About

Posted on September 8, 2024 • 6 min read • 1,098 words

About us, this site, our story, our mission, and our values living in Lamar County Georgia.

Values  

From the beginning, our struggle has been one of principle, based on some rather simple values. They are as they have been in the beginning:

1. You don’t screw with people’s land
2. You don’t screw with people’s family
3. If you screw with a farmer’s land, you have done both.

About Us  

Our family has resided in Lamar County since around 1947, during the time when our Grandfather was working for the Southern Railroad Company and was an office clerk at the now historical Barnesville Depot. In 1969, he purchased a small pecan farm south of town, where we have resided relatively in peace up until 1998. It was in 1998 that things began to change in the area, as an individual purchased a large swath of land, flattened what was the oldest growth forest in our local area, emptied both of the wells that were to provide water for our farm into his private lake, and subdivided the remaining land into small two acre lots for his friends. It was a drastic change, that really decreased the viability of our farm, but at least we were still left alone.

All of this changed in 2016, when we discovered, completely by accident, the same individual wanted to turn all the land he had flatted into a private solar power plant so he could sell the power generated to the electrical companies. Still remembering what had happened when he moved into the area, and not wanting to live by a solar power plant, we opposed it. Our opposition was highly contested, but in hindsight had little to no real impact, as the zoning exemption allowing the construction of the power plant had already been railroaded through approval by the county commissioners. It was not very long afterward a ban on importation of cheap Chinese solar panels went into effect, which reasonably had more to do with the plans for a solar power plant not coming to fruition than anything else.

Regardless, in 2018, two years afterward, is when the very same individual began harassing our family, and in 2020 his relative the Fire Chief began residing on the property of a neighbor that was assumed to have gone missing. A year later, the Chief was involved in illegally brokering a real estate deal with the same individual’s friends. This deal gave them the land that runs parallel to our farm, separated only by the county road. These new neighbors were neither wanted nor a necessity, as we had made several attempts to contact the property owner to purchase the land, and believe each of these attempts were either intercepted by the Fire Chief or an associate. These new neighbors then proceeded to harass and intimidate our family members, and then began the practice of illegal and unlawful property development.

The county, who is responsible for preventing this form of illegal development, has done more than just refuse to enforce the law, they have actually encouraged further illegal development and protected crooked developers. We are highly suspicious of the county’s attorney role in all of this, as the hand he has dealt our family is not one extended out of benevolence, nor is it one that best protects the interests of the county. As the only entities it is invested in protecting are the same individuals who are openly admitting to violating the law.

Why did we choose corruptlamar.com?  

Basically, it was available, and it would grab people’s attention. At the time of registration we had no idea whether we would actually use it or not, and for some time it just sat there parked by our domain registration agent. It was only after completely exhausting every opportunity we could provide to allow county officials to enforce the law and to do the ethnically responsible thing, only to have them turnaround to tell us through the county attorney that they have no intention of following the law or collecting the $736,000 in accumulated ordinance penalties, we decided it was time to use it.

The corruption was a matter of fact  

I mean, the situation was not like there was any dispute over anything factual, both the county and the developers openly admitted they were in violation. There was nothing preventing the county from enforcing the law, in fact, anything challenging the county authority would have been overruled as its precedence was well established before the violation occurred. The county did more than just decline our request to abide by federal and state law, they buried the complaint for weeks, then outright refused to even review it. Clearly stating, they were going to do whatever they wanted and there was nothing we could do about it.

It was made perfectly clear, they were invested in covering it up.  

We have submitted a complaint about the Fire Chief neglecting to fulfill his duties in regard to a situation where a septuagenarian female was left in the horrible position of performing a search for her missing son in the darkness of the late evening. She had called the Fire Dept for assistance numerous times, and noticed that on the third or fourth ring the call simply hung up. During her frantic search, she found herself standing within twenty-five yards of the Fire Chief, who was sitting in a side by side watching her. When she called out to him for assistance, he drove off, leaving her out in the middle of her farm, in the dark, to search alone.

When the complaint was submitted to the County Administrator, he argued with her regarding its merit, paraded the fact he was a children’s minister as if that was somehow relevant to what she was saying, and then buried her complaint for over a month. Only when pressured to respond, he replied with a superfluous affidavit provided by the Fire Chief that was for the wrong day. When it was pointed out, the affidavit was completely irrelevant to the complaint, he refused to respond.

Aren’t you afraid of being sued?  

In short, no. Telling the truth is a perfectly reasonable defense against any charge of slander or libel. Additionally, any lawsuit would grant the opportunity to perform discovery in order to acquire new evidence. It is during the discovery process which the courts can grant orders providing the necessary legal powers to acquire additional information that is not normally accessible to the average private citizen. We suspect the negligence runs fairly deep, and such discovery would only uncover more evidence to strengthen our position.