send a work detail to mow and clean up and we did provide dirt to fill in around the old home place project, but that has been the extent of our contribution.  The rest is being accomplished by the Reece Society through donations and other grants. 

Q. What is the big deal with Byron Herbert Reece and his poetry? Didn’t he take his own life at an early age?
A. I have told some people this before, but you can put all the poetry that I have ever read in a very small book.  So that is not what fascinates me about him. However, Reece was an extremely talented poet and novelist who published four volumes of critically acclaimed poetry and wrote two outstanding novels.  He won many awards and  was renowned throughout the United States for his writing.  He had  a very unusual personality as he farmed by day to make a living and wrote poetry at night.  Both of his parents had tuberculosis and much of his life was spent caring for them.  Once he contracted the disease,  he did not want to go through all the suffering his parents did.

Commemorating his life and writings at the Reece farm is not only about him and his family, but about the mountain way of farming and living. When completed, this project will be an accurate historical representation of mountain farming complete with many of the actual implements used on his and other similar farms.  Life was tough back then and this exhibit will help us all remember the debt of gratitude that we owe the farmers and caretakers of our mountain property and way of life in the early part of the last century. Byron Herbert Reece was an integral part of this legacy and his life is worth  remembering.

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