MT. AIRY - After a quarter-century in the making, Mt. Airy officials are making renovation of the Mt. Airy Schoolhouse a reality.
Mayor Gary Morris, whose dream it has been to see the town take over the old school on Dicks Hill Parkway, has set a goal of the first city offices being in place in the building by the end of the month.
"It's been a long, hard process," Morris said. "We're closer than we've ever been and it's exciting to see that it is going to happen in my tenure as mayor, so we're excited. And I think maybe the upstairs is going to be completed in my tenure, too, because with SPLOST - that's going to be a big help for us - we'll be able to spend some of that money on the school. That's going to help us get an elevator in, which will allow the upstairs to be a community center. That's going to help Mt. Airy, it's going to help Habersham County."
The first two departments headed to the schoolhouse are the police department and Georgia Crime Information Center.
The move was hastened by the addition of a new customer for the town's GCIC background check department, Morris said. To accommodate that customer, the town either was going to have to spend thousands of dollars to run fiber optic service to the current town hall or proceed on an emergency basis with renovations of the school to house the police department and GCIC.
Morris said the town felt the latter option and accelerating the move to the schoolhouse was the best use of public funds.
"The good news is we got a new [GCIC] customer that probably increased our volume by 20 percent - 25 percent," Morris said. "In order to provide that, we're going to have to add computers and the Internet service is just not enough here to take care of that. We need at least two more employees to handle it."
At Monday night's meeting, the town council spent considerable time going over various facets of the schoolhouse projects, including floors, doors, security, cabling and drop ceilings.
"I took on the challenge to get us moved within a month or so, and I've had some folks say that it couldn't be done but we're making some good progress," Morris said. "It's really been a shot in the arm for the school, because it has shown us that we can get some things done. It's going to really be nice out there. The employees are really excited about their new environment."
Morris said he, town employees, and council members have been working at the schoolhouse to help further the project.
"It's been a good labor of love," Morris said
Friday
April 19th, 2024
4:08PM
