Today’s a snow day for Walker County Schools, and considering a forecast of temperatures at or below freezing until at least Wednesday it may turn into a snow week transitioning into an extended Christmas Break. In honor of that, consider this an “open thread” for you to discuss anything you want. Christmas past or present, the weather, local schools, tonight’s LaFayette city council meeting (not canceled so far), the county’s potential investment into a hotel on Lookout Mountain, law enforcement, loved or hated local businesses, LaFayette Underground, local charities, or anything else on your mind.

Monday Closings: Walker County Schools, Chickamauga City Schools, Dade, Catoosa, Whitfield schools, Oakwood Academy, Walker Transit (late, opens at 12), Walker DFCS, Georgia Northwestern Tech, Walker Co Senior Center, Walker Co Health Department (2 hour delay), Wee-Care FBC. List will be updated as needed.

In mid-November LaFayette residents began to learn of a dangerous mercury spill happening at LaFayette High School almost a month earlier. In short, LHS students and faculty members, along with their families and other county students, were unknowingly exposed to potentially dangerous amounts of a toxic substance for more than three weeks. The school has finally begun to admit some of what happened, but their lack of transparency, delayed response, and blatant attempts to hide what happened made the problem much worse than it would have been otherwise.

Because of the school’s foot-dragging and evasiveness there are a lot of rumors and questions about the mercury spill that remain unanswered – something we’ll attempt to address by looking at the school’s minimalist press release, official statements from the EPA, news reports, and some first-hand reports from Underground sources.

Ignoring fervent pleas from tax-paying citizens, the LaFayette City Council voted during its October meeting to raise the price city utility customers pay for water and electricity.

Walker County Messenger, 10/13/2010:

“The LaFayette City Council voted Monday evening, Oct. 11, to raise city utility rates a small, but controversial amount. Council members pointed out that utility rates in the city have not been raised for approximately 10 years, and that factors beyond their control were now forcing their hand. ‘I know we don’t want to do an increase, but we have to,’ mayor Neal Florence said.”

Those cited “factors beyond their control” are actually a direct result of decisions the council made a year or more ago. As you’ll see below, the rate increase could have been avoided entirely if LaFayette’s leaders had been keeping the city’s best interests in mind from the very beginning instead of just taking care of their own interests and pet projects.

During this year’s Georgia General Assembly session, state legislators passed a little-known bill approving yet another 1% sales tax. The new law, HB 277 – Transportation Investment Act of 2010, divides Georgia into twelve zones (based on existing State Transportation Board districts), which will each have control over their own state-funded road projects. The bill also allows residents of those zones to vote for an additional sales tax, the Special District Transportation Sales and Use Tax – which we’ve dubbed SPIDITSLUT because it’s easier to type and sounds dirty. If approved by voters, SPIDITSLUT would be in place for ten years but only apply to businesses within zones whose voters approve it, with generated revenue going back to road maintenance budgets for the cities and counties located within each zone.

This sounds good in theory, but there are several issues with the bill that we have concerns about, the first being a new layer of bureaucracy being added to the existing pile of overlapping state agencies that directly oversee road work. We already have the Senate Transportation Committee, 12-member State Transportation Board, Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (which oversees metro Atlanta projects), the GDOT Commissioner, Governor’s Development Council, and GDOT Division of Planning.

With that many layers of state bureaucracy, plus oversight from state and federal agencies like the federal DOT, EPA, NHTSA, and Georgia EPD, it’s little wonder most of Georgia’s state-funded road construction projects take a quarter-century of planning and debating before the first speck of dirt gets moved. But that will worsen when this new plan adds in a centralized “Georgia Coordinating Committee for Rural and Human Services Transportation,” a “State Advisory Subcommittee for Rural and Human Services Transportation,” and those 12 regional “roundtable” committees made up of local leaders and people appointed by the governor.

During the next few weeks there are dozens of activities and events being held in and around LaFayette. Halloween festivities, sporting events, political meetings, election day, a library book sale, and a handful of November concerts – plenty to choose for young, old, and families. Check out the calendar below for the most complete local events listing.

This calendar is permanently available on the LU site at cityoflafayettega.com/calendar. You can add events to the calendar by e-mailing The LU or contacting us on Facebook.