09.20
One Eleven restaurant was closed yesterday, cleaning up damage done by an overnight burglary. Someone broke into the store through a basement door, cut alarm cables, disconnected cameras, stole a small amount of money, and helped himself to money from charity bracelet sales.
A suspect, 20-year-old former employee Casey Darling, was later arrested at the Morgan Motel where he currently resides. People who know Darling say he lived with LaFayette City Manager Frank Etheridge for a time due to being friends with Etheridge’s son but was kicked out (and fired from One Eleven) due to alleged drug use. Darling’s personal Facebook says he was “Manager/Barista” at the restaurant.
- WQCH Radio, 09/19/2012: “‘DETECTIVE MEEKS EMPHASIZED THAT MORE ARRESTS ARE POSSIBLE AS THE INVESTIGATION CONTINUES. HE SAID THE OWNER OF ONE-ELEVEN, MIKE LOVELADY, WAS ‘DISAPPOINTED’ WHEN POLICE TOLD HIM THAT SOME OF THE STOLEN ITEMS WERE FOUND IN DARLING’S POSSESSION. THE OWNER TOLD POLICE HE HAD ‘BEEN TRYING TO HELP’ THE MAN.”
Walker Co Schools says football players will continue to eat pre-game meals at churches, and doing so is legal if all they do is eat a meal. Freedom From Religion Foundation disagrees, saying it’s illegal to take students to a church for any purpose, even if nothing “religious” happens there.
Some of the original complaints made by FFRF (like students being preached to) needed to be checked, but this seems to be grasping at straws. If the students are not engaging in a religious activity, there should be no problem with using a church space for a meal.
Latest news on the Library renovation.
In other library news: Rossville has caved in to pressure over raising property taxes and will return to the old way of generating city revenue – but that means less money coming in. They’re going to take it from the Rossville library budget, meaning their branch of Cherokee Regional Library could close all together.
Chattooga Sheriff Everett has reversed himself – again – saying no CCSO employees will be laid off to save money. He says the department will exceed its budget by $300,000 this year and it’s not his problem because they can’t predict costs ahead of time. Plus he saved the county a hundred grand by not giving prisoners stamps.
The Commissioner (of Chattooga) says in response that he might not pay all the bills Everett racks up, so any vendors to the Chattooga Sheriff’s Office or Chattooga Jail better make sure their services are approved by the commissioner.
Today’s story will probably be different, because there’s a different conflicting tale from Everett or Chattooga Commissioner Winters every day.
Voting registration deadline for November elections is October 9th. If you’re not registered, get it done.
GA House District 1 candidate John Deffenbaugh didn’t participate in a candidate forum last week in Dade because he was vacationing in Slovakia. Meanwhile, his opponent Tom McMahon (a Catoosa Co teacher) said voting for the charter schools amendment means control over local schools might pass to Indian call centers.
GA Center for Logistics has prepared reports about every county’s freight flow and the economic impact thereof. Skimming over the Walker County report, it seems the only economic contact person for the county mentioned is Catherine Edgemon, who was fired a week ago, and the e-mail for her is a personal Hotmail address. That’ll do wonders for getting new business here.
Not sure how they calculate those numbers, but we have trouble believing that Walker County received $195 MILLION worth of railroad freight in 2011. That doesn’t include anything sent to Chattooga through Walker – just what was unloaded inside the county. Synthetic/Shaw in Chickamauga is the only significant railroad customer in Walker, are they really using that much raw material?
In comparison, Chattooga’s logistics report says they only got $4 million worth of stuff from the railroad. But Mt. Vernon is the biggest rail customer. Walker County’s numbers are crazy inflated.
Whitfield County received something like $622 million in rail freight during the same year. So Whitfield is only slightly more than 3x Walker? They have more rail deliveries in Dalton every day than Walker has in six months. We call shenanigans on this. But for what purpose? Does anybody even look at these reports?
A month after fining one GA Senate leader for false expense reports, Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers is being investigated for doing the same thing. He possibly claimed expenses paid for by his campaign fund as personal costs related to serving in the legislature, several years in a row.
Are there really no jobs, or no jobs people are qualified to do? Positions in the trades, like plumbing, mechanics, or carpentry, and things many overlook like truck driving, now pay better than most office positions – and remain unfilled because nobody has the skills to do them. The state is launching a new initiative with Mike Rowe (of “Dirty Jobs”) to encourage more technical education.
