THIS WEEK
Thursday: How Republicans lobbied Shannon Whitfield to run for office Friday: Perry Lamb says bankruptcy prepared him for commissioner post Today: Bebe Heiskell's toughest opponents might be the ones she can't see
Bebe Heiskell's enemies are powerful, she explained last week. They're dedicated. And they're mysterious.
During an appearance on UCTV, Heiskell explained why she is not running as a Republican for the first time since her election as Walker County, Ga., commissioner in 2000. She blamed the change on the LaFayette Underground, a blog run by anonymous writers.
"I had some people in that party that were writing things about me on the Underground and calling me corrupt and things like that," she said. "They set up an oversight committee to follow me around. And watch me. And take documentation."
Heiskell, a 16-year commissioner with more than 40 years of experience in Walker County government, did not return a call or an email Friday asking how she knew she had been stalked. But at any rate, at least to her, this part of her political career has been marked by something she couldn't have predicted when she started working for the county, before the internet changed everybody's lives.
Though anonymous, and discredited by county officials, the writers of the LaFayette Underground have drawn Heiskell's attention for years - be it for criticizing her purchase of a trolley with county funds or for holding her commissioner's meetings at 3 p.m., when some residents are at work.
Local Republican leaders say they have nothing to do with the blog. Mike Cameron, the party's Rossville precinct chairman, said he has an about who writes the blog, but they aren't in the party.
"I don't like people who hide behind pseudonyms," he said.
The blog's writers have not endorsed the Republican candidate, Shannon Whitfield, in the Nov. 8 election. Their posts have backed independent candidate Perry Lamb, who has pitched himself to voters as the county's political outsider.
An author of the blog, who did not identify him- or herself, told the Times Free Press in a Facebook message the LaFayette Underground has swayed the election results this year.
"If we can make Bebe Heiskell or anyone else in a position of authority think twice before doing something they would normally do without hesitation, we've accomplished something," the author wrote. "How much good is that? Over time, that might be clearer."
The LaFayette Underground began in 2008, when a group of residents were mad at how LaFayette city officials spent money and thought Heiskell could dedicate more funds to paving roads.
The blog grew in the years leading up to the 2012 election, when the writers became more active in making posts. They also expanded a network of contributors, the spokesperson for the site said this week. They have four writers, plus some residents who collect public records, take pictures and pass along tips.
Heiskell and other county workers have criticized the writers for withholding their identities.
"Some of us have jobs that would have been put at risk if we'd used our real names," the blogger said. "Some are concerned about their families."
In 2011, LaFayette police caught a resident taking pictures at the city's utility site for the blog. Kristopher Marks, an administrator for the nonprofit organization Kids 4 Christ, said he was not a main player for the site, just contributing photos.
Heiskell criticized the blog then, pointing to a February 2011 article that accused her of drinking too heavily one night and needing police officers to drive her home from a Chickamauga Huddle House. The article cited three anonymous sources.
Heiskell said in 2011 that residents began accusing her of making bad decisions because of her "brain being saturated with alcohol."
"I have had some negative emails to me - people calling me stupid and drunk and all these things, based on this blog," she said. " They must have gotten me mixed up with someone else because I don't drink and I don't smoke and I don't dance and I don't date."
In 2014, members of the blog created a Change.org petition, asking state Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, to put a referendum on the ballot about whether residents wanted to switch to a five-person board of commissioners.
The petition received 1,800 signatures, but Mullis said he would not consider the effort because the authors had not met him in person. The Walker County GOP put a nonbinding referendum about the issue on the May 24 primary ballot, and 75 percent of voters saying they wanted the change.
"Not one [of the petitioners] has had the decency, the courage to sit down with any of us in the Senate delegation," Mullis told the Times Free Press in February 2015.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.