LU’s Sole Commissioner Vote Petition has now been signed by 1,750 people online, plus another 200+ who have signed in person.
The petition will be closing on November 11th, two months since it began. If you haven’t signed yet or know someone who wants to sign but hasn’t, time is running out.
Paper petitions are still available at Dinner Bell in Flintstone and Catlett Grocery on Roundpond Rd. (Dinner Bell alone had collected 70 signatures by the beginning of this week.)
WQCH Radio, 10/21/14:“THE GEORGIA SUPREME COURT HAS UPHELD DEATH SENTENCES FOR THE MAN CONVICTED IN BRUTAL WALKER COUNTY DOUBLE-MURDERS.
“DONNIE ALLEN HULETT IS SENTENCED TO DIE FOR THE 2002 MURDERS OF BROTHERS, LARRY AND ARVINE PHELPS, AS THEY PERFORMED VOLUNTEER WORK AT [Mountain Top Boys Home in] VILLANOW. THE MEN WERE GUNNED DOWN AND BLUDGEONED FOR THEIR PICKUP TRUCK, WHICH WAS STOLEN.
“ON OTHER CHARGES AGAINST HULETT, THE HIGH COURT SENT HIS CASE BACK FOR RE-SENTENCING, BUT THE TWO DEATH SENTENCES FOR THE MURDERS, WERE ALLOWED TO STAND.”
Chattanooga media says the judges indicated there should be MORE punishment for the killer than he was originally given, considering he killed AND robbed the men. His original sentence was death, so it’s hard to add much meaningful punishment beyond that – the extra sentencing is mostly a formality.
Wreck Monday night on Corinth Rd. around 8 PM. No details, but eyewitnesses say the male driver “seemed to be OK” afterwards.
The intersection of Foster Blvd. and the 27 bypass in front of LaFayette Post Office became the scene of another accident yesterday afternoon – the second wreck there in two days.
That accident and a handful of other incidents kept Walker County Emergency Services busy all day long. Wrecks in front of Ridgeland and in front of Chickamauga McDonalds, a child eating laundry soap in Rock Spring, and three home football games played at the same time inside the county all spread ambulances thin in the evening.
Three home football games were played simultaneously last night inside Walker County, and all three host teams (including two celebrating homecoming) were soundly defeated.
Facing the Pickens Dragons for the first time, LaFayette was defeated 34 to 69. LHS is now 2-4 for the season with three games remaining. Next week is Gilmer in an away game, then Cartersville at home and Ridgeland away.
Ridgeland was also defeated in its homecoming game versus Heritage, the team that beat LaFayette last week. Ridgeland (3-4) scored 16 points to the Generals’ 31. Adding insult to score-injury, the Panthers’ own home crowd booed the team (or possibly its coach) at halftime. (Not sure what led to that, but it’s Ridgeland so who cares.)
And Gordon Lee was shut out by Chattooga, 30-0. Gordon Lee is 2-6 for the year, one of only two teams LaFayette has triumphed over so far this season. An all-around mediocre (bordering on terrible) year for high school football in Walker County.
Throughout the day, Walker County social media has been buzzing (absolutely vibrating) with rumors regarding the risk of ebola being spread in a LaFayette school. As rumors tend to go, the details have been inconsistent and the rumored situation has grown worse with each retelling.
The core rumor (with some variation) is as follows: An administrator or teacher from Gilbert Elementary traveled to Dallas for the birth of a grandchild. The child was born at a Dallas hospital recently in headline news for the ebola virus, so the school employee will bring the disease back and transmit it to students when she returns to work next week.
In order to address a potential panic in the community, LU contacted the school system for a comment on the situation. Superintendent Raines sent the following statement shortly before 5:00 this evening:
“The Walker County Board of Education has been in contact with our local Health Department and the Regional Health Department in Rome throughout the day. Officials with the Regional Health Department assure the Walker County School System there is no cause for alarm regarding an employee traveling back from Dallas, Texas. They recommend that everyone become familiar with the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) website and read the facts concerning transmission of this or any virus or disease. The main priority of the Walker County School System is the health and safety of all students and employees.”
The school system additionally included this statement from Dr. Wade Sellers of Northwest Georgia Community Health:
“Ebola is spread by contact with a sick person’s blood or body fluids. Someone who has not been in direct contact with an infected person or has not traveled to West Africa is not at risk for being infected with Ebola. Even being in the same building where an Ebola patient is being cared for does not present a risk, again, unless there is direct contact with the infected person or their bodily fluids.”
A school employee DID travel to Dallas, but there’s no risk of them catching or carrying the disease unless they sat in the same room as an impacted patient or somehow came across their bodily fluids. The patient who died of ebola was long gone before the school employee left Walker County, and the nurses infected – who don’t work the neonatal unit – are under quarantine in another state.
