What began as a small brush fire on private land in the Subligna area near the Walker/Chattooga line quickly spread, and within days had burned nearly 500 acres of forestry land.

Forestry fire crews were called to property off Manning’s Mill Road around 1 AM on October 5th, and by afternoon were out in full force battling flames with bulldozers and helicopters.

Within a day the fire was over 150 acres in size, as forestry workers worked both to contain the flames and protect a number of houses in the area at risk of burning. They successfully prevented damage to homes, but the fire spread to 477 acres over several days before officials could declare it mostly contained.

Falling laves and strong winds from Hurricane Matthew, which brought the area little rain, made battling the fire more difficult – but after a week, the fire between West and East Armuchee roads is considered under control.

Several days ago fire crews from Oklahoma were dispatched to Walker County to relieve local forestry workers. They’re expected to stay in the area for a week or more, monitoring the fire area to ensure it doesn’t restart.

Forest crews also battled a smaller fire along Hwy 27 south of town on October 4th. Several wooded areas in Dade County have also been burned – all resulting in one way or another from the extremely dry summer and fall of 2016.                     

The window for registering to vote in this fall’s election has closed. Early voting, including the local commissioner race and the presidential election, begins Monday.

Recently LU posted about a Shannon Whitfield sign apparently placed illegally, without permission, in front of a local business. Whitfield responded indirectly, saying his campaign DID have approval to put the sign up and LU was lying about it all.

Turns out none of us were totally right.

The property owners, who already had a Lamb sign, were contacted by someone from Team Whitfield about another sign. They approved a political sign going in but didn’t know which candidate that placard was for. They later learned of the Whitfield sign and didn’t realize it was the one they had approved.

After being contacted by Whitfield himself, who they didn’t speak with before and knew nothing about, they OK’d the sign staying because they had already approved it – but they live in Ringgold now and don’t support the candidate one way or the other.

So we were wrong, but nobody lied – it was a lot of miscommunication on both ends.       

The scramble to become top judge of Lookout Mountain Superior Court has taken a turn towards the bizarre as long-simmering resentment between the top candidates becomes public.

Judge Ralph Van Pelt Jr. says Judge Kristina Cook Graham – the presumed next chief judge – lives in Chattanooga, not Chattooga County, ignores local lawyers, and abuses court staff.

He also says Graham’s father, legendary lawyer Bobby Lee Cook of Summerville, has threatened him for opposing her appointment as the court’s chief judge. (Right on schedule, Bobby Lee says he’ll have Van Pelt removed from the court for opposing Graham’s still pending promotion.)

Meanwhile, there’s still a vacancy in the court left by the retirement of judge Bo Wood. Per WQCH, the top candidates for that slot are now District Attorney Buzz Franklin of Dade County and lawyer Don Thompson of Summerville.

WQCH Radio, 10/05/16: “THE JUDICIAL NOMINATING COMMISSION HAS NARROWED THE FIELD OF CANDIDATES FOR A NEW JUDGE IN THE LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN SUPERIOR COURT.

“FROM THE ORIGINAL FIELD OF FOUR, THE COMMISSION HAS NARROWED THE LIST TO ‘BUZZ’ FRANKLIN AND DON THOMPSON. THEIR NAMES WILL BE FORWARDED TO THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE, AND INTERVIEWS WILL BE SCHEDULED. GOVERNOR NATHAN DEAL WILL PICK THE NEW JUDGE, WHO WILL FILL THE VACANCY CREATED BY THE RETIREMENT OF JUDGE JON ‘BO’ WOOD.

“FRANKLIN IS CURRENTLY SERVING AS DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF THE LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN CIRCUIT, AND DON W. THOMPSON IS A PARTNER IN THE LEGAL FIRM BRUCE AND THOMPSON.”

Per the usual, Nathan Deal will appoint whoever is the least likely to rock any boats or cause any trouble for him or his supporters. And if Deal appoints DA Franklin to be a judge, he’ll then get to appoint someone else to serve Franklin’s next term that begins in January.   

Last Tuesday, Commissioner Heiskell’s Facebook page declared that Walker Transit wouldn’t run the next day due to lack of fuel for vehicles.

Heiskell (or whoever runs her page) said the county hadn’t gotten a fuel delivery and that was the SOLE reason for abruptly disrupting bus service for the elderly and impoverished people who depend on it.

The closure made no sense (and still doesn’t), since the ruptured Alabama pipeline has been temporarily repaired, and every gas station in the county now has gas. All else aside, why wouldn’t the county just send its busses to a Circle K and run normally?

Tuesday evening the Chattanooga Kidney Foundation said its Walker County dialysis patients “risk death” from the loss of transit. Commissioner Heiskell responded to that by saying the county WOULD somehow provide rides to certain people with doctor’s appointments anyway, if they called in.

Early Wednesday morning the Transit shutdown was reversed. Heiskell used reverse 911 to send out a text (to every resident, bus rider or not) saying Walker Transit would run normally.

