Another local business robbed.

According to WQCH, sometime before 6:30 AM Wednesday a thief or thieves broke into Mitchell’s Plumbing on North Duke St. About $2,000 in copper plumbing parts were stolen along with cash from the office. The parts will eventually turn up at a metal recycler; the problem is figuring out which one.

Anyone with information about the theft is encouraged to call LaFayette PD, which is located literally across the street from the burglarized business.   

If you’ve got a business in Walker and plan to expand, be prepared for county leaders to exploit you.

PSI Fibers’ announcement about moving five miles north into another building in the same town has been hijacked by Commissioner Heiskell and Rev. Larry Brooks who keep attaching their own names to the news, even though they had absolutely no role in the decision.

In a normal community, business expansion stories would be accompanied by photos of the business. Here when businesses expand the paper slaps up file photos of Bebe.   

LaFayette has decided to retain Barwick name on the local airport. The field will still be renamed in a future council meeting, to either LaFayette-Barwick Regional or Barwick-LaFayette Regional. A decision wasn’t voted on this week due to responsible members of the City Council being out sick.

WQCH Radio, 03/12/14: “THE LAFAYETTE CITY COUNCIL TABLED A REQUEST MONDAY, TO CHANGE THE NAME OF THE BARWICK-LAFAYETTE AIRPORT, BECAUSE BOTH COUNCIL MEMBERS WHO SERVE ON THE AIRPORT COMMITTEE WERE ABSENT DUE TO ILLNESS.

“IT WAS MADE CLEAR, HOWEVER, THAT THE ‘BARWICK’ NAME WILL BE RETAINED. A SUGGESTION WAS AIRED AT LAST MONTH’S MEETING THAT THE NAME BE CHANGED TO DROP ‘BARWICK’ FROM THE TITLE. MANY LOCALS EXPRESSED AN INTENSE DISLIKE FOR THAT IDEA AS BARWICK MILLS WAS LAFAYETTE’S MAJOR EMPLOYER FOR DECADES, AND E.T. BARWICK HAD MUCH TO DO WITH THE AIRPORT’S DEVELOPMENT.

“WHEN COUNCIL COMMITTEE MEMBERS CHRIS DAVIS AND JUDY MEEKS ARE PRESENT AT NEXT MONTH’S MEETING, THE WORD ‘REGIONAL’ IS EXPECTED TO BE ADDED TO THE NAME SO IT’S LIKELY TO BE RE-NAMED EITHER THE ‘BARWICK-LAFAYETTE REGIONAL AIRPORT’ OR THE ‘LAFAYETTE-BARWICK REGIONAL AIRPORT’.”

Adding the word “regional” probably has some kind of impact on state/federal funding, grants, or rules…   

Girlfriend of man who shot Ron Westbrook last fall in Chickamauga has been identified as Terri Huskey. According new reports, Huskey initially told investigators she warned her now-ex-boyfriend Joe Hendrix that Westbrook wasn’t dangerous before he went out and killed him.

“Franklin, the prosecutor, said it was unclear whether Hendrix heard his then-girlfriend’s comment. The woman seemed cloudy about whether Hendrix acknowledged her warning, and she could not remember what Hendrix said in response. Hendrix’s attorney, Lee Davis, said Hendrix did not believe his then-girlfriend made any such statement.”

In other local killing news, new info about three violent deaths over the weekend: Jackson/Shropshire shooting in Naomi, Officer-involved shooting in Chattooga County, and gas station murder in Dalton not previously discussed on LU. (The suspect in that case was finally arrested yesterday in Atlanta.)

Latest details about the Chattooga County death say a county deputy shot – and killed – a man who fired at the officer and then refused to lay down his rifle. Walker County SWAT was involved in the incident afterwards. Man killed has now been identified as 60-year-old Herbert Wayne Morehead of Lyerly.

Elsewhere in world-gone-crazy news, a Chickamauga man has been arrested for attacking people with a hatchet.

Spring fever arrived early this year.         

