Commercial and Residential Locksmiths in Cartersville

CARTERSVILLE, Ga. — A family’s Halloween decorations are causing controversy in Cartersville.

Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was at the home on Cassville Road in Bartow County Wednesday, where a body with brown hands is hanging from a tree with a noose around its neck.

Some people are offended and say it looks like a Black man, and they want it taken down.

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The decoration has an animal skull on its head and it is wearing brown gloves.

Fernandes talked to one neighbor who said it upset her so much that she yanked the body down.

But the family said they have First Amendment rights and hung the decoration right back up.

Fernandes spoke with the homeowner, who said that her family decorates every year and has a lot of fun with it. She said the kids in the neighborhood also love it.

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“Every year, we’ve all decorated as a family,” she said. “They love Halloween. They’re both excited about Mr. Creepy in the tree.”

But the president of the Bartow Chapter of the NAACP sees it differently.

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“I really felt like this was really crossing the line. It was offensive,” Dexter Benning said. “It really just signified and insinuated that it was a person and a person of color. Bartow County has a history of hangings here in this county and to do that is just not appropriate.”

According to the homeowner, who Channel 2 is not identifying, a neighbor came over and took the decoration down herself.

“She said because the thing underneath the mask is black and his shirt is black, she was thinking it’s a Black person. And it’s not,” the homeowner said. “That’s just the spare clothes my husband had that he was gonna throw away anyway. That’s why I picked those. No reason other than that, and the gloves are garbage gloves so...”

A local pastor hopes the family listens to the community’s concerns.

“If you really want to celebrate Halloween and not be offensive, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to take it down,” Randy Livsey said. “Hang it around the waist if you want to or just hang up something different.”

Someone called 911 over the decoration. When deputies got there, they said that the family isn’t breaking the law, so there’s nothing they can do. With Halloween more than three weeks away, “Mr. Creepy” will probably but up for awhile.

The Cartersville Purple Hurricanes have won four state championships in their 110-year history. The Hiram Hornets have won just three playoff games in their 24-year history. If the outcome of tonight’s game were based on history the Hornets wouldn’t stand a chance.

But then again GPB Sports Football Fridays in Georgia wouldn’t be at Weinman Stadium in Cartersville this evening if that were the case. Instead, tonight’s game is a huge Region 5-7A showdown with the No. 1 Canes (7-0, 2-0) hosting 9th-ranked Hiram (6-1, 1-1). Our coverage starts 7:30 p.m. on GPB-TV Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Up until last week’s 56-35 loss to No. 7 Calhoun, Hiram had won seven in a row dating back to last season and have gone 11-6 over their last 17 games. That’s a far cry from the two years prior when the Hornets struggled through the 2020-21 COVID years going 2-19. That 2021 season is when sixth-year Head Coach Pete Fominaya decided to take his lumps and play his young guys with the belief that they could be something special.

So far that then-sophomore, now-senior class has proven Fominaya’s vision for the program to be prophetic. From a recruiting standpoint (as you will see below) the Hornets have a much bigger college prospect roster than the Hurricanes and most everybody else in 5A.

That’s not to say that the Canes probably wouldn’t still be considered the favorite tonight. Cartersville is still Cartersville. One of the best-built programs in the state regardless of classification. The Hurricanes have won 68 of their last 69 region games dating back to 2011 with that one loss, a triple-overtime defeat at the hands of rival Calhoun last season snapping the Canes streak of 10 straight region titles. The game and broadcast for which our GPB Sports Team won an Emmy Award over the summer.

It should be an interesting match-up between a Hiram team that is the highest-scoring team in 5A at 44.3 PPG and a Cartersville team that has the second-best scoring defense in 5A giving up just 9.1 PPG. But it’s the way this Hornets team has rolled-up it’s impressive offensive numbers that makes this most intriguing.

Hiram runs the Wing-T offense or at least what Coach Fominaya calls a hybrid Wing-T. Hybrid or not, when’s the last time you saw the Wing-T? Once a staple offense in high school football, it has fallen way behind the spread as the offense of choice. So much so it has become a difficult challenge for most teams to prepare for it in just three practice days.

