Monday LU broke news of Walker County’s credit being downgraded by S&P. The county has attempted to rectify that by asking S&P to stop rating its bonds, which it agreed to do.

The rating downgrade handed down on May 6th wasn’t wrong or based on bad info, they just removed all ratings because the county doesn’t want to be rated anymore.

As one commenter said, it’s like quitting school because you don’t like the teacher.

(Monday’s blog post has been updated to reflect the change.)     

Last night around 7 PM a small plane crashed in the Chelsea area of Chattooga County, off Hwy. 337 south of LaFayette. Both passenger and pilot survived; pilot was flown to Chattanooga hospital, while his passenger was treated for less serious injuries in Rome.

Aircraft was flying out of the small air strip in Teloga between LaFayette and Menlo.     

Next week Dade, Walker, Chattooga, and Catoosa voters will have an opportunity to choose their State Senator for the next two years. Candidates are incumbent Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga and outside challenger Tom Dooley of LaFayette.

Mullis hasn’t had an election opponent since 2010. Here’s a little piece LU put together on Senator Jeff The Hutt that year. It’s not up to date but everything there is accurate through 2010, worth a read before you vote.

Also related to next week’s vote, tonight at 7 GPB will air a debate between candidates for GA Governor.

Governor Deal is skipping the event, citing “prior commitments,” leaving David Pennington and John Barge to debate with an empty chair.     

Updated 5/13/14 [ See Below ]

It’s easy to point critical fingers at individuals who regularly spend more money than they make, paying for toys and parties instead of basics while racking up debt.

This describes many financially irresponsible residents of Walker County, but it also applies to county government over the last decade under the control of Commissioner Heiskell.

Now those years of living on the edge financially have – surprise! – ruined the county’s credit.

On May 6th, Standard & Poors Ratings Services announced Walker County’s bond rating was dropping four points from a healthy AA- to BBB+, two steps away from “junk” status. That followed a mid-March warning from Moody’s Investors Service that the county’s debt position has a “negative” outlook.

Those bond ratings are the government equivalent of a credit score. A downgrade means the county’s existing bonds for SPLOST have lower resale value for investors, future bonds and bank loans will be harder to get or sell, and any bonds or loans taken out in the future will cost the county more money due to higher interest rates.

How did Walker County get to this point? Economic stagnation, over-dependence on manufacturing jobs, and a pattern of poor financial decisions from Commissioner Heiskell.

Friday’s scheduled hearing over Chattanooga St. Tavern’s pouring license was delayed in order to give lawyers hired by the city more time to review the case. There’s also, as noted before, some disagreement over which court has jurisdiction over the case since it’s not an appeal.

The city’s problems with the business aren’t due to “beer” as some claim – they’re from the Tavern (and its owners) storing hard liquor in the building and serving it to minor employees.

There are also outside accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against Tavern co-owner Gary Lovelady.

As LU mentioned previously, this isn’t just about serving alcohol, it’s about deciding if LaFayette will turn a blind eye to unethical, criminal behavior in the name of “progress” or take a stand against wrongdoing and apply the rules evenly to everyone, regardless of their bank balance or position in the business community.   

May 20th primary election will be a week from Tuesday – time is flying by. One of the contested races will be Republican nominee for Governor of Georgia. Nathan Deal currently holds that position and wants to keep it, but David Pennington of Dalton and John Barge of the Rome area are challenging his position. Here’s a look at the two longshot outsider candidates.

A new poll comparing Governor Deal to Jason Carter, the Democrat candidate he (or Pennington or Barge) will face in November, shows them almost statistically tied. Deal’s approval rating has also plummeted, falling below 50% for the first time.

Deal has in recent weeks bragged about “Site Selection Magazine” naming Georgia the best place to do business, but challengers point out that nobody reads the magazine, and it does considerable business with the state – giving editors plenty of reasons to select Georgia.   

This week area voters have gotten Jeff Mullis campaign material in their mailboxes. Funny thing, it was all paid for by a national real estate lobbyist group out of Chicago, not the Mullis campaign. Same group has been sponsoring Mullis’ robocalls.

Jeff is bought and paid for by these lobbyist groups. He’s got hundreds of thousands of dollars in his campaign fund and almost none of it came from the district he’s supposed to represent or the people who live in it.

Voters will have an opportunity to choose Mullis or local Tom Dooley in the election next Tuesday.   

Commissioner Heiskell is using SPLOST money to build community centers intended to reward neighborhoods and individuals that supported her in 2012. She’s defending them as “emergency shelters” and says some will only cost $250,000, but that’s nowhere close to the real number when you include the cost outside of SPLOST.

The new building in Hinkle, for example, is being built to reward the Davenport family for their support for Heiskell.. The new fire station/emergency shelter/museum will be located in the middle of a new shopping center the Davenports are building, and the land on that site has already been cleared – for them – by the county.

