Casimir Pulaski, a Polish aristocrat who fought with the colonists in the American Revolution, died in Savannah on October 11, 1779.
Former Confederate President Alexander Stephens was released from federal prison on October 12, 1865 and returned to Georgia.
On October 13, 1870, Governor Rufus Bullock signed legislation creating the Georgia State Board of Education.
On October 13, 1885, Governor Henry McDaniel signed legislation authorizing the creation of a state school of technology as a branch of the University of Georgia; the school would open in Atlanta in October 1888, and in 1948 was renamed the Georgia Institute of Technology.
On October 13, 1918, the ban on public gatherings in Atlanta to prevent spread of the Spanish flu, was extended an additional week.
The first game in Sanford Stadium was played on October 12, 1929, with the University of Georgia Bulldogs beating the Yale Bulldogs. Here is ten minutes of the game.
On October 12, 1958, The Temple was bombed after a phone call to WSB warned that Black churches and Jewish temples would be blown up.
On October 13, 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter received a post-debate bump against President Gerald Ford, with polls showing Carter at 50%-40% over the incumbent, up from 47%-45% before the debate.
Former Georgia Governor and President of the United States Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 11, 2002.
Bobby Cox managed his last game in Game Four of the NLDS on October 11, 2010.
In 2021, President Biden signed a proclamation recognizing October 11 as “General Pulaski Memorial Day,” according to WTOC.
The proclamation was made in honor of Brigadier General Casimir Pulaski, a Polish American hero of the American Revolution.
General Casimir Pulaski is celebrated across the nation in schools, landmarks, and parks such as the Fort Pulaski National Monument. It was established as a national monument in October of 1924.
In the proclamation released by the White House, saying the day is to celebrate his life and the “values shared by the United States and Poland, which underpin the enduring bond of friendship between our countries.”
A Dougherty County historian wants the county’s name stricken from the National Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, according to WALB.
According to an interactive map, over 500 lynchings happened in the state of Georgia. Two of those lynchings are associated with Dougherty County. Clennon King, an Albany native and historian, said documented research and records show otherwise.
“Where the lynching happened of Curley McKelvey was here, down in Dewitt and that’s a mile in a half down the road,” King said.
McKelvey was killed in Mitchell County in 1920, according to King’s records.
King said another man by the name of Thomas Royal, who was murdered and lynched in 1906, was also falsely connected to Dougherty County. He said Royal’s brutal murder actually happened in Acree, Georgia, an unincorporated community just outside of Dougherty County.
Both victim’s names are currently listed under Dougherty County in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.
“That memorial is giving Dougherty County a bad name and that’s the problem,” King said.
The EJI said they plan to correct their data and records the next time they make updates to the memorial. For now, King said he’ll keep writing and sharing the right history.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Former President Bill Clinton will campaign in Georgia on behalf of the Harris-Walz Democratic ticket, according to CNN.
Clinton will start with stops in Georgia on Sunday and Monday, with a bus tour next week in North Carolina expected to follow, pending recovery from the hurricanes.
The emphasis is on counties won by former President Donald Trump. But it’s also on Clinton voters, hoping there are enough left from when he was the last Democratic presidential nominee before Biden to win Georgia in 1992 and that he can reconnect them to a coalition they’ve been steadily dropping out of over the last decade.
Clinton won’t appear at rallies. Going back to a kind of campaigning that he hasn’t done since before he became the “Comeback Kid” in the 1992 New Hampshire primary, Clinton’s schedule is for local fairs and porch rallies, talking to at most a few hundred people at a time.
He will talk about the economy, convinced that this is the issue that the election will come down to for the voters on the fence. He will pick up themes from his Democratic National Convention speech this summer about how Trump is only out for Trump, and how he himself has been out of office for more than 20 years and is still younger than the Republican nominee. He will eat fried foods (maybe even briefly breaking the vegan diet he’s famously kept to since heart surgery).