But Purple Hurricanes Head Coach Conor Foster was the defensive coordinator for Coach Joey King’s Cartersville state championship teams before becoming the head coach himself and now his DC is former kindergarten buddy and later Canes teammate J.J. Chatmon. Reunited those two guys do a really good job. But the challenge tonight will be significant and will depend on some complimentary football from the offense. Specifically likely time-consuming drives and no turnovers.

Both teams have outstanding offensive lines full of college prospects. Both teams have tremendous kickers. Should be a lot of fun.

So, that’s the game story. Let’s take a look at the top prospects to watch.

Hiram Hornets

Credit: 247 Sports

Walter Matthews – 6-7, 245, Senior TE, 4.6 40 – Committed to Southern Cal over 37 other offers including Florida – Consensus 4-Star – Highest Ranking: ESPN No. 2 TE in the country – 247 Sports No. 13 prospect in Georgia 2024. Career Stats: 45-793 yards receiving - 17.6 avg - 10 TD. Nephew of former Vanderbilt All-American and Atlanta Falcon Allama Matthews. Coach Fominaya: “Never been around a player with so many tools. If he wants to, we’ll see him on Sundays.”

Chase Tyler – 6-3, 170, Senior WR – Committed to Duke over 26 other offers including Georgia Tech and Tennessee – Highest Ranking: Rivals 4-Star and No. 13 WR in the country 2024. Career Stats: 81-1,290 yards receiving - 12 TD. All-State Basketball player and might get opportunity with Blue Devils basketball team. Plays baseball and high jumps. Only player who starts both ways for the Hornets also lining up at CB and had opportunities on the defensive side of the ball with offers from Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M. Coach Fominaya: “Takes pride in everything he competes in.”

Clinton Richard – 6-4, 290, Senior ILB – Committed to Wake Forest over 13 other offers including Ole Miss and North Carolina – Consensus 3-Star – Highest Ranking: Rivals No. 20 IOL in the country 2024. Will also play some DT and DE. Coach Fominaya: “Old school junkyard kid. If you had to go in a dark alley, he’s the guy you want to go with you.”

Jameson Riggs – 6-5, 290, Senior OL – Committed to Georgia Tech over 30 other offers including Clemson and Auburn – Consensus 3-Star - Highest Ranking: ESPN No. 23 IOL in the country 2024. Wants to be an aerospace engineer. Coach Fominaya: “I think he’s the best OL in the state. The anchor of our team.”

Josiah Pope – 6-3, 205, Junior LB – Offered by FAU and Austin Peay. Season Stats: 40 TT - 3 TFL - 3 QB sacks - 1 FR. Coach Fominaya: “Next big name coming out of Hiram.”

Oliver Castaneda – 5-9, 155, Senior K- Offered by Memphis. Georgia has shown interest – Highest Ranking: Kohl’s 5-Star Kicker. Season Stats: 10-12 FG with long of 47. 50 of 53 kickoffs have been touchbacks. Coach Fominaya; “Might be our greatest weapon. Ball sounds different when he kicks it.”

Cartersville Purple Hurricanes

Caption

Malachi Tolliver, Cartersville

Credit: 247 Sports

Malachi Tolliver – 6-6, 310, Senior OT – Committed to Georgia over 20 other offers including Auburn and Louisville – Highest Ranking: Consensus 3-Star OT. Coach Foster: “6-6 with incredible feet and great bend. I see him as 4-Star interior OL. Think he’ll play guard or center at Georgia.”

Jamauri Brice – 5-11, 180, Junior WR/CB – 22 offers including Vandy, Louisville, Cincinnati and Oregon. Career Stats: 69-1,122 yards receiving - 9 TD. Nephew of former Clemson Tigers star LB and Atlanta Falcon Vic Beasley. Coach Foster: “Been a warrior and already played a lot of snaps. We’ve got to get him some more touches. He’s been so selfless. Tremendous teammate blocks his tail off.”

Langston Hogg – 6-2, 250, Sophomore OL – Six offers including Vandy and Oregon. Coach Foster: “Just a pup but nasty football player. Tad undersized and will play inside the next level.”

Luke Surrett – 6-4, 305, Senior OL – Committed to Richmond over seven other offers including East Carolina.

Khristian Lando – 6-1, 195, Senior RB/LB – Five offers including Georgia State, Coastal Carolina, and Charlotte. Career rushing stats: 172-1,072 yards - 20 TD.

