The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • B1

Filename: B1-METRO-AJCD0207-AJCD DateTime created: Feb 6 2013 Username: SPEEDDRIVER02 Magenta Black ib AJCD Thursday, Feb 07, 2013 METRO IB The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013 Teen gets life sentence in samurai sword killing. News: newstipsajc.com or 404-526-7003 Delivery: ajc.comcustomercare or 404-522-4141 DEKALB SCHOOLS ETHICS Board can't pick new chief District's leaders fail to muster a majority; former chairman remains. UNMATCHED COVERAGE The Atlanta Journal-Constitution continues to cover the DeKalb school system as it remains on probation with its accreditation agency. On Wednesday theschool board met but could not select a new chairman.

can be replaced in the next 30 days if a majority of the members present at a given meeting agree on another candidate. The board did select a vice chairman though: Jim McMahan, one of three new board members, got five votes. Next came a grim update on finances. For fiscal year 2014, which begins in July, Chief Finance Office Michael Perrone projects a further decline in revenues coupled with rising costs for expenses such as health care. He told the school board they can anticipate receiving $18 million less in state and local revenue with a $6 million increase in fixed costs.

DeKalb schools continued on B7 ByTyTagami ttagamiajc.com They tried and tried again Wednesday, but the nine members of the DeKalb County school board still couldn't find five votes to elect a new leader. Their failure to muster a majority behind a choice for school board chairman in 2013 means former board chair Eugene Walker retains the title, at least for the time being. Walker got four votes against two other nominees and four again in a runoff when two board members abstained. Storm recovery pushes ahead An accreditation agency has placed the system on probation due in part to school board fractiousness. Their lukewarm endorsement of their leader didn't give teachers' representative David Schutten much cause for hope.

"If they can't even come together to elect a board chair, how can they come together to get off probation," said Schutten, president of the Organization of DeKalb Educators. He was among the handful of observers able to attend the specially called morning meeting. 1 It was at least the fourth attempt to hold a vote, with prior exercises canceled for one reason or another, most recently on Monday, for failure to properly advertise the meeting. By getting the most votes of any candidate Wednesday, Walker remains chairman but Vf somehow missed the path of the 160 mph EF3 tornado. Her uncle's house next door, a brick ranch built in 1963, was not as lucky.

Brown's terminally ill uncle, Sammy Ellis, is bedridden and couldn't get out of his home when three enormous trees uprooted nearby, with one crushing the roof above his head. Water flowed out of light fixtures as Ellis waited to be rescued, Brown said. For Brown, who now lives State could disbar official Atlanta City Council member accused of legal violations. Court action may affect re-election plans. By Jeremiah McWilliams jmcwilliamsajc.com The court-appointed lawyer overseeing the State Bar of Georgia's formal complaint against Lamar Willis has recommended that the Atlanta city councilman be disbarred for serious violations of legal rules.

Those violations include depositing thousands of dollars meant for a young client into his own personal account. If approved by the Georgia Supreme Court, the recommendation would end Willis' ability to practice law in Georgia and could throw into confusion his plans to seek reelection in November. Willis declined to comment on Tuesday. On Monday, he said in an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the problems arose partly because he was distracted by his own divorce proceedings. He said he did not steal the money but admitted to not dispersing the funds in a timely manner.

He said the money, $30,000, has been returned. Documents the AJC obtained show Willis did not respond to the formal complaint after he was personally served with it on Nov. 4. According to the report written by Joseph Szczecko, the lawyer who investigated for the bar, that meant the facts alleged and the violations charged were treated as if Willis admitted them. "There are no mitigating factors in this case," Szczecko wrote.

Willis did not get an extension of time to respond, and did not provide an explanation or evidence of mitigating circumstances, according to the report. Several factors made the case even more serious, according to Szczecko's eight-page report. Szczecko, a Decatur attorney, said aggravating factors included multiple offenses, obstruction of Disbar continued on B6 ties," Broun said. "Georgians aren't interested in labels or affiliations. They're interested in solutions.

