WQCH Radio, 11/08/12: “LAFAYETTE POLICE ARE ASKING THE PUBLIC’S HELP IN LOCATING A SPECIALIZED WHEEL CHAIR THAT WAS STOLEN OVER THE WEEKEND. THE CHAIR HAS A SPECKLED FRAME AND BLACK NYLON SEAT. IT’S USED BY A LOCAL VOLUNTEER IN COMMUNITY SERVICE WORK. ANYONE WITH INFORMATION ON THE STOLEN WHEEL CHAIR MAY CONTACT THE LAFAYETTE POLICE DEPARTMENT OR THE WALKER COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT.”

The missing wheelchair belongs to Kevin, the man who regularly picks up garbage on city streets or runs a trimmer while wearing a Civil War uniform. He’s odd but sweet and well-intentioned, and has done more to clean up LaFayette in the last decade than all of city government combined. The theft was very likely motivated by someone being “funny” as there’s hardly a profit in stealing wheelchairs.

An LU reader set up an online collection for Kevin to have a new wheelchair; the initial goal was $250 and as-of 4 AM Friday had already reached $325. The new goal is $1,000. Whatever is raised by November 21 will be used to get Kevin a new chair and whatever else he might need, including some kind of bicycle lock or method to secure the chair from being stolen again.

A reward of $200 has been offered anonymously for information about the person(s) who stole Kevin’s chair. If you know who did this, please contact LU or LaFayette PD.

WQCH Radio, 11/08/12: “THE WRITE-IN VOTES FOR ALES CAMPBELL HAVE NOW BEEN COUNTED AT THE WALKER COUNTY ELECTIONS OFFICE, AND THE TOTAL OF WRITE-INS BEARING HER NAME WAS 5,726. THERE WERE 125 OTHER WRITE-IN VOTES, MOSTLY NONSENSE NAMES. THE ELECTIONS BOARD REPORTED THEY ALWAYS GET ‘MICKEY MOUSE’ AND THIS TIME, SOMEONE ADDED ROCK STAR ‘TED NUGENT’ TO THE WRITE-IN LIST.

“THE INCUMBENT COMMISSIONER, BEBE HEISKELL, RECEIVED 13,380 VOTES IN THE COMPLETE BUT UNOFFICIAL RETURNS. THAT GAVE HEISKELL 70-PERCENT OF THE QUALIFIED VOTES. SHE WON EVERY PRECINCT EXCEPT LAFAYETTE AND CENTER POST, AND THOSE WERE CLOSE.”

Haven’t met anybody yet who will admit to voting for Bebe, but whatever. Maybe Ted Nugent will come down and run against her in 2016.

Election is over, back to business as usual.

Three weeks in a row with no commissioner meeting in Walker County. The Commissioner is required by law to meet at LEAST once a month, and is supposed to spend a majority of her time talking with constituents. TV doesn’t count, or shouldn’t anyway.

After winning reelection in what may very likely be her last race, any reasons Bebe Heiskell ever had for being transparent or listening to county residents are pretty much done.

Commissioner Heiskell credits her write-in opponent’s votes in Tuesday’s election to “social media” (i.e., the Underground) and says the results show people of Walker don’t want a commission.

“‘I’ve never had anyone approach me about it. I’d never heard anyone mention it until Shaw’s campaign.. It’s not something that’s in demand in Walker County. Catoosa County calls me and wants to talk to me sometimes and says they wish they still had a sole commissioner form of government.'”

It seems highly unlikely that Heiskell has never had anyone approach her about multi-commissioner government in the last twelve years – although she is admittedly somewhat intimidating to approach about anything. Even if she hasn’t been approached, she’s been asked via letter, telephone, or e-mail. LU has e-mailed her about it on two different occasions and hasn’t gotten a response yet. (Keep in mind LU contributors are voting, tax-paying citizens of Walker County, too.)

As for the employees of Catoosa County – of COURSE other government employees wish they had a sole elected leader with no accountability. “Remember back when we could steal and lay around and do whatever we wanted as long as we campaigned for the sole commissioner? God I miss that.”

With some 22,105 ballots cast, the official November 2012 vote total for incumbent sole-commissioner Bebe Heiskell is 13,380 – meaning she has a majority and wins reelection, regardless of how many other votes were cast for her write-in opponent, Ales Campbell. Write-in totals aren’t posted with official results until provisional ballots are counted, which will be Friday, but some local news sources say yet-unnamed write-in candidate(s) received at least 5,851.

Heiskell supporters are working up a froth bragging about their candidate’s dominance and landslide victory, but Campbell backers (and Campbell herself) can take pride in the fact that a write-in candidate who wasn’t even on the ballot still managed to get more than a third of the votes received by a dominant incumbent who used dirty tricks, violated campaign laws, and outspent her two opponents in the primary and general election by about six to one.