“He’s an authority on economics and bread and butter issues and the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history,” said Calvin Smyre, a former Georgia state representative who talked to CNN about his warm memories of watching Clinton campaign in the state in 1992. “He has a knack of reaching people.”
The drop off in rural voters has been a huge running concern for Democrats, even as urban populations have grown and tilted increasingly blue, with the Harris campaign tracking a step decline in Democratic support in rural counties between Clinton’s last time on the ballot in 1996 and Biden’s win four years ago.
James Carville, the former Clinton consultant who has long been pushing for his old boss’ return, said he was glad to see it finally happen.
“He’s the best explainer of things there is,” Carville told CNN, stressing that if the election is litigated along his famous “it’s the economy, stupid” lines, Clinton has the credibility to make the case.
Asked if he would have liked to see Clinton out sooner, Carville joked, “The best time to plant an oak tree was 25 years ago. The second best time is now.”
Jason Carter, a former Georgia state senator, said he believes Clinton will be a huge help in southern Georgia and beyond.
“People think of Bill Clinton’s time as the president as a time when this country was doing well, where people were making money, where people weren’t left behind,” Carter said.
But the importance, Carter said, isn’t just about nostalgia.
“It shows people even in Atlanta that this is a kind of campaign that is not trying to make distinctions between rural and urban,” Carter said, arguing that Clinton can help tell the story of working and middle class roots that Harris and Walz have themselves been stressing on the trail.
One Georgia voter, Carter confirmed, is already all in: his grandfather, former President Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 last week and said he’s waiting to vote for Harris from hospice care.
“We’re all waiting for the ballot to show up,” the younger Carter said.
Campaign officials say Clinton’s visit is part of a larger strategy to reach rural Georgia. They also say more than 40,000 volunteers have joined Democratic coordinated campaign on the ground here in Georgia since Vice President Harris announced her candidacy.
Trump’s campaign cast the upcoming visits as a sign of weakness. Georgia GOP chair Josh McKoon said the “sugar rush” toward Harris after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race is wearing off.
“The crash is here and they can bring Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama,” said McKoon. “But all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men can’t put the Harris/Walz campaign together again.”
Governor Brian Kemp signed three Executive Orders appointing Special Counsel to represent the State Election Board in lawsuits where the Georgia Department of Law declined to represent the Board due to a conflict of interest.
Executive Order #10.10.24.01 appoints William “Chip” Collins of Burr & Forman LLP as Special Counsel in the lawsuit filed in August by the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia against the SEB over the hand county rule. From NBC News:
Democrats want a judge to block the Georgia State Election Board’s newly passed requirement for counties to hand-count ballots cast on Election Day, arguing that the eleventh-hour move is unlawful and that it could cause “chaos” in the battleground state.
The board’s controversial 3-2 vote this month “changes the rules of the game in the ninth inning,” read the suit, which was filed by the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia, with support from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
“In sum, the Hand Count Rule is contrary to the Election Code, exceeds the Board’s rulemaking authority” and “violates foundational limits on agencies that are intended to avoid precisely the scenario here—an unelected body unilaterally making significant changes to the law without notice or explanation,” the suit says.
“To protect the sanctity of the state’s laws and to prevent election night chaos, this Court should declare that the Hand Count Rule exceeds SEB’s statutory authority and enjoin that rule from going into effect,” it adds.
The move, which was approved by three board members who’ve been praised by former President Donald Trump, has faced bipartisan opposition, some of it from Georgia’s Republican secretary of state and attorney general, who questioned the rule’s legality.
The rule requires election workers to count the number of ballots — not every vote on a ballot — cast on Election Day before they are delivered to the county for counting and tabulation, sparking concerns it could unnecessarily delay the reporting of results.
DNC acting co-executive director Monica Guardiola said in a statement, “This rule is nothing more than a blatant attempt by Donald Trump and his MAGA lackeys on the Georgia State Election Board to cast doubt on our elections and undermine the outcome.”
Harris’ principal deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, said, “We agree with Georgia’s Republican attorney general and secretary of state: This rule is unproductive and unlawful, and we are fighting it.”
