Remodeling the county’s new mansion/bank in Rock Spring continues. County employees were spotted at the building doing work yesterday before lunch.

How often does the county deem a project important enough to pay workers to come in on a Sunday morning? (But we can’t have public meetings in the evening because it might cost too much overtime, so they say.)

WQCH Radio, 08/22/15: “REMODELING WORK IS NEARING COMPLETION AT THE FORMER STEARNS BANK BUILDING AT ROCK SPRING, BUT TAX COMMISSIONER CAROLYN WALKER SAYS THE OFFICE IS STILL A MONTH AWAY FROM MOVING INTO THEIR NEW ‘WORK HOME’.

“..’WE HATE TO LEAVE LAFAYETTE’, WALKER SAID ‘BUT THE PARKING AND HANDICAP ACCESS WILL BE SO MUCH BETTER IN THE NEW BUILDING’.

“WALKER SAID WORKERS ARE HANGING DOORS AND FINISHING TRIM AND PAINT WORK AT THE NEW ROCK SPRING LOCATION. BOTH OFFICES ARE STARTING TO MOVE SOME ‘STORAGE’ ITEMS LIKE OLD FILES. BUT IT WILL BE MID-SEPTEMBER BEFORE DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONS ARE MOVED TO ROCK SPRING.”

Before the county bought that building, they were all about the old building being too small and having a mold problem. Now it’s all yay for better parking and handicap access.   

In 2013, Heath Shields Franklin of Dalton went to jail for taking inappropriate photos of women, without permission, while working at a gas station.

He got out of jail Wednesday, and went back on Thursday for allegedly doing the same thing again at the Walmart in Rocky Face.

Franklin did two years in state prison in the 80’s for burglary. He was convicted of Child Molestation in 1991 and went to jail for that, got out in 2000, went back in 2013 for making “upskirt” photos and touching women at work, got out from that last week and now he’s in again facing more charges of the same.

Maybe he’s got a problem?   

Tonight at 7, LaFayette’s library will be taken over by the Walker County Republican Party for a public meeting.

Scheduled to appear are US Rep. Tom Graves, GA Rep. John Deffenbaugh (whose district doesn’t include LaFayette), and former journalist/fired teacher/disgraced pastor Larry Brooks of the Commissioner’s Office and Walker County Development Authority.

All three will answer questions from the crowd. Questions have to be written down and will be asked by a moderator, but we’re ASSURED they won’t screen out the hard ones. Only one way to find out…   

An hour before the GOP library meeting, there will be a special called meeting of the Walker County School Board.

On the agenda? Approving wording for an upcoming vote on the ESPLOST sales tax for school construction.

What’s ESPLOST? A 1% sales tax you’re paying now, the proceeds of which go to the Walker County and Chickamauga school systems for building maintenance, construction, purchasing equipment.. The money isn’t used to pay teachers or pay regular bills. It’s basically like the county SPLOST for schools only.

It was last approved by voters in March 2011 for a five year cycle. Not sure if they’re putting it back on the ballot this November or if it’ll be on there next spring. Probably November.

Hopefully the Board won’t over-focus on athletic facilities like the last ESPLOST did, and they’ll be done by 7 so you can get to both meetings. (Both of those are highly unlikely.)   

An independent trustee appointed to oversee Hutcheson’s bankruptcy has asked a judge to stop keeping the hospital’s creditors on hold.

He cites an extra $5 million in debt HMC has piled up since declaring Chapter 11, and says hospital administrators haven’t yet set a plan in place to save the sinking ship. He says the situation may put patients at risk.

If Hutcheson is exited from Chapter 11 bankruptcy it will likely have to file for Chapter 7, which is liquidation.

Hutcheson leaders deny everything, claim it’s all great, all this is just a lie. Keeping their heads buried in the sand just like they have all along:

The Chattanoogan, 08/20/15: “Martin Ochs of the U.S. Trustee’s Office said the hospital appears to be losing about half a million dollars per month since it filed for bankruptcy protection 10 months ago.

“..Rob Williamson, Hutcheson attorney, said, ‘Patient care has not suffered. In some ways it is better than when this action was filed.'”

In six months this will be an Erlanger owned and run facility, and Walker County will get the bill for whatever’s still owed out of Hutcheson’s many county-backed loans.

