Music on the Square, featuring Marty Stuart and a good number of other well-regarded musicians, will be held today downdown from 10 AM until the early hours of Sunday. Placement of the stage means Main Street is closed all weekend and traffic through town will be tough.

For photos and updates on MOTS, check LU Facebook.

Other events held today: Annual Vietnam Vets BBQ on Homer Cagle Rd, begins 12 noon. Cherokee Rose Festival in Villanow begins at 10 AM. Mission Fest to benefit The Care Mission from 10 to 3 at Joe Stock Park.       

Big meth bust in West LaFayette this week..

WQCH Radio, 05/16/14: “THE DRUG TASK FORCE ARRESTED FIVE LOCALS AT A WEST LAFAYETTE RESIDENCE WEDNESDAY, CHARGING EACH WITH METH VIOLATIONS.

“COMMANDER PAT DOYLE CALLED IT A FOLLOW UP INVESTIGATION BASED ON COMPLAINTS RECEIVED. ALL FIVE WERE ARRESTED AT THE RESIDENCE, 701 MCLEMORE STREET IN LAFAYETTE. HE SAID ALL WERE REPEAT DRUG OFFENDERS, 2 OF WHOM WERE ON PAROLE AND 1 ON PROBATION FOR PREVIOUS OFFENSES.

“THOSE ARRESTED INCLUDE 43 YEAR OLD TERRY WAYNE CROWE, 40 YEAR OLD SEAN EDWARD FLANAGAN, 25 YEAR OLD FRED WILLIAM ELLISON, 26 YEAR OLD BRITTANY NICOLE WALLIN AND 41 YEAR OLD VINCENT LAMAR SAINE. THERE WERE MULTIPLE CHARGES, BUT ALL ARE ACCUSED OF POSSESSION OF METH WITH INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE.

“A SIZABLE QUANTITY OF METH WAS FOUND IN THE HOUSE, AND INVESTIGATORS BELIEVE THE SUSPECTS WERE ‘CUTTING UP’ THE DRUG AND PACKAGING IT FOR RESALE. A COUPLE OF THE SUSPECTS ATTEMPTED TO EXIT THE HOUSE AT THE BACK, BUT THEY WERE QUICKLY SECURED, DOYLE SAID.”   

Hutcheson continues a long pattern of stupid actions by selling its half of the (presumably profitable) Battlefield Imaging Center. Money made from selling another unit will go to lower a tiny bit of the hospital’s huge debt pile, at the cost of losing whatever income comes from that center.

Also ridiculous, Walker County is giving Hutcheson another loan – up to $1 million – days after the county’s own credit was downgraded for guaranteeing previous Hutcheson debts.

Don Oliver (attorney for both the county and the hospital) says Hutcheson is doing great, treating more customers than ever, and needs this latest credit line to pay for expenses of doing more business.

Shouldn’t the money coming in from doing more business cover the costs of that business? If being busier means needing more credit, they’re losing money on every patient who comes in..

Hutcheson’s going to burn down financially and take the county along with it.   

Early voting turnout state-wide was low. Seems people just can’t get excited about next week’s election, probably because we’ve had vote after vote with no break over the last year, and almost every candidate looks and sounds the same.

Actual election will be next Tuesday.

Due to time constraints, LU will unfortunately not have candidate Q&A’s for next Tuesday’s election. Questions were put together, but there wasn’t enough time to send them and give candidates a fair chance to answer and get them posted before the vote.     

Monday LU broke news of Walker County’s credit being downgraded by S&P. The county has attempted to rectify that by asking S&P to stop rating its bonds, which it agreed to do.

The rating downgrade handed down on May 6th wasn’t wrong or based on bad info, they just removed all ratings because the county doesn’t want to be rated anymore.

As one commenter said, it’s like quitting school because you don’t like the teacher.

(Monday’s blog post has been updated to reflect the change.)     

Last night around 7 PM a small plane crashed in the Chelsea area of Chattooga County, off Hwy. 337 south of LaFayette. Both passenger and pilot survived; pilot was flown to Chattanooga hospital, while his passenger was treated for less serious injuries in Rome.

Aircraft was flying out of the small air strip in Teloga between LaFayette and Menlo.     

Next week Dade, Walker, Chattooga, and Catoosa voters will have an opportunity to choose their State Senator for the next two years. Candidates are incumbent Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga and outside challenger Tom Dooley of LaFayette.

Mullis hasn’t had an election opponent since 2010. Here’s a little piece LU put together on Senator Jeff The Hutt that year. It’s not up to date but everything there is accurate through 2010, worth a read before you vote.

Also related to next week’s vote, tonight at 7 GPB will air a debate between candidates for GA Governor.

Governor Deal is skipping the event, citing “prior commitments,” leaving David Pennington and John Barge to debate with an empty chair.     

