Election qualification for LaFayette City Council Ward 2 will end Wednesday afternoon. Ward 2 is qualifying separately from Wards 3 and 4 because it wasn’t vacated by now ex-councilman Norm Hodge until the September council meeting. Fortunately there’s still time to include Ward 2 candidates on the November 8th ballot, avoiding the costs of a special election. Here are the Ward 2 candidates who have qualified as of noon Tuesday:

Ward 2 Candidates:

• Ben Bradford
• Dell Montgomery
• Keith Talley

Since qualification isn’t done, the list of candidates may change. Check back Wednesday evening or early Thursday for the complete lineup.

Candidates for Ward 3, Ward 4, and the at-large ward qualified during late August. Ward 3’s current occupant, Bill Craig, isn’t running, neither is Ward 4 Councilman Eric Tallent. At-large councilor Wayne Swanson requalified for his position but has no opposition.

Ward 3 Candidates:

• Chris Hollis
• Judy Meeks
• Jerry Rogers
• Stacey Suttle

Ward 4 Candidates:

• Melvin Bridges
• Chris Davis
• Joe Daniel DeBoard
• Donnie McGaha
• Kevin Robinson

At-Large Candidates:

• Wayne Swanson (Incumbent)

Four-way and five-way campaigns for the 3rd and 4th wards should make for an interesting race, and will probably lead to a run-off election in December since it will be nearly impossible for any one candidate in those races to get more than 50% of the vote. Also making it interesting, candidates Meeks and Bridges have both served on the council before, giving their opponents plenty of voting history to refer to.

Links to candidate’s Facebook profiles are included when possible. The Underground is attempting to contact every candidate in a competitive race (sorry Wayne) to conduct an e-mail interview; if you’re a candidate, please e-mail the LU so we can e-mail you back, if you haven’t already.

Readers, what would you ask this year’s City Council candidates? If you have a question, post it in comments below. We’ll pass the best ones on to the candidates along with our own questions for an upcoming series of articles. Candidates, we ask that you NOT try to answer questions directly or in comments; to be fair no candidate should see their opponents’ answers before the articles run here. Interviews will be sent out at the end of the week; we hope to have responses up several weeks before the vote.

If you’re old enough to vote but not registered, please register before the October 11th deadline. To find out your voting status please visit the Georgia My Voter Page or see/call the Walker County Elections Office. Mail-in ballots for absentees or early-voting can also be requested at the Elections Office, and in-person early voting will begin there on October the 18th. Absentee ballots must be requested at LaFayette City Hall.

SEPTEMBER 26 UPDATE:

Johnnie Arnold turned in a resignation letter, effective 10/10. Council voted 4-0 to accept the resignation. He was not at the meeting, had no legal counsel at the meeting. He leaves with nothing but his vacation pay and health insurance through the end of October. Council voted on city health insurance, 2012 budget, and also voted to allow the mayor to sign two-party checks “if the City Manager or City Clerk are not available” which indicates clearly that the CM won’t be. New CM starts 10/10, his name was announced – more info on him later. Mayor was asked about Ms. Greene, they said cannot comment on her because it’s a personnel matter – she probably will have a similar deal as her friend.

If he left this willingly, without any benefits, his behavior was as bad (or worse) than we thought and he likely agreed to leave with no strings attached to avoid prosecution or additional legal risk for himself. This is the best possible outcome for the city, but hopefully will not preclude any investigations into his potentially illegal behavior as City Manager. If the GBI was called in they can’t just be shooed away, so more information may still surface.

Good number of people at the meeting tonight considering we never did see an announcement for what time it was supposed to start. Apparently got rolling at 6:00 or 6:15, everything was done by 6:40.

SEPTEMBER 25 POST:

From WQCH, 09/20/2011:

“LAFAYETTE’S MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL WILL HAVE A CALLED MEETING TONIGHT AT CITY HALL. ONCE AGAIN, THEY’RE DISCUSSING PERSONNEL IN A CLOSED SESSION, STARTING AT 6:15 THIS EVENING. NO BUSINESS WILL BE CONDUCTED AT THE MEETING. THE COUNCIL IS TRYING TO HIRE A NEW CITY MANAGER AND HAVING THAT PERSON ‘ON BOARD’ BY THE FIRST OF OCTOBER, IS THEIR GOAL.”

The “closed session” announced Tuesday was presumed to be more discussion about choosing a new City Manager for the City of LaFayette, but in actuality it was about an issue with the old City Manager, Johnnie Arnold.

Several months ago Arnold announced an intent to retire next March. The original plan called for his replacement to be named in September or October and then train beside Arnold for six months before fully taking over the position. But now sources within city government are saying Arnold was fired, or told he will be fired, during last Tuesday’s special meeting.

Lets backtrack a bit and look at recent incidents that might have prompted his dismissal.

Tuesday August 30th LaFayette’s head trash collector resigned from his position with the city. He left not to take a new job or to retire, but to avoid being caught and punished for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the city while working in a supervisory role he should never have been given in the first place.

It’s no secret that LaFayette’s city leaders play favorites with city employees. Workers are hired, promoted, demoted, and even fired based not on their job performance or qualifications but because of their relationships, friendships, or support for the schemes of those in charge.

One example of that is our Public Safety Director, Tommy Freeman. Freeman was chosen to head the combined fire and police department by a three-man committee consisting of Mayor Neal Florence, City Manager Johnnie Arnold, and Walker Sheriff Steve Wilson. Wilson was on the committee to give it legitimacy with law enforcement, but according to the Wilson family Steve provided no input into the process and simply signed off on whatever Florence and Arnold decided. Arnold made the final pick, bypassing qualified local and regional candidates to hire someone from his home town of Griffin, GA.

That would be acceptable if Freeman was more qualified than the other candidates, but he’s no more deserving of the job than some who lived closer by. His previous experience in law enforcement was as head detective for the Griffin, GA police department, and he was rumored to have left that community due to his son and daughter-in-law’s criminal behavior there. (They followed him here; his daughter-in-law was arrested on Christmas Eve 2009 for shoplifting at Walmart and has since gone back to Griffin.) Freeman’s firefighting experience was nil, and even in LaFayette he’s refused to get fire certification the city originally required him to obtain.

The police chief’s job performance is, at best, poor – but the council and city manager have refused to respond to complaints about him from citizens and officers alike. One officer sent a letter about Freeman’s inadequacies to the City Council and mayor; Instead of addressing the officer’s concerns they passed the letter on to Freeman, who made every department employee submit a handwriting sample to figure out who penned it.