Talk of the town this week has been an alleged mountain lion/cougar spotted by residents of several neighborhoods in town.

The animal, which hasn’t yet been photographed for some reason, has been seen in Dogwood Circle, on Roundpond Road, and off Shipp Road. The cat, bigger than a medium size dog, is suspected of making chickens and at least two goats in the area disappear. [Pic is not of the specific cougar in LaFayette.]

City police and Georgia DNR are investigating the LaFayette Lion, putting in trail cameras to figure out where/what it is, and hoping to capture and relocate it.

Initial reports quoted Captain Meeks of LPD saying homeowners should shoot the animal if they feel threatened, without clarification that it’s a) illegal to kill a mountain lion for sport in Georgia and b) against the law to fire a gun inside the city limits of LaFayette. So if you see the beast, get yourself and your family/animals inside and call 911. Only shoot if you’re being aggressively threatened.       

Monday, as expected, Perry Lamb submitted 2,142 signatures to the county elections office so they can make his campaign for commissioner official.

The Elections Commission will have to certify just 1,650 of those signatures as belonging to registered voters in order for Lamb to officially qualify and have his name on the ballot this fall. The process is expected to take two weeks.

Lamb and his crew collected almost 30% more names than needed so there will be no doubt the campaign is legitimate, but naysayers are already starting rumors that the signatures are fakes. It’s rumored that Republican Party leaders have already requested a copy of the petition, for reasons unknown – hopefully nothing nefarious.

Walker County’s powerful want to derail Lamb, because they see him changing the status quo – the same reason they rejected LU’s less official petition from two years ago demanding a vote on sole commissioner.

Will November’s election be a vote of the people, or a vote of the established Powers That Be?   

Catoosa officers and law enforcement agencies around the region are on the lookout for two black men driving a beat up black Honda Civic, suspected of a home robbery Monday morning.

Per reports, the two men were found inside a home on School Street, in Catoosa with a Rossville address. They ran out a side door and shot at the homeowner, who was still inside his vehicle.

The robbery victim was not injured.   

On the last day of June, Perry Lamb cut a check to Walker County for $3,412 – his qualification fee to be an independent candidate for Commissioner in November.

Today Lamb will submit a petition signed by over 2,100 people to the elections office. If the elections committee certifies 1,650 of those signers as registered Walker County voters, Lamb’s candidacy will become official. That adds his name to the fall ballot against incumbent commissioner Bebe Heiskell and Republican challenger Shannon Whitfield.

For once, voters won’t have to hold their nose and vote for a flawed candidate just because he’s the only one running against Bebe. Lamb’s efforts to run outside the party structure mean voters will have real choices to pick from, not just the lesser of two evils.

About 200 of Lamb’s signatures were collected during LaFayette Freedom Festival on July 4th. Lamb met voters face to face during that event, shaking hands and answering questions while gathering more signatures and general support. Commissioner Heiskell wasn’t there, in body or spirit. Candidate Whitfield had a tent and spokesmen present, but couldn’t be bothered to show up himself.

A Whitfield mouthpiece later said their candidate was out of town all last week for an important family matter, and was still out of town Saturday during a candidate forum at Cedar Grove Community Center that was attended by both Lamb and Commissioner Heiskell.

Nobody can fault Whitfield for prioritizing his family, especially during a holiday week, but Team Whitfield has yet to explain OTHER community events and meetings he’s missed this summer, in Rossville, Villanow, Hinkle, and Fort Oglethorpe – all attended by Perry Lamb.

Is Whitfield skipping events and phoning in his campaign because he assumes he’s got it won, or is he taking a laid back approach because he just doesn’t care? Either way, it’s costing him significant support. (Fortunately, since Lamb is in the race, that support isn’t shifting back to Commissioner Heiskell.)       

Thursday evening GA 151 near 95 in Catlett/Chestnut Flat was shut down due to a tragic accident.

Emergency responders arrived to find motorcyclist Andre Stevens, 34, of Ringgold, dead on the scene.

Stevens was in a group of three cyclist and wiped out on a curve, then was struck by a truck. The cycle’s fuel tank leaked and caught the grass on fire beside the road. A woman and child in the truck were treated for minor injuries.

[Photo courtesy Tyler Bishop]         

Walker County’s most famous son has returned home after a long vacation.