The Cedar Grove station will be a mile away from Mountain Cove Farms, and it’s being built because the Commissioner promised it to residents out there IF they voted for her in 2012 and supported SPLOST in 2013.

Emergency shelters sound like a good idea, but during an emergency like a tornado there’s no time to get to a shelter, and most folks prefer to stay home and deal with whatever’s going on. During the tornado threats earlier this month three shelters were opened, and only twenty people (in a county of about 65,000) chose to use them.   

Earl Anthony Grant arrested last Saturday for aggravated assault after fighting with his almost-ex-wife at the bypass Pit-Stop and threatening to shoot her and a friend while waving a gun.

When arrested his gun was found to be the BB type.   

Nearly ten years ago a Catoosa County man was accused of smothering his six-month old. During trial he was convicted of a minor count, but the jury was hung on a murder charge and never reached a verdict.

Last year District Attorney Buzz Franklin’s office realized he was never re-tried on the main murder count, but a judge has ruled too much time elapsed for a retrial. In other words, he gets off because Franklin (or someone in his office) forgot.

Maybe if they weren’t spending so much time kicking Tanya Craft and Les Coffey for political reasons, and helping the Dalton FBI office and Rossville PD pretend to be little girls on the Internet, they’d be able to remember to have a trial for a man who allegedly possibly murdered his own kid.   

Per this article, LaFayette City Council and Mayor Arnold have narrowed the list of City Manager candidates down to only three, out of over 60 who applied.

LaFayette Underground has now verified the final choice for City Manager is David Hamilton, a native of LaFayette currently living and working in Alabama.

Mr. Hamilton has been offered the position already, but hasn’t formally decided if he’ll accept the role. Sources close to Hamilton’s family say he’s been scouting homes in the area, which means he’s taking the offer seriously. An announcement of the selection will be made as soon as he signs on the dotted line.

City has been without a permanent manager for about 13 months now.   

Walker County and the state are throwing MORE money into an expansion of Mountain Cove Farms. Now the county has taken over a state-owned barn across the street for more wasteful foolishness.

WQCH Radio, 05/01/14: “IN OTHER BUSINESS THURSDAY, THE COMMISSIONER SIGNED A LEASE AGREEMENT WITH THE STATE, ALLOWING THE COUNTY TO USE THE LARGE WHITE BARN, LOCATED ACROSS THE ROAD FROM THE MANOR HOUSE AT MOUNTAIN COVE FARMS. THE LEASE REQUIRES NO MONEY, ONLY THAT THE COUNTY KEEP INSURANCE ON THE STRUCTURE. THE COUNTY HAS ALSO SECURED A 30-THOUSAND DOLLAR GRANT FROM THE STATE HISTORICAL PRESERVATION COMMISSION TO STABILIZE THE BARN’S STRUCTURE.

“COMMISSIONER HEISKELL SAID THEY’VE HAD SEVERAL REQUESTS FROM WEDDING PARTIES TO RENT THE RUSTIC BARN.”

Sounds great, right? Except insurance on a public facility (especially one collapsing) likely isn’t cheap, and the $30k grant (coming out of your STATE tax dollars) will hardly fix the thing up. It’ll need lights, a concrete floor, HVAC, new roof, a parking lot, restroom facilities, everything will have to be handicap accessible..

Having reached a place where Mountain Cove Farms requires only maintenance instead of continual investment in renovations or construction, the county just signed a deal committing more money to more renovation and construction.

Remember that when you’re driving around the county hitting potholes and wondering why nobody ever picks up trash off the side of the road. The county WOULD have money for those problems if it wasn’t wasting so much on Commissioner Heiskell’s pre-retirement dream.   

Parents of young children be careful. LU has heard from a family that recently visited the new Caboose Park on Patton St. and found the play area unusable due to broken glass on the ground, in the bushes, and in the sandbox.

The complaining parents cleaned up most of it, but be very, very cautious before letting kids play there without close supervision and checking out the sand before they do.

There are homeless people and/or drunks who regularly hang out or sleep in the park. It’s not policed well and is located between two places where homeless people tend to gather.

The park is a good idea but poorly planned by the DDA. There shouldn’t be a sandbox there – maybe a swingset, slide, or something else along those lines would be more appropriate than a sandbox, which is hard to keep clean, gets used as a bathroom by animals (and maybe people), and can hide dangerous things like needles or glass.

The city also needs to enforce a curfew on the site so those who decide to “camp out” can be removed. Perhaps some posted rules about no glass containers would also help – but only if LPD enforces them.

If we can have stupid rules banning bicycles and scooters from the rec. department we can surely ban drunk homeless people from leaving their trash in a tiny park.