Watching a live stream feed of the events happening in Ferguson, MO today have been interesting. The Nation of Islam has descended upon Ferguson and a massive march is ongoing at this time. The next point of the march will be the Police Station. The live stream was cut again mysteriously. A problem which has plagued the newsman ever since the live stream feeds have been made possible. Many believe the government is behind this with a jamming device.
The march today has been very loud and at times some of the demonstrators have gotten ugly with the camera crew filming the event. It seems like the Nation of Islam is feeding the fire and tension looks to be in the air in Ferguson.
A few signs in the crowd were of note. One said for people to turn away from a church and join a mosque. Then another sign read that they are planning a march on Washington, DC scheduled for November 1st and 2nd. The sign also mentioned that peace can only be achieved by revolution. Again fuels the winds of war.
You could see some the Nation of Islam guards with the dark sunglasses and suits pushing people around and placing them where they wanted them. This is so aggravating to many of the local Ferguson citizens to have these groups descend upon their lives.
This is the news from Ferguson on the aftermath of the shooting of Mike Brown who had attacked a police officer and broke several bones in his face and was shot six times by the police. Many of the old civil rights leaders have been in Ferguson stirring up the people and now have left because most of the main media have left. They tend to follow the camera very well.
Staff of the Henry County Community News
August 30, 2014
(WXIA) -- Metro Atlanta's unemployment rate was 8.0 percent in July, up from 7.5 percent in June. The rate was 8.3 percent in July 2013.
Henry County's unemployment rate was 8.1 percent last month.
Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said the increase was due to seasonal layoffs in manufacturing and education. Many of those workers have since returned to their jobs.
In addition, metro Atlanta's private sector created 8,900 jobs in July. Most of the positions were in business; trade and transportation; finance and information services; leisure and hospitality; and construction.
Metro Athens had Georgia's lowest July jobless rate at 6.6 percent. The Heart of Georgia-Altamaha region had the highest at 11.4 percent.
Stockbridge, GA Unemployment Rate:
9.50% for Jul 2014
This rate is an improvement over last year at this time, but the percentage is still higher than the metro area average by 1.5%. Stockbridge’s unemployment rate is 1.4% higher than the Henry County Average. Things may look better, but they could use a lot of improvement. With the coming closing of the Snapper Plant in McDonough the unemployment from that closing will be 475 jobs lost. There are about 100 of these workers who live in the Stockbridge Area. From latest indications the workers who are finding work are going outside Henry County and its cities to do so. They are looking for work that will be in line financially with the positions they are losing with the closing. Here again this will hurt Henry County in several areas such as those workers buying gas outside the county, food outside the county and possible shopping outside the county.
Creating 1 job here and 3 over there are not going to solve this issue. There has to be a real company with a good pay base to come to this area to stop this constantly high average of unemployment. Education is great and we have some of the best teachers and facilities to teach our young people, but the majority leave the area after high school or college in search of a better paying job in another city. It is much like our police. We train them, pay for that training to make them some of the best trained in the metro area and then lose them because they are not getting the pay that other police departments are paying their officers. Henry County is a good training ground for other areas to reap the harvest.
Unemployment has always been a thorne in the side of the Stockbridge business because the lack of having good paying, long lasting jobs. We saw a small park with a sign that says welcome to Stockbridge and Eagles Landing on August 29th. The sign and park look nice, but the cost to build the sign and park was over a quarter of a million dollars. That sign is not going to provide work for this city other than having city workers cut the grass at the site. There are too many entities in the Stockbridge area going in different directions and not leaning toward the center to help create a stronger and more appealing Stockbridge. In order to do so, they must first regain the trust of the citizens and then work forward to find good companies for the area. It is hard to find good companies who want to come to the City of Stockbridge because of the bad press that has been a steady diet since the eminent domain fiasco about the flower shop and the building of a city hall that is out of place for the area. The problems of Stockbridge are not going to be solved over night because these problems did not start overnight. The main beginning to this solution of bringing good jobs to the area must come from a group of individuals who will work to bring in better companies instead of infighting over who did what and when.