Connor Brasfield – 6-2, 220, Senior LB/TE – Offered by Sewanee. Season Stats: Team-leading 55 TT - 4 QBS - 12 TFL - 2 FF - 1 FR - 1 INT. Coach Foster: “Throwback player. What our program is all about.”

Richard Houston – 5-10, 195, Senior LB/RB – Offered by Sewanee. Season Stats: 43-271 yards rushing - 6.3 avg - 2 TD. Defense: 24 TT – 3 TFL – 1 SAF

Cole Crawford – 6-3, 205, Freshman LB/TE – Season Stats: 17 TT, 6 TFL. 4-54 yards receiving. Son of former Houston County Head Coach Ryan Crawford who is now running Cartersville’s eighth-grade program. Considered one of the top baseball catchers in the country in the Class of 2027. Coach Foster: “He’ll be one of the top college football prospects in the country by the time he’s a senior. Can be a lot like Brock Bowers for us.”

Ryan Johnson – 6-3, 170, Senior Kicker/Punter – Season Stats: 40.8 punting average is No. 3 in 5A. 30 of 33 Kickoffs have been touchbacks. Committed to Georgia baseball as RHP with 91 MPH fastball. Coach Foster: “Think he can kick at the next level.”

Andrew Purdy – 6-2, 195, Junior QB – Back-up to sophomore starter Nate Russell. Committed to Alabama baseball. Rated the No. 6 shortstop in Georgia in the Class of 2025 and the 15th overall player.

So, join Wayne Gandy, Jon Nelson, Hannah Goodin, and me for our Emmy Award-winning Football Fridays in Georgia Game of the Week as the Cartersville Purple Hurricanes host the Hiram Hornets starting at 7:30 p.m. Remember at halftime Hannah will highlight this week’s Make That Kid an Offer nominees.

You can watch Football Fridays in Georgia in so many ways. You have traditional TV (GPB), online at GPB.org, GPB Sports app, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch.

Now if somehow, you miss it live or just want to watch it again, don’t worry, we replay the entire Football Fridays in Georgia Game of the Week at 11:30 p.m. or you can watch it on demand anytime at GPB.org.

Enjoy your Football Friday in Georgia!

The city made its decision on Crown Inn, which sits at North Tennessee Street in Cartersville, following an inspection.

CARTERSVILLE, Ga. — A locally-owned motel was condemned due to "life safety violations" in Cartersville, forcing all guests to vacate within 48 hours, according to the city on Friday.

The city made its decision on Crown Inn, which sits at North Tennessee Street in Cartersville, following an inspection that revealed alarming shortcomings within the property that prompted authorities to intervene.

Dozens of the motel residents are now scrambling to find another place to live. Guests were notified of the situation and given a 48-hour window to arrange alternative accommodations. The city said that as of Friday, everyone had left.

Rupesh Shah, the manager, added that the 20 families who lived here had very little notice.

Shah said they are making repairs right now, like removing microwaves, updating bathrooms, painting, and fixing the smoke detectors. He hopes to be open again soon.

Cartersville officials did not provide any specifics about the motel's condition. Read the full statement from the city below.

Ensuring the safety and well-being of our community members is our top priority. With this commitment in mind, we address the recent situation concerning the Crown Inn located at 1214 N Tennessee Street. Following an inspection conducted by code enforcement, this property has been condemned due to identified life safety violations. As a result, guests staying at the property were promptly informed and given 48 hours to secure alternative accommodations.

We are grateful for the cooperation of all guests and owners during this process. Yesterday, our Senior Code Enforcement Officer, alongside the fire department, confirmed that all guests had vacated the property without incident.

Code Enforcement has an active court case regarding this property and will follow court directives.

We appreciate the swift response and cooperation of all involved parties.

There will be a hearing on March 18. The city attorney said a judge will decide if any fines are owed by the owners and if the motel can open again.

For now, The Good Neighbor Homeless Shelter is two miles from the motel. If they fill up, there are other shelters that can help as well. Here's a link to a directory.

A donor-advised fund (DAF) devoted to supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals has leapt from being a relatively minor charity to one with an asset size comparable to behemoths like the Andrew W. Mellon and the David and Lucile Packard foundations.

The SDG Impact Fund, based in Cartersville, Georgia, grew from $238 million in assets in 2020 to $10 billion in 2021. That eye-popping growth, which seems to have been fueled by the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies and digital art assets, has prompted some questions from philanthropy and tax experts.

