TAKING A LOOK AT TOOMSBORO

Family plans to reopen businesses in sleepy town

TOOMSBORO - Tim Bumgardner says his family's plans to turn this Wilkinson
County town into a quaint tourist destination won't proceed until local drug
dealers are put out of business. Local law enforcement officials say the
developer is exaggerating the amount of drug crime in Toomsboro.

"We're not going to do anything until this stuff is cleaned up," Bumgardner
said Friday. "There are five or six crack houses in town. Nobody in
Wilkinson County is interested in doing anything about it."

Bumgardner's father, David Bumgardner, purchased much of the town two years
ago, including the Swampland Opera House, the former Willis Hotel, a cotton
warehouse, a syrup-making facility, a grist mill, a restaurant, several
houses and a lakeside campground.

The family announced plans to reopen the businesses with the intention of
making Toomsboro a rustic tourist destination, centered around the Swampland
Opera. Until it closed in 2000, the Swampland Opera drew crowds of several
hundred to the town each Saturday for concerts featuring country, gospel and
bluegrass music.

Toomsboro Police Chief Shawn Ring and Wilkinson County Sheriff Richard
Chatman said Friday that Bumgardner has not told them the town has a severe
drug problem and they have not seen evidence of it.

"If he knows about drug activity, he needs to come talk to me," Ring said.
"If I knew about drug dealing I'd stop it."

Chatman said he has met Bumgardner once and that the Florida-based developer
has never indicated a widespread drug problem in Toomsboro.

"Every community has some problem with drugs, but I can't say that it's
worse in Toomsboro than anywhere else," Chatman said.

Bumgardner said he has been in contact with the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation about drugs in Toomsboro and that agents have conducted underc
over drug operations in the town without making arrests. Attempts to reach
GBI officials Friday were unsuccessful.

Chatman said normal protocol is for the GBI to be invited into a
jurisdiction to do investigations and that the agency coordinates the drug
task force that operates in Wilkinson County. If the agency was
concentrating on Toomsboro, "I would be informed," he said.

"People call us to report it when they suspect drug activity," Chatman said.
"I think we would be inundated with calls if there were problems like that."

Since the purchase, the Bumgardners have been working to get the buildings
into shape, Tim Bumgardner said.

"We didn't have a building where the roof didn't leak," he said. "It
actually became a renovation process."

Despite complaints about drug dealing in Toomsboro, the Bumgardners are
proceeding with work on the properties.

"We've got a large, expensive landscaping project starting" at the hotel,
Bumgardner said. "It will have an elaborate garden and a fountain."

Meanwhile, Toomsboro residents wait to see the outcome of the developers'
efforts.

"We're watching with great anticipation," Toomsboro Mayor Roger Smith said.
"They have been working steadily."

Retired shopkeeper Frank Mills said residents are impatient to see results
from the Bumgardner's efforts. "There is some work going on," Mills said.
"But as far as progress for the town, it's been zero. They need to get the
opera going."

Mills, 79, is a lifelong resident who would like to see Toomsboro return to
its former prosperity.

"There ain't nothing left in this town," he said. "We had the only bank that
didn't go broke during the Depression. We had Ford Motor Co., two doctors, a
dentist, a druggist."