John Martin
The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following a link on this site. Any article sent by citizens are their own property.
Public Information Meeting Regarding East Lake Rd. and SR 20 Intersection Improvements Set for August 28
The Henry County SPLOST Department will hold a public information meeting regarding the East Lake Road and SR 20 intersection improvement project on Thursday, August 28, 2014 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Timber Ridge Elementary School in McDonough.
The meeting will be “open house” format where people can come to view the plans and ask questions.
Timber Ridge Elementary School is located at 2825 GA Hwy 20 E in McDonough, GA 30252.
For more information on the SPLOST Department, please visit www.henrycounty-ga.org/splost.
Henry County Community News
Particulars on the Napa-San Francisco Earthquake of 8/24/14
The U.S. Geological Survey revised its estimate Monday of the chances for a strong, damaging aftershock in the next seven days. Sunday, the agency put that chance at 54 percent. Monday, that figure was revised to 25 percent. Scores of aftershocks followed the early Sunday morning quake, the strongest a 3.6 shake at 5:47 am.
There are chances that this quake could be a pre-shock of one to come of a much larger scale. But that is currently a hypothesis, but should not be ruled out.
Hospital reports treating 208 people between the time the earthquake struck at 3:20 a.m. and 11 p.m. Sunday. The hospital says a total of 17 people were admitted, most in fair to serious condition. One person remains in critical condition. Vallejo reported 49 injuries with two people hospitalized.
Statistics show an interesting feature to the area of San Francisco that is also seen in various areas around the ring of fire in the past 12 months.
San Francisco has had: (M1.5 or greater)
12 earthquakes today
77 earthquakes in the past 7 days
94 earthquakes in the past month
454 earthquakes in the past year
All the quakes in the past 36 hrs have only been 4 km to 8 km deep.
Monitoring for any pressure or shifting from sensors in the ground in the region of the San Francisco Bay will be monitored more closely. The area of the San Andreas Fault along and north of San Francisco is being monitored.
This particular event is being looked at as a huge crack was found in Mexican desert just east of the northern part of the Gulf of California that coincides with pressure release from the southern San Andreas Fault.
Global satellites will continuing monitoring the shift in land that could be occurring and not felt on land as yet. Sensors from the Earthscape 4 satellite revealed movement in the area just north of Los Angeles in the past 18 hours with no earthquake felt. This is similar to what happened in Mexico. All NOAA watchers in California are advised to be warned of more quakes of similar size at this time if the current conditions develop. The percentage of the event is 15%.
Pastor Dr. Mike Moon
The Cemetery Research Group would like to extend their sympathy to the family of Mr. Malcolm Goss, Sr. who passed away this week. Mr. Goss was a friend who helped with some of the cemeteries in Hampton around the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Mr. Goss’ ancestors are related to our Senior Researcher whose 3rd great grandfather on his mother’s side was Mathew Goss who moved to Henry County from north Georgia and lived in the Locust Grove area. He had several sons to serve in the Civil War and are buried at Bethany Church. It is believed that Mathew and his wife Eveline are buried in the old section of the cemetery behind the old Baptist Church in town. Here below is the obituary for Malcolm Goss and he was a very nice gentleman.
Mr. Malcolm Charles Goss, Sr., age 75 of Hampton, Georgia passed away August 22, 2014. He was born in Calhoun, Georgia to the late Charles Landrum and Eunice Ruth Ashworth Goss. Malcolm received an AA from Rinehart College. He worked for Gold Bond Stamp Company, Eastern Airlines, had a mobile home business and was in real estate. He was a member of the Hampton First Baptist Church, Faithful Followers Sunday School Class and Joy Club. He was also a member of Hampton Masonic Lodge # 70, Yaarab Shrine Temple of Atlanta and Scottish Rite of Macon. Malcolm enjoyed tinkering in his shop, helping people, NASCAR and traveling with the Joy Club Senior Group at church. He was a notorious instigator and practical joker whose jokes and smile will be missed. Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Frances Goss of Hampton; children, Malcolm Charles Goss, Jr. of Marietta, Hugh Randall “Randy” Goss and his wife Sherri of Macon, Karen Michelle Herlitz and her husband, Carl of Cambridge, Massachusetts; grandchildren, Shelby Goss, Katlynn Goss and Preston Goss; brothers, Ron Goss and his wife, June of Cartersville, Ken Goss and his wife, Anne of Rome. Visitation will begin at 10:00 am Monday, August 25, 2014 with a funeral service to begin at 11:00 am in the Chapel of Haisten Funeral Home. Pastor Craig McAdams and Rev. Gene White will officiate. Interment will follow at Berea Cemetery. Contributions are asked to be made to the Hampton First Baptist Church Bus Fund in memory of Malcolm. Haisten Funeral Home of McDonough, 770-914-8833, www.haistenfunerals.com.
