The Fayette Citizen-News Page
Friday, August 14, 1998
No to Movies

By JOHN THOMPSON
Coweta Editor

Mama Flora and her family will have to gather somewhere else after the Coweta County Commission decided Tuesday not to allow the group to use the old courthouse in Haralson.

AJA Enterprises is filming the television movie "Mama Flora's Family" around Haralson and wanted to use the courthouse as a staging area to gather everyone in the morning before the shooting began. The group also wanted to use the building as an area to keep the extras until they were needed.

Assistant County Administrator Chuck Crawford said the county's policy called for a daily rent of $1,000 per day and the studio wanted the facility for 18 days.

County Commissioner Vernon "Mutt" Hunter said he didn't have a problem with the movie being filmed in the county, but said the county had never agreed to let any of their courthouses be used for such a purpose.

"There's plenty of buildings down there, like the old post office, that could serve the same purpose," he said.

Hunter said it could set a precedent if the county allowed the studio to use the facility.

"Does the county want to get into the rental of property? If they were going to use it as a backdrop and film the movie there, that would be different," he said.

The commission voted unanimously to deny the use of the facility to the movie folks.

In other news, the commission heard that a number of potholes had been fixed at the South Oaks Mobile Home Park. After viewing the conditions of the roads at the park, the commission told the owners that county emergency vehicles would not be allowed into the facility until the roads were fixed.

The commissioners said that county vehicles could suffer severe damage trying to navigate the pothole-filled roads, and he did not want the taxpayers paying for damaged vehicles caused by bad private roads.

Crawford told the commissioners that several potholes had been filled in and it was now safe for emergency vehicles to travel the roads again.


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