Updated 5/13/14 [ See Below ]

It’s easy to point critical fingers at individuals who regularly spend more money than they make, paying for toys and parties instead of basics while racking up debt.

This describes many financially irresponsible residents of Walker County, but it also applies to county government over the last decade under the control of Commissioner Heiskell.

Now those years of living on the edge financially have – surprise! – ruined the county’s credit.

On May 6th, Standard & Poors Ratings Services announced Walker County’s bond rating was dropping four points from a healthy AA- to BBB+, two steps away from “junk” status. That followed a mid-March warning from Moody’s Investors Service that the county’s debt position has a “negative” outlook.

Those bond ratings are the government equivalent of a credit score. A downgrade means the county’s existing bonds for SPLOST have lower resale value for investors, future bonds and bank loans will be harder to get or sell, and any bonds or loans taken out in the future will cost the county more money due to higher interest rates.

How did Walker County get to this point? Economic stagnation, over-dependence on manufacturing jobs, and a pattern of poor financial decisions from Commissioner Heiskell.

Friday’s scheduled hearing over Chattanooga St. Tavern’s pouring license was delayed in order to give lawyers hired by the city more time to review the case. There’s also, as noted before, some disagreement over which court has jurisdiction over the case since it’s not an appeal.

The city’s problems with the business aren’t due to “beer” as some claim – they’re from the Tavern (and its owners) storing hard liquor in the building and serving it to minor employees.

There are also outside accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against Tavern co-owner Gary Lovelady.

As LU mentioned previously, this isn’t just about serving alcohol, it’s about deciding if LaFayette will turn a blind eye to unethical, criminal behavior in the name of “progress” or take a stand against wrongdoing and apply the rules evenly to everyone, regardless of their bank balance or position in the business community.   

May 20th primary election will be a week from Tuesday – time is flying by. One of the contested races will be Republican nominee for Governor of Georgia. Nathan Deal currently holds that position and wants to keep it, but David Pennington of Dalton and John Barge of the Rome area are challenging his position. Here’s a look at the two longshot outsider candidates.

A new poll comparing Governor Deal to Jason Carter, the Democrat candidate he (or Pennington or Barge) will face in November, shows them almost statistically tied. Deal’s approval rating has also plummeted, falling below 50% for the first time.

Deal has in recent weeks bragged about “Site Selection Magazine” naming Georgia the best place to do business, but challengers point out that nobody reads the magazine, and it does considerable business with the state – giving editors plenty of reasons to select Georgia.   

This week area voters have gotten Jeff Mullis campaign material in their mailboxes. Funny thing, it was all paid for by a national real estate lobbyist group out of Chicago, not the Mullis campaign. Same group has been sponsoring Mullis’ robocalls.

Jeff is bought and paid for by these lobbyist groups. He’s got hundreds of thousands of dollars in his campaign fund and almost none of it came from the district he’s supposed to represent or the people who live in it.

Voters will have an opportunity to choose Mullis or local Tom Dooley in the election next Tuesday.   

Commissioner Heiskell is using SPLOST money to build community centers intended to reward neighborhoods and individuals that supported her in 2012. She’s defending them as “emergency shelters” and says some will only cost $250,000, but that’s nowhere close to the real number when you include the cost outside of SPLOST.

The new building in Hinkle, for example, is being built to reward the Davenport family for their support for Heiskell.. The new fire station/emergency shelter/museum will be located in the middle of a new shopping center the Davenports are building, and the land on that site has already been cleared – for them – by the county.

The Cedar Grove station will be a mile away from Mountain Cove Farms, and it’s being built because the Commissioner promised it to residents out there IF they voted for her in 2012 and supported SPLOST in 2013.

Emergency shelters sound like a good idea, but during an emergency like a tornado there’s no time to get to a shelter, and most folks prefer to stay home and deal with whatever’s going on. During the tornado threats earlier this month three shelters were opened, and only twenty people (in a county of about 65,000) chose to use them.   

Earl Anthony Grant arrested last Saturday for aggravated assault after fighting with his almost-ex-wife at the bypass Pit-Stop and threatening to shoot her and a friend while waving a gun.

When arrested his gun was found to be the BB type.   

Nearly ten years ago a Catoosa County man was accused of smothering his six-month old. During trial he was convicted of a minor count, but the jury was hung on a murder charge and never reached a verdict.

Last year District Attorney Buzz Franklin’s office realized he was never re-tried on the main murder count, but a judge has ruled too much time elapsed for a retrial. In other words, he gets off because Franklin (or someone in his office) forgot.

Maybe if they weren’t spending so much time kicking Tanya Craft and Les Coffey for political reasons, and helping the Dalton FBI office and Rossville PD pretend to be little girls on the Internet, they’d be able to remember to have a trial for a man who allegedly possibly murdered his own kid.