01.03
2015 has (thankfully) come to an end. Here are the past year’s 14 biggest local news stories shared by The LaFayette Underground:
In January controversial eatery Chattanooga Street Tavern changed owners, from the Lovelady family to nurse Tabby Holcomb.
Holcomb’s efforts to bolster the business while still badgering and bullying the city as Mike Lovelady had done were unsuccessful; the eatery got one of the city’s worst health scores in years and finally closed down in July after almost 3 years of constant drama.
In January LPD investigated a child abuse case on Pledger Parkway involving a 9-year-old boy who was allegedly being starved.
Details of the abuse are sad, and made much sadder by government failures that allowed it to continue for two months after teachers first noticed something was wrong. Walker DFCS ignored abuse complaints for seven weeks, getting at least thirteen calls from Gilbert teachers during that time but taking action only after police bypassed the agency and took matters into their own hands.
A state investigation into our local DFCS office resulted in the director being removed and encouraged more reform of DFCS offices around the state. The results of those reforms are still unclear.
Just as they did in 2014, Walker County’s delegates in the General Assembly ignored their constituents in 2015 by refusing to allow a vote on sole commissioner county government.
After being presented with a petition signed by 2,045 Walker County taxpayers, Senator Jeff Mullis and his counterparts in the Georgia House – Steve Tarvin and John Deffenbaugh – claimed the petition was invalid and continued to insist nobody was asking them to allow a vote. (Sole Commissioner Heiskell too claimed the petition was all fake, but admitted she personally prefers the current system because she’d lose her job without it.)
After the petition was made public many attempted to call the three legislators about sole commissioner. Most found themselves dealing with a broken voicemail system or bored teen phone-answerers who seemed unmotivated to take messages. While ignoring constituent calls (and a newspaper poll showing broad support for a board of commissioners), Mullis and Tarvin continued insisting that there was no widespread demand for a vote on (or change of) the county’s type of government.
Tarvin thought sole commissioner was such a non-issue that he spent his own money creating and airing a TV commercial to explain his illogical position on the subject. Tarvin received more citizen calls after his commercial was shared on LU, but those who got the man on the phone said his statements to them were also contradictory nonsense.
Earlier in the year a push to put sole commissioner on the 2016 Republican primary ballot was defeated in a 53-57 decision during a party convention corrupted by county employees paid to vote.
Party Chairman Matt Williamson said at the time, despite obvious corruption of the process, that the matter had been settled – but in September joined other party leaders in deciding to actually put a question about sole commissioner on the ballot next year. (Were they motivated by a desire to do what the people want, or just take pressure off elected leaders? We’ll see..)
Walker County Democrat Party leaders voted in November to do the same – meaning anyone who pulls a partisan primary ballot next May WILL have a say in what form of government Walker County should have.
Unfortunately, those party ballot questions are “non-binding” and legislators (the only ones with actual power to change the county’s system of government) can still ignore the results – or take six years to follow up on it, as Tarvin promised to do on UCTV in September.
Tarvin, Mullis, and Deffenbaugh can STILL pass a resolution during the next three months giving Walker County voters a direct say in the county’s government structure, bypassing the convoluted process. Their action (or lack of action) in that area will speak volumes to voters when the legislators’ jobs are also placed on the ballot in May.
LaFayette Housing Authority employee Lori Baker was arrested in May after allegedly stealing about $12,000 of property from low-income housing residents.
Police say Baker had keys to every apartment for purposes of inspections, and used those keys to let herself in and take whatever she wanted. Ultimately Baker was caught because she was lazy; pawning stolen items at the same LaFayette jewelry store each time until her activity became suspicious.
LHA’s ex-“Resident Coordinator” was arrested again in June for using stolen credit cards, which she had returned to residents’ homes after “borrowing” them earlier in the year.
