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Jon Herschell has resigned as Jefferson city manger after a year and nine months on the job.
The city council accepted his resignation on Monday following a closed session and named city clerk Priscilla Murphy interim city manager.
Herschell has accepted an assistant city manager’s position in Hartwell.
“It’s a family move,” he said. “We have property up there on the lake … It’s just a good opportunity for me and my family.”
His resignation is effective Aug. 25.
See the full story in the July 26 issue of The Jackson Herald.

A 5-part series describing the events surrounding the assassination of solicitor Floyd “Fuzzy” Hoard 50 years ago will begin in the August 2 issue of The Jackson Herald.
Hoard was a crusading prosecutor in the Piedmont Judicial Circuit (Jackson, Barrow and Banks counties) who targeted the area’s organized car theft and bootlegging gangs after taking office in 1964.
Hoard was murdered in his car with 10 sticks of dynamite on August 7, 1967, at his home outside of Jefferson.
The bombing made national headlines and led to a four-month search for his killers.
The upcoming series of articles examines what led up to the assassination and the events that happened afterwards.

The City of Jefferson finished 2016 in the black, but auditors hit the city on a variety of problems involving the handling of city finances.
Among the items auditors singled out as problems were:
• P-card statements and receipts for several employees were not being independently authorized but were being reviewed only by the person whose name is on the card. Also, some purchases made with the P-cards did not have receipts. “Strong policies and procedures should be implemented to deter improper use of purchase cards,” auditors wrote.
• restrictions on P-card purchases are “not properly implemented and enforced,” said auditors.
• credit card statements are not being reviewed prior to payment.
• the Downtown Development Authority does not have anyone from the DDA or its board review bank reconciliations or journal entries before they are handled by an independent contractor.
• the DDA required several adjustments because of incorrect entries. The DDA also did not properly report unearned income.
• there is no independent review of bank reconciliations done by the city’s finance director.
• reimbursements to employees are not being reviewed and approved by an independent person in the city.
• an email was used as an invoice and paid without independent review.
• an audit adjustment of $44,000 was needed in the city’s water and sewer fund to account for “doubtful accounts.”
See the full story in the July 26 issue of The Jackson Herald.

Jefferson’s growing city limits have concerned school leaders as new houses — and students — are brought in.
The Jefferson Board of Education discussed the issue at its July 13 meeting.
Enrollment is already up 80 students from the end of last year, but finance director Kim Navas expects that number will be much larger (150-200). She said administrators are working to manage staffing and classroom sizes.
Jefferson’s school population has consistently grown over the past several years. That enrollment increase could be heightened by new housing developments being brought into the city limits.
“There’s 600 future home sites already approved within the city,” said superintendent John Jackson.
The Jefferson City Council recently approved annexing a portion (56 homes) of the Storey Meadows Subdivision. The annexation was approved in a split vote, despite opposition from city leaders, according to chairman Ronnie Hopkins.
The neighborhood will be split between the city and county school systems.
Currently, the move will only bring in 13 students to the Jefferson City School System and about half of those are enrolled as out-of-district students already.
The council is set to consider a much larger annexation on Monday. That development (located on Galilee Church Road) would include over 100 homes.
Hopkins encouraged the board to reach out to city council members. He noted the district is managing its current population, but continued annexations could have an impact.
“This could cause us severe problems,” he said.
See the full story in the July 19 issue of The Jackson Herald.

Former Nicholson Mayor Ronnie Maxwell pleaded guilty in Superior County Monday to one charge of theft by taking.
Maxwell was not sentenced because the judge will wait for a probation report, but attorneys discussed some parameters of a plea bargain.
Maxwell will pay restitution of more than $6,100 and likely will be sentenced as a first offender, giving him the chance to clear his record with no conviction if he has no violations during the probation period.
Two counts of violation of an oath by a public officer are expected to be dismissed as part of the plea bargain.
The former mayor is charged with using $10,607 in special purpose local option sales tax money to pave a private road that served only his family.
The use of the SPLOST money occurred in May 2015. An investigation by the district attorney’s office was started in June 2015 after MainStreet Newspapers reported about the use of the public money.
A date was not set for sentencing, but a time frame of about 30 days was discussed by court officials.
See the full story in the July 12 issue of The Jackson Herald.