Remember a few years ago when a local male department head was caught having lunch atop a table (and a female) in another city department? Remember which one was fired?
It's encore time with a new cast, so which one is fired this time? (Ladies, if you think you ever come out the winner in this game, you're sadly mistaken.)
We've been forwarded some very informative data on continued personnel problems at the University of North Alabama. The article is very long, and we're going to be breaking it down into parts. Apologies to Concerned Citizen 101 for taking so long to present this - it should prove very interesting!
A reader pointed us to the official Lauderdale Agriculture Center website today. For your amusement, here are some actual comments:
While visiting the website, we may ask you to provide information that personally identifies you ("personal information") for purposes of interacting with the website. Such personal information may include, but is not limited to, your name, phone number, street address and e-mail address, age and gender. On any page that collects personal information, we will specifically describe what information is required in order to provide you with the product or service or enter you in the promotion you have requested, as well as respond to your inquiry or comment. This personally identifiable data is collected by means of form interfaces on our website, into which the user must voluntarily enter the information requested. If you place an online order or enter a commercial transaction at this website, we will collect additional personally identifiable information, including billing address and credit card information. We may also collect personally identifiable information through purchase forms, surveys, contests, emails we receive from you and your other interactions with our website. You may browse the website without registering or providing any personally identifying information.
We believe in protecting your privacy and will not share personal information with third parties outside of Lauderdale County Agri-Event Center, except as described in this Privacy Policy. We believe that we can enhance your experience on our Website with the information you share with us. We use personal information about you to improve our advertising and marketing efforts, to statistically analyze website usage, to improve our content and product offerings and to personalize the website's content, layout, and services. We also may use your personal information, such as your e-mail address or mailing address, to contact you regarding products and/or services that may be of interest to you, to respond to an inquiry from you regarding the information that we have collected, to respond to your comments and suggestions and to fill orders and complete commercial transactions that you initiate with this website.
Lauderdale County Agri-Event Center may match specific and/or aggregated personal information with third party data to provide you with product and content offerings that interest you and improve our advertising and marketing efforts. Lauderdale County Agri-Event Center also may disclose aggregated user statistics in order to describe our services to potential advertisers, partners, other third parties, our affiliate companies and for other lawful purposes. For example, we provide our advertisers with aggregate information about our users, such as statistics regarding the number of website users that view their advertisements. As part of your experience on our website, you may receive communications from us related to products and services that might interest you. While we believe these services will enhance your experience at our website, you will at all times be able to opt out from receiving these communications, either by specifically opting out of these services or by deleting your profile from our database.
The personally identifiable information collected at this website may be indefinitely retained and electronically archived. Please keep in mind that information collected at this website may be different than that collected at or through other activities, events, or functions related to Lauderdale County Agri-Event Center and the use and disclosure, if any, of such information may vary and are not covered under this policy.
And you thought the Ag Center was only after your gas tax/TVA tax dollars? Perhaps we need to further analyze the above statements in order to see what else that endeavor may be after?
This whole business of Melson's influence and his clandestine dealings with local elected officials just keeps getting more curious as time passes. Melson's good buddy Ronnie Owens just announced his candidacy for another term on the Lauderdale County Board of Education, touting his enlightened and exemplary leadership for the Board's newly "improved financial accountability". Perhaps if Owens could get out of bed with Melson for a day or two he might actually come to know something about the school system's "accountability".
Now, since the "Honorable" Mr. Owens is so very keen on accountability, he must surely know why the state auditors have mysteriously vanished from sight at the Lauderdale County Board of Education offices. The auditors came on site in the spring of 2019 to begin a routine annual audit, the report on which was already overdue by the time they arrived. Perhaps the auditors have discontinued their work at the Lauderdale School Board at the behest of the Alabama Legislature, for whom they work. Might our local legislative delegation have something to do with their disappearance? Ronnie Owens should know that Federal regulators and creditors are not happy when audits are overdue. Fines and adverse credit ratings could result if the delay continues.
Perhaps Melson wishes to avoid having state auditors take timely notice of the Board's willing cooperation with him as he raids the school systems coffers to continue pushing his boondoggle Ag Center project forward. Or perhaps Owens has enlisted Melson's assistance in delaying the audit to avoid any politically untimely notice of the Board's own speculative land purchases and their raiding of lunchroom funds to prop up the system's reserves. Or perhaps he's just tired of his Board being repeatedly cited for violating state law by continuing to operate its athletic programs in the red and illegally borrowing from state and local tax revenue to cover the hole.
Concerned citizens might also ask Owens why his school system's newest financial director cannot explain a $40,000 difference between the school system's accounting records and its bank account balance. Perhaps Owens has now granted Melson direct access to the school systems deposits! Oh well, what's a mere forty grand between political bedfellows, right?
Humbly submitted for your consideration by,
Every parent in Lauderdale County, indeed every citizen in Lauderdale, should be asking the school system about the above irregularities. First things first, we'd like to know about the missing $40,000.00. Any readers have a clue?
We're presenting these Facebook postings without comment except to say we know which one of our regular critics will be the first to defend these cretins:
I really hate Goose Hunters across from my house so close I could raise my voice and talk to them. SIX were here last night. They’re back. They just shot their first volley. Oh joy!!!! Great way to start the day. Most of us out here don’t mind the geese. Many are as upset as I am. Have you ever watched six men hiding in the straw with 3 dozen decoys shoot geese? It’s horrible. Most aren’t dead and are flapping everywhere trying to get away. They finish them off. While several others are still flapping. One time was enough. I went to the house. Sad.
First time in 35 years to have hunters across the road. They told me I live in the country. Maybe I should move to town if I didn’t like it. I can’t print what I told him to do and how fast to do it. I don’t need an arrogant boy giving me a lecture. I’ve lived here longer than he’s been alive.
Well the xxxx claimed he’d talked to most of the road and everyone was for it. He admitted to the cops he talked to three houses. The other person he said he asked told me today he never talked to him. So I don’t really know that he talked to anybody. Everyone I’ve asked didn’t know about the executions. They’ll be back tonight. They come early to set up their xxxx to lure the poor geese in. It’s horrible to see. There about six of them. Arrogant and obnoxious and sneaky. Mr xxxx signed the permit to hunt. Bet he wouldn’t if he still lived out here.
Further report from neighbor. Seems another neighbor was walking her dog. She saw them shooting everything in sight. She said one got missed. They called it back and all shot at once and blew it to pieces. They had their trailer parked on the road. She looked in the back. They told her she was on private property. She told them she wasn’t touching there stuff. Just taking photos of what they’d done. She called the game warden. She had photos to show they had the back full of slaughtered geese. The limit per person is 5 with only three being Canadian Geese. That’s no more than 18 Canadian geese among six if all were there this AM. I didn’t look. Once yesterday was enough for me. The neighbor with the photos is calling the State Dept for Game Wardens. The game warden here said she was seeing decoys and not geese. She said she saw dead geese. Decoys don’t lay flat. Dead geese do, what’s left after six men fire at once. They didn’t come back tonight. Wonder why? How do you like those facts. They also shot at xxxx’s house per another neighbor. See how xxxxx hunters make it bad on those that follow the rules. These hunters have a bad rep already from other places.
Monday is a special day for our blog, so we'll update now on our two sex offenders who are STILL on FB. On Tuesday, we'll be talking to the Colbert County Sheriff's office to see if the female is in violation of SORNA since her sodomy conviction was in 1988 (before Georgia implemented its sex offender registry). At 12:01 Tuesday, we'll post our Shoals Crime blog on the Cherokee sex offender who tells others how special he is.
Remember, we would take neither of these actions if the two sex offenders (one definitely registered in Colbert County) would remove their social media pages per FB guidelines. Remember, as your mother should have told you, there are consequences to your actions.
Yesterday we linked a news post on Aldani Faith Byrd's arrest for Armed Robbery in Lauderdale County. We no sooner did than we began to receive both public and private posts about this young woman's violent criminal past and questions as to why she was not in prison at the time of her three most recent arrests (two violent). We have enough information on this woman to write a Sunday New York Times article, but here's a tidbit we discovered today. She has also had at least three arrests in Baldwin County, two of them for Robbery:
Baldwin County Mug Shot 2017 - Third Degree Armed Robbery
Byrd is currently serving a short sentence in Lauderdale County Community Corrections (as a state prisoner) for receiving stolen autos. Since that sentence was imposed, she's been involved in a car theft with stabbing and now a solo Armed Robbery. Her family, we're told, has already gotten Judge Ben Graves to reduce her bond amount by over half ($25,000,00) and is angling for no bond at all.
This woman is no angel. After reading the original news article we linked, we checked and her second flight from "home" was actually an escape from a girls' detention home. Many of her criminal indictments were sealed due to her being a juvenile. We had thought these records were opened if the perp continued down the wrong path, but apparently not in all cases. Readers have sent us accounts of countless petty crimes that were the result of anger and drugs.
Yes, this woman needs help, but she does not need to be free. She has had enough arrests/convictions for violent crimes that she should be sentenced as a habitual violent offender. If Aldani Bryd is given still another slap on the wrist, her next violent crime will be on the hands of Judge Ben Graves.
(BTW, to the person who said Byrd is a good mother because she's never taken her daughter with her on a robbery, we don't have an answer for you that we could publish in a family blog.)
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