A follow-up report from Times Free Press refutes every single thing Commissioner Heiskell told WQCH news last week, regarding the county’s pending environmental fines.

“EPD officials, meanwhile, say Heiskell is lying.”

This is the second time in a month Chattanooga reporters have caught Heiskell in an outright bold-face lie. Liar, liar, tacky wig on fire.

But since we have a Sole Commissioner form of government, she can still move right on ahead with her plans.. What’s anybody going to do about it?   

Former LPD officer Sam Parker’s murder conviction appeal has been rejected by the Georgia Supreme Court.

Parker, as we all know, killed his 911 dispatcher wife Theresa after years of abusing her (and two previous wives) in 2007. The law enforcement community stood behind Sam, because of his status as police, ignoring drunken, irresponsible, abusive behavior for years until Theresa disappeared and his guilt was overwhelming.

Parker was initially convicted in 2009 even though his presumably dead’s wife had not been found. A year later her remains were discovered on a creek bank near Sam’s childhood home in Chattooga County. He’s still in prison, she’s still dead, and neither of those will change any time soon.   

A quiet Sunday night in Walker County was disrupted by two accidents that backed up traffic for miles in LaFayette and Naomi.

At the intersection of highways 151 and 136 in Naomi, at the base of Taylor’s Ridge, a Chevrolet Cavalier crossed the center line and struck an oncoming chicken truck. The car’s driver was injured, and traffic disrupted for over an hour.

Another accident around the same time near First Volunteer Bank on North Main / North 27 involved a pedestrian struck by a car. Man hit, who was jaywalking, sustained minor injuries. Driver was cited for not having insurance.         

This week Commissioner Heiskell finally responded to news reports about the county’s pending fines for environmental damage on Lookout Mountain.

In essence, she claimed (via a statement on WQCH) that the county will not be ordered to pay fines, has been given permission to ignore EPD deadlines for repairing the damage done, and everything was ginned up for political reasons.

WQCH Radio, 11/13/14: “REACHED FOR COMMENT BY WQCH NEWS ON TUESDAY, COMMISSIONER BEBE HEISKELL SAID THOSE STATEMENTS ARE ‘NOT TRUE’.

“..WHAT THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHEN THAT STORY WAS WRITTEN, IS THAT EPD AND WALKER COUNTY OFFICIALS MET AT THE SITE LAST MONTH TO CHECK PROGRESS ON THE APPROVED PLAN. COMMISSIONER HEISKELL SAID AT THAT MEETING, EPD DIRECTOR JUD TURNER TOLD THEM HIS AGENCY WOULD ‘IGNORE THE DEADLINE’ THAT WOULD HAVE TRIGGERED THE THOUSAND-DOLLAR-PER-DAY FINE.

“WORK IS PROGRESSING ON THE CONCRETE ABUTMENTS FOR A PEDESTRIAN AND BIKE TRAIL BRIDGE THAT WILL SOON COMPLETE THE PROJECT. THE BRIDGE HAS ALREADY BEEN BUILT AND IS READY TO SET IN PLACE, ACCORDING TO SOURCES WITHIN WALKER COUNTY GOVERNMENT.

“‘HE GAVE US 60 DAYS FROM THAT MEETING IN OCTOBER’, HEISKELL SAID. ‘NO FINE IS PAYABLE AND IT’S NOT TRUE THAT FINES ARE INCREASING AT A THOUSAND-DOLLARS-PER-DAY’, SHE SAID.

“‘BURT LANGLEY WITH EPD DID TELL US THAT IF THE PROJECT IS DELAYED, THE AGENCY MAY FINE THE CONTRACTOR – NOT WALKER COUNTY.’ HEISKELL SAID. ‘IF THE WEATHER DELAYS THE CONTRACTOR, WE WILL ASK FOR AN EXTENSION’.

“THE DELAY IN THE PROJECT IS LARGELY BECAUSE THE FORMER EPD ENGINEER ON THE ORDER, RETIRED. ‘THE NEW ENGINEER HAD SOME DIFFERENT IDEAS AS TO WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE’, SHE SAID.