Over the last few years Walker County has quietly spent tens of thousands of dollars building walking trails on the path of long-closed Chickamauga and Durham Railroad atop Lookout Mountain. (Plus thousands of dollars in fines for doing the work improperly.)

Much of the work done could now be for nothing after US Supreme Court ruled abandoned railroad property should revert back to owners of adjoining lands instead of being taken over by government.

Unless the county (or Norfolk-Southern, or Lula Lake Land Trust, or one of the Davenport-owned shell companies that owns land up there) can produce deeds to the property in question, they have no right to touch any of it.

A whole lot of pissed off property owners on the mountain, who never wanted these trails crossing or butting against their land to begin with, now have a right to file trespassing charges against county workers who continue to dig and build up there. Lookout Mountain will be seeing a lot of new fencing, gates, and NO TRESPASSING signs in the next few days.   

As LU told you months ago, a business will soon move into the old Sweetheart Cup building north of town.

PSI Fibers, which currently has a facility off South Chattanooga St., will relocate this summer to the Sweetheart/Imperial site. The move will allow PSI’s concrete fiber business to expand.

The county is trying to take credit for this but local government had no involvement in the deal. The move doesn’t immediately add new jobs, and will leave the existing PSI site in town sitting empty.   

Over the weekend another shooting death shook the community.

According to news reports, Broderick Shropshire shot 30-year-old Roderick Jackson in the head shortly before 6 PM Saturday night inside a Wesley Rd. home in Naomi. Shropshire, age 51, reportedly asked Jackson to leave the house several times before retrieving his weapon, and fired after the younger man acted “aggressively.”

Shropshire was taken into custody and will have a bail hearing today at 3 PM.         

ANOTHER shooting fatality reported early this morning in Chattooga County; Chattooga deputy shoots, kills man who fired at him during investigation of a domestic incident. Story is VERY developing – check LU Facebook for the latest.   

Qualification for May 20’s primary election was last week. Some familiar names running for State House and State Senate, along with several political newcomers.

House District 1 Rep. John Deffenbaugh will face Alan Painter of Rossville and Robert Goff of Trenton on the R side. Rising Fawn resident Tom McMahahan signed up to run as a D unopposed. (R winner will face McMahan in November.)

Recently elected HD2 Rep. Steve Tarvin will face Rebecca Ann Brown of LaFayette and EBeth Edwards of Villanow, all running as Republicans. Edwards was Commissioner Heiskell’s girl on the Elections Committee. She broke state law by erecting a Heiskell sign on her property even while serving in a supposedly neutral position on the election board – her election would signal a decline in the state’s already piss-poor ethical standards.

Jeff Mullis will face a single opponent for reelection to State Senate: Tom Dooley of LaFayette, who announced his candidacy a year ago. They too are both running as Republicans, meaning the race will be over in less than three months.     

LaFayette resident Thomas Pickle arrested in Varnell after a high-speed chase through Whitfield County. He and a Chattanooga man were delivering meth to Tunnel Hill when officers tried to take them into custody.   

Almost a year after Frank Etheridge was pushed out as LaFayette City Manager, the city is reviewing a pile of applications to find his permanent replacement.

WQCH Radio, 03/03/14: “THE CITY OF LAFAYETTE HAD AN EXCELLENT RESPONSE TO THEIR CALL FOR CITY MANAGER CANDIDATES. INTERIM CITY MANAGER MAX MORRISON SAID LAST WEEK THAT HE HAS NOT COUNTED THEM, BUT HE ESTIMATED THERE ARE BETWEEN 75 AND 100 RESUMES’.

“MORRISON SAID THERE ARE SOME EXCELLENT CANDIDATES, BOTH MALE AND FEMALE. A FEMALE CITY MANAGER WOULD BE A FIRST FOR LAFAYETTE.

“THE INTERIM CITY MANAGER SAID THAT INDIVIDUAL CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS HAVE BEEN TAKING TIME, INDIVIDUALLY, TO SIT DOWN AND READ-THROUGH THE RESUMES’ IN PREPARATION FOR THE PROCESS OF NARROWING THE FIELD. NO INTERVIEWS HAVE BEEN HELD AS YET, MORRISON SAID.”