(If they ever write Walker County a $2 million check for the ambulance service, we better not cash it. That’d be a hell of an overdraft fee when it bounces.)   

GA State Senator Jeff Mullis has endorsed Jeb Bush for president in 2016, and joins Bush’s election campaign.

When not in Atlanta being wined and dined by lobbyists whose interests conflict with yours, Mullis is SUPPOSED to be working with the NWGAJDA to attract businesses into the area. He’s paid handsomely for that role by Walker, Dade, Catoosa, and Chattooga.

Will Jeff’s work to elect Jeb leave time to do.. whatever it is he does with the NWGAJDA? (Ha! Trick question! He doesn’t do anything in that job anyway.)

One good thing about this: if Jeb DOES get elected president, Senator Mullis will end up as Ambassador to Pizzastan or something and we’ll be rid of him, for a few years anyway.

Assuming he doesn’t eat himself to death first which seems to be a real possibility.   

Marquette Wallin, employee of Cozy Manor assisted living, arrested Sunday after being found passed out in her car at the North Main Kangaroo. Officers allegedly found her in possession of various drugs belonging to Cozy Manor residents.

She’s now unemployed and faces ten criminal charges.   

Fernando Gene Fernandez, owner/landlord of Pear Pine Trailer Park, is now wanted by LPD for outstanding criminal warrants. He’s also wanted for his overdue $6,200 water bill that resulted in service being cut off to people living in his ghetto park.

Fernandez has been in trouble with the law eleven times in the last two years, including a three-hour armed standoff with police after the landlord threatened to shoot a tenant in 2013.

(LPD thinks Mr. Fernandez may have fled the country. If he’s gone to Mexico or somewhere else out of the US, it’s not likely he’ll be extradited back to LaFayette for minor charges like unpaid water bills, parole violation, and [potentially] theft by deception. Extradition is for murderers and terrorists, not petty thieves and layabouts. Don’t hold your breath to see this moron around again. Good riddance anyway.)

So far this year officers have been called out for various issues at Pear Pine 26 times. That, combined with the trailer park’s sorry condition and current lack of water (not to mention no landlord present) may result in a condemnation of the property – a process the city is beginning to pursue legally.   

A few months back LaFayette city government announced plans to rehab Patton Stadium / Ross Abney Complex at the old high school and host a fundraiser concert there in September.

The work hasn’t been done quickly, and the facility won’t be ready in time – so the concert is tentatively moved back to April.

Once repairs are done (if ever), the city should have a concert there every August on the anniversary of Johnny Cash’s 1970 performance in the same place – something suggested by LU and various members of the community FIVE years ago.

[Photo from 1980 LHS Yearbook.]   

Four Tennessee Bi-Lo stores will close next weekend and be converted into Food City locations. No timeline yet for NWGA stores, but sounds like they’re starting on the north end and moving south a few stores at a time – 29 in all.

It’s unclear how extensive renovations will be for any of the stores – some like the Battlefield Parkway location were recently rehabbed by Bi-Lo and are in good shape. Others, like the store on Mission Ridge Rd in Rossville, still look like a 1980’s Red Food with Bi-Lo signs.

Renovations to the LaFayette store will likely include a new gas station, which will be convenient for downtown.

Bi-Lo Bonus Card points and Fuel Perks will expire by October 1 and then be replaced by Food City’s similar programs; initial information from the company claimed points and perks would roll over.

The company says it’s keeping all of its former Bi-Lo store managers in place.   

As reported earlier this week, Manor House Restaurant at Mountain Cove Farms is no more.

The eatery, which Commissioner Heiskell says she “slapped together” in 2013, cost Walker County taxpayers about $800,000 to run – plus $146,000 in restaurant equipment.

More reaction to the closure and huge financial losses:

Times Free Press, 08/15/15: “According to this paper’s Tyler Jett, the restaurant, which [Commissioner] Heiskell hoped was going to be a tourist hot spot (seriously), lost about $800,000 from mid-2013 to April of this year. Wow.

“That’s a ton of coin. If we round it up, let’s say that number is over 24 months, then we’re talking around $33,333 a month in losses for two years.