AUDIA PLANT OPENING NEXT MONTH ANY YEAR NOW
Commissioner Bebe’s latest boondoggle, a county-funded plastics mill in Noble, blew through a half-dozen promised opening dates in 2015 – along with tens of millions of tax dollars.
Audia held county-sponsored “job fairs” in March and April while Bebe claimed on TV its employees would make at least $18 an hour. The plant was projected to open in August, then in early September, late September, November, and then December – which it still didn’t do.
When the mill DOES open, it will employ only sixty – less than half the 150 jobs promised a year ago and a fifth of the 300 claimed initially.
A number of people WERE hired by the business, but they’ve so far been paid to do “volunteer” work for the City of LaFayette and various charities while waiting on their actual jobs to begin. If they ever do.
After a mouth-breathing segregationist shot up a church of black folks in South Carolina, many political leaders began demanding the removal of the Confederate Flag and other southern symbols from public spaces – something they wanted done anyway, and now had opportunity to push politically.
The symbol was pulled from many retail stores and removed from national parks in July, resulting in multiple demonstrations like the one above. (The group above was told to leave Chickamauga Battlefield after being deemed a rally and told to obtain a permit in order to gather.)
Georgia also (temporarily) suspended its Sons of Confederate Veterans tag program, resuming it with a slightly modified design in October.
A handful of other shootings in California, Chattanooga, France, and elsewhere later in the year – none remotely connected to the Confederate flag – distracted from the opportunistic hysteria over the flag and mostly took it out of the news, meaning it probably won’t be the hot button issue during next year’s elections as it was this summer. Hopefully.
In late July the landlord/owner of ghetto Pear Pine Trailer Park skipped town without paying his bills – leaving dozens of his tenants (who had paid their bills, to him) without water service.
The park is a notorious hotbed for crime, with at least 26 incidents reported to police in the first half of the year – including residents throwing fans at each other and a drug bust involving children.
(The landlord, Fernando Gene Fernandez, was and still is sought by police for his unpaid $6,000+ water bill and several other outstanding warrants. He’s thought to have fled the country.)
The city condemned the property and told remaining renters to leave within 30 days. Residents began packing up and looking for new housing, but some were unable to do any better for months. Several expected the city to just turn the water back on and let them continue living in the quickly deteriorating park rent-free.
With help from a Rossville trailer park and a couple of churches, the last Pear Pine renters moved out in mid-October. LaFayette seized the property and is in the process of “cleaning it up.”
Bi-Lo sold its 29 stores in Eastern Tennessee and North Georgia to grocery competitor Food City during July.
Bi-Lo signs came down in the fall, one by one, replaced with Food City branding and products. LaFayette’s Bi-Lo reopened as a Food City on October 9th, to mixed shopper reviews.
During the next year Food City says it will spend tens of millions to upgrade former Bi-Lo locations and build gas stations adjacent to most of them.
GETTING OUT OF THE AMBULANCE BUSINESS
LU broke the news on July 30th that Walker County’s ambulance service, one of the few parts of county government that worked right, was up for sale.
What’s worse, the ambulance service was being sold to Hutcheson, which unloaded it to Walker County in a hurry years earlier, and Hutcheson was itself sliding off a cliff into bankruptcy.
The deal announced on LU via a memo from Fire Chief Randy Camp and verified in mainstream reports made absolutely no sense. Where would Hutcheson get the money to buy the ambulance service, and how would selling a service which Heiskell claimed in 2010 made money help the county financially? If it was losing money, how would that benefit Hutcheson?
After a month of public speculation and concern, Commissioner Heiskell realized how ridiculous (and probably illegal) her plan was, and put the ambulance service out for bids. The winning buyer, of three companies that made offers, was Atlanta-based Puckett EMS.
Puckett paid $1.5 million for the county’s ambulances, equipment, and EMT’s – and will now get $250,000 a year BACK from the county for providing those back to us. (Typical Bebe financial planning – a one-time cash infusion swapped for a long-term financial burden.)