Trump has repeatedly praised the three board members who passed the measure, saying they’re “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”
Executive Order #10.10.24.02 appoints Chip Collins as Special Counsel in the lawsuit filed by the Cobb County Board of Elections against the SEB over the hand count rule. From Cobb County:
The Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration (BOER) has filed a verified petition in Fulton County Superior Court seeking clarity over the State Election Board’s (SEB) recently adopted rules, which significantly altered Election Day procedures 46 days prior to the November General Election.
At its most recent meeting, BOER voted to take action, echoing the legal objections raised by the Georgia Attorney General and Secretary of State to the six new rules adopted by the SEB in September. The lawsuit contends that the SEB’s recently adopted rules are likely invalid because they exceed that board’s statutory authority, were not correctly enacted, are unreasonable, and were adopted too close to the November election.
Among the rules passed by the SEB is a new requirement to hand count ballots on election night at each precinct, which the Secretary of State has said “would disrupt existing chain of custody protocols under the law and needlessly introduce the risk of error, lost ballots, or fraud.” Another rule would alter longstanding policies for poll watcher access in tabulation centers, which could result in overcrowding in already confined spaces, could undermine security, and will restrict election superintendents from determining where observation is most appropriate for their particular tabulation center. Other rules requiring new processes for reconciling ballots would be burdensome to implement this close to the election, especially with poll worker training already underway.
The BOER filing asks the court to determine whether the rules are valid, noting that election officials from around the state have raised “the immense—and likely insurmountable—burdens these last-minute rule changes would create for election workers.”
No hearing date has been set.
Executive Order #10.10.24.03 appoints Chip Collins as Special Counsel in the lawsuit filed by the DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond, the DeKalb County Board of Elections, and DeKalb County against the SEB.
Executive Order #10.10.24.04 appoints Chip Collins as Special Counsel in the lawsuit filed yesterday by the Muscogee County Board of Elections against the SEB. From WTVM:
Five days before early voting starts in Georgia, it will soon be up to a judge to decide if Muscogee County will have to hand count your ballots.
It’s one of many rule changes from the State Election Board that has gained national attention. Now, the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registration will be in court to find out what to do after votes are cast.
The lawsuit claims several things, but the most important is the concern over election workers having to hand count ballots. But you also asked what it will look like for voters. Not much of a difference when they cast their vote, but it’s once the polls are closed that’s coming into question.
We are less than 30 days away from voters heading to the polls for Election Day, but even closer to early voting happening in Georgia, just less than one week away. Now, the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registration has filed a lawsuit claiming last-minute changes to election procedures in the state are too late.
“It would have been extremely difficult to meet the mandates that we have for reporting unofficial and incomplete results on election night, so the board determined that this was the best action.”
That action? Unanimously voting to file a lawsuit against the Georgia State Board of Elections.
“It was a unanimous decision of the 5-member board. There is a Republican and a Democrat and 3 appointed members, and unanimously they thought it important to take a stand.”
The litigation claims the decision to hand count ballots and offer training to more poll workers this close to Election Day would be extremely difficult.
“It’s difficult to manage in 25 precincts with 75 different people to handle the ballots before they are returned to central tabulations.”
“Voters will not see anything different when they go to the precinct at 7 a.m. and it will close at 7 p.m.”
While there isn’t a hearing date, we do know Judge Bobby Peters will hear the case. We will keep you posted.
Nancy Boren, Director of Elections and Registration for Muscogee County says the board filed the petition because of the difficulties last minute changes like these cause.
“So the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registration works tirelessly to provide fair, legal and orderly, orderly elections for Muscogee County voters,” Boren said. “Injecting last minute changes into the process, makes it difficult for the elections administrators and for the poll workers and for the board to continue that process.”
In addition to Muscogee County, the Cobb County election board filed a similar lawsuit. Boren said the decision to file the lawsuit was not a snap decision.