“‘THE TRAIL BRIDGE WILL BE FINISHED… AND WE’LL DO WHAT’S NEEDED TO SATISFY THE EPD’, HEISKELL SAID. SHE ADDED: ‘WE WORK WITH THEM ON SO MANY DIFFERENT PROJECTS, WE CAN’T AFFORD TO HAVE THEM UNHAPPY WITH WALKER COUNTY’.”

This doesn’t match what was reported, at all. So either Channel 3 and the Times Free Press are lying, or she is. Who’s your money on?   

During Monday night’s business meeting, LaFayette Council reintroduced a cut-rate Golf Course membership fee for college students. Now students can join the course for $600 a year, versus the $300 annual fee for high schoolers and the $900 charge for adults under age 62.

Article neglects mention city employees – including council members and the mayor – can play free.

During the meeting city leaders also held a moment of silence in recognition of Joan Goodman, a 35-year LPD veteran who passed away last month.

Ms. Goodman started with the police department in 1977 as a dispatcher (back when LaFayette did its own dispatching) and eventually became a receptionist for the merged Department of Public Safety. She was for many years the only woman working for LaFayette PD.

Goodman retired in August 2012 and lost an eleven-year battle with cancer on October 9th of this year.     

During a court-ordered public meeting Tuesday, Catoosa residents showed support for keeping Hutcheson open – but many asked the same things LU has asked for years: what’s the plan to keep the hospital alive?

Another public meeting was held at 7 Thursday night in the Walker Civic Center, and again hospital leaders played on the crowd’s emotions to DEMAND Erlanger not foreclose, but refused to disclose any kind of plan that might keep the hospital financially sound in the future.

Hutcheson leaders have been consistent in several things: denying their own responsibility for the hospital’s sorry condition, blaming Erlanger for problems that go back for a decade or more, and trying to convince the community a FOREclosure would mean CLOSURE of the hospital. That’s not going to happen.

The hospital’s leaders WANT everyone to assume foreclosure equals a shutdown and massive job cuts, when the primary change would actually be new ownership and leadership – meaning the idiots who have burned the place to the ground would be replaced. They’re using fear to make YOU stop that from happening even though it would be a better outcome than letting the hospital continue to bleed out under its current administrators.   

Monday night LaFayette City Council voted to post signs banning large trucks from West Villanow Street, due to trucks damaging signs and curbs on the narrow renovated downtown square.

LPD chief Clift advised against the plan, saying rules aren’t enforceable and hurt businesses. Councilman Bradford was the idea’s primary promoter, insisting trucks should be banned because of the cost of replacing damaged signage.

Council voted in favor of the signs 5-0 and asked Clift to put together a map for trucks to bypass town – which is what businesses will also do if their trucks can’t get through.

The problem comes from all that work done downtown several years ago, which started under a different mayor, different city manager, and mostly different council.. People were concerned then about how narrow the streets were being made, how hard the corners would be to turn, and how many downtown parking spaces were being lost. Leaders mostly ignored those complaints – now we pay the price.

(Since the council voted 5-0 to keep 18-wheelers off West Villanow, can we assume all five of them will volunteer to carry items from parked trucks on the square down West Villanow to Shop-Rite, Freds, and Dari-Dip when deliveries arrive?)

We redo the downtown sidewalks every five years, so when the next rehab project starts in 2016 the city can rip out all the expensive work done last time and put the square back to how it was in 2010.

Also in the meeting: a discussion of speeders on Fortune St. in Linwood, bonds for LaFayette Housing Authority, and other matters of regular business.     

Walker County faces tens of thousands of dollars in fines (growing by $1k a day) for environmental damage done on Lookout Mountain as part of a doomed walking trail project. The environmental issues were discovered over a year ago, and fines began accumulating on September 11 of this year – a total of $53,000 as-of today.

The project, which has taken several years and already cost taxpayers thousands of employee work hours, is supposed to convert the old Durham Railroad bed (which was abandoned over sixty years ago) into a walking and biking trail. Portions of the trail crosses private property without landowner consent and may never be open. Most of the rest runs along the Lula Lake Land Trust, controlled by the Commissioner’s friends in the Davenport Family who stand to benefit from the access road.

