FIXING THE STATE BUDGET, PAGE A3. THE
Half of all local taxes pays for public safety
Clifton takes the helm at ACMS
Lighting the way for Alexander City & Lake Martin since 1892 July 8, 2015 Vol. 123, No. 135 www.alexcityoutlook.com
Outlook Staff
NEW TOP CAT
Coosa-Central welcomes Simmons as coach, Page B1.
Detectives recover stolen truck, load
THE BAMA BULL
Staff Report The summer is a time when schools regroup and work to build a team that will await students as they arrive on the first day of the school year. In Alexander City, several of those moves have been made and Superintendent Dr. Darrell Cooper said that he feels pretty good about where they are headed into the school year. One of the biggest changes parents and students will notice this fall is a new face in charge at Alexander City Middle School. Reginald Clifton has been approved as the new ACMS principal for the 2015-2016 school year. He is a veteran educator and administrator in the Alexander City School System serving most recently at Radney Elementary School as assistant principal. He takes over from outgoing principal, Dr. Beverly Price, as she assumes her new role as Secondary Education Coordinator at the Alexander City Board of Education. Clifton has been teacher of the year at Benjamin Russell High School. Clifton held a meet and greet with the faculty last week and is busy prepping for his new role.
WEDNESDAY
GPS helps locate load of lumber in Montgomery By Mitch Sneed Outlook Editor
Submitted / The Outlook
Alexander City’s Justin Bishop gets jacked up as he locks in a grip before a recent arm-wrestling match in Las Vegas. Bishop said the sport has helped him see the country and make tons of new friends.
Alex City’s Justin Bishop taking pro arm-wrestling world by storm By Mitch Sneed Outlook Editor
f you saw Justin Bishop in the checkout line at Winn Dixie or working with his father’s construction business building a house at the lake, you would never know the man known as “The Bama Bull.” Justin, 25, is a husband and father who works building custom homes in his everyday life. Away from that, Bishop becomes “The Bama Bull” when he stands across the table in the world of competitive arm-wrestling. What began as tagging along with his father
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and brother to arm-wrestling tournaments has blossomed into a championship career that has him competing and taking big honors and big money in tournaments across the Southeast and the country. In 2014, he won three Ultimate Armwrestling League tournaments including the UAL 8 Middleweight Championship and is a two-time SEC Championship a three-time time Alabama State Champion with both arms and has taken state crowns in Georgia, Louisiana and Tennessee. He’s following a family tradition, where his See BISHOP, Page A7
Law enforcement officials are quick to say that solving a crime takes equal parts of hard work, knowledge and luck. The Alexander City Police Department got healthy does of all three over the last few days as they located a stolen 18-wheeler that was loaded with lumber. On the evening of Thursday July 2, the driver of a tractortrailer parked his rig, which was loaded with lumber, in the lot next to the Exxon Station at the intersection of U.S. Highway 280 and Highway 63. When he went back to check on his truck and load, it was gone, according to Alexander City Police Department Capt. Tommy Lovett. “It was unclear exactly when it was taken, but as soon as he found it was missing, he alerted us and his company’s investigators.” Lovett said. “We assigned the case to Det. Sabrina Osborne and she immediately began working with the company’s investigator to see what they could turn up.” Lovett said that the truck was equipped with a GPS tracking device, but the thief realized it, and threw the device out of the See TRUCK, Page A7
Camp Hill struggles with sewage and Internal Revenue issues By Cliff Williams Outlook Staff Writer
The Camp Hill Town Council is trying to get a handle on two big issues that continue to haunt them – the IRS and sewage. “They (IRS) came in and looked at our information,” Mayor Danny Evans said. “This started in 2005 and things got back on track in 2008. We have to pay them $5,673.95 a month to clear this up – a total of $154,000.” Evans explained that the IRS had put a freeze on the town’s accounts for back taxes and the problems it created. “The IRS put the hurt on us when they froze the accounts,” Evans said. “We had checks out that bounced.”
Evans did say that the accounts were no longer frozen. Council members asked if anything had been paid to the IRS to go towards that past balance. “Some of the money is there,” Evans said. “But (the IRS) have no forms for it.” Council member Anthony Pogue seemed optimistic that money could still be credited to the town for income taxes withheld from employees at the time. “You can fill out a Form 941C to help,” Pogue said. Evans said that might be difficult in that the town’s records are a mess. “We don’t know who the employees were at the time,” Evans said. “We have looked high and low in the town hall
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Lake Martin
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489.57 Reported on 7/7/15 @ 3 p.m.
Linda Shaffer, REALTOR® C: 256.794.4641 • W: 256.329.5253 shaffer@lakemartin.net 5295 Highway 280, Alexander City, AL
Today’s
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Cliff Williams / The Outlook
The Camp Hill sewage lagoon is need of serious repair and is the subject of an ADEM lawsuit.
for the forms but we can’t find and loan programs to help with the towns old sewage system. them.” “The lagoon is shot,” Evans The council also heard from Evans about meeting with the said. “It is going to cost about $6 USDA about the agency’s grant See IRS, Page A7
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