Mr. Alfred Britt III, Founder of the CRG
Pastor Dr. Mike Moon, Senior Researcher for the CRG
There has been widespread outages of Charter Communication across the nation. It is hampering many news agencies and private citizens alike. The main headquarters in Minnesota spoke to the St. Cloud Times about the outage and they reported that it is across the nation, but would give no answers and no idea when full service will be restored. Here is the interview posted on the St. Cloud, MN Times site:
Charter Communications, St. Cloud's dominant cable/Internet provider, was in the midst of an Internet outage that stretched across parts of Minnesota and the rest of the U.S. on Saturday afternoon and evening.
Some reported their Internet was completely down; other users said the service had been spotty for hours or even days. Some customers took their ire out on the company's Facebook page. The Times' initial Facebook post about the outage drew more than 100 comments within the first hour.
An official explanation was not offered late Saturday on Charter's website or Facebook page. The last tweet on Charter's Twitter page was a retweet from Entertainment Weekly regarding the FXX mega marathon of "The Simpsons."
Kimberly Noetzel, senior manager, communication for Charter, released this statement to the Times: "We are aware of the Internet issue for some of our customers in Minnesota. We are working as quickly as possible to restore service, and are investigating the cause of the issue."
During a phone interview, Noetzel said she didn't have information on how many customers were without Internet either in or outside of Minnesota, but "clearly it is other states" too.
Noetzel declined to talk about any possible causes of the outage, repeating that the company was investigating.
Noetzel said she expects the company will put out a statement. Some customers, both on the Times Facebook page and Charter's Facebook page, commented that the emergency number for Charter had been busy for a long time. A Times reporter also tried that number repeatedly and it was busy.
Noetzel didn't have an estimated time for the service to be restored.
Alfred Britt
This is news. The Henry County BoC decided to make changes to make additional 2014 projects for SPLOST to the priority one list. The county-wide projects included the following:
Purchasing new ambulances—this is a needed and essential thing for the safety of the citizens of the county.
Jail renovations and new pod design—this is an essential thing to make room for the added prisoners as the county continues to grow.
Animal control renovations—this is essential to improve the lives of our animals so they might have a chance for a new home.
Purchase of 15 new police patrol vehicles—this is definitely an essential need because this will help protect our citizens.
Three new county wide fire stations—these are most essential to help with the fire responding crews in areas that need them.
Probate Court building improvements—this is essential because the building is over 40 years old and it is good to renovate it instead of building a new one.
New interchange on I-75 south of Ga. 155 with partial funding—this is essential to help Norfolk Southern with the coming rail yard for the future and trucks can enter and leave by this exit.
SPLOST program management—essential to help make the distribution of funding go smoothly.
Sewer to airport—this is essential to help make the airport grow.
Sewer to Fairview—this is partially essential but there are other areas still waiting for sewer south of Fairview.
District 1 List:
Baseball fields—non essential.
Replacement of fire station No. 2—this is essential to improve the fire equipment and status for the people.
McDonough Pkwy Improvements—non essential the road looks fine.
Ga. 81 and Mt. Bethel/Wynn Rd Improvements—essential to help with traffic in that area.
Harris Drive improvements—essential to making travel easier.
Lester Mill Rd. Improvements—essential again for traffic.
Resurfacing, widening, or surface treatments—surely needed on many of the roads in district 1.