The article refers to (but doesn’t share) an old e-mail sent from County Attorney Don Oliver to Senator Mullis, complaining about the impact fines might have on the Commissioner’s 2012 reelection campaign. (LU shared that e-mail two years ago here.) Notice they were worried about the political impact for Bebe and Jeff Mullis more than the fines themselves, which come out of YOUR pocket.

Mullis intervened in 2012 to give the county more time, but EPD rules were ignored for two more years, until September when the fines were ordered. Those fines can still be avoided IF environmental repairs are completed in December, but no work to clean up the mess is currently being done.

Channel 3 called Commissioner Heiskell to ask her about the county’s fines and why no cleanup work is ongoing, but she didn’t answer or return “multiple phone calls” from their reporter.

Now he knows how WE feel.     

Sad news from Trion..

WQCH Radio, 11/11/14: “FAULTY SPACE HEATER STARTED A HOUSE FIRE IN TRION, THAT KILLED TWO FAMILY MEMBERS MONDAY MORNING.

“STATE INSURANCE AND FIRE COMMISSIONER RALPH HUDGENS SAID THE FIRE HAS BEEN RULED ‘ACCIDENTAL’.

“THE DEAD WERE IDENTIFIED AS 22 YEAR OLD CHRISTIAN PRUITT AND 50 YEAR OLD FLADIO CORNEJO LOPEZ. LOPEZ WAS PRUITT’S UNCLE.

Traffic was briefly disrupted on Sunday as this antique aircraft was driven through Northwest Georgia.

Per news reports, this Vietnam War-era T-28 Trojan was being towed from Hixson, TN down to Rome. The photo here was taken for LU on the Chickamauga bypass Sunday afternoon.   

Resentencing for Wilburn Wiley Dobbs, ordered to die for a Walker County murder FORTY years ago, has been delayed due to health problems that will probably execute him long before the state does.

Dobbs was originally supposed to be resentenced in 1998 but lingered in jail when his case was forgotten by local District Attorney Buzz Franklin.

Dobbs killed Roy Sizemore during a grocery store robbery in Chickamauga on December 14, 1973. He was convicted in May 1974 and given the death penalty. Several appeals later, a judge ordered re-sentening due to some technical problem in the original case – and that’s as far as it got.

Not saying this case has been lingering forever, but Mr. Dobbs was the first person sentenced to death in Georgia after the death penalty was reinstated in the early 70’s.   

LU’s Sole Commissioner Vote Petition will close on Tuesday. This is your last chance to sign – or ask someone else to sign – the petition.

Paper petitions have been collected; after Tuesday all the sheets will be combined, then the petition will be formally presented to local lawmakers in time for the 2015 legislative session.   

Today’s steam train excursion through Northwest Georgia was unusual, because the trip featured two steam engines working together. That’s the railroad museum’s first steam double-header in over a decade.

This weekend’s trips are it for the year. Steam trains will be back in LaFayette next fall. (For info on train schedules and tickets for all NWGA/Chattanooga passenger train activity, see the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum Web site.)   

WQCH Radio, 11/06/14: “A LAFAYETTE COUPLE WAS JAILED BY THE DRUG TASK FORCE THIS WEEK. COMMANDER PAT DOYLE SAID THEY WERE FOLLOWING UP ON A COMPLAINT – IN THE ARREST OF JARRED KEITH HATHORN, AGE 40, AND JOY LOUISE HATHORN, AGE 36. THEY LIVE ON HILLSDALE ROAD.

“BOTH WERE CHARGED WITH POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA AND POSSESSION OF A FIREARM BY A CONVICTED FELON. MRS. HATHORN WAS ALSO CHARGED WITH DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE.

“IN ADDITION TO THE MARIJUANA AND FIREARM, OTHER SUSPECTED DRUGS WERE RECOVERED AND SENT TO THE CRIME LAB FOR IDENTIFICATION. OFFICERS ALSO FOUND EQUIPMENT FOR PACKING AND DISTRIBUTION, ACCORDING TO DOYLE.”

(That’s pretty bad when you’ve got drugs so obscure the local cops can’t ID them.)   

Per CatWalkChatt Facebook, this pickup truck drove off the side of Maddox Gap Rd. sometime Friday evening.

The driver, apparently intoxicated, was mostly unhurt.