The Heiskell camp also assumes things will be easier now, and the troublemakers who dare report on local government will give up and go away. They are sadly wrong; the next four years will be the hardest of Bebe’s career – assuming the 72-year-old Commissioner even finishes out her term without being impeached or dropping dead.

In equally disappointing (but expected) results, incumbent Sheriff Steve Wilson defeated Democrat challenger Tim Westbrook with more than 80% of the vote. Wilson has despicable character, a god-complex, and has blood on his hands – but Westbrook was a non-factor due to lack of effort. A sack of potatoes could campaign as well as Westbrook, and probably would have gotten the same number of votes. Very disappointed in the candidate, not sure why he bothered to run if he wasn’t going to try.

John Deffenbaugh easily won GA House District 1 over Tom McMahan. Maybe now Deffenbaugh will decide what his positions are on all the issues he couldn’t give answers about during his debates. Soon as Jeff Mullis calls him, he’ll let us know where he stands.

The most troubling thing about this election isn’t who won and who lost, but questionable numbers from the county elections office. According to election results on the Georgia Secretary of State Web site, Walker County now has 40,336 registered voters – of which 22,105 (54.8%) put in a vote. But in July, according to the same site, the county had only 32,883 voters. That means between the primary election registration deadline on July 2 and the general election deadline on October 9, Walker County registered 7,453 new voters.

July Figures | November Figures

7,453 people is greater than the entire population of LaFayette. Assuming the elections office was open every weekday during the registration period (which it wasn’t), that works out to nearly 113 new registrations per day. And if all those new people voted, 7,453 is exactly one third (33%) of the 22,105 people who cast a vote.

That smells very, very funny, and will definitely be checked into.

Tomorrow is election day. Just one more day of insanity, and then a break. This year’s election has been especially heated, and people in this area have turned out to early vote in record numbers:

11/3

WQCH Radio, 11/03/12: “ADVANCE-VOTING HIT A NEW RECORD FOR WALKER COUNTY, AT 33-PERCENT. BARBARA BERRY WITH THE VOTER REGISTRATION OFFICE SAID THE TOTAL OF VOTES CAST IN-OFFICE, IS 10,081, AND 875 MAIL-IN VOTES HAVE BEEN RECEIVED – FOR A TOTAL ADVANCE VOTE OF 10,956. THAT’S AS-OF THE CLOSE OF ADVANCE VOTING ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON.

“WITH 32,883 REGISTERED VOTERS THAT’S 33-PERCENT VOTING BEFORE ELECTION DAY, NEXT TUESDAY. BERRY SAID IN 2008, ADVANCE VOTING TOTALED 15 TO 20-PERCENT OF REGISTERED VOTERS HERE.”

As noted on LU last week, Walker County only had 36% turnout for the entire July primary – some 11,808 votes cast. In July 10,444 (or 30% of registered ) voted for commissioner. That means more EARLY votes have been cast for this election than total votes for the Commissioner primary vote in July.

Are Walker County voters that excited about the presidential race, or being driven by the heated battle for Sole Commissioner? If every voter is looking at President, the incumbent Commissioner has an edge. If people are this excited for the local race, write-in candidate Campbell is the likely winner.

Election (or maybe ejection) news, commentary, and results will be posted throughout the day tomorrow on LU Facebook and posted here for the Wednesday Daily Update.

Over 1.6 million people early voted in Georgia. That’s also a huge turnout, but slightly lower than what was seen in 2008 when more were excited about the presidential race than this year. The higher percentage of early voters (comparatively) in Walker than in all of Georgia is a good sign that excitement here is more about the local vote.

No Walker County Commissioner meeting yesterday at the Commissioner’s office. For a while the Commissioner was skipping about every-other one, now it’s more like two out of three. Too many people coming to take notes and ask questions, plus she’s tired from campaigning.

Maybe we need a younger person who can handle the load without skipping out on her obligations, what do you think?

More detail about the TVA meeting at Mountain Cove Farms. Attendees included “..Heiskell, Sen. Jeff Mullis and several city leaders” but city leaders in LaFayette didn’t even know about it until our post Wednesday. Another case of the Commissioner picking and choosing who gets to participate in the process, always favoring her own people.

From Commissioner Heiskell: “Interestingly enough, we have booked events without an aggressive marketing campaign for the property. Our only marketing has been through a Facebook page recently set up to provide interested parties with some details about what is available there.”

So she admits they don’t even market the facility properly. As stated here many times, this isn’t meant to be a tourism draw or benefit the people of Walker County – it’s a toy for the well-connected, county employees, friends of Bebe, and politicians she needs to impress.