Early voting begins today all over Georgia. Our unofficial Facebook poll shows residents are more than twice as likely to early vote than vote normally on July 31st, but poll participants are more politically aware and active than the typical Walker County citizen.

Vote early if you need to, but we strongly encourage you to wait until the election is closer. Some information and discussions in the pipeline might very well change your mind, and after voting it’s too late to take your vote back.

Check back here later today this week for a rundown of candidate profiles and quotes from mainstream media.

LaFayette City Council meeting tonight at 7:30. Looks like little will be discussed, but you never know. Here’s the agenda, PDF file. Apparently SunRae Water didn’t bother rescheduling their cancelled appearance from last month’s meeting.

The Shaw campaign reports an unusually high number of campaign signs blowing over, falling down, being broken, or otherwise disappearing in mysterious ways as we head into early voting. What do you think – is this an accident or vandalism?

WQCH Radio, 07/06/12:

“THE FIRST-STORY WALLS ARE UP AT WALKER COUNTY’S NEWEST SCHOOL, ‘SADDLE RIDGE’ ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOL. THE NEW SCHOOL FRONTS ON ARNOLD ROAD AT ROCK SPRING WHILE THE 93 ACRE TRACT ALSO FRONTS ON HIGHWAY 27 NEAR THE CIVIC CENTER. IT WAS PURCHASED BY THE BOARD OF EDUCATION WITH THE THOUGHT OF ADDING WALKER COUNTY’S THIRD HIGH SCHOOL ON THE PROPERTY, IN THE FUTURE. THE MASONRY SCHOOL BUILDING FOR SADDLE RIDGE WILL BE TWO-STORIES WHEN COMPLETED AND IS LARGE ENOUGH FOR 679 STUDENTS. IT’S SCHEDULED TO OPEN IN THE FALL OF 2013.”

The original schedule unrealistically called for a fall 2012 opening, and the system will be very lucky at this point if it’s ready by fall 2013. The building will have to be completely done and ready for teachers to move in by the middle of next June, meaning there can’t be anymore setbacks, changes, swampy mudhole problems, or contract labor disputes. Our bet is on January 2014.

Speaking of schools..

GA highschool students did better this year on end-of course tests for everything except math, which was down just slightly. Biggest gains were in economics.

Students complain that the test was unrealistically hard and covered math material not taught in any public school in the area; if math numbers continue to slide will they beef up classes or modify the test to make student performance look better?

In other educational news, GA schools will lose $30 million in federal funding because the state (rightfully) refuses to let kindergarten student evaluations of their teachers count towards the teachers’ official ratings.

Hutcheson leaders predict a return to profitability in early 2013. Also they finally got new signs up after a year of being “Erlanger at Hutcheson.”

Chattooga Sheriff Everett may soon appear in court to explain how much he knew about a deputy who obtained an illegal search warrant.

Fleetwood Pawn used to be in LaFayette, and it never seemed to be legitimate. But because the deputy handled the search illegally (and violated the suspects’ constitutional rights) focus has gone from their criminal activity to the activities of police.

Notice that the legal action to rectify this didn’t involve the GBI or another government agency. The suspects had to bring in their own high-priced lawyer and file a civil suit. Not everybody can afford to do that. In a real state with actual ethics laws, this would have been investigated and handled by the state police or state attorney general.

The first book about the Tonya Craft railroading has been published by her one-time security guard. Another one we’d like to review for you.

The tunnel pot farm in Lyerly mentioned here recently was complete with TV and advanced grow lights. Wish people would put this much thought and detail into their legitimate businesses.

History of 4-H programs in Walker County. A bit dry but the photos are interesting. Apparently the first 4-H in Walker started 101 years ago in 1911.

According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, small community banks are struggling to survive under new regulations meant to curtail large bank conglomerates’ abusive behavior. If these rules stay in place it may only be a matter of time before every local bank in the country goes under or sells out.

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