District 2 list:
Senior Center and recreation center for Hampton—essential since it has been promised for several years.
Concession building in Avalon Park—non-essential.
Jodeco and Blackhall roads improvements—essential to help flow of traffic.
Mt. Carmel and Chambers roads improvements—essential to help flow of traffic.
Mt. Olive Road improvements—essential already in progress.
Simpson Mill at Hampton-Locust Grove roads improvements—essential due to volume of traffic in the area.
Mill Road at Ga. 81 improvements—essential because it is a bad intersection.
Industrial Pkwy at Ga. 20 improvements—essential because of the traffic in the area.
Thoroughbred Drive improvements—needed.
Resurfacing, widening or surface treatment—essential across the area of district 2.
District 3 List:
Heritage Park Improvements—hopefully they will use some on the Veterans Wall of Honor.
North Ola Park improvements—non essential.
McDonough Pkwy improvements from GA 42 to GA 155—they need to finish the thing.
Jodeco Rd at Oak Grove improvements—definitely needs to be signalized because of the traffic.
Dailey Mill at Jodeco Rd improvements—definitely needs to be signalized because of the traffic.
Bethany Road at Ga. 81 improvements—essential due to the traffic.
SR81 at Mt. Bethel/Wynn Rd improvements-essential.
Bridge replacement at Jackson Lake over Mackey Creek—essential as the bridge is out of date.
Resurfacing, widening or surface treatment—essential because there are several roads in the area in need.
District 4 List:
Improvements to Kelleytown Park—non essential.
Improvements to Moseley Park—non essential.
Elliott Road improvements—essential because of the deterioration.
Hemphill Rd and Ga Hwy 138 improvements—very essential since several people have already died here.
Bridge replacement at Selfridge over Little Cotton Indian Creek—essential because it is dangerous.
Resurfacing, widening, or surface treatment—essential because several side streets are in need.
District 5 List:
New Park—non essential.
West Panola Rd from Fairview Rd to Clayton County Line—essential because of traffic in the area.
Above I said that some items are non essential at this time. The economy has not spurred enough yet to put forth money on some items that can wait. Never go slack on Police, Fire and Roads because these are needed.
Willie R. Jackson
Hampton, GA
The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following a link on this site. Any article sent by citizens are their own property.
At the last Henry County Board of Commissioners Meeting the Commissioners voted to do away with the in house legal department and thus eliminating Attorney LaTonya Nix Wiley’s position. She will no longer be the County Attorney as of September 1, 2014. The Board voted to out source the position by a 5-1 vote with Chairman Smith voting against the move. He said, “that most large counties have their own in house legal team and with Henry County we are going the opposite direction.” Beginning September 2, 2014 the law firms of Power and Jaugstetter along with the law firm of Fincher, Denmark, Williams and Minnifield will take over the County Attorney duties. Attorney Patrick Jaugstetter was once the Henry County Attorney.
The larger law firm named above handle the affairs of Stockbridge, McDonough and Locust Grove just as the Smith, Welch, White and Webb firm once did. Strange these cities can’t split up the duties and not have the same firm with all. Somewhere it was mention when the Welch firm had those duties that it was a conflict of interest and now these cities and the county are headed down that same path.
Chairman Smith hinted that politics are involved with this deal. According to the write up in the Herald the wording came from the County Manager Mr. Walker. Yet, the same line was quoted and presented by District 2 Commissioner Brian Preston. As time passes more information will come out about this deal.
Pastor Dr. Mike Moon
Here is a way to help with tourism and tax dollars in Henry County. We have I-75 which runs the full length of Henry County. There are untold numbers of people who travel the route with their RV’s every day. Many of these people would stop and spend the night or a few days visiting Henry County, but there are no RV parks along the route at this time. The county is missing a good bit of tax money in revenue from not having these sites.
With the many events that come to Henry County every year, it would give those folks who have a camper a chance to be able to stay in Henry County instead of Butts County. I remember speaking with campers who stayed at High Falls State Park and Indian Springs State Park that they were here for the Little League Baseball Tournament and had no where to camp in Henry County. The only camping area is that attached to the Atlanta Motor Speedway for those who go to the race every year.
