LaFayette city security footage from late September has been used to identify a contributor to the popular, anonymously written blog The LaFayette Underground.

Kristopher Marks, administrator and board secretary for the nonprofit Kids 4 Christ in LaFayette, was questioned by the LaFayette Police Department more than a month ago after his vehicle was identified via security footage circling around city utility property – the same property from which officials noticed a photo on the LaFayette Underground’s Facebook page must have been taken.

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LaFayette Police Department assistant chief Benji Clift spoke with Marks about the footage and about his involvement with the LaFayette Underground blog, which, more often than not, is less than friendly toward local officials and law enforcement.

Clift said he and Marks spoke for nearly two hours.

“We kinda talked about the whole situation of I don’t want him on city property,” said Clift. Marks explained that he had been taking photos for an article on the LaFayette Underground outlining why the city needed a new garbage truck.

Marks admitted that he was a contributor to the site, but denied full responsibility for the blog’s sometimes scathing articles.

“I’m not a sole player, I’m not even a major player. I’m just the one that they’ve found,” said Marks in an interview with the Messenger. “I have on my own time gone to public meetings and taken notes. I have taken some photos that have been used on the site...They have jumped to conclusions about me being everything apparently because I am the one that they have seen.”

Clift is not convinced, however.

“I could get up and testify in court now that there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s him.”

So far, the only evidence of Mark’s involvement in the blog that officials have is the single photograph which led to his identification. The picture in question, of the old LaFayette animal control truck, was posted to the LaFayette Underground Facebook page on September 24. The used and broken truck had not recently been moved from its location at the city utility facility on the bypass, and officials knew that someone must have sneaked onto the property to take the photo.

“Our IT guy looked at the photo and said ‘You know, he probably took that right before dark so let me go look at the film,’” said Clift.

Two security cameras at the utility building captured a white SUV driving through and circling a parking lot between 7:45 and 7:50 p.m. on September 24, shortly before the photo was posted to the Facebook page that same evening. Officials recognized and identified the vehicle as belonging to Marks.

“We already knew what kind of car (Marks) drove, and we knew it was him,” said Clift, “so what I decided to do was go down to the Kids 4 Christ and talk to him.”

Clift noted in his conversation with Marks that he expressed concerns over what would happen to him should he be outed as a contributor to the LaFayette Underground. It is possible that, given the many accusations that have been put forward by the blog, some legal action may eventually be taken against him by one of more of those whom the blog has allegedly libeled, as he is currently the only identifiable party to blame.

“Whomever is responsible for the webpage would of course be responsible for any legal ramifications that came down,” said LaFayette mayor Neal Florence. As of right now, officials do not know who actually scripts the stories or maintains the website. Marks insists he isn’t responsible for either.

According to Clift, Marks also seemed concerned that he might face some violence for his involvement with the LaFayette Underground.

“He was concerned that some people were going to try to hurt him,” said Clift. “He said he’s got threatening emails...If he’s outed, we’ll help him with that.”

Marks said he has received emailed threats from various citizens who suspect his involvement with the blog. “After I went to a council meeting for the first time (a few weeks ago) and took notes, I received an email that someone would beat the (expletive) out of me,” he said.

Clift said that the LaFayette Police Department will undoubtedly protect Marks should it become necessary. “We’ll do our duty,” said Clift.

However, after being identified by the LaFayette Police Department, Marks said he began to feel threatened, not protected, even by law enforcement. “I personally heard threats from two LPD officers,” he said. “They came and talked to my employers.” Marks is therefore dubious about police protection should he be threatened by members of the public. “I have no assurance from them that they will protect anybody. I don’t feel necessarily confident that I will be protected.”

Clift, on the other hand, seems to feel that Marks’s concerns may be overblown. “His concerns about his safety are just, I think, his ploy to keep from being outed,” he said. “To him, being anonymous is more important than somebody being mad about him.”

The City of LaFayette currently has no civil or criminal charges against Marks. “If we wanted to come after him, we would have already done it,” said Clift. City officials are concerned, however, about reputations of some of the city and county personnel, many of whom have allegedly been harangued and libeled by the LaFayette Underground.