Tommy Ray Brent Marsh, former operator of infamous Tri-State Crematory, was released from prison Wednesday after completing his 12-year sentence for hundreds of counts of theft. Theft for services he collected money for but never performed; 330+ bodies sent to funeral homes all over the region meant to be cremated and returned but instead left mouldering in the woods behind the Marsh family compound.

Brent, now in his 40’s, returns to the arms of his loving mom Clara.

Ms. Marsh was an owner of the crematory, its CFO, and lived literally yards away from where bodies were found – but for reasons known only to Steve Wilson and Buzz Franklin, she was never prosecuted for her role in the disaster. Only Brent was held responsible despite the role other family members played.

The Tri-State Crematory incident involved over 330 sets of human remains, cost Walker County millions of dollars, and put tiny Noble, Georgia on the world stage – for the worst reasons imaginable.   

As her time in office draws to a probable end, there’s a real risk that Commissioner Heiskell will sell every bit of county property she can, either to repay her past supporters with sweet deals or try and prop the county up financially through the election so we don’t know how bad things are.

Some assets, like the ambulance service she already sold and garbage dump she’s trying to sell now, could actually be moneymakers for the county under the right management – but if they’re already long gone, future commissioners won’t have them available to manage.

Perry Lamb says an injunction to block Bebe from selling major assets could be filed for about $7,500, and challenges his opponent and leaders of both political parties to join him in raising the necessary funds. Will they respond and work together, or will they sit back and watch Bebe burn the county all the way down financially on her way out the door?

Lamb has to pay $3,400 Friday to the county so he can officially qualify as a commissioner candidate, and says he doesn’t have anything close to $7,500 left after that to get this taken care of legally.

There are plenty of people who recently joined the anti-Bebe bandwagon who have the funds (or the lawyer skills) to make this happen. If they can’t step up, it indicates where their loyalties really lie.   

Clara Edwards won’t face a second trial for killing a foster child in her care.

Monday afternoon the 60-year-old Catoosa woman pled guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Combined with her earlier conviction for cruelty to children, Edwards earns a sentence of twenty years in prison.   

Summerville car dealer goes to jail after being caught speeding, in a stolen car, with drugs.

WQCH Radio, 06/23/16: “LAFAYETTE POLICE RECOVERED AN 88-THOUSAND DOLLAR BMW, STOLEN IN ATLANTA, PLUS ILLEGAL DRUGS, IN A STOP [last] SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

“THE INITIAL REASON FOR STOPPING THE BMW M-4, WAS SPEEDING. THE ARRESTING OFFICER’S RADAR INDICATED THE VEHICLE WAS DOING 65 ON THE LAFAYETTE BYPASS IN A 45 MPH ZONE.

“CAR DEALER JASON PAUL VAUGHN OF SUMMERVILLE WAS AT THE WHEEL, AND SAID HE WAS GOING TO HIS SON’S BALL GAME. AN NCIC CHECK SHOWED THE BMW HE WAS DRIVING HAD BEEN STOLEN IN ATLANTA. VAUGHN TOLD POLICE HE HAD BOUGHT IT FROM ANOTHER DEALER AND HAD NO IDEA IT WAS STOLEN.

“INSIDE THE VEHICLE AND IN VAUGHN’S BRIEFCASE, POLICE FOUND METH AND LOOSE PRESCRIPTION PILLS.

“HE WAS CHARGED WITH FELONY THEFT, OBSCURED VEHICLE I.D., POSSESSION OF METH AND SCHEDULE-2 PILLS AND SPEEDING.”

Being a car dealer, Mr. Vaughn would have absolutely no way to check out a vehicle or make sure if it was stolen or not before purchasing it.

Vaughn owns a car sales/rental business formally incorporated with a Summerville PO box only a few months ago; his brother Barry owns an RV dealership in Summerville, and both have connections to the owner of infamous TruckTown dealership.

Authorities would do well to closely check out all of those businesses.

[Mugshot from Vaughn’s Tennessee speeding/DUI arrest back in February.]   

The Perry Lamb campaign collected about 50 more voter signatures Saturday in Rossville, passing the 1,640 minimum (and 2,000 goal) needed to add Lamb’s name to the November ballot as a candidate for Commissioner.

Lamb himself showed up for an event called Sunset on the Pond, greeting people and answering questions. Shannon Whitfield wasn’t there personally, but he had people giving out t-shirts and water. (Bebe wasn’t there either, and neither were her people – if she even has people anymore.)

Do you want the next commissioner to be out in public, meeting voters, shaking hands, and answering questions for himself – or do you want a man who hides, sends others to speak in his place, and hands out party favors instead of answers?

