Grovetown to fund meals for seniors

Grovetown officials on Monday approved funds for a meal program for Grovetown Senior Center to replace a contract with a Gainesville, Ga., company.

The city council approved $27,500 to begin receiving the senior center meals from the Columbia County Detention Center beginning Feb. 1.

"But at least our seniors are going to eat better," Councilman Dick Manion said.

Manion originally approached Columbia County officials about funding the program. The county denied the request to fund the 40 meals per day but gave the city a van to get the meals from the jail.

The county purchases and distributes 160 meals to seniors at the Euchee Creek Senior Center near Grovetown.

The four city council members present said they were in favor of funding the meals at $2.10 each from the jail over the mostly grant-funded GA Foods meals at $4.45 each.

Mayor Pro Tem David Daughtry said he hoped the city's seniors would be treated the same as the county's seniors and be provided meals by the county.

"It ought to be a no-brainer," Daughtry said. The Grovetown Senior Center does not turn away residents from outside the city, he said. "We're Columbia County residents. We pay the same tax dollars that the folks just outside the city of Grovetown do ... I've had a real heartburn about this. We get treated different. Our tax money is just as good a their tax money. I'm not asking for anything special. Treat us like everybody else out there in the county that pays the same amount of taxes that we're paying."

Also at the meeting, the city council approved rezoning more than eight acres on the back of the former Mobile Home Estates property on Wrightsboro Road to commercial.

The more than four frontage acres already have been rezoned from residential to commercial.

Connie Smith, assistant director of Planning and Zoning, said many businesses have expressed interest in the property, but only one - O'Reilly Auto Parts - has committed to locating to the 12-acre property in downtown Grovetown.

The city council also approved a Sister City program with Groveton, N.H.

The cities will exchange plaques and tourism information for their museums, Manion said.

Both cities grew around the railroad, and both cities were founded under the other city's name.