Walker County survived the Blizzard of 2016 with minimal damage.

Predictions of ice and (possibly snow) shut down area schools, offices, and churches on Wednesday and delayed start times for most schools in the region today.

Gov. Deal prematurely announced a “state of emergency” for fifteen northern counties, including ours, to free up state funds to prep roads for the icy death.

Despite GA Department of Transportation efforts and millions of dollars spent on new techniques and equipment, Catoosa County Sheriff Gary Sisk blamed multiple early morning I-75 accidents on lack of preparation from GDOT.

But GDOT did make an effort, unlike Walker County’s road barn.

If that’s the best they can do, best hope this tiny bit of ice is all the winter weather we get this year.                           

It’s obviously an election year.

The same commissioner who tried to shut down Walker Transit for the elderly and disabled in 2013 (and would have been successful if not for brave employees talking to the media and LU readers making calls) now stresses how important the county’s public transportation network is, and says she MIGHT even let them have another bus in 2017. Contingent, of course, on her reelection.

“‘We looked at cutting the transit service, but we realized it would do too much damage to cut it,’ Heiskell said last week. “We revamped the transit. We tried to cut back and streamline as best we could.'”

No Bebe, you refused to sign a contract with the state that would have allowed Transit to continue past July 1 of 2013, and didn’t tell anybody. County employees went to Chattanooga media and LU, people found out and blew your phone up and you backtracked on your plan.

You doubled the rates for bus riders, mostly old people who don’t have two nickels to rub together, and fired the transit director for talking to Channel 3 about your intentions. (More here and here.)

Now you’re talking up the program which many of your voters depend on, hoping they’ll ride those buses to the polls again in May and click your name.

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us 374 times, shame on voters. Enough is enough already.   

Chattooga County investigators search for suspects in two Summerville convenience store robberies days apart – one which sent a man to the hospital.

The first robbery was Saturday at a small store called The Cafe on Hawkins Drive near Summerville’s housing projects. Two men shot a clerk in the stomach then got away in a car.

The second robbery was Monday night at Wildlife Food Store on 27 south of Summerville; an employee there was attacked but not badly injured.

Convenience store cashiers working at night should get hazard pay.

No word yet if the two crimes are related.     

Within hours of her arrest last Friday, accused baby murderer Barbara Michelle Pemberton walked out of the Walker County jail after posting a $100,000 bond.

She was booked around 1 PM and went free before 9:00 that night. She’s retained private attorney Mary Jane Melton.   

Domestic violence/suicide situation in Teloga (between LaFayette and Menlo) tied to Rome homicide.

Man who shot himself in the head Monday afternoon while being confronted by police after firing shots at his wife (and probably setting her house on fire) was reportedly inside a vehicle belonging to a man found dead in Rome later in the day.

None of the people involved have been publicly identified so far.   

More on the Haier-GE Appliances merger proposal.

For its $5.4 billion, Haier Group will get GE Appliances’ 12,000 employees scattered across a handful of facilities in the US, including of course Roper in LaFayette.

The Chinese appliance conglomerate will also get a long-sought toehold in the US market and rights to use the GE Appliances name on its products for 40 years.

Again, it sounds like this deal will change little for GE Appliances and Roper, at least for the first few years. They’re going to run this business the way it’s running now, to take a piece of the US market they haven’t been able to claim with their own brand.   

A single vehicle accident Monday morning in Naomi involved one vehicle with a sole occupant.

Male driver was transported to Erlanger, current condition unknown.

Neighbors say the wreck was caused by a patch of ice in the highway formed from a water leak coming from a nearby home.   

LaFayette cops disrupted a makeout session in a black BMW behind Cove Road Baptist Church last Wednesday after neighbors called in complaints of trespassing and headlights shining into their windows.

The woman involved, Katie Marisia O’Shea of a Rossville address, was then arrested for drug possession and probation violation.

(Ms. O’Shea has a past history of arrests for drugs and general violence – she was mentioned on LU before after slashing a neighbor’s tire over a $15 debt.)

The man involved in the Chattanooga Street incident was not arrested or named in reports.

Plus local arrests, January 7-13.

Mostly drugs and guns, who’d have guessed?     

1950’s bluegrass/country music star Hoyt Scoggins of LaFayette, who left music in favor of ministry in the 1960’s, passed away last Wednesday.

Scoggins was an early performer on what eventually became Channel 9 TV when it was based in Rome. He also had radio shows and a couple of hit country records back in the day, even at one point owning his own small record label.

(He’s been mentioned on LU twice in the last year, here and here.)

The GA Music Hall of Fame inductee and retired Church of God pastor was 90.   

Bebe Heiskell isn’t the only Sole Commissioner in NWGA with an election challenger this year. Jason Winters in Chattooga will be facing off against Jimmy Holbrook, owner of AM 1180 Chattooga Radio.

Holbrook says he’s running as a Democrat; Winters has to run as a Republican since he was kicked out of the D party for endorsing Jeff Mullis and Nathan Deal in 2014.   

Fire investigators have decided the blaze which claimed Fort Oglethorpe’s Golden Corral restaurant was an accident.

January 6th blaze that destroyed the popular buffet began inside or near an HVAC unit. Earlier reports said the fire was thought to have begun in the business’ attic area, which is consistent with the final verdict.   

Kevin Dunn is LaFayette’s new Downtown Development/Economic Development director. He’s responsible for attracting new business into town, supporting existing businesses’ needs, and running downtown events like Movies in the Park and Scare on the Square.

Dunn has an impressive resume. LaFayette almost seems out of his league.   

Psychiatrist in Jonesboro GA arrested for running a “pill mill.”

Federal and state investigators say Dr. Narendra Nagareddy is responsible for at least 12 (maybe up to 36) deaths related to prescription painkillers he was prescribing from his office in Clayton County.

A psychiatrist has no reason to issue or prescribe painkillers to anyone for any reason.   

Georgia is paying $1.2 million to provide identity theft protection to 6 million registered voters whose personal data was leaked, but so far only about 10,000 citizens have signed up for it.

LU posted the link before – if you missed it, you can sign up at www.csid.com/gasos/.   

“She was my grandma, and she is and will forever be the South.”   

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