Hometown Headlines Radio Edition: Local news without the static.

Direct from Studio 1A, today's news and views from Hometown Headlines. Join our news blasts each weekday morning.

Our next long-form podcast will post Monday, June 17 (evening).

Now on our podcast page: An audio version of our interview with Dr. Jon Hershey on Community Watch. Topic: The not-so-secret origin of our podcast edition.

The June 12 edition of "Community Watch" with Dr. Jon Hershey includes an interview with us about the launch of the Hometown Headlines Podcast. Please join us for a 30-minute talk about the podcast, radio, city politics and the upcoming elections. "Community Watch" broadcasts exactly as it is being presented on other platforms. We've added our intro music and a brief recap of this, our first "imported" podcast to the Hometown network.

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To listen, simply click HHPodcast. We'll even text you when the podcasts are hot and ready: please type HHpodcasts and text 313131. 

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Almost live from Studio 1A:

-The fastest 90 seconds of news in the nation, all from Northwest Georgia.

-Local sports and your weather.

-Today's newsmakers (two local birthdays).

-Peaks & Valleys, the highs and lows of Northwest Georgia extended edition. Today's focus: downtown parking, ugly aftermath.

For more on each: http://bit.ly/HometownHeadlines

 Almost live from studio 1A:

 From Studio 1A

Hometown Headlines's first long-form podcast (45 minutes) focuses on parking in downtown Rome, including problems and what's possibly ahead.  Two of the most passionate people we know when it comes to downtown Rome, Harry Brock and Jay Shell, join host John Druckenmiller to review perhaps the story of the year in Northwest Georgia. 

Recorded in the new podcast center at Brand Red studio off Fifth Avenue and Bale Street, the two downtown business owners talk about the parking battles that have consumed restaurant and business owners, the Downtown Development Authority and City Hall as well as the most critical element that all sides practically ignored -- customers. Make that angry customers.

They talk about restaurant owners seeing sales drop by thousands of dollars this year vs. last, in part because of the duplicated smoking ordinances but also the roll out of new parking requirements. Even their most loyal customers tell of plans to abandon regular trips to Broad Street  as they're tired of the hassles they experience when they try to come downtown to spend money.

Both Brock and Shell see Monday's scheduled second and final reading of City Commissioner Craig McDaniel's proposal to grant three hours of free parking daily and rolling back enforcement to 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday as just a baby step toward needed efforts to change the perception of downtown shopping and dining. And that's assuming commissioners vote in favor of it; a no vote effectively would table the idea and they fear an even larger customer backlash if that happens.

Both also are watching the potential impact of the East Bend center (formerly Kmart) and its 20 to 28 new stores and restaurants; they're concerned about how much business could be sucked off Broad Street and into a retail center with plenty of free parking.

These next four days leading up to the 6:30 p.m. Monday City Commission meeting are critical. Join us for our downtown parking podcast to get a better understanding of what's gone on and what's ahead.

On today's Hometown Headlines Podcast: 

WEEKDAY OBSERVATIONS

What Evie McNiece's decision means to an already hot City Commission race.

And a suggestion to add parking meetings at Rome's newest retail sensation?

 Our headlines for this Tuesday: