05.29
Check back tonight at 8:00 for a full rundown of candidates and races in this year’s local election.
This week LaFayette City Council will be taking a serious look at splitting the police chief and fire chief jobs in a restructured Public Safety department. This Times Free Press report also includes a copy of fired Police Chief Tommy Freeman’s termination letter and his annual salary.
- “LaFayette City Manager Frank Etheridge said the idea to split the department stems from criticism at a March meeting in which Freeman was accused of making decisions that saved money for the fire department but could cause a safety threat to firefighters. Freeman had his basic certification to work with a fire department, but nothing more, Etheridge said.”
(Department employees insisted he never even got that.)
Hopefully the fire and police department will be operationally separated, because glomming them together never really made sense except for allowing the city to pay a single chief more to supervise both than they could pay two chiefs to supervise the departments separately. Even if they stay in the same facility together, which is fine, they need some separate leadership and a distinct budget.
Recently opened Hope Rebirth Homeless Shelter in Summerville is considered to be the state’s largest shelter, space-wise anyway. They’re trying to do a lot with a little, and any support you can send their way would be appreciated.
In related news, Heartland Magazine reports that hundreds of prisoners in Georgia stay in jail after their sentences end because they have nowhere to go. Some are mentally ill, some are sex offenders, and some will simply be homeless. Shelters like Hope Rebirth and halfway houses like Penfield Christian Homes help transition these inmates back into society or to facilities where they can get needed treatment.
(Heartland link courtesy of Jay Neal’s reelection campaign.)
Dade County Schools has a program to mentor students who are at risk of dropping out, or who dropped out already and are considering a return to class. This report has information about Dade mentoring, and this one profiles one student who’s benefited from it.
Walker County schools could learn something from this, but they’re not likely to add mentoring here unless doing so would help the high schools do better in a sport.
We hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day holiday.
Memorial Day goes back to informal “decoration day” events following the Civil War, but wasn’t established as a legal holiday on the last Monday in May until 1971.
“Pigeon Mountain Trading Company abuzz with activity in LaFayette”
“Bee” nice to the honey bees in town. They belong to Pigeon Mountain. (The bees love soda.)
GNTC finally has a program that can transfer all its credits to a 4-year school. About time.
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Hay this is David Smith waiting on a real reporter, from the Under Ground to call 706-638-3401 or come by 209 Magnolia st LaFayette Ga 30728 and report the facts, just come question me don’t be scared its only dirt!! wait its not dirt it is facts, you know nothing about that, or you would at least have the nerve to call. So I will keep waiting for a real reporter and not a joke who knows nothing and builds his site on false information when they can talk to me and print what the facts, what a joke site it is like my Festival a failure and let down.
Says the bitter guy whose Festival just failed miserably – so much so that a “real” reporter doesn’t even want to bother it.
I love when people throw that out there…real reporter, like LU ever claimed to be a real reporter…if they were they’d not waste so much time on things like a failed festival and how ridiculous it was.
Maybe a real reporter would call you, if you were a real festival organizer? Regardless of the details, you seemed to p*ssed off a bunch of folks who will most probably sue you, if they don’t get some compensation.
If we had “real” reporters we would have had somebody out there to take a photo of the non-existent crowds that didn’t gather at Cherokee Farms during the event. In other words, be careful what you wish for.
— LU