The less stringent legal reporting requirements for DAFs compared with private foundations make it hard to understand SDG Impact Fund’s massive growth. It’s impossible to know where donations came from because donor-advised funds are not required to identify donors. Nor is it clear how the DAF put its donations to charitable use or whether donors to the fund are receiving any benefits. SDG Impact’s leaders did not respond to repeated requests for answers to questions related to the fund’s assets, growth, and donations.

DAFs have quickly become one of the most powerful forces in philanthropy, partly because the law allows people to put assets into a donor-advised fund, take an immediate tax deduction, but then wait indefinitely to use the money to make a charitable contribution. Donors are under no deadline to make gifts from their accounts — unlike foundations, which are required to pay out 5% in total assets every year in charitable giving.

“One of the biggest problems with philanthropy we see nowadays is that a lot of what wealthy donors do with their charity is perfectly legal but ethically problematic,” said Helen Flannery, a fellow at the progressive Institute for Policy Studies. “It’s in keeping with the letter of charity law but not its spirit.”

The quick rise of SDG Impact Fund

The SDG Impact Fund was founded as a nonprofit in 2013 by Anthony Suber and Amber Nystrom, whose backgrounds are in finance and wealth management, and Colborn Bell, founder of the crypto investment advisory firm Finite Square Well and founder-director of the Museum of Crypto Art.

In 2018, a news release described the fund as the first to accept all types of crypto, token and digital assets to support the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, 17 interlinked global objectives designed to reduce hunger, improve the environment and increase equality.

By 2022, many of the board members had ties to the crypto industry. They included Vincent Molinari, co-founder of the Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development, and Bryan Doreian, who serves as an adviser to PIVX, a cryptocurrency founded in 2015.

Donor-advised funds have long touted their ability to liquidate noncash gifts like stock and collectible art and turn them into charitable dollars. In recent years, as crypto soared to dizzying heights and then plummeted, large donor-advised funds like Fidelity Charitable reported huge swings in crypto donations. (Cryptocurrency is digital money exchanged through a computer network that is not reliant on or maintained by a government or bank.)

In 2021, donors gave the equivalent of $331 million in crypto to Fidelity accounts, up from $28 million the previous year, likely because high crypto valuations in 2021 allowed them to make larger gifts and lock in larger tax deductions. In 2022, the amount was down to $38 million, as the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange roiled the market for digital currency.

Flannery and Brian Mittendorf, an accounting professor specializing in nonprofits at Ohio State University, were researching donor-advised funds when they came across SDG Impact Fund’s 990 filings with the Internal Revenue Service.

They found that most of the donations to the SDG Impact Fund in 2021 came in the form of noncash assets, such as art and collectibles, as well as crypto-gifts, including nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, which are unique digital assets that are often traded as art.

The SDG Impact Fund’s assets skyrocketed over a couple of years — and stayed in the stratosphere. In 2017, the fund reported $117,000 in assets. By 2020, that had ballooned to $238 million. Then, on its 2021 Form 990, the fund reported $10 billion in assets.

Perhaps more remarkable than its steep rise in 2021 is the fact it reported roughly the same asset figure in 2022, when crypto values plummeted and new donations to the fund dwindled to about $13.6 million.

Flannery and Mittendorf said that the fund’s last two annual 990 filings raise questions about whether the fund’s main purpose of late has been to increase tax benefits for donors who held NFTs and cryptocurrency with highly appreciated values.

SDG Impact Fund’s high asset value in 2022 is curious to art adviser Todd Levin because cryptocurrency plummeted that year and NFT values “were in the toilet.” That the fund did not record a sharp reduction in value in 2022 raises a lot of questions, says Andie Kramer, a lawyer who specializes in cryptocurrency transactions.

Those questions are difficult to answer based on publicly accessible information. For instance, it is unclear how much of the gifts SDG Impact received were from NFTs or cryptocurrency. The fund reported more than $9.8 billion in noncash donations in 2021, which could include NFTs, cryptocurrency, nondigital artwork, and equity and stock holdings.

But on the form’s Schedule M, where nonprofits list noncash donations, the fund itemized less than $2 billion, meaning that donations of nearly $8 billion that year were not accounted for in the filing, according to Mittendorf.

