Since upgrading equipment last month, Walker Co 911 has become unreliable. Multiple reports of people calling 911 for 20-30 minutes with no answer before looking up numbers for other emergency agencies. All dispatch for law enforcement, fire, and ambulance in Walker (incl. city agencies) is routed through 911. Major failure of public safety.

Last Thursday on the 5th an elderly gentleman had a heart attack and called Walker 911 for twenty minutes, before giving up and calling the only other emergency number he knew: GA State Patrol. GSP sent an ambulance, and the EMT’s said another half hour he would have died.

Wednesday morning at 2 AM an elderly lady fell and her sister (?) called 911 for a half hour, got no answer, and then called the Sheriff’s Office. After some explanation and discussion, the jail finally sent her an ambulance and said there was a problem with the phone lines at 911.

The first incident may have been related to the storms that came through that night. The one yesterday was definitely a system issue, some kind of upgrade or change that failed in the middle and took things down without a backup. Hopefully it won’t be repeated, regardless of reason or reasons. (911 operators aren’t at fault; You can’t answer a phone that doesn’t ring.)

No idea if they’re working on it or passing blame around from one place to another. But when somebody’s meemaw dies from an old person attack due to no answer at the 911 center, the county will get sued and be on the hook for all kinds of liability. As they should be.

TSPLOST is in trouble. State leaders from both parties are distancing themselves from it, saying they have personally voted down the tax this month even though they supported the bill when it came through the legislature in 2010.

Even some state Republican leaders who initially endorsed the plan are now calling it a tax increase, mainly because they don’t like the projects it will fund:

“The conservative GOP lawmaker [Chip Rogers] claimed many of the projects approved by roundtables of local officials after the bill passed will do nothing to relieve congestion and will burden taxpayers for years to come.

“He urged voters to reject the pre-approved project list, saying lawmakers can still come back in two years to create a better list.”

Especially relevant to us, the mayor of Dalton has come out against the tax too. If Whitfield County and Dalton vote against it, the entire region Walker County is in (including Dade, Catoosa, Whitfield, and Chattooga) will probably defeat the tax increase.

Additional reports from less official sources say Whitfield Commission Chair Mike Babb has gone on record saying he voted against it this week in early voting. Babb is on one of the regional committees that decided what projects should go on the list.

The smartest thing proponents of TSPLOST have done is frame it as an issue of low taxes vs. infrastructure. If you’re for lower taxes, vote against it. If you’re for infrastructure, vote for it.

Problem is, that’s not really the case. A vote for TSPLOST isn’t necessarily a vote FOR infrastructure.. Depending on your region and your county project list, a vote for TSPLOST is often a vote for waste and silliness. Here in Walker County they have a half-dozen bridges on the list, all of which could have been fixed five years ago if our Dear Leader wasn’t waiting on TSPLOST to do it for her. The only other project is a $20 million waste of time widening a road to the Tennessee state line where it ends in a residential neighborhood.

We have leaders who waste the tax funding they already get, and then push the most important stuff off to a new tax that we HAVE TO support or we’re ANTI-whatever they refused to spend the money on initially. We don’t get to vote for the new football stadium, for the state-owned horse park, for the salaries and benefits of state legislators. Because a majority of people would vote those issues down. Instead those are paid for from general funds (and stolen gas tax funds) while we’re asked to bend over and sign up for a shiny new tax guaranteed (for now) to do all the things they didn’t do with money from the last tax we agreed to pay.

More on this tomorrow.

More detail about the Phillips Bros. move to LaFayette. The company will be moved in by the end of this month and ready to hire around the end of August. Pay for new jobs is $10-$25 an hour depending on skill. Also the company won’t be paying property tax until the building is paid off because of the county purchase arrangement.

For the record, for all local media and local government agencies: this is how you do stories about companies moving in. We see photos of the equipment set up inside the facility, the owner gives his history and sets some attainable goals with realistic timelines, and the government arrangement that attracted them is revealed.

Compare this to the SunRae Water announcements where we have no photos from inside, no history of the company or leaders, goals that make no sense and timelines that aren’t realistic, plus an insistence that no deals were made even though something is obviously going on.

Do the former, not the latter.

Here’s the days-late Messenger take on the same story.

WQCH Radio, 07/11/12:

“YOU CAN SEE WHY SO MANY POT-GROWING OPERATIONS ARE GOING UNDERGROUND: THEY’RE BEING WATCHED FROM ABOVE! FIVE HELICOPTERS USED THE BARWICK-LAFAYETTE AIRPORT AS HOME-BASE IN A MARIJUANA SWEEP TUESDAY. THEY HAD NO LUCK SPOTTING POT IN THE MORNING AND GOT RAINED-OUT IN THE AFTERNOON.

“DRUG TASK FORCE INTERIM COMMANDER PATRICK DOYLE SAID THE AIR-SWEEP WILL BE CONDUCTED AGAIN IN THE AREA, BEFORE THIS FALL. HE SAID THEY HAVE AT LEAST 30 AREAS TO CHECK HERE IN THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF THE STATE.”

That’s a lot of information. He should give out a list of exactly what areas will be searched and when so we know what days to keep the cash crop indoors.

Doctors say Austin Whitten isn’t likely to ever walk again, but he hasn’t given up hope for a full recovery and neither have his family or friends. He’s still doing rehab at a spine center in Atlanta and planning to see a baseball game Friday.

Several events in the next few weeks are planned to benefit Austin and a quartet of other LHS students with health problems. They’re being added to the LU Local Calendar as we learn of them.

Speaking of upcoming events..

This weekend Back Alley Productions will present two performances of “The Three Musketeers” at the Walker County Civic Center. The shows will be Friday and Saturday evening at 7:30. Prices are $7 for adults, $5 for students and seniors, or $4.50 each for groups of ten or more.

The demise of journalism continues. Computer-generated articles based on statistics show up in “legitimate” news outlets.

It’s understandable they don’t want to pay somebody to write the same articles about softball scores over and over, but people don’t love reading the same thing again and again pretending to be original. Just list the stats in a chart and be done with it.

Regardless of what criticism people may have about what we do here, it’s guaranteed every LU FB post and Web site article is original and typed by hand. No robot statistic article generators, no AP news feeds.

Kids 4 Christ is taking applications for free after school care during the ’12-’13 school year:

“We are now taking applications for Cool After School. This program is free for students entering grades K-5 who may be falling behind in school. There are just a few openings and we will have to place others on a waiting list, so if your child needs help now is the time to sign up. Come by or call for an application.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports a 400% increase in asylum requests from Mexican citizens since the illegal immigration law kicked in a year ago this month.

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