Thursday morning shortly after 8, LaFayette swore in its first new mayor since 1991. Here’s most of the city council (Judy Meeks, Wayne Swanson, new member Beacher Garmany, and Chris Davis) with Mayor Andy Arnold in the center. Councilman Bradford will be sworn back in to represent Ward 2 during the next Council meeting on January 13th.

(We’ve got everything here from a $500 suit with nice watch, shoes, and orange tie to a plastic windbreaker and crocs with a sweatshirt. Looks like they DO really represent the people at this point, at least stylistically.)     

Today is the final day of early voting for the House District 2 special election. Tarvin, Florence, or Woodruff will face voter heat next Tuesday for the final vote. Meanwhile at least two of those candidates have responded to an LU Q&A, the answers of which will be shared this weekend.   

Meanwhile, here are brief candidate profiles from the Dalton Daily Citizen:

Outgoing LaFayette mayor and House District 2 candidate Neal Florence says he’s running to help with the state budget, but can’t specifically identify any areas where spending should be cut.

Steve Tarvin, retiring Chickamauga business owner, says his goals as a candidate for HD2 are to make federal and state government less intrusive. He wants the state to tell the fed “no” but isn’t clear in this how exactly that could be done.

Doug Woodruff, also candidate for HD2, says he wants to apply a lawyerly touch to the state budget if elected to the GA House. One of his top priorities is Internet privacy and security, but his understanding of that doesn’t seem to be really high considering he’s worried about browser cookies.

Catoosa County law enforcement agencies are investigating the strange death of 2-year-old foster child Sahara Palmer. Parents of the baby blame foster parents, and Catoosa DFCS isn’t talking. The child’s biological mom, however, tells media she saw bruises and signs of abuse when she visited her child before hospitalization.

Catoosa Co Sheriff says he’s sparing no resources investigating the death and the GBI and DFCS are also involved. An autopsy on the baby was scheduled for yesterday but the results won’t be back for a while. So far no charges have been filed in the probable abuse case.     

As 2013 closed, so too went the OBGYN center at Hutcheson. No patients were at the Women’s Center when it closed on noon Tuesday.

Only seven of the unit’s 37 employees took positions elsewhere at HMC. The rest will be unemployed or take positions with other medical facilities.

For some employees and patients, the closure was like a death in the family.

Early Monday morning, Commissioner Heiskell voted to give HMC another $1 million loan, and she and Catoosa agreed to keep making the payments on HMC’s existing Regions Bank loans for another year without asking the hospital to contribute anything. Interest rates on both the new loan and the existing loan now rise by about a half percent.       

Destructive copper thefts continue in LaFayette…

WQCH Radio, 12/30/13: “HEAT AND AIR CONDITIONING UNITS VALUED AT NEARLY 10-THOUSAND DOLLARS HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY COPPER THIEVES AT TWO LOCAL HOMES, ACCORDING TO LAFAYETTE POLICE.

“THE MOST RECENT INCIDENT OCCURED AT A RENTAL HOUSE ON CAVENDER STREET, WHICH HAD BEEN UNOCCUPIED FOR A COUPLE OF MONTHS. THE OWNER WAS FIXING-UP THE PLACE ON DECEMBER 29th, WHEN HE NOTICED THAT THE HEAT AND AIR UNIT HAD BEEN DISMANTLED, AND ALL THE COPPER TAKEN.

“IT WAS THE SAME PROBLEM AT A HOUSE FOR SALE, ON WEST CULBERSON. A PROSPECTIVE BUYER NOTIFIED POLICE ON DECEMBER 27th THAT TWO HEAT AND AIR UNITS HAD BEEN DESTROYED BY COPPER THIEVES.

“EARLIER IN DECEMBER, POLICE GOT REPORTS OF A/C COPPER THEFTS FROM A STOREFRONT CHURCH AND THE PIT STOP STORE ON CHATTANOOGA STREET PLUS A RESIDENCE ON MAGNOLIA.

“CAPTAIN STACEY MEEKS SAID DETECTIVES BELIEVE THAT ALL FIVE THEFTS ARE RELATED. ANYONE WHO SPOTTED SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY, OR WHO HAS INFORMATION ON THE COPPER THIEVES, SHOULD CONTACT LAFAYETTE POLICE.”   

17-year-old Kayla Mae Montgomery of the Villanow/Rocky Face area has been missing since last Thursday, the 26th. She’s suspected of being with a boyfriend, Glenn Rodriguez (shown with her above), who lives at Mountain Top Boys Home in Villanow, a student of the alternative education program at Ridgeland HS.

They’re thought to have gone north in a gray 1993 Buick Century, GA license BXB1595, but may have also been spotted recently in Floyd County.

We’re told the boy’s family (or dad anyway) have heard from him but they won’t share any information with the girl’s family or police. The boy’s parents are not currently his legal guardians.

Kayla’s family has set up a Facebook page dedicated to finding her.   

A bit of snow in the area last night. (Photo from near Summerville.) Mostly it’s just cold, with Monday’s low temperature predicted to be 6°. Yes, 6°.     

You remember 2013, right?

The year where the county chose financial support for a bar over transit for the elderly or finishing the library, where we tased two fighting high school girls, went on a multi-state car chase, explored hillbilly mating rituals, rescued a man from the south’s deepest cave, and watched Hutcheson amputate its only good limb.

Here’s a look back at the top nineteen news stories of the last year.

Monday night Walker County Republicans held a special called meeting, choosing former State Rep. Brian Joyce to serve on the county elections committee.

The elections committee is responsible for voter registration, choosing elections supervisor, local campaign ethics, etc. Five-member board has two people from each major party and one “independent.”     

State legislators scrambled to collect all the goodies they could from lobbyists before new gift caps began Wednesday.

Loopholes allowing gifts exceeding the cap are already being found.   

Did you make it out to Mountain Cove Farms last night for the BYOB “heavy horederves” New Years party? If so, you might have left with one of these unique keepsakes:

It’s all about the Queen out there, if you didn’t already notice.   

Citizens of a California town are in an uproar after the local police obtained an armored personnel carrier/tank. Residents rightfully fear the vehicle could be used to suppress citizen protest or revolt instead of regular law enforcement activity.

Nobody said a thing here when Sheriff Wilson got a similar vehicle for HIS department.   

What do you do on a 50° New Years day? You go jump into the coldest water in Walker County.

 

Ninth Annual Walker County Polar Plunge at Blue Hole.     

A single mom in Bibb County has lost her vehicle and $15k of savings after someone else living in the same home was arrested for marijuana possession. If she’s not convicted of a crime (she hasn’t been charged) is it fine for law enforcement to take everything she has and refuse to give it back?

State law doesn’t just allow police to take and keep unrelated assets during drug arrests, it encourages it. Attempts to reform the state’s asset forfeiture laws were defeated last winter after police chiefs and sheriffs (including Steve Wilson) went to Atlanta to protest changes.   

Public teacher salaries in GA – averaging $52,000 a year – are slightly below the national average. But Georgia DOES pay teachers more than any other state in the southeast, where the cost of living is lower than northern areas.   

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