The city needs a permanent City Manager for stability, but there’s no need to rush into it and pick the wrong person again. Morrison is doing fine, for as long as he’s willing to stay on, allowing the Council and new mayor to take their time and pick the right person for the job instead of taking whoever we can get.   

Last night a “wanted” patient, 31-year-old John Wesley Patterson of Chattanooga, escaped from Hutcheson ICU, stole a vehicle, and led police on a chase. He was finally caught, still in hospital gown, after driving off road and getting stuck.   

Commissioner Heiskell says four questions will be added to the May ballot: .25 mil of property tax designated for libraries, sunday alcohol sales, packaged liquor sales, and liquor by the drink sales.

These are all issues originally proposed for last November but the Commissioner held them because she didn’t want higher voter turnout to put SPLOST renewal at risk. With SPLOST safely renewed, she can move forward with plans to turn Manor Cove Restaurant into a full-service bar with legalized liquor.

For the record, a change in county rules about liquor or sunday sales wouldn’t impact businesses inside city limits. Walker County cities would all have to do votes on the same topics to change their own alcohol rules.   

Haze and smoke filling the air all over Northwest Georgia and East Tennessee last week came from a series of controlled burns. The closest to LaFayette was in Chattahoochee Regional Forest past Villanow, but smoke was also contributed by six or eight controlled burns in Tennessee.

Government agencies can conduct controlled burns on thousands of acres in February with no problem, but Walker County residents can’t legally burn two sticks outdoors between May and October because the EPD/EPA claim burning is bad for the air. Go figure..     

New industrial plant Walker County has been promising any day now for over a year is again predicted to make a decision about moving here next week:

WQCH Radio, 02/28/14: “THE WALKER COUNTY DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY IS HOPEFUL THAT IN THE MONTH OF MARCH THAT HARD FOUGHT STRUGGLE TO LAND ‘PROJECT EAGLE’, WILL BE WON.

“EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR LARRY BROOKS SAID THE STILL UNNAMED COMPANY FROM PENNSYLVANIA, HAS NOW COMPLETED AN ACQUISITION IN EUROPE AND THE NEW PLANT IN THE SOUTH IS NEXT ON THEIR AGENDA. THE NEW WALKER COUNTY INDUSTRIAL PARK AT NOBLE IS THE LEAD CONTENDER FOR THE PROJECT EAGLE SITE. BROOKS SAID HE WAS TOLD THAT THE COMPANY HAS AN INTERNAL MEETING ON THE FINAL LOCATION, SET FOR NEXT WEEK, AND THE OWNER COULD APPROVE THE PLAN TO MOVE HERE, THE WEEK AFTER.

“..THE PLANT WOULD BE A HUGE NEW CUSTOMER FOR THE CHATTOOGA AND CHICKAMAUGA RAILROAD, NEEDING THE CAPACITY TO HOLD AND MOVE UP TO 150 RAIL CARS AT ANY GIVEN TIME. BROOKS SAID THAT WALKER COUNTY’S WORK ON THE PROJECT IS PRETTY WELL COMPLETED AND THE ‘LETTER OF INTENT’ OUTLINING THE INCENTIVES THEY CAN SUPPLY HAS ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO THE PROSPECT.”

The unnamed company being discussed is Washington-Penn Plastic of Washington, PA. A decision to move here would be surprising, considering how far this area is from their existing facilities and the existence of so many other places they could go..

Having a major manufacturer in the area (within the new Swanson Farm industrial park Heiskell just spent millions of SPLOST dollars to buy) would be great for the county – but it would break the Commissioner’s promise of “nothing stinky” going into the park, which she at one point claimed would only be for office space.   

Erlanger’s suit against Hutcheson claims the hospital doesn’t just owe $20 million – thanks to debt and fees for nonpayment, the debt is up to $21.7 mil and growing. Erlanger says HMC has not made any effort whatsoever to begin paying back the 2011 loan, which was backed by Catoosa and Walker governments.