Mittendorf said that providing a complete itemization would help people understand the nature of the gifts they received.

“Taking into account the scale of assets we are talking about, this is an outlier that certainly deserves additional explanation,” he said.

The latest IRS tax filing is not signed by an independent accounting firm, which Kramer says is unusual for a fund of that size.

“If you had $10 billion, would you be filling out this form yourself?” asked Kramer.

The SDG Impact Fund’s leaders declined to comment or answer questions about the IRS filings posted on its website for 2021 and 2022.

Donating 0.1% of assets

SDG Impact Fund’s website states its “giving is aligned with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. In addition to charitable gifts, the fund provides systemic and regenerative impact investment and frontier tech-enabled opportunities for catalytic gifts that have the opportunity to grow over time.”

On its website, the fund allows donors to click on links to contribute to any of 16 causes. They include Gaia Gives, a crowdfunding platform dedicated to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals through “storytelling and engagement,” and the Costa Rica Regenerative Retreat Sanctuary, where visitors “level up your life so you can be more productive in sharing your gifts with the world, making a lasting positive change for humanity.”

Another link on the site’s “impact” section leads to “Donate to Win,” which offers participants the chance to buy into a lottery for tickets to a Taylor Swift concert and a college football game.

The website does not explain how these tickets are related to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDG Impact site also does not indicate how much each cause received. (Donor-advised funds are only required to identify grantees that receive more than $5,000.)

One criticism of DAFs is that they allow the wealthy to derive benefits from charitable giving — without the actual charitable-giving part, at least not at the time they receive the tax benefit.

In 2021, the first year the SDG Impact Fund reported its $10 billion asset figure, it made $4.3 million in grants, according to its 990 form.

The following year, it reported $8.5 million in grants from its 146 donor-advised fund accounts, meaning less than one-tenth of a percent of its asset base went to charitable causes.

Given the dearth of information, Flannery is dubious that much of the $10 billion valuation will ever be directed to actual charities advancing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. She said the lack of information about who is making donations and how exactly the fund is using them is symptomatic of the lack of transparency of donor-advised funds.

“We need to make sure that donors aren’t using donor-advised funds for creative tax avoidance,” she said. “We need to make sure that we’re getting charitable works back.”

Switch is planning a new data center campus in Bartow County, Georgia.

According to the Developments of Regional Impact filings (DRI, 1-2), Switch is planning the “Switch KEEP 2.0 Atlanta North Campus” in the City of Cartersville.

The 126-acre site is located south of the intersection of Old Alabama Rd and Bates Rd to the Paulding County line within Cartersville. The land is currently owned by Carter Grove (Atlanta) ASLI VI.

In one filing, this phase of the project is described as “a single data center facility approximately 1,620ft (493m) in length.”

The company intends to invest $772 million in the campus. The first phase of the project is set to complete in Q2 2026, with continued build-out to 2046.

Switch is yet to announce the project.

This property that Switch is targeting was reportedly previously part of future phases of the Carter Grove residential community. When work began in the early 2000s, developers planned up to 2,500 homes. There are currently around 400 in the area.

Cartersville City Planner David Hardegree told SoosaValleyNews the DRI is a 30-day public review process that should officially start on Friday. After 30 days, the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission will collect any received comments and create a report. During the 30 days, the City of Cartersville will evaluate a zoning application and a text amendment application. The text amendment is needed because the city does not have an existing zoning district to accommodate a data center campus that Switch envisions for the property.

Cartersville and Bartow County are located northeast of Atlanta.

DigitalBridge-owned Switch operates one of its Prime campuses in Georgia. Switch Atlanta – known as the Keep and located in Douglas County west of Atlanta – offers a total of 150MW across more than 1 million sq ft (92,900 sqm). Plans for the site were first announced in 2017.

Switch operates its other large 'Prime' data center campuses in Reno, Las Vegas, and Grand Rapids. It is building a large data center in Texas, where it also bought Data Foundry for $420 million.

Switch also retains a stake in the SuperNAP facility in Bangkok, Thailand. The company also has an Edge business with Dell building Edge data centers at FedEx locations across the US.

DigitalBridge, alongside IFM Investors, took Switch private in an $11bn deal in December 2022. Australian pension fund Aware Super invested in the company earlier this year.