Clift noted that at that time, the blog had been making disparaging remarks about the city’s IT manager, Scott Underwood, who had recently been promoted to a new title and salary by the city council. “They started really roasting our IT guy here...He kinda made a mistake about Underwood.”

Clift asked that Marks and the blog in general be more judicious in choice of subjects and research prior to making accusations, and he asked him to redact the erroneous information about Underwood. “If you want to prove to me that you can be trusted, go in and change all that and retract what you said,” Clift recounted suggesting to Marks.

The accusations against Underwood were removed the next day, said Clift, and can no longer be found on the blog.

Speaking out against accusations

Underwood, as it turns out, was one of the lucky ones. Many other accusations still stand on the website and in the Facebook interactions of its followers. Underwood has been just one of the many city and county employees to receive the pointy end of the LaFayette Undergound’s pen, and now the accused are answering back.

Ritchie White

One of the most prominent accusations on the blog in recent months came in a feature titled “The Garbage Man,” posted on September 11, 2011. In the article, the LaFayette Underground asserts that former LaFayette assistant sanitation and maintenance supervisor Ritchie White had resigned his post after embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the city.

“These accusations of embezzlement are ridiculous,” said White.

The blog’s main assertion concludes that White was in charge of purchase orders and maintenance on the solid waste trucks, giving him easy access to city money. It further alleges that White took advantage of the fact that his father owned and operated White’s Sanitation Service, a major contractor with the city of LaFayette.

“I think what they’re implying is that in my position with the city, I did business with my dad, which was a conflict of interest,” said White. “First of all, that is absolutely false.”

White states that he did not even have the power in his job with the city to make the types of purchases necessary to embezzle such large sums of money in the first place. “I was the assistant sanitation supervisor and assistant maintenance supervisor. Vanessa Gossett was the supervisor over both of those departments... “She was the supervisor in this department. I was not the head trash collector.”

“I never handled one dollar, and I never approved purchases...There was no conflict of interest because (Gossett) had to approve the purchases; I didn’t have the authority to do that.”

LaFayette’s new city manager Franklin Etheridge confirms White’s story. “He was not involved in competitive bidding or in providing direct reimbursements to vendors.” He said that’s a finance department function.

“The city mails the checks… no money ever touches anybody’s hands here,” said White.

Etheridge further states that the sums of money alleged by the blog are in no way missing from city coffers. “I have not noted any misappropriation of funds within the Public Works Department.”

Furthermore, the LaFayette Underground casts doubt on White’s employment in the first place. According to the blog, “after White’s resignation a city employee said his background check showed a conviction for cocaine possession or distribution, and a former friend says he used to brag about smuggling coke through the LaFayette airport.”

The Messenger asked the LaFayette Police Department to run an official background check to confirm these allegations, and no such charges appeared. According to chief Tommy Freeman, White’s record is clean.

Instead of being forced to resign for misconduct, as the LaFayette Underground states, White actually left his job with the city to begin full-time work on his nonprofit, Matthew 25 Ministries of Georgia, a registered 501c3.

“Richie was vocal and forthcoming with his co-workers that he was interested in opening/establishing a ministry. He was not asked to resign by the city nor to my knowledge was he in a situation where the city was considering terminating him,” said Etheridge.

“I was not given the choice to resign or be fired. This is a choice that my wife and I made. It had nothing to do with any allegations that were made on this website. There was never any allegation of wrongdoing on my part,” said White.

Shortly after leaving the city’s employ, White became aware of the LaFayette Underground and its swirling rumors.

“It was a week later that I was told that I needed to get on this website and look at what was being said about me.”

Bebe Heiskell

One of the most frequent targets of the blog over the past two years has been Walker County commissioner Bebe Heiskell, who has taken particular offense to a February 23, 2011 LaFayette Underground article titled “Blotto Bebe.” The post alleges that the commissioner made a late-night visit to the Huddle House in Chickamauga in an intoxicated and disheveled state in late April 2010 and had to be escorted home by law enforcement. Commissioner Heiskell found the accusations laughable, until she realized that many citizens of Walker County were taking them seriously.

“I really considered it a joke since I thought most people know I don’t even drink alcohol,” she said. “Then I started getting emails from people saying my decisions were being affected by my brain being saturated with alcohol and I realized it was coming from people who had read about me on the blog, and that this is serious business.”

