Federal regulators have put five Georgia banks on notice.
     And two of them are in our area.
     They are the First Bank of Dalton and the Northwest Georgia Bank in Ringgold.
     The list also includes the Bank of Ellijay.
     Regulators say the banks must raise their capital levels along with other steps to improve their balance sheets.
     The orders were issued last month.. But only made public this week.
     Georgia leads the nation in bank foreclosures this year because of a booming housing market that went bust.
     About a third of all the banks in the state now face some sort of federal scrutiny.
     First Bank and Northwest Georgia now join those ranks.
     They made the list by racking up an increasing number of bad loans.
     Northwest Georgia is the largest and oldest of the five put on the list this time.
     The bank is more than a hundred years old.