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+---
+title: Letter to Macon Telegraph
+description: Requesting an article for local county corruption
+date: 2024-10-17T21:11:08-04:00
+type: default
+categories: "post"
+tags:
+  - corrupt
+  - County
+  - letters
+  - communications
+draft: true
+thumbnail:
+  url: https://res.cloudinary.com/solardump/image/upload/v1729230748/photo-1623389122089-b490cd00820f_kegjhm.jpg
+  author: Markus Spiske
+  authorURL: https://unsplash.com/@markusspiske
+  origin: Unsplash
+  originURL: https://unsplash.com/photos/a-person-riding-a-skateboard-on-a-city-street-JnXPgELUMHc
+fmContentType: post
+---
+
+### Matter at hand
+
+What we have here is really nothing less than plainly obvious once you wrap your head around it. Local officials in
+Lamar County are openly performing favors for friends, completely disregarding state and federal law, tampering with
+county tax records, and targeting local political opponents by encouraging illegal and environmentally destructive
+construction practices beside their homes, which is costing tax-payers millions of dollars owed to them by law. We have
+done our best to document everything, and are still in the process of writing it all out and collecting as much evidence
+as we possibly can. The violations to federal and state law are without question, because photos and even sometimes
+video evidence was taken while the violations were being performed. Other similar violations are even self admitted by
+the developers, but because of social ties to county officials, the county officially refused to even acknowledge the
+violations occurred. Which is outrageous. You have the developer contacting the county, openly acknowledging they have
+been in violation of the law for over two months, and the county's response was to refuse to admit that anything took
+place.
+
+### Monitored Subdivision
+
+We have been monitoring two developments in the county, one taking place on a sixty acre stretch of land that runs
+alongside Hwy 36, and the other further back off from the highway on a hundred acre stretch of previous timber land. The
+former is exemplary of the situation at hand, because of how it came into existence, which was a real estate deal
+involving the county's own fire chief. Who openly violated state law by practicing real estate brokering without owning
+the property himself, and without the required state licensing. The local fire chief financially benefited from the
+brokered sale by receiving a discount of over $100,000 on a different piece of property he then purchased for himself
+from the same seller, and was given thousands of dollars in free equipment rental from the buyer, who was temporarily
+stealing the equipment from his employer. It was an illegal real estate sale that never should have been allowed to
+occur.
+
+#### Subdivision on Junkyard
+
+Another reason the smaller of these two developments deserve public attention is because it is a subdivision that is
+being built on top of the oldest junkyard in the county. The junkyard was previously owned by the McCollum Bros, and had fallen
+out of operation by the 1950's at the latest. Old cars, barrels full of oil, various automotive fluids, radiators, lead
+sensors, and buckets of hardened lead paint were allowed to sit outside and deteriorate for at least 50 years or more,
+polluting the soil and surrounding land. Since its operation predates all environmentally protective regulations
+regarding junkyard pollution it is a known toxic waste dump and a ticking time bomb. Without question, the ground is
+polluted with carcinogens and heavy metals. When the McCollum family sold the land, they removed the junk and had it
+hauled away, but they did nothing about the pollutants in the soil. The health dept is aware of the situation, but is
+powerless to prevent it's construction, and the developers have been informed of the hazards, but don't care. Just from
+constructing houses without a building permit and violating the federal soil and erosion prevention act, the subdivision
+has generated over 3 million dollars in fines. Combine this with the potential violations encountered for constructing
+homes on property not fit for human occupation and real estate fraud for not informing buyers of known property defects,
+and you have a disaster waiting to happen.
+
+### The next future development
+
+The county just announced a new tax increase and the largest planned development in its history, which has residents
+upset. As it appears the current policy of the county is to completely and totally disregard any and all regulatory
+policies intended to protect the private property of local residents and the environment. The multi million dollar
+development is planned to take place along several thousand acres of land running parallel to I-75. The land has been
+primarily used for timber for at least a hundred years or more, and the end result will be an additional 4,000 homes
+added to the county. Some individuals refer to this as "progress", but they are mistaken, as progress refers to a
+forward movement in the direction of an improved state. When federal laws are violated, people are lied to, the personal
+value of their homes destroyed, and the environment is decimated to solely benefit the wallets of a select minority of
+individuals, then what you have is the farthest thing from progress.