LaFayette has a fire problem. Again.

Last night fire crews were called to a blaze in the back of an empty home at 606 520 Henderson St. The home, unoccupied and unpowered, wasn’t a complete loss but looks to be heavily damaged.

This is the third house fire in LaFayette in less than a week – and all three burned houses (106 N Flora St, 313 E. Villanow St, and now 520 Henderson) were empty and had no power connected when they fell to flame.

State fire inspectors had already been called in to check out two of the earlier fires, and the one on Villanow St. from Sunday was being described as suspicious BEFORE yesterday’s blaze. The third fire makes all three conflagrations more concerning.       

Walker DFCS director Kimberlee Gravitz has been “removed” from her job, following an investigation into a neglect case last year that required 13+ reports from teachers before action was taken.

(It’s unclear at this point if “removed” means fired outright, suspended, demoted, or transferred.)

The specific case that led to Gravitz’s job change is from January, when a 9-year-old child was removed from a home on Pledger Parkway due to neglect (his guardians were charged with multiple counts of abuse). Unfortunately it took DFCS over two months, more than a dozen calls from teachers, and police intervention before anything was done to help the child.   

Commissioner Heiskell held her LaFayette “community meeting” Tuesday night at 7, with almost nobody in attendance.

During the meeting Heiskell AGAIN blamed the county’s financial troubles on 9/11, Tri-State Crematory, 2009 flooding, the 2011 tornado, a garbage dump fire, and the library.

In other words, a repeat of the same things she’s been using for excuses for the last five years.

She took time out of the meeting to make personal attacks against the library director and a Rossville business owner who no longer lives in Georgia, both of whom are somehow more responsible for the county’s finances than she is – in her mind anyway.

Bebe also said Audia jobs will start at $18 an hour, had a fit over a tourism project that never worked out, and listed how many times some of her mental enemies have been arrested.

All that plus picked her nose 12 times in the first 90 minutes – something she does almost any time she’s seen in public (including on TV). Maybe she’s OCD about it or something.

The next Community Meeting is tonight at 7 in Rock Spring, at the fire department in front of GNTC. LU has heard from several planning to go, so this might be the interesting one. Hope you can make it to see how the Commissioner treats constituents who speak out.       

19-year-old Jessica Taylor Nabors, an employee of Hays Prison, arrested for having a relationship with one of the prison’s inmates.

Per Facebook, Nabors lives in Chickamauga and has family in LaFayette.

[For those asking: State law treats prison guards who sleep with inmates the same as teachers who sleep with students over the age of consent. It’s a person in a position of power physically involved with a person they have control over.]   

The family of Bryan Hall Jackson has released a longer obituary/tribute than the one running in newspapers. Jackson, a former LaFayette businessman and city councilman, passed away Saturday. His services are being held today in Varnell.   

LaFayette’s new city manager attempts to explain the convoluted way your power bill is calculated.

Per David Hamilton, the city charges every power customer a $6 base rate that for some reason isn’t shown on the bill’s itemized list of charges. He also says meter readers aren’t seen on a regular basis because the city has converted many of its power and water meters over to the electronic self-reading kind. (That doesn’t explain why some families still get random $1,100 water bills.)

Hard to believe the city has converted a majority of water meters over to self-reading ones when they don’t know where about half of them even are…   

More local arrests, May 14-20.   

When you see an animal left in a hot car, you call the police.

What if the hot car IS the police?

Per an LU photographer, this cat was left in the back of the LaFayette Animal Control truck, parked at Rafael’s, for at least 53 minutes (12:15 to 1:08) on Wednesday. The animal had no water and an overturned or possibly unopened can of food in the cage while somebody was eating lunch.

It was at least an open-bars cage and not closed up like the inside of a car, but still not very humane without water on a warm day.   

Last Thursday Nathan Deal was in Los Angeles, meeting with Hollywood executives in a bid to attract more film and TV production to Georgia.

California has recently increased its entertainment tax credits to better compete with other states, but Georgia’s tax credit is still higher.   

Controversy over video/Internet jail visitation systems, like the one recently set up in Walker County, continues growing.

It’s all about making money on the backs of inmates’ family members, both for the service and the jails that use it.   

This Walker County dump truck has been parked behind the county’s new bank building in Rock Spring for roughly a week now. [Walker County doesn’t yet own the property, on paper anyway, but the county is getting ready to move in.]

The vehicle hasn’t moved in days, but the county’s trucks are ALL too busy to help LaFayette with paving projects, and obviously too busy to do any work on Lookout Mountain where mud threatens to cut off the main road.   

More fake money in Chattooga County, this time at the Wendy’s in Pennville.

Seems whenever there’s a story about counterfeit cash, it’s at a Chattooga restaurant.   

GA’s Board of Pardons and Parole can no longer pardon convicted inmates without explaining their reasons why to the public.

But a new law adding transparency to the process does NOT require the board to explain why they DENY pardons.

That’s half-way better, at least, compared to the old system.   

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