A week later there’s still no acceptable explanation of what went wrong or why the county pulled the plug on Transit and then abruptly started it back up again.

Chaos, confusion, scared old people… Bottom line: Sorry management.

That’s Bebe’s Walker County.       

LU has heard from a local business owner that a large Shannon Whitfield sign has been placed on their property without permission.

If the sign remains, they could press charges for for trespassing and destruction of property. (They are waiting to take it down themselves with a law enforcement witness.)

The Whitfield approach to sign installation is apparently the same as Bebe’s approach to walking trail construction or environmental destruction: act now without permission and apologize later.

Whitfield’s approach to social medial also resembles Heiskell’s: For years, Walker County citizens who pay attention have noticed Bebe censoring those who disagree with her in any forum she can control. The county’s social media pages, and even occasionally local news outlets, have removed various people, posts, or articles that she wants silenced.

Now her supposed replacement, Shannon Whitfield, is calling for the same thing to be done in forums HE controls or influences. Various Facebook groups are being purged of those who ask questions of the candidate he can’t or won’t answer, of anything that makes him look like the fool he is. Team Whitfield has also removed posts and comments that challenge the candidate.

(If a candidate can’t handle social media comments, how will they deal with the public in a meeting? Compare Bebe’s handling of Facebook commenters to her handling of questions in meetings.)

If you want another commissioner who can’t stand people asking questions or calling them out for their actions, then Whitfield is your man. If that’s NOT what you want, then you better figure out how to vote for somebody else this fall.

Early voting starts in less than three weeks; three candidates will be on the ballot.     

Nathaniel Kenneth Berton-Hartwell was arrested for child pornography in 2013 and took a guilty plea last month, agreeing to turn himself in on September 23rd for a stretch in jail.

The 23rd came and went, but he’s still not behind bars.

Apparently people with nothing to lose don’t voluntarily show up for prison, despite the best efforts of the idiots in Rossville law enforcement.

If you know where this guy is, call Rossville PD.   

Bebe Heiskell didn’t include a court-ordered $8.7 million payment to Erlanger Hospital in her 2017 budget, because she’s not planning to pay it.

Heiskell’s plan to deal with Hutcheson debts has been consistent: pretending it doesn’t exist. The legal equivalent of a kid plugging his ears and going NAH NAH NAH when asked why he broke a window.

(She took a similar approach to the problems that led to Hutcheson’s demise in the first place, which is how we got to this point.)

In a “community meeting” Bebe claimed she’s studying several ways to deal with the Hutcheson debt, but she wants to keep battling it in court.

She goes on to blame the county’s problems on everything from the school system to juvenile justice and claims, again, that Audia will solve every problem despite having less than 50 employees – most from out of state.

As for Bebe’s next county budget…

Walker County Messenger, 09/16/16: “‘I’m losing $800,000 due to the rollback of taxes due to the reevaluation,’ the commissioner said.”

It’s not YOUR money, Bebe. IT IS NOT YOUR DAMN MONEY.   

Last weekend a pipeline leak and shutdown in Alabama threatened to disrupt gasoline supplies for much of the eastern US.

Fears of gasoline shortages led to runs on the pump, which of course resulted in some temporary outages in stations around the area – but no gas station was out of fuel long, as deliveries (from further away) continued.

Georgia law prohibits gasoline price gouging during emergencies, but Gov. Deal signed a redundant executive order Monday saying the same thing – gas stations can raise prices but not in a ridiculous, abusive amount to take advantage of the situation.

Deal’s office rightly said we wouldn’t run out of gas state-wide if people only buy the amounts they would normally purchase instead of panicking and buying extra for no reason.

Now that initial concerns have faded, the supply situation seems to have stabilized – although prices are still about 25 cents a gallon higher than they were before the problem began.     

A rollover accident Wednesday night near the 193/341 intersection (the one on our end) sent four young men to the hospital.

 

Four boys riding in a Jeep Cherokee ended up with minor injuries, despite one passenger not wearing a seatbelt.   

Crime in the Rossville area came to an end Thursday with the opening of Walker County’s new unmanned sheriff station.

The satellite office in Ridgeland Business Park off Wilson Road, which was remodeled with magic beans instead of scarce county tax dollars, has put fear in the hearts of every potential thief, drug user, and child molester in North Walker County – all of whom packed up and left the state after hearing of the office’s ribbon cutting ceremony and the dignitaries who appeared in support.

Walker County has no additional officers to assign to the station, but Sheriff Wilson said “eventually we might be able to have a part time clerk here – if funds are available.”

For now, the office will primarily serve as a badly needed bathroom stop and free coffee area for deputies who would otherwise be stuck on the roads in their brand new patrol cars.

(Isn’t it amazing how quickly Bebe can get something done in an election year when she’s struggling and needs support from a popular Sheriff with political capital to burn?)   