And that begins by making Washington smaller and America bigger." Georgia's most conservative congressman has always gone his own way. In his first speech for the Senate, Broun described the "lonely fight" he's waged on spending in Congress since 2007. Last Insidercontinuedon B7 Adairsville's rebuilding could take 'a year or even two or By Alexis Stevens astevensajc.com ADAIRSVILLE Large blue tarps hide gaping holes where there once were roofs and windows. Piles of debris, chunks of trees and large machinery line the streets. It has been a week since a powerful tornado ripped through two northwest Georgia counties.

Cleanup continued Wednesday afternoon, but the recovery could take years. The small town of Adairsville, however, is ready to move on, vowing that the biggest storm anyone can remember was not enough to push residents away. "This is just home. I've been here all my life," Jill Brown told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I just can't believe this happened.

I've never seen anything like it anywhere." Nearly 100 structures were damaged in Adairsville and at least an additional 400 in neighboring Gordon County, officials said. Some homes and businesses, such as the Daeki plant in Adairsville, are complete losses, while others have varying degrees of damage. "The city as a whole will see some normalcy soon," Adairsville Police Chief Robert Jones said in his office Wednesday Volunteer Timmy Sanders (left) assists William Lopez as he tries to salvage his trailer in downtown Adairsville on Wednesday, a week after a deadly tornado slammed into the area, killing one person. KENT D. JOHNSON KDJOHNSONAJC.COM in Farmville, the past week is not one she ever wants to repeat, and the shock of it all still hasn't worn off.

At her uncle's house, where there was once a lush front yard with a small fountain and a row of bushes, there is now a muddy mess of trees and limbs. A hole the width of the driveway appears to have swallowed up the bottom half of a tree. Cleanup continued on B7 Broun jumps into Senate race WATCHING YOUR TAX DOLLARS Fulton commission boosts its budget afternoon. "But the rebuilding could take a year or even two or three." Nearly everyone in town was affected by the storm, which killed one man and injured other people in a matter of minutes. And everyone has a story, recounting where they were and the nightmare of the past week.

But the storm didn't damage the sense of community here. Brown grew up on McK-enzie Street in a house that ance this year's budget. Commissioners say their budget is a small fraction of total county spending, so there is little savings to be had. They say they need sufficient staff and resources to serve taxpayers. "We are the front line in terms of being able to listen and respond to constituent needs," Chairman John Eaves said.

Others say it doesn't make sense to leave the commission budget untouched when other departments are shrinking and taxpayers are seeking relief. "What kind of example does that set when it's a belt-tightening budget?" said Jim Honkisz, president of the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation. On Jan. 23, commissioners approved a $572 million general fund budget, which pays Fulton continued on B7 Rep. Paul Broun makes a formal announcement to run as a Republican to take Saxby Chambliss' seat in the U.S.

Senate at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Atlanta on Wednesday, hyosub shin hshinajc.com Three staffers get pay raises as programs, agencies suffer cuts. By David Wickert dwickertajc.com As they scoured a proposed 2013 budget for savings, Fulton County commissioners talked of tough times and shared sacrifice. But they forgot to include themselves. Even as they recently cut spending for youth and arts programs and various county agencies, they boosted their own budget and increased the salaries of three commission staffers the only three employees out of a workforce of 5,700 to get raises this year. The commission plans to spend about $495,000 more this year on itself than it did last year.

That's more than the cuts made to youth and arts programs which helped bal Jim Galloway Political Insider With three fist pumps and a shout, U.S. Rep. Paul Broun on Wednesday leaped into the 2014 race for the U.S. Senate -and thumbed his nose at Karl Rove and other establishment Republicans who see the Georgia congressman as a threat to the national GOP's effort to revive itself. "I'm not intimidated," Broun said in the crush of reporters that followed his announcement.

And then he was quickly back on message. No mention of President Barack Obama's allegiance to the Soviet Constitution, no description of evolution or the big bang or embryology as "lies straight from the pit of hell." "The only thing that intimidates me is this looming financial meltdown," Broun said, returning to the only topic that he laid out before a small group of enthusiastic supporters at a Buckhead hotel. But even as he made his on-message debut as the first Republican in next year's contest to replace U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Broun hinted that he was ready to take issue with Republicans who would prefer that he stay out.

"America's speeding toward a financial meltdown. Senseless behavior like this has been exhibited by both par Black IB AJCD File name: B1-METRO-AJCD0207-AJCD DateTime created: Feb 6 Username: SPEEDDRIVER02 Magenta.