WAYBACK MACHINE: 2005
In January of
each year, The Communicator provides a look back on the last
12 months. The review usually takes five pages or so of
newsprint for a quick recap. As we were sorting thru
some old newspaper last week, we can came across this page on
the recap for 2005. Enjoy and see if your memory is still working
for ya.
Spring time 2005. After making
it through the Grindo years, the county breathed a sigh of
relief as new prosecutor Jim Samples went to work. 14
indictments were returned during the Spring Grand Jury. Over
in CCC land, the elected folks decided they needed to hold a
class for those using 911 radios, a class on not sounding
stupid while on the radio. The CCC okayed the purchase
of a fifth ambulance for the county. Commissioner King felt a
$67,000.00 grant for funding a community corrections officer
was a sure thing. The new officer would oversee those on home
confinement. Our jail bill began to skyrocket. Jerry
Linkinogger quietly told his followers he was retiring from
the school system and running for County Commission in 2006.
In April the School Board conducted a school closure hearing
at Valley Fork Elementary School.
Although not voted on in public, their
plans were concrete. They planned to close two community
schools and build one consolidated elementary school in Big
Otter. During the Ivydale School Closure hearing, Fred Samples
told the Board it would only cost $400,000 to repair the much
needed community asset, local school. They didn't listen.
Their minds were made up.
Spring winds brought County Sanitarian Jay
Carper out to Lizemore Grocery Store where he confiscated
miss-marked non government approved pork products. Within 24
hours of the March 8th Board meeting, Director Karen Dawson
had had enough. She resigned. Office manager Linda Klotzbach
assumed the role as head honcho after a questionable emergency
meeting of the Board.
In Clay Roane PSD land, the place went
bonkers April 13th when PSD Chair Melissa Postelwait attacked
fellow Boardster Susan Beard. The Smack Fest made regional
news outlets. We started calling the PSD, the Public Slapping
District. What happened? Why did Postelwait go out of control?
During the meeting, Beard ( and others) made public that
Postelwait had received self signed checks without a public
vote and while fellow Boardsters went without pay. It came to
light those cash advances ($475) began right after her taking
office had never been repaid. Cash advances are a no-no in
state government. After the slap fest, Ms. Postelwait was
arrested for battery.
With their mismanaged financial coffers
empty, the Board decided NOT to try and reduce spending but
instead, go after a rate increase. They couldn't even agree
that it was cheaper to buy water at $2.61 per 1000 gallons
than to make it themselves at nearly $6 per 1000. Boardster
Glenn Sutton suggested they file for bankruptcy. Peanut
gallery attendance at Clay Roane meetings soared. It was the
best free show in the county. Outside the county, regulators
and funders were frowning big time.
Continuing his front page assault on crime,
Sheriff Holcomb and Green Shirt Bailey caught a bank robber.
Holcomb did so with one hand. After downing several cups of
coffee the morning, Mother Nature called just as the bad guy
came around the curve. With one hand managing the call of
nature, ole one hand Holcomb nabbed Duane Eaves.
BDA Chair Leonard Williams entered a CCC
meeting singing, "I'm so happy, I'm so pretty." After Clay
Roane PSD and the County Commission (CCC) asked Postelwait to
resign, the Commission went to court seeking her removal from
office. They later withdrew their case.
Still smarting from comments made on his
leadership, dismal performance and with suggestions of turning
the old Filcon swamp into a worm farm, Leonard Williams was
fired up some more. Williams, during the April 2005 BDA
meeting, to that ace club reporter, "I'm a better man than
you...if that is what they taught you in Kanawha County, you
need to go back there!!" Oh he was hot again. said he
was so mad he couldn't think straight. Jim Knotts commented
that they we're not all a bunch of dumb country hicks and, "I
asked everyone to stop using the word Filcon." Adding to the
top notch leadership of the BDA, Paige Willis added, "Sounds
like a dumb*** remark made by a half idiot to me!' He was of
course referring to that pesky reporter from this paper.
While beating their gums about secrecy and
losing a gazillion dollar tenant at Filcon, A Roane County
paper referenced a struggling Ron Beckett and Amcor in the
Amma Industrial Park.
Elected officials at the Court House
received whopping big pay raises.
On May 2, 2005, the School Board approved
design work at the still unnamed consolidated school at Big
Otter. This paper called it Valley Dale. Rick Canfield of
Lighthouse Baptist church said they wanted to buy the old
Ivydale school building for $35,000.
The jail bill for March 2005 soared to
$37,000.00. Commissioner ? was threatened by a group of
druggies in her neighborhood of having her home burned to the
ground. Over at Clay County PSD, the cost of operating the
service truck increased dramatically.....
That's what we had on one page of the Communicator
during the Year in Review arctile dated Jan 5 2005.
AW end