“Makes you wonder: Were they rolling the silverware in hundred-dollar bills?”

The restaurant opened in September 2013 and the financial losses were through April of this year – $800,000+ lost in just nineteen months. Higher than speculated: over $42,000 per MONTH of cash down the drain. Labor costs aside, that still sounds like an awful lot of shrimp and steak going home in somebody’s purse.     

Residents of Pear Pine Trailer Park are still without water, three-plus weeks after it was disconnected due to the absentee landlord not paying his utility bill.

Many who lived there have moved on (everybody left SHOULD move on), the water meter has been vandalized but not successfully reconnected, and City Manager David Hamilton says the property doesn’t meet minimum standard and risks condemnation.

What’s that mean or do to the owner? Probably not much.

The city should extend some help to these people, not in getting water service but in finding another place to live. The city cannot, however, just give them housing – which is what some of the remaining residents expect.

The people left at Pear Pine need to save the $400 a month they were paying in rent, to somebody who’s not there to collect it, and apply that to a deposit somewhere else.   

The Georgia Sheriff’s Association has chosen as its new leader a man who steals money from a children’s Christmas charity and tolerates his friends abusing women.

That’s of course our own Sheriff Steve Wilson.

We don’t need no stinkin’ ethics!

The Sheriff’s Association is a lobbying organization that keeps the state from reforming laws that might keep cops from taking property without a conviction or kicking down doors and blowing up babies for thin reasons. They’ve also been the primary opponent of medical marijuana. Its opposition to reform won’t change (and could well get worse) under Wilson’s leadership.

Wilson also says here he plans to run again for Sheriff in 2016, of course. That’s two declared candidates for next year’s election – both incumbents.   

After two years of losing (your) money hand over fist, Commissioner Heiskell has finally euthanized her restaurant at Mountain Cove Farms.

The $30 shrimp buffet at Manor House Restaurant is done.

Bebe tells the newspaper basically everything LU and other citizens have ever said about this place: it’s too far from where people live, it costs too much money, and they never should have opened it to begin with.

“‘The reason we left it open was for the local residents and those staying at the farm,’ Walker County sole commissioner Bebe Heiskell said. ‘It is used, but not enough to sustain it. It had become a financial liability.’ … ‘There aren’t enough people eating there to keep the doors open day-to-day,’ the commissioner said.”

This shows again, like the library funding problem, just how bad the county’s finances have gotten. We’re broke, or she wouldn’t have done this. (The REAL “financial liability” here is Heiskell herself.)

She didn’t close it last year when it was also losing money, she just raised taxes. Presumably this year the money will run out before more tax money comes in, so it’s closed. For now.

Heiskell still won’t sell the $149,000 of new expensive restaurant equipment they put in, just close it with hopes of reopening later on – despite her claims of not wanting to run a restaurant.

“The commissioner said it was never her intention to operate a restaurant, but ‘we had the facility and it seemed a shame to let it sit idle.'”

This is why we need county leaders with a plan and accountability. With a board of commissioners running things instead of one half-senile old lady, this wouldn’t have happened. Manor House wouldn’t be closed, because it wouldn’t have been built to begin with.   

City water customers north of town, in and around Noble, will be without water for about three hours today. LaFayette Utilities plans to disconnect a major line around 8 AM Wednesday and expects to have it back online by 11.

This is probably related to the city supplying water lines to the Audia project.   

Corey Chaz Warren is no longer on the run.

Warren’s latest adventures hiding from the law began on August 4th. He was suspected of stealing a car. LPD found him hiding at Douglas Trance’s Langley apartment, but he hopped out a window and fled.

That’s where the public announcement to look out for him began.

Warren was finally apprehended Friday when he was seen walking down Patterson Ave. He was chased, on foot, by LPD officer Dusty Coker. Coker tackled and arrested the fugitive, who was of course found with meth on his person.

(He should go to jail for being stupid. It was all over TV and Facebook that the cops were looking for him, and he didn’t even leave the city.)

Warren’s family and friends have defended him for the last week as just some poor confused good kid.. Now he’s got more charges including drug possession and obstructing a law enforcement officer.   

Hillbilly’s Restaurant opened on the square yesterday at 7 AM.

Reviews are so far mixed. If you’ve been in there, how was it?