Cameras to be put on buses
Chattooga County is aiming to catch drivers who illegally pass stopped school buses. Violators will receive a bill for the $360 fine in the mail.
Chattooga County is aiming to catch drivers who illegally pass stopped school buses. Violators will receive a bill for the $360 fine in the mail.
SUMMERVILLE — A new camera system being installed on Chattooga County buses will begin recording motorists who illegally pass a stopped bus that is unloading children, according to school system Director of Transportation Mike Jarrett.
Those violators may receive a $360 traffic citation in the mail.
The school installed the cameras in response to complaints by bus drivers that motorists are not stopping for children getting off buses. The school hopes to have the system operational by Oct. 10.
“When we get ready to let students off a bus, we turn on the stop lights about 200 feet before we get to the stop,” Jarrett said.
He said that sometimes they are not able to if they have stops that are real close together, around 100 feet or so.
“We have a problem with people running our stop signs on buses,” Jarrett said. “We have known it and we have tried to stop it.”
Jarrett said he has talked about the problem with the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Department and the Georgia State Patrol.
Instead of relying on exclusively on law enforcement personnel, the school system discovered the camera system as a way to help.
“The cameras we have put on the buses from Gatekeeper, we have run them now for four weeks on one school bus and averaged 41 violations a week,” he said. “That’s ridiculous and shows the kind of problem we have.” Gene Espy, Summerville News
Dalton ‘Dreamers’ going to Washington
DALTON — Dalton resident Christian Olvera says that when he meets with members of Georgia’s delegation to Congress next week he wants to make one thing clear about himself and other “Dreamers.”
“We are not afraid of hard work. We don’t want any handouts. We don’t want anything for free. We don’t want a nickel out of anybody’s pocket,” he said. “All we want is a chance to work, to pay taxes, to buy a home and buy a car. If they want to put us in the line, that’s fine, just let us start.”
Olvera one of about 800,000 illegal aliens— including an estimated 24,000 Georgia residents — brought to the United States as children who as adults were granted a work permit and deferred action from deportation by former President Barack Obama in 2012 under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
President Donald Trump earlier this year said he would end the program in March but has called on Congress to make it permanent.
Born in Mexico, Olvera, 26, is one of about 100 Dreamers, including several from Georgia, who will be asking lawmakers to do just that.
His family came to Dalton when he was just eight.
“I went to Dalton schools my whole life. This is where my friends are. This is my home,” he said. “I still have family back in Mexico, but it really is like another country to me.”
Olvera is a student at Dalton State College who also helps his family manage a photography and digital media company.
The DACA program applies to those who came to the United States before their 16th birthday and prior to June 2007. They had to have been in school or a graduate of a U.S. high school or have been honorably discharged from the military. They cannot have been convicted of a felony or serious misdemeanor or more than two misdemeanors.
Garrett Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, said one of his staff members will be meeting with Dreamers next week.