Services for Nataleigh and Jocelyn Long, the two girls killed Tuesday in a house fire, will be held at Wallis-Wilbanks.

Family visitation will be tomorrow from noon to 8 PM, funerals at 5 Monday night.

A bakesale fundraiser for the girls’ family was held Friday at Saddle Ridge where the younger of the two attended school. Donations are still being accepted at the school for anyone who couldn’t make it to that event.     

The iconic 1940’s glass block facade of the old Coca-Cola building that houses LaFayette PD will soon be gone, replaced by generic, modern plate glass windows.

WQCH Radio, 09/14/16: “”THAT ORIGINAL ART-DECO GLASS BLOCK DECORATION ON THE FRONT WALL OF LAFAYETTE’S PUBLIC SAFETY BUILDING, IS ABOUT TO BE REPLACED WITH A MODERN LOOK.

“THE 1938 BUILDING, WHICH ORIGINALLY HOUSED LAFAYETTE’S OWN COCA COLA BOTTLING PLANT, HAS SUFFERED FROM RAIN WATER LEAKAGE IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, AND POLICE CHIEF BENJIE CLIFT SAID THE OLD GLASS BLOCKS ARE TO BLAME. RAIN SENDS WATER DOWN THE WALL AND INTO THE LOBBY FLOOR, AND THE MOISTURE IS ATTRACTING INSECTS AND SPIDERS, CLIFT SAID.

“THE CITY COUNCIL APPROVED A LOW BID MONDAY NIGHT, TO REPLACE THE ORIGINAL GLASS BLOCKS WITH BRONZE REFLECTIVE PLATE-GLASS, AT A COST OF JUST OVER 22-THOUSAND DOLLARS.”

Wonder what the cost difference would be to just put in new not-leaking glass block?

The city already ruined the historic character of this building with the metal peaked roof and vinyl siding added a few years back to fix a leaking roof; this just adds insult to historical injury.   

Two children lost to fire in Chickamauga.

A little after 6 AM Tuesday, Walker County fire crews were called to a trailer fire on Carabou Lane, near Marble Top Road.

Despite the best rescue efforts of firefighters and family members, two girls – six-year-old Nataliegh Long and her niece, 9-month-old Jocelyn Long – did not survive the blaze.

Two adults in the trailer got out, along with three other kids ages 9, 7, and 4. All were treated for smoke inhalation. A county fireman burned on the face during the attempted rescue was also treated and released.

An official cause of the fire has not been determined by investigators, but per Sheriff Wilson, mom/step-grandma Heather Long blames the blaze on a tea candle she lit while waking kids up for school. That candle set a couch on fire while she was out at the car and quickly took the house up with it.

Chattanooga Times Free-Press, 09/13/16: “..[Sheriff] Wilson said Richard Long ran out the back of the trailer, hustled to the front and broke a window. He and Heather Long managed to pull out three of the children. ‘The father was instrumental in bringing these children out of the home,’ Wilson said.”

Services for the girls who died, Nataliegh and Jocelyn, will be handled at Wallis-Wilbanks – details TBA.

Over the last few days nearly $7,000 has been raised for the family through a single GoFundMe; donations can also be made through Saddle Ridge in Rock Spring. The school will also have a fundraiser bakesale for the Longs this Friday, if you’d like to help out in that way.         

When Commissioner Heiskell announced intentions to “cut” taxes, Shannon Whitfield demanded she also lower the county’s budget by at least the same amount.

Bebe responded by doing what he asked – releasing a budget $600,000 lower than last year’s.

Much of her savings (on paper, they don’t follow a budget) come from cutting more money out of the road barn and county vehicle maintenance, two areas where the county’s already not spending enough.

In the same budget she finds an extra $300,000 for the Sheriff’s Office and adds $165,000 to the juvenile court.

“Shannon Whitfield, the Republican party candidate, said Heiskell’s budget is too thin. It is four pages long. By comparison, Catoosa County’s budget is 252 pages long.”

He’s got a point there, but it doesn’t really matter since Bebe doesn’t stick to a budget anyway. At the end of the year she’ll revise it to match whatever they end up spending.

The only cure for THAT is to end sole commissioner, something Mr. Whitfield doesn’t seem especially enthusiastic about.   

An online petition asking GDOT to install a red light on Hwy. 27 in front of Saddle Ridge school has now been signed by almost 400 people.

School Superintendent Raines and the principal of Saddle Ridge both say they support the petition and want to see the light installed, but so far there’s been no comment from the county (Bebe) or state legislators (Mullis, Tarvin) whose support could push it over the edge.

The petition administrator tells LU she heard back from GDOT about it after talking to the newspaper, and they told her a study can be done about installing a light IF the county will commit to paying the utility bills for a light if they decide to install one.

That means this falls back on Bebe, or her successors, and/or the school board. Nothing will happen until one of them promises to pay the power bill for a light.