Good news for Villanow residents: Dollar General will be opening a new store in that community within the next year.

Walker County has eight DG stores already, including Rock Spring, Chickamauga, Kensington, Flintstone, and two each for LaFayette and Rossville.

Looks like it’ll be going in at the corner of GA 136 and GA 201, across 201 from the ancient decrepit Favorite Market / Mapco store. Workers have been clearing the lot for something, this is probably what that something will be.   

Early Thursday morning an inmate in the Catoosa County jail was found hanged.

Jamie Shawn Cook was given CPR by jail guards and arrived at Hutcheson alive but was declared brain dead and taken off life support; he passed away Thursday afternoon, age 30.

Cook, who was in jail on drug charges, leaves behind at least one young child.

Per news reports he was sharing a cell with several other men but they didn’t hear or see anything.   

More stupid crime (with a Walmart link, per usual) in LaFayette:

WQCH Radio, 07/11/14: “NOT A GOOD IDEA TO USE A CREDIT CARD STOLEN FROM A FRIEND AT THAT FRIEND’S PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT. LAFAYETTE POLICE WORKED JUST SUCH A CASE LAST WEEK.

“THEY ARRESTED 31 YEAR OLD CANDICE MARIE ELSBERRY. SHE IS ACCUSED OF STEALING CASH AND A CREDIT CARD FROM HER FRIEND’S HOUSE IN CHICKAMAUGA. THE FRIEND HAPPENS TO BE A WALMART EMPLOYEE. THEN LAST FRIDAY, POLICE SAY ELSBERRY TOOK THE STOLEN CARD TO THE LOCAL WALMART WHERE EMPLOYEES RECOGNIZED THE NAME ON THE CARD AS THAT OF A CO-WORKER.

“..SUSPECT WAS CHARGED WITH THEFT BY TAKING AND CREDIT CARD FRAUD.”   

City of LaFayette reports a wave of scam calls related to electric service. Don’t be fooled, don’t get robbed.

LaFayette City Facebook, 07/11/14: Citizens Beware: We are getting multiple reports of citizens receiving phone calls that were up for electrical disconnection if their bills were not paid immediately. This is a scam!! This is a scam to steal identities and credit card information.

The City of Lafayette will never call to say you are being disconnected, or call you and ask for your credit card #. Citizens Beware. Please share this post!! Let’s put this stop this scam dead in it’s tracks!

If you have questions or tips to share that can help stop this scam, please call LaFayette Police Department 706-639-1540.

The city doesn’t call people when their bills are overdue, and for the past several years utility customers haven’t even been sent second notices. If you’re being disconnected they will just come disconnect you. When the lights go out you’ll know the bill didn’t get paid.   

Two “activists” from Valdosta sent letters to the governor and hundreds of state officials, demanding Georgia no longer endorse events or holidays related to the Civil War, rename streets honoring Confederate leaders, and defund historical sites or monuments related to the Confederacy.

Their reasons are related to concerns about glorifying slavery and honoring people who rebelled against the US government.

Letters were sent weeks ago, but so far neither Gov. Deal or governor candidate Jason Carter have replied. Libertarian governor candidate Andrew Hunt bizarrely says he agrees with the letter’s sentiments.

(Wouldn’t a true, philosophically consistent libertarian say the government shouldn’t interfere with someone’s rights to own a slave? Let the free market decide, or something.)   

Walmart LaFayette will have a job fair next Wednesday, beginning at 9 AM.

Job applicants are required to register online ahead of the fair and bring two forms of ID.

Walmart’s Trion store will also have a job fair within the next week.   

Noble Fellowship Church has built an archery range to “target new members.”

Something like that is fine to get people in the door and make connections, but what will they find theologically once they come in?

Churches have to do more than build an archery range or set up a circus show, else people will come and go fast or be misled..   

7-acre solar farm in Lyerly will supply 1.2-megawatts of electricity to Georgia Power after it opens in September.   

Monday LaFayette library patrons checked out 800 books and movies, setting a new record.

800 is about a third of the total votes cast back in May regarding library funding.   

Latest local arrests!   

Senator Jeff Mullis (R-Caterpillar) has been appointed to a 911 modernization committee by Governor Deal.   

The precipitous decline of state political coverage: “There is a paradox in the reality of American politics: The more local an office, the more of an impact it has on any given person’s daily life. Yet the more local an election, the lower the voter interest. Presidential elections drive turnout. State legislators, who decide funding levels for local transportation projects or school districts and who have more influence on the average person’s life than the president of the United States, do not. Now, there is less coverage of those legislators than ever before.”   

Early in the week GA Board of Pardons and Paroles granted clemency to an inmate originally scheduled for execution on Thursday. Their reasons aren’t public, but it’s likely because the murderer is now 68 years old and would have been the oldest convict executed in Georgia in a generation.

He was convicted of shooting and beating a man to death in 1991.   

In Fulton County, residents are upset over a proposed 17% property tax increase – the first tax hike there in two decades.

Here in Walker, Commissioner Heiskell’s proposed 1-mil tax increase will raise taxes 20%+ for residents living outside city limits, the third increase in a decade. Outside of LU, where’s OUR outraged media coverage?

Admittedly their taxes are starting a whole lot higher than ours, but they also have sidewalks, coherent public transportation, and an Interstate.

So far it’s not clear exactly how much the Queen plans to raise taxes, she said at LEAST one mil (which would be over 20%) this year. That amount plus previous tax changes would mean a doubling of property tax here in the 14 years since Bebe took office. What’s it going to look like if she stays in her position another five or ten years?   

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