Meanwhile, Lamb’s campaign was finally mentioned by local media last week, months after he announced plans to join the race.

Of course it’s a press release since the local paper and radio station have so far refused to acknowledge his campaign on their own, but maybe this will raise awareness among voters that they have an option besides the two candidates from Chickamauga.

Signing Lamb’s petition doesn’t commit you to voting for him, you can still vote for Whitfield (or even Bebe if you’re an idiot), but it gives us an alternative candidate if something happens to the others – plus he’s a representative of LaFayette who’s been a lot more enthusiastic about dumping the broken sole commissioner system than Heiskell or Whitfield have been.

The Lamb petition can be signed in a number of fixed locations around the county, including Stu’s Barbershop and Talespinner Outdoors in LaFayette.     

Saturday afternoon a vehicle fire briefly disturbed the peace and quiet of Chattahoochee National Forest in southeast Walker County.

This Chevy truck burned to a crisp on Easy Hwy 136 past Villanow near the Walker/Gordon County line.     

Ridgeland student Savannah Vann is battling lymphoma, blood cancer.

Vann’s family has been in and out of the hospital with her recently, and it puts a financial strain on the family – so Ridgeland has set up an account in her name, to help make things a little easier.

RHS will have staff available all summer Monday-Thursday 8-4 (except next week, for July 4th) who can accept donations for this purpose. You can also call the school at 706-820-9063.   

Commissioner Heiskell’s latest plan for the county? Selling a (literal) pile of garbage.

Walker County Landfill is now listed for sale. Bebe’s taking bids until mid-July.

In the last year Heiskell has taken out $1 million in loans to expand the dump, which can only accept construction debris. The dump also loses several hundred thousand dollars a year from its operations, despite being of little benefit to the actual county since it only buries construction debris – a majority of which come from outside the county. (Household trash left at the dump is trucked out of state and has been for the last twenty years.)

The landfill and its losses have been mentioned multiple times on LU, and this year have become a point of criticism from Heiskell’s primary challenger, Shannon Whitfield.

Is this how Bebe negates Whitfield’s critique? Does she have a plan to offload the money-losing dump, cheap, to one of her regular campaign contributors? Maybe she’s legitimately trying to sell the asset to make money for the county…

Or it’s an election-year scam to make voters think she’s trying, when she’s absolutely not.   

NWGA’s favorite soap opera, As The Hospital Burns, continues.

Catoosa County Commissioners agreed Tuesday night to pay Erlanger $6.25 million to settle its share of the outstanding Hutcheson debt. They save about $2 million over what’s owed, presumably for agreeing to settle instead of fighting in court as Walker County continues to do.

Walker County’s court battle, meanwhile, degrades further into something akin to a child sticking his fingers in his ears and going NAH NAH NAH when asked a question.

Members of the Hospital Authority (which owns/owned Hutcheson) have finally demanded Walker pay up its portion of the Erlanger debts, but Walker County’s hired-gun lawyer Stuart James says Authority chairman Darrell Weldon’s order is illegal and invalid.

The hospital authority’s lawyer, Tom Weldon, in return suggests Walker County’s bizarre actions are meant to protect a certain county leader’s reelection campaign.

Before Hutcheson closed Bebe could at least attempt to argue her poor decisions were meant to keep the place going. Now, with Hutcheson existing only on paper and the actual hospital controlled by another unrelated company, the situation is (As Weldon says) just about Heiskell delaying the inevitable until after the election – or possibly about her going senile..

Walker will end up owing Erlanger all $8.5 million plus Erlanger’s legal fees PLUS our own legal fees for fighting it… When it all hits the fan in November or so. We might also end up owing the interest on that debt Erlanger was at one point willing to overlook.     

During the last week, three men in Walker and Catoosa have been arrested on charges of child molestation.

Cagney Darail Dyer, 28, of Rossville was arrested in Walker County on Saturday, hiding in a friend’s bathroom, after a Catoosa mom said he molested her daughter. (Dyer has some ties to LaFayette as well.)

Investigators say the child recounts abuses at Dyer’s hand from March of last year until this month.

 

Leonard Raymond Curry, 18, of Ringgold [left] arrested for allegedly molesting a middle school girl. The child he’s accused of abusing may be pregnant.

Richard Donovan Smiley, 24 [right], also arrested for molestation, involving a 14-year-old runaway found with him in a hotel room at the Ringgold Super 8, where he lived and was working as a manager.