For most people, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Holiday season; a time to relax, spend time with family, or prepare for Christmas. However, a small minority see Thanksgiving and Christmas as the best time of year to take advantage of others through scams, schemes, or outright robbery.

And that’s exactly what happened over Thanksgiving 2011 to hundreds of Walker County families who found themselves victimized by debit card fraud.

Initial reports of fraud came in Wednesday November 23rd on the LaFayette Underground Facebook: Shortly after lunchtime, a reader posted “If you have used any cards at walmart to purchase things. You need to check your accounts I heard they got hacked and got alot of people’s info. The police said they got people’s info from using cards at walmart.”

Other readers echoed that warning, saying at least ten Gateway Bank customers had been impacted and were in line to cancel cards there. Cohutta Bank reportedly told a customer “there have been cards compromised from almost every bank in LaFayette.” That confirmation prompted the Underground Facebook team to warn readers to check their own banks. Many did, and most found suspicious activity in their accounts. A torrential flood of fraud reports quickly followed.

News outlets were initially dismissive of the problem (Channel 9 did a cursory report on the evening of November 23rd concluding nothing had really happened), and at least one local bank said it was a minor issue being “magnified” by Facebook. (For what it’s worth, LaFayette Underground will proudly take credit for bringing this problem to people’s attention.) By the time most heard of the problem, banks had already closed for Thanksgiving break – but even without official confirmation it was pretty obvious by Thanksgiving day that someone (or something) was stealing money from bank accounts of people living in and around LaFayette.

During the Holidays we tend to think more about the less fortunate, neighbors and relatives struggling with unmet needs or physical disabilities. But those needs aren’t seasonal – there are people in LaFayette and Walker County who need help all year long.

More than a few of those people receive services from nonprofits, groups providing everything from food and counseling to education and medical care. Unfortunately, over the last few years things have not being going well economically in Walker County, resulting in fewer donations for these organizations just as demand for their services has increased.

POST-ELECTION UPDATE:

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that Chris Davis and Judy Meeks won today’s election. Davis topped Donnie McGaha 147 to 203, while Meeks bested no-show Hollis 206 to 146.

As we noted, the Ward 3 race was Chris Hollis’ to lose, and he did exactly that – lost an easy contest by committing political suicide. His disappearance from the race is a real disappointment for those of us who believed in his ideas and fought to give him a chance to implement them. He won’t find such eager support if he ever decides to run for office in this community again.

The LaFayette City Council is scheduled to meet next Monday night at 7:30. New councilor Ben Bradford, who’s taking the remainder of Norm Hodge’s unfinished term, should be a member by then. Davis and Meeks will attend their first meeting in January.

ORIGINAL POST:

Today (Tuesday December 6th) is the runoff election for LaFayette City Council. Polls will be open at City Hall on Duke Street from 7 AM until 7 PM. Voting in the previous election on November 8th is not required to vote in the runoff, but registration and residency requirements still apply.

The two contested races are City Council Wards 3 and 4.

The Mars Theater fire last month brought to mind a much bigger LaFayette blaze some 21 years earlier. That fire, on September 27 1990, burned down almost an entire city block on the downtown square and involved firefighters from all over the region.

NOVEMBER 9 POST-ELECTION UPDATE:

604 LaFayette residents voted in the Ward 2 race, and a sizable majority preferred Ben Bradford to Dell Montgomery or Keith Talley. Bradford got 349 votes for 58%, a clear win over Montgomery’s 209 votes, or 35%. Talley, who we said wouldn’t be a factor in this race, received support from only 46 voters.

The Underground endorsed Montgomery in this race, but Bradford contributed some excellent ideas to the election and he’ll hopefully be able to make them happen. Since Ward 2 was a vote to fill the uncompleted term of Norm Hodge, Bradford will be sworn in almost immediately and will be part of the City Council during next Monday night’s regular meeting. That means we’ll soon see how many of those ideas will be implemented, or if the young lawyer simply becomes a clone of his useless predecessor.

In the Ward 3 race, former city judge Chris Hollis, the Underground-endorsed candidate, collected 218 of the 618 votes cast, for 35%. That put him well ahead of former councilwoman Judy Meeks, who got support from 178 voters (29%). Stacey Suttle was right behind Meeks with 174. Jerry Rogers, another candidate we said wasn’t making an impact, was chosen by 48 voters.

Since none of the Ward 3 candidates got the legally required 50%-plus-one, the top two finishers will go head to head in a runoff election scheduled for December 6th. Hopefully Hollis will retain his lead over Meeks, but Stacey Suttle voters may circle around Meeks because she’s about as bad an idea as their preferred candidate was. Hollis and Meeks have a starkly different approach to almost every issue, and their December face-off will be the most significant vote this year.

In the five-way Ward 4 race, our endorsed candidate Kevin Robinson surprisingly came in fourth place with only 86 votes. Joe DeBoard was fifth with 47 votes, which makes one wonder if it was the same people who supported Talley and Rogers. In third place, performing slightly better than we anticipated, was former councilman Melvin Bridges, with 121 or 141 votes (23%), depending on which news source you prefer.

News media is also unsure about the top finisher in Ward 4. According to the Catoosa County Messenger, Chris Davis came in second place with 172 votes and Donnie McGaha came out on top with 173. Channel 9 in Chattanooga credits Davis with a winning 177 votes to McGaha’s 173. That’s only a five-vote difference, but it changes the outcome – both outlets need to recheck their numbers and make sure their reports are accurate. Variations between reports on the votes for Bridges and Davis swing the vote count from 599 to 624, which is a significant percentage.

(According to a poll worker, the county’s unofficial count gave Bridges 121 and Davis 172, with one outstanding provisional ballot cast by someone whose eligibility to vote is questionable. If the provisional ballot is deemed valid there will be one additional vote in each race, but it may not go to Davis. If it does he will be exactly tied with McGaha.)

Regardless of which man came out on top, both got 28% of the vote and will have to face each other again on December 6th. Kevin Robinson received the Underground endorsement for this race originally, but Davis was noted as being a close second and has our endorsement for the runoff. McGaha seems to be OK on the surface (a man with goats inside city limits can’t be too bad) but he’s harder to evaluate because he refused to respond to our e-mail interview questions. Either man will probably serve the city well, and the one who doesn’t win will probably run for mayor in 2013, which Robinson has hinted he will also do.

The Underground previously reported that voters who didn’t participate in yesterday’s election would be ineligible to vote in the runoff. That was in error. In LaFayette, at least, there are no restrictions on that type for runoffs. So even if you couldn’t make it to the polls on November 8th, you still have a chance to influence the outcome of the Ward 3 and Ward 4 races. This is far from done.