Puckett took over Walker County ambulances in November – much to the disgust of dirty county coroner DeWayne Wilson, who owns competing EMS service Angel Medical in Catoosa County.
A relic of LaFayette’s manufacturing past went up in smoke on November 14th.
The former ET Barwick carpet mill on West Main Street caught fire and burned for several days, necessitating a response from hundreds of fire fighters from dozens of departments stretching from Summerville to East Ridge TN.
When the flames were finally extinguished, officials from the city and EPA were left scrambling to figure out what, exactly, had been inside the mill – primarily used for warehouse space in recent years. Questions of exactly what got into the air and water have not been fully answered even now, and likely will never be completely figured out.
Property owner Drennon Crutchfield (or his Dalton business’ insurance company anyway) is being held responsible for the costs of cleanup, including expensive asbestos containment and removal. The city also said he’ll be getting a bill for the cost of putting out the fire.
Long-time LaFayette recreation director Patti Scott was fired in early November by City Manager David Hamilton.
Hamilton said Scott was disorganized and lacked initiative, her release after two-decades of service was intended to bring about “change at the recreation department.”
The decision to can Ms. Scott was upheld by the City Council in a 4-1 vote during December. Her position is now held temporarily by Scott Underwood while the city searches for a professional permanent replacement.
Also fired from the city, with little community objection: Public Works Director Mark White.
Northwest Georgia’s favorite medical/legal/crime drama – Hutcheson – faced cancellation at season’s end, thanks to the combined efforts of inept county and state government, greedy lawyers, and a corrupt CEO.
2015’s episodes include All In The (Weldon) Family, What Debt??, Not Worth The Paper It’s Printed On, Desperate Liars, The Phantom Profit, Mystery of the Missing Insurance, Lookin’ for Love, Hello Apollo, OBGY-Gone, Equipment-Shmequipment, Hospital On Hold, The Buyer Who Never Was, Betrayal Pt I, Betrayal Pt II, Deterioration Day, Deal or No Deal, and Blame Game – followed by a drawn-out, emotional finale in early December.
Hutcheson briefly continued in a Web-only series, Smackdown With Farrell Hayes, before resuming under new management a few days before Christmas.
Will Hutcheson and ApolloMD find true love, or will their engagement end in disaster? Can Farrell Hayes track down the mysterious hackers who took over his Facebook page? How long will taxpayers tolerate abuse at the hands of a hateful hospital authority?
Tune in once again during 2016 to find out.
One week before Thanksgiving, a Naomi family was shaken by murder – a murder allegedly committed by the victim’s husband.
Per police, 37-year-old Christy Denson was shot and killed by her husband Steven, then left in the bed for several days while he cleaned up the crime scene, hunted for chainsaw parts, and went about his business.
The ex-convict eventually told a friend about his wife’s death and remains, and the friend called law enforcement. After his arrest Stevens allegedly admitted shooting Christy, but told investigators that it was an accident.
Still stung by the previous year’s 69% property tax hike, Walker County entered 2015 hoping Commissioner Heiskell would reign in her spending and avoid raising taxes again.
Bebe did all she could to avoid raising taxes directly, but through the year blew cash left and right while planning to increase taxes via legally creative methods that could be blamed on other people NOT up for reelection in 2016.
Heiskell began the year saying no more tax increases would be needed, and Development Director Liar-y Brooks said the county only had $10 million in long-term debt – statements they didn’t even believe themselves. (The county’s audit from October 2014 said Walker had $47 million in debt, a figure growing larger by the day.)
While saying no increase would be needed, Heiskell took out another short-term $10 million loan – the third or fourth time she’s taken out loans at the beginning of a year to pay back a loan from the previous year, guaranteeing the loan with future tax revenue.