“So not just Muscogee County, but statewide elections officials.” We wrote many letters to the state elections board explaining our position why it would be difficult at the last moment to make these wholesale changes and processes. And our chair of the Board of Elections also wrote a letter and it was on responded to.
The case has been assigned to Muscogee County Superior Court Judge Bobby Peters.
“At the eleventh hour before a Presidential election, the SEB strayed from its charter,” the lawsuit says. “Well after county board of elections have finalized budgets, hired and trained staff, and printed and begun to mail ballots, the SEB has adopted new rules that dramatically change election operations and impose onerous and new obligations on election administrators throughout Georgia.”
But the hand-counting rule would delay election results, the lawsuit says, “which increases voter distrust in the results. Hand-counting also introduces more possibilities for human error, which creates misinformation about the certainty of the election results.”
Mike Coan, executive director of the Georgia Election Board, told the Ledger-Enquirer that although he hasn’t seen the lawsuit, the objections raised about the hand-counting rule are “much ado about nothing.”
Coan emphasized the new rule requires hand counts at each precinct to determine the total number of ballots cast to see whether that figure matches the total number of ballots tabulated by the electronic scanner. The official vote tally for each candidate comes from the electronic scanner, not the hand count, he said.
“This ensures election integrity by starting at the base level, the precinct level, to ensure that the number of ballots equals the number of ballots in the scanner,” Coan said.
Coan estimated at least 20-30 of Georgia’s 159 counties have been doing such hand counts on their own because state law hasn’t prohibited that practice. This new rule now mandates it.
“It basically makes it uniform statewide,” he said.
United States District Judge Eleanor Ross (ND-GA) denied a request to reopen voter registration for the November 5, 2024 General Election due to the impact of Hurricane Helene, according to the Associated Press via Fox5Atlanta.
A federal judge said Thursday that she won’t order the presidential battleground state of Georgia to reopen voter registration for November’s elections despite recent disruptions to registration caused by Hurricane Helene.
Ross said in her verbal ruling Thursday that three groups that sued didn’t sufficiently prove their members were harmed and said there are no state laws allowing Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the Republican defendants in the case, to order an extension of the voter registration deadline. Although the groups presented testimony Thursday that they know of at least two people unable to register, Ross said the testimony wasn’t detailed enough to link that failure to the burdens of Helene.
“I don’t think we had even one voter who had been harmed or would likely be harmed by failure to register to vote,” Ross said.
The state and the Republican Party argued that election processes could be disrupted since absentee ballots have already been mailed and early in-person voting was scheduled to begin Tuesday. Ross seemed to agree with that argument in her ruling.
“The harm to the state’s interests outweighs the plaintiffs’ interests,” Ross said.
The lawsuit filed by the Georgia conference of the NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda and the New Georgia Project had argued that damage and disruptions from Helene unfairly deprived people of the opportunity to register.
All three groups said they had to cancel voter registration activities last week after the hurricane tore through the Southeast. Historically, there’s a spike in Georgia voter registrations just before the deadline, the plaintiffs said.
“Here we’re talking about, in many circumstances, complete disenfranchisement for prospective voters,” Amir Badat, a lawyer for the groups, told Ross. He argued Kemp could extend the deadline using his emergency powers.
But Senior Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Young said there’s a difference between an individual registering to vote and a registration drive by a nonprofit.
“It’s not the right to have a voter registration drive,” she argued. “It’s the right to vote.”
Georgia has 8.2 million registered voters, according to online records from Raffensperger’s office. But with Georgia’s presidential race having been decided by only 12,000 votes in 2020, a few thousand votes could make a difference in whether Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris wins the state’s 16 electoral votes.
The lawsuit said the hurricane kept people with driver’s licenses from registering online because of widespread power and internet outages in the eastern half of the state and kept people from registering in person because at least 37 county election offices were closed for parts of last week. The lawsuit also notes that mail pickup and delivery was suspended in 27 counties, including the cities of Augusta, Savannah, Statesboro, Dublin and Vidalia.