There’s no risk of ebola coming to Walker County OR being spread to school children at Gilbert or anywhere else through this individual’s out-of-state travel. Parents can send their kids to school next week and the week after that in as much safety as they normally have.
Petree says Commissioner Heiskell revoked the festival’s non-existent special permit to play music all night long. County insiders verify that account, saying the Commissioner’s Office finally took action after several hundred people called 911 to complain about the event, but there was never any special sound permit issued because the county doesn’t have one. They simply enforced the county’s long-standing noise ordinance requiring loud music to end at 11 PM.
Fly Free Fest Facebook, 10/13/14:“The Walker County Commissioner revoked our special permit and wouldn’t allow us to serve alcohol on Sunday. The sheriff came around 8:30 and told us we couldn’t serve or distribute beer anymore.”
The county DID come tell Fly Free Fest vendors they couldn’t sell alcohol on Sunday, but they didn’t revoke the event’s Sunday sales permit because it never had one of those, either. A special event alcohol retail sale license was issued to Jolly Walrus Productions (which owns Fly Free Fest), but was only good for 10/10 and 10/11, Friday and Saturday. They had no legal permission to sell beer at all on Sunday. The Sheriff’s Office or Walker County Police, whichever agency it was, was right to step in.
For the first time, after eight years of this crap, the county finally started enforcing at least SOME of the rules at Cherokee Farms, and suspended property owner Smokey Caldwell’s “get away with anything” license – at least temporarily.
LU doesn’t say this much, but good on Commissioner Heiskell (and probably Sheriff Wilson) for actually doing something this time.
Wreck this morning on LaFayette bypass at Grant St. in front of the Post Office. Happened around 8 AM. No word on injuries.
That’s a dangerous intersection. A city worker was killed in a city vehicle pulling out there a few years ago.
Greene was hired by LPD 47 years ago to the day (October 13, 1967) and was the department’s first non-white officer AND its first officer with a college degree. Greene served until 1998.
WQCH Radio, 10/14/14:“IN THE PLAQUE PRESENTATION, MAYOR ANDY ARNOLD WAS JOINED BY POLICE CHIEF BENJIE CLIFT AND ANOTHER VETERAN OF THE LAFAYETTE P.D. – KENNY CARRUTHERS. SERGEANT GREENE WAS THE FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN POLICE OFFICER FOR THE CITY. THE PLAQUE WILL BE DISPLAYED NEXT TO THE MEMORIAL FOR FORMER POLICE CHIEF DINO RICHARDSON, AT THE LAFAYETTE POLICE DEPARTMENT.”
Other meeting issues included disposing of surplus equipment and vehicles, engineering new water lines for Swanson Farm industrial park, and adopting a 2015 budget.
LU received the usual reports of rampant drug use and public nudity/sexual activity (even with children present) during the weekend’s Cherokee Farms event, Fly Free 2014.
Beyond drug and alcohol activity, Cherokee Farms activities are notorious for loud window-shaking music that often lasts all through the night, sometimes ending as the sun comes up. This time that didn’t happen, after rumored intervention from Walker County deputies who finally remembered the county’s 11 PM noise ordinance.
The big question now: why did law enforcement wait so long to get involved?
Thursday Commissioner Heiskell held the last of three legally required meetings to set a final budget for fiscal 2014 – which ended September 30th.
Heiskell operated the county for a year without a budget, finally adopting one that exactly matches her erratic senseless spending after the fact to comply with state law.
In this vide of the afternoon meeting, Heiskell tries to explain why she didn’t adopt a 2014 budget until after the 2014 fiscal year ended, updates on Cedar Grove Community Center, and justifies not using a “line item” budget for county departments.
Plus, county CFO tries to explain why Mountain Cove Farms is completely omitted from the budget. (The audio is terrible, and that’s pretty much how they like it.)
State law is so full of holes, elected leaders can drive a truck of corruption right through the square and flip birds to all the watching taxpayers as they blow by.
Georgia Press Association, September 2014:“Lender [Erlanger] plans to foreclose upon its lien and sell at public outcry to the highest bidder for cash before the Courthouse door at Catoosa County, Georgia, within the legal hours of sale on the first Tuesday in November 2014, the tracts and parcels of land in Catoosa County and Walker County described in the Deed to Secure Debt. Generally, the property at issue contains: Hutcheson Medical Center (Parkside campus), the medical building adjacent to the hospital, the Parkside at Hutcheson Nursing Home, some smaller adjacent buildings and a nearby child care center.”
There will be a meeting next Thursday in Catoosa to discuss the pending foreclosure:
“Erlanger will hold a public forum to discuss the impact of the foreclosure at The Catoosa County Civic Center Auditorium at the Colonnade in Ringgold, Georgia on October 16, 2014 at 6:30 p.m. This meeting will permit Lender to receive local input on the planned foreclosure and representatives of the Lender will be present to answer questions you may have at that time.”