Heiskell’s plan to raise taxes through another method began when she proposed creating a county “Facilities Authority” which could sell bonds and collect taxes without taxpayer permission. The stated purpose of that authority was to pay down Hutcheson debts, but even Rep. Steve Tarvin (to his rare credit) saw through that claim and refused to pass legislation creating the authority because it could “put our citizens in more debt.”
In August Heiskell admitted a tax increase WOULD be necessary, saying she’d need at least an extra mil of tax – an increase that would have put Walker’s county property tax rate among the highest in Northwest Georgia. All to pay back those loans she took out earlier in the year, or as the Times Free Press described it “..a loan to pay off a loan to pay off a loan.”
The public response to this new tax increase was hardly happy, and Heiskell quickly backtracked to a position of NOT raising taxes, while coming up with new ways to raise them indirectly.
Instead of using the Facilities Authority Rep. Tarvin refused to create, Heiskell turned to the old tried-and-true: Walker County’s existing Development Authority. WCDA, a county-owned entity controlled by a board mostly appointed by Heiskell (she also sits on the board herself), can also sell bonds (or issue debt) and receive taxes to pay them off. But under state law those bonds are supposed to be for economic development, not to cover irresponsibility.
Heiskell and County Attorney Don Oliver crafted a plan that would meet that legal standard: Take out a $17.5 million loan through the Development Authority to pay for the Audia project in Noble and divert a few million to cover the county’s general fund debts.
That loan, in the form of bonds, will be paid back over a 20 to 30 year timeframe via a new 1 mil property tax paid to the Development Authority, costing taxpayers an extra $10 million in interest – $2,400 a day at the higher interest rate – for two decades. All to fix ONE YEAR of ONE PERSON’S poor spending choices.
As a bonus (for the Commissioner), the convoluted deal also transferred ownership of Mountain Cove Farms, the Civic Center, and the Agricultural Center to the Development Authority, where they cannot be sold until the loan is paid off – cementing Heiskell’s legacy of corruption and abuse into place until about 2045.
The deal was rubber-stamped by the Development Authority and signed off on by Judge Wood, with taxpayer comment stifled. Three legally required hearings for the tax increase came and went with little protest since protesting in Walker County is useless.
Tax bills were mailed out late (payments aren’t due until February), and contained a surprise: In addition to an 11% tax increase for the Development Authority screwing, taxpayers living outside incorporated cities found their annual fire department fee had also been doubled – another back-door tax increase courtesy of Heiskell’s leadership.
While claiming poverty and trying to shove a tax increase through the back door, Heiskell continued to blow money like a drunken commissioner sailor.
During 2015 Walker County purchased a bank for $700,000 (then spent another $130k to renovate it), began unnecessary construction projects in Kensington and Hinkle, spent over a half-million dollars (including EPD fines [which grow because they haven’t been paid]) on a walking trail to nowhere, bought a $25,000 trolley for “tourism” at Mountain Cove Farms, borrowed $800,000 to expand the county’s long-closed landfill, spent about $900,000 on Mountain Cove Farms itself, and dumped more money into an unpopular county fair.
Bebe’s minimal efforts to save money included not having meetings at night to avoid paying overtime, shorting the library system by $20,000, auctioning off road equipment, and closing her restaurant at Mountain Cove Farms – after admitting it cost some $949,000 to set up and operate over a two year period.
Multiple tax increases, stupid spending, and disrespectful treatment of voters (not to mention her declining health) have pretty much made Bebe Heiskell’s defeat in 2016 a given – if she even runs. But fixing this mess will take a lot more than a single vote or another single commissioner.
The 2016 election will no doubt be one of 2016’s top stories a year from now.
- February 16: Ronald Bowman, 61, law officer, politician, former Hutcheson director.
March 10: Robert Hitchcox, 64, Coke employee, community benefactor, Santa Claus.
May 23: Bryan Hall Jackson, 83, veteran, former LaFayette councilman, businessman.
May 26: Georgia Dobson, 92, retired LaFayette business owner.