But Henry County has the Geranium Festival in McDonough that attracts many visitors. They have the many other sites in the area that could attract campers if they had a place to stay. By far though the biggest draw would be for tired travelers who wanted to get outside of Atlanta for the night and Henry County would be a prime location for such sites. This is just an idea that might help to bring tax revenue to the county so they can do what needs to be done here for the local citizens.
Pastor Dr. Mike Moon
According to a report recently released the homeless in America currently stands at 3% of the population. That means we have an estimated 10.5 million people who are homeless. Out of that 3% we have at least 1% who would live no other way. But the other 2% are people who have lost their homes due to the economy. This means that we have 7 million men, women and children who are living in wooded areas, behind buildings and under bridges in America. This is a pitiful situation.
Following these estimates then with Henry County having a population of 215,000 people then there are some 4,300 people living without a home in our area. This sounds ridiculous to some, but it is a fact. Check the wooded areas in any part of the county, look under interstate bridges, look in cars in parking lots, and look behind buildings where make shift card board homes are constructed.
Henry County does a fine job of supporting a shelter for battered women, but we need a homeless shelter to help people get back on their feet again. With all the empty buildings in the county there could be a homeless shelter set up to take care of these people. Either this can be supported by the county or cities in the community or it can be supported by the local churches. This is something that will not disappear with waving a magic wand. Just because you have lost your job and home doesn’t make you a bad person. For example: we have a situation developing in McDonough with the announcement of the upcoming closing of the Briggs & Stratton or Snapper Lawnmower plant. This will effect 475 families. Some of these families will become homeless because some of these people will not be able to find work as quickly as they would like.
Maybe the county and cities should put together a volunteer group to find a way to help create a homeless shelter in Henry County. An idea to help others who are less fortunate is not something that was just though of. Two thousand years ago Jesus taught men and women to care for the less fortunate and to help them make their lives whole again. Surely in this day of computerized thinking man should be able to figure out that if you have a building sitting empty and decaying, it would be worth helping others with it and the owner can show a write off on their taxes for charity. The world revolves around money so maybe that would be an incentive to help those who need it desperately.
Pastor Dr. Mike Moon
There is a wonderful event taking place in the Stockbridge Community. Councilman Alphonso Thomas is mentoring a Boy Scout at Stockbridge High School named Hasan Syed Qadri in helping him with working towards his Eagle Scout Badge. The young man is planning to build a greenhouse out of empty .5 liter water bottles. The site for the construction of the greenhouse will be the Smith-Barnes Elementary School on Tye Street.
To construct this greenhouse he will need 3,000 water bottles by the end of September. He will be completing the project in early October. This project will show how recycling can help.
The drop off points for the empty water bottles are as follows:
City Hall
The Courts Building
The Public Works Building
The Merle Manders Conference Center
Receptacles for the water bottles will be provided at each site.
Please come out and help this young man achieve something positive for the community and educational for everyone.
Pastor Dr. Mike Moon
Friends and readers of the blog, after two weeks from the time that I shut the blog down, after the blog and was attacked and threatened by a facebook community page after being called various names, I decided to shut that blog down. And to preserve what health I have left to make my life not so burdened. After soul searching and being contacted by several people, I have decided that Henry County must have a venue for the citizens to have their voice in matters relating to the community. This blog will be more structured towards news and events of our county and state that we call home. We are requesting that any news stories that you send in be worded to a PG-13 level, no profanity will be tolerated this includes racial slurs of any kind, no personal attacks will be tolerated, so if any of your articles have any of this material they will not be posted. If your comments have such material it will be deleted, not because you disagree with the owner of this blog, but because of decency. The anonymous function has been turned off so when you post everyone will know who you are and this is the right way to handle a blog. This will give Henry County Citizens a chance to hear the news that they would not normally hear. Let’s all work together to improve Henry County, our communities and our homes. And do with dignity and respect for all. Thank you for your time and consideration on this matter.
Alfred Britt, Blog Owner
Henry County Community News Blog