What seemed to Heiskell a petty joke soon snowballed into a deluge of animosity toward the commissioner.

“I’ve had some negative emails to me – people calling me stupid and drunk and all these things, based on this blog,” said Heiskell. “I wrote them back and said they must’ve 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,” she said.

“I’ve been holding this office for just under 11 years, and I have made every effort to conduct myself to a manner that would be pleasing to every citizen in Walker County. I have not been arrested, I have not been charged with anything. I have not been drinking in public. I have not used profanity. If I have done anything that is beneath the dignity of this office, I am fully unaware of it.”

Heiskell is appalled at the accusations, and seriously questions the journalistic integrity of a blog writer who publishes rumors rather than facts.

“The people that are writing this don’t know me at all,” said Heiskell. “I’ve probably never met them, never had a conversation with them; they’ve probably never asked for anything out of this office, I don’t know. But if they had they received it if we had it.”

Most of all, Heiskell is disappointed to learn the identity of one of the LaFayette Underground’s cohorts, and is dismayed that an administrator in an organization she supports could be in any way contributing to the mudslinging.

“I couldn’t believe it was people that were associated with a Christian organization to which I had contributed money. I was one of the first contributors to “Kids 4 Christ” when a friend of mine told me about it. I then went to a meeting at CJ’s Restaurant where I wrote them a check for $250 to help them get started. I even tried to help them establish a location. I am both shocked and disappointed to learn that some of their affiliates may be responsible for the vicious attacks on many of our elected officials and I am curious about their motives.”

Steve Wilson

Like most other people in leadership roles around Walker County, sheriff Steve Wilson, who has also been frequently criticized by LaFayette Underground, finds the entire attitude of the Underground rather disturbing.

According to Wilson, the Lafayette Underground blog and Facebook page have done nothing but “foster an attitude of discord within the LaFayette community.”

Though Wilson had heard about the blog for some time, he did not know who may be involved with it until secu-rity video footage outed Marks.

“I was very disappointed when I learned that Kristopher Marks, CFO K4C Ministries, Inc., doing business as Kids 4 Christ, was involved with the Lafayette Underground blog and Facebook page, a disparaging non-Christian ori-ented web and Facebook page,” he said.

“I would encourage anyone who authors, contributes or participates in the blog to read and study Psalm 101:5, “Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, him will I put to silence; whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, him will I not endure.”

Wilson is hopeful that the nonprofit organization will continue to serve LaFayette area youth, and that Marks’s involvement will not tarnish the good that the organization does for its community.

“I believe in the Kids 4 Christ ministry and I trust that the ministry will not suffer because of one man’s actions,” said Wilson.

On anonymity and journalistic integrity

Throughout the two-year history of the LaFayette Underground blog, the biggest questions for authorities have concerned the identity of its author or authors and the identities of its sources. Though the main author, if there is only one, is still unknown, authorities are certain that most of the blog’s sources are less than reliable.

Walker County coordinator David Ashburn was especially interested in how the blog went about getting its tips on stories. Upon talking with Clift, who spoke with Marks, Ashburn learned that many of the stories presented as fact by the LaFayette Underground were not researched or verified at all. “When they asked him how he… investi-gated, his answer is, ‘Well, if a couple of people send me an email on it, then I count it as true.’ That’s a joke,” said Ashburn.

It is believed that on many stories, including those discussing White and Heiskell, the LaFayette Underground’s information must have come from sources inside city and county offices who provide more speculation than re-search, and know more fiction than fact.

Officials are quite certain that many city and county employees have been feeding insider information to the blog’s contributors for some time. “Personally, I don’t read the blog,” said Florence, “but they have told me that comments that were made have showed up the very next day, and it had to come from somebody that had inside in-formation.”

“We definitely have people in the city who leak information to him,” said Clift.

Officials also feel that the blog has shown some serious disrespect to the name of journalism in keeping its au-thors and their questionable sources anonymous.

“I just feel like there is some responsibility that should be involved as far as giving responsible reporting,” said LaFayette mayor Neal Florence. “When somebody sets up a blog site and there’s no indication of who is making these comments, then I don’t feel that that’s being responsible...Any comments that are made on that are essentially anonymous, and they’re just opinions.”