September 5: Jaxon Taylor, Kensington infant.
October 19: JJ Montgomery, 31, musician.
October 20: Melinda Brewer, 55, occupational therapist, nonprofit director.
November 14: Jeremy Wallin, 37, veteran, fireman/paramedic.
November 22: Christy Denson, 38, United Synthetics employee.
November 30: Jenna Kendrick, 13, Saddle Ridge student.
December 23: Kenny Careathers, 66, retired LPD officer.
NOTABLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS & AWARDS
Achievement in Political Ethics: State Senator Jeff Mullis, for illegally inserting himself into a court case by pressuring a judge to “help” a friend charged with theft. He also gets honorable mention for trying to derail the EPD’s investigation into Walker County’s environmental damage, refusing to hear constituents’ concerns, eating well at lobbyist expense, and his general contributions to blocking ethics reform at the state level.
Political Ethics Runner-Up: Fellow Chickamaugan John Culpepper, of the Water Authority and Hospital Authority, nominated for cursing and telling a citizen to “shut up” during a water board meeting. (Culpepper also get credit for his role in destroying Hutcheson.)
Overreacting Granny of the Year: BJ Sherlin, for getting on Channel 9’s 6:00 newscast when her 4-year-old granddaughter didn’t drown for five seconds in the shallow end of the city pool.
Smelliest Accident of All Time: Joseph Broome, who lost control of a mower and ended up in the pit at Trion’s Doo-Doo Factory.
Greatest Achievement in Mathematics: Christi Morgan, Rock Spring Yard Sale Facebook Group Administrator (and former church con-artist). Her division skills eventually landed her on Failblog.
Retread Criminal of the Year: Tim Brumlow, age 17. Alleged crimes include stealing from relatives (again), breaking into a house to take guns, and swiping a car. Also drugs.
Dirtiest Lawyer of the Year: William David Hentz, arrested in February for stealing a $21 memory stick from Fred’s and again in May for drug possession.
Dirtiest Lawyer Runner-Up: County attorney Don Oliver, who the award should be named after, because he’s a convicted drug dealer yet still practices law. Oliver’s specific achievements this year include bankrupting Hutcheson and getting Walker County into more complex debt deals.
Viral Post of the Year: Dalton PD Battman.
Most Likely to Plea Insanity: Serpentfoot. Because she wants to be legally known as “Nofoot Allfoot-69-mouth-tail-solids-liquids-gases-animals-vegetable-mineral-all-predators-and-prey-that-consume-and-move-with-feet-fins-wings-wheels-canes-roots-limbs-vines-landslides-dust-wind-water-fire-ice-gravity-vacuums-black-holes-going-over-under-around-and-through-Our-Greater-Self-our-habitat-the-cosmos-of-which-we-are-but-part-and-where-all-life-feeds-upon-other-life-from-the-smallest-atoms-or-bacteria-to-the-great-black-holes-and-dog-eat-dog-and-‘Last-Suppers’-where-we-are-what-we-eat-or-consume-and-each-lives-on-in-the-other…∞ Serpentfoot”
- January 28: Under New Management
March 18: WCSO Sergeant Fired for Abuse
March 30: Many vs. Mighty
May 29: Rock Spring Community Meeting
June 21: The Toolbox
July 30: Walker EMS Up For Sale
September 4: Hutcheson On Hold
September 14: Thirty Years a Slave
September 29: And The Winner Is…
November 8: 200 Days
December 3: True Colors of Farrell Hayes
In late April, a LaFayette family was burned out, losing their home, most of their possessions, and the family dog.
Firemen from LaFayette FD and Walker State Prison took time to give the animal a proper burial in the back yard after it was located.
A heartbreaking, touching moment – but the kind of selfless service we all hope to encounter again (minus anyone or anything dying) during 2016.
Happy New Year. May we all have, and do, better than the last one.
Good post, LU. Thanks for your hard work.