At least 40 advocacy groups asked Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Raffensperger to extend the registration deadline in affected counties before the Georgia lawsuit was filed.
From the Savannah Morning News:
Attorneys for Kemp and Raffensperger argued that the governor did not have the proper authority to extend the deadline under Georgia law, a point the plaintiffs refuted.
“The governor clearly has the authority to extend the deadline, he has done so in the past,” said NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Amir Badat during the hearing, referencing a 2016 court decision that extended the voter registration deadline in Chatham County in the wake of Hurricane Matthew.
However, defendants argued that extending the deadline — especially on a statewide scale — would impose an undue burden on local election officials, some of whom have been severely impacted by the storm.
“There’s a reason that the electoral machinery is set up the way that it is,” said Elizabeth Young, the senior assistant attorney general, who represented Kemp and Raffensperger in the suit. With regard to election officials, she added, “their focus right now is right where it should be: On making sure those who are registered can get in and vote.”
The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party, which joined the case as intervenors, also invoked the Purcell principle, a precedent which stipulates that courts should avoid implementing last-minute changes to election rules, both because it could confuse voters and because it can cause difficulties for the local officials tasked with administering the election.
“The Purcell decision is even stronger during emergencies,” said Brad Carver, a lawyer for the Republican Party….
Attorneys for the plaintiffs declined to comment when asked if they would appeal the case to the 11th circuit.
Attorneys for the state and the Georgia Republican Party argued that neither Kemp nor Raffensperger had the authority to extend the voter registration deadline. That power, they argued, lies with voter registration officials in Georgia’s 159 counties, who were not parties to the lawsuit.
The state’s attorneys also argued that the hurricane had not significantly hindered voter registration. In the week leading up to the deadline, counties processed nearly 47,000 voter registrations and were still processing tens of thousands more.
Nine current and former Republican legislators filed suit against the State Election Board over their rulemaking, according to Fox5Atlanta.
“They’re supposed to implement laws, not make them,” said former Georgia Senate President Pro Tem and Chair of RightCount, Eric Johnson.
He, along with eight other former and current Republican state lawmakers, filed a 26-page brief challenging the legality of the rule changes the State Election Board made over the last two weeks.
Those lawmakers include Georgia state Rep. Jodi Lott, former state Rep. Allen Peake, former state Rep. Brett Harrell, former state Rep. Mike Dudgeon, former state Rep. Tom Kirby, former state Rep. Ken Pullin, former state Rep. Marc Morris and former state Rep. Heath Clark.
“They are making laws and have crossed a boundary of the division of government,” Johnson said.
The Fulton County Board of Elections filed a lawsuit against the State Election Board over proposed monitors of the General Elections, according to Fox5Atlanta.
In a bold move, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections sued the state board over its insistence that its elections be monitored by so-called election deniers who support former President Donald Trump.
Early voting gets underway here at the C.T. Martin Center next week, but the Fulton County Elections Board and the State Elections Board are still very much at odds.
The Republicans and Democrats on the Fulton County Elections Board sparred over a lawsuit filed Monday by that same board.
The problem is the Republicans said they knew nothing about the lawsuit until after the filing.
Fulton County appointed and heard from a monitoring team led by Ryan Germany, former general counsel for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. But Trump-aligned members of the state board, who are at odds with Raffensperger over his handling of the 2020 election, want to add their deniers to Germany’s team.
Germany has support from Jonathan Stonestreet of the Carter Center.
They have already identified 70 monitors for early voting and 150 for Election Day.
“We are preparing for the observation of in person voting and two, we are observing the pre-election process,” Ryan Germany said.
Early voting begins Tuesday in all 177 voting sites for Fulton County.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville dismissed a lawsuit by Democratic legislators that sought the removal of members of the State Election Board, according to the Capitol Beat News Service via the Ledger-Enquirer.
A Fulton County Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to force Gov. Brian Kemp to schedule an administrative hearing on whether to remove three members of the State Election Board.
The ruling by Judge Ural Glanville sided with a legal opinion Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr released last month asserting that the plaintiffs in the case don’t have the legal authority to make such a demand.
