Category: Uncategorized

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens is suing the city of Cumming and Mayor H. Ford Gravitt for allegedly violating the state’s open meetings law, which allows citizens to record open meetings. Olens’s suit,  filed Tuesday in Forsyth County Superior Court, states that, during an April 17 City Council meeting, Gravitt ordered Nydia Tisdale to stop videotaping a city council meeting and ordered her removed by force from chambers, along with her camera; when she returned and attempted to use her cell phone to record the meeting, she was told to stop recording. Olens asks the court to impose fines in excess of $1,ooo for the alleged violations. To see the Associated Press’s coverage of the lawsuit, click here. For background on the…

Read More→

PARTY TO A CRIME is the first-person account of Roland Dole, a burned-out former teacher who serves as jury foreman in a crack-fueled carjacking trial. The case doesn’t end with the jury’s expedient verdict, however. Thanks to a delinquent son, a half-trained attack dog, and his own faulty memory, Dole finds himself locked in a life-and-death struggle with one of the parties in the case. Written with realism and dry (sometimes grim) humor, PARTY TO A CRIME tells the story of one man’s “ordeal by trial” and ultimate redemption against the backdrop of a dysfunctional justice system—where guilt and innocence are cheap commodities, traded in backroom deals. Read more.

George Zimmerman has been ordered back to jail after the judge learned he’d been lying about his finances during his bond hearing. Zimmerman faces second-degree murder charges in the death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman already knew he’d collected more than $100,000 through PayPal contributions to his website, but he told the court he had only limited resources. After the hearing, he was released on a $150,000 bond. Now he may have to spend the next year or two in jail while his trial proceeds. And now his credibility has been punctured. And by the way, Zimmerman has two passports, and had only surrendered one of them to authorities, as was required under the terms of his bond. The Washington Post reports: The judge questioning…

Read More→

They had a bit of a “birther” issue in Forsyth County recently when it turned out that none of the three Republican candidates for sheriff bothered to submit birth certificates or high-school diplomas to party officials during the qualifying period.  The Republican Party went ahead and qualified them, anyway. County elections officials have been working to straighten the mess out and say that the issue has been cleared up after all three men submitted the necessary documentation. Any voter in the county has until June 8 to file a challenge to the candidacies of Lauren McDonald, Duane Piper and incumbent Ted Paxton. There may be no further repercussions, however, since no Democrat qualified to run for sheriff in Forsyth, Georgia’s most staunchly Republican county. Read more.

The odds are good, considering. NorthFulton.com has the story.

Rave review from a blogger who used to live on the Forsyth County line. Read review.