On Monday, December 3, 2012, Larry Callahan, Chief of Police for the city of Ellijay, royally entertained our Rotarians with some very true, but very funny stories.On a serious note, Chief Callahan described the department’s new state of the art communications system including their own license and a new communications tower. The city of Ellijay, the city of East Ellijay and the Ellijay-Gilmer County Water and Sewer Authority shared in the cost of this new tower.

Chief Callahan also has applied for and received several grants to support department upgrades. As a result, each officer in the police department has a new radio and their vehicles are now equipped with computers. Traffic tickets are printed by the computer and the offence is automatically sent to the Superior Court Judges.

The Chief also informed us that SCAMS are the big thing today. Some 300,000 scams have been reported including an Ellijay couple who, against his advice, paid and lost $5,000 to a scammer.

Submitted by Jack Nunn, Public Relations Director, Rotary Club of Gilmer County.