“These people demand accountability and transparency from government, and we don’t see any of that here,” said Heiskell.

“They criticize people – not the government – but people who are employees or whatever else,” said Ashburn. “And I’m sorry, but I think that to do that without acknowledging that publicly, there are a lot of people that would not be giving donations to (Kids 4 Christ) knowing that those people are the ones doing this other part.” Ashburn feels that many, like Heiskell, who support Kids 4 Christ are unaware of the connection to the LaFayette Under-ground, and that they might now feel deceived. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think the people supporting that organization are aware, because I’ve had people state that for a fact. That they gave money to them but, well, they won’t now,” said Ashburn. “It’s my position in life that in government, the media and the general public, there should be no ‘they say’ this and that, that everywhere there should be accountability,” he said.

“I don’t wish them any ill will but I do believe they’re making a serious mistake by anonymously running peo-ple’s character down,” said Heiskell.

Long-term effects of the LaFayette Underground

Though the blog frequently criticizes public officials for being unable to bring new business and industry oppor-tunities to LaFayette, those same officials say that the blog itself could be serving to scare away the very business that both parties so desire.

Walker County economic development director Larry Brooks has seen firsthand how the LaFayette Under-ground blog has worked against the city’s future interests.

“Businesses want to feel good about the community they are considering for location,” he said. “Often, busi-nesses research communities on the Internet long before the community knows that they are being considered by the business. If negativity and scorn by residents are detected, businesses will simply look to locate elsewhere be-cause they do not want to enter into a community where such perceived problems exist.”

With the blog’s web address, cityoflafayettega.com, being so similar to the city’s official website, cityoflafayet-tega.org, it is incredibly easy for an interested company to stumble across the wrong page, and in turn, draw the wrong conclusions.

“We have had outside companies comment to us that they have gone online, trying to hit the LaFayette website, and because this is so close, they got that, and they questioned us: ‘What’s going on? We have no desire to come there and be exposed to this type of an organization,’” said Walker County coordinator David Ashburn. “They are affecting the ability of industry coming into the city of LaFayette for sure. So you’ve got to spend tons of time, which is money, trying to show them the truth.”

“I had a manufacturer that called me just a few days ago from out of state that was interested in property in Walker County for a possible plant location,” said Brooks. “When I directed them to the county website they men-tioned that they had run across another website dissing the community. I immediately began to redirect the conver-sation in a more positive exchange, but I could tell they were concerned about what they had read. Only time will tell if this company will overlook what they saw and continue discussions with us.”

LaFayette mayor Neal Florence agrees that the blog is highly detrimental. “As it affects the city, I have a tre-mendous problem with the negative perception that it gives,” he said. “For any business that is looking to develop in this area, if they pull up LaFayette, Georgia, that’s gonna pop up. Especially in this environment where we are looking to try to generate any type of development, this is not a good thing.”

“I just don’t want to see that be able to be a stigma in somebody’s business decision to say ‘I’m not coming be-cause the environment appears to be very negative,’” he said.

“The negative effect this kind of gossip has on our community is that people all over the world read blogs and make the decision to go elsewhere with their business,” said Heiskell. “We operate in a global atmosphere and in-vestors from other countries and other states look at our websites and look for opportunities there. We are in com-petition with the entire world to attract new industry and keep our existing industry here.”

Marks, on the other hand, doesn’t feel that the LaFayette Underground has nearly as much responsibility for frightening away industry as local officials believe.

“The website has been up for two years. And in the decades before those two years, there were no economic op-portunities coming in,” he said. “I understand those concerns but really if they’re concerned about the negative image and corruption then maybe those things should be changed first.”

Florence sees at least one positive that could come from the heightened emotions that the LaFayette Under-ground seems to inspire. He is grateful that citizens care about their local community enough to become involved, even in an organization which can be too rapidly critical, he said. He hopes, however, that with time, and perhaps with some of its members stepping out of the shadows, the LaFayette Underground can be a more positive force for the city, and one that inspires change rather than discord.

“I would hope that this site might be changed to accept or to criticize, but to offer solutions,” said Florence. You can take positive ideas for the community from anybody. If they would come up with those, it might help everyone.”