State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth; Cathy Woolard, a former chair of the Fulton County Board of Registration & Elections; and Democratic Senate candidate Randall Mangham filed suit after the board’s three Republican members – Janice Johnston, Janelle King, and former state Sen. Rick Jeffares – adopted controversial changes to state election rules that, among other things, would empower local election officials to delay or refuse to certify election results and require ballots to be hand counted on Election Night.
Democrats say the chaos and uncertainty such changes could create following the Nov. 5 presidential election could lead to former President Donald Trump capturing Georgia’s 16 electoral votes even if Vice President Kamala Harris has won more of the state’s popular vote.
After the lawsuit was filed, Kemp asked Carr for his opinion on whether the phrase “upon charges being filed” in state law means a citizen can present information about a state board member that might constitute formal charges.
“It is my official opinion that … the phrase … does not mean that a citizen can simply submit information to the governor and trigger the hearing process contemplated,” Carr wrote in response.
On Wednesday, Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of the voting rights group Fair Fight, criticized Glanville’s ruling as a “disappointing setback” for Georgia voters.
“How can it be that unelected government bureaucrats cannot be held accountable?” she said. “By refusing to require Governor Kemp to investigate the illegal actions of the Trump-endorsed Election Board members, the court missed a critical opportunity to ensure accountability for bad-faith actors who are undermining our election process.”
Governor Kemp and Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper provided an update on agricultural consequences of Hurricane Helene, according to a Press Release.
“We depend on our farmers and timber growers to provide the food and fibers we use every day and that drives our economy as part of Georgia’s No. 1 industry,” said Governor Brian Kemp. “Following the immense losses caused by Hurricane Helene, and with Hurricane Milton possibly bringing further impacts to our state, I’m urging all of our local, state, and federal partners to join efforts in bringing them relief. That’s why we’re calling on the federal government and Congress to act quickly in appropriating relief funds and helping them rebuild their livelihoods.”
The CAES released also released a preliminary report today estimating agricultural damages from Hurricane Helene will cost Georgia’s economy at least $6.46 billion. This figure represents the sum of direct crop losses, losses to businesses that support agriculture and forestry, losses to workers in those related industries, and estimated recovery and restoration costs that agricultural businesses will face. This estimate is based on projections by UGA commodity analysts, Georgia Forestry Commission foresters, and a model of the Georgia State Economy. This estimate should be interpreted as preliminary, as it will take months to understand the full scope of Helene’s damage.
“Right now, the future is uncertain for thousands of Georgia farmers and farm families who were devastated by Hurricane Helene,” said Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper. “We are working around the clock with state, federal, and industry leaders to deliver federal aid to Georgia farmers to help them recover and bounce back stronger than before. I’m proud to see our entire Georgia delegation rallying around and supporting the Georgia farmers who fuel the success of our state’s #1 industry, and we will not stop working until we’ve delivered the relief our Georgia farmers and producers need.”
Hurricane Helene is the third named storm to hit the State of Georgia in the past thirteen months, and it could not have come at a worse time for Georgia farmers and producers who were already facing economic hardship caused by inflation, high input costs, and depressed commodity prices. Prior to Helene, US Net Farm Income was projected to drop by $6.5 billion in 2024, following a decline of $35.6 billion in 2023.
Agriculture is Georgia’s No. 1 industry – contributing more than $83 billion to our state’s economy on an annual basis and employing more than 320,000 Georgians. On September 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene ripped through Georgia, leaving catastrophic damage in her wake and devastating our state’s agricultural community and thousands of farm families in its path.
“I have seen the devastation first-hand in visits to the affected regions, and I have heard of the struggles our friends and neighbors have faced since Hurricane Helene,” said UGA CAES Dean Nick Place. “From significant losses in the agricultural sector to challenges meeting basic needs like food and water, it has been a difficult time for Georgians. We’ve seen agricultural producers across the state dealing with power loss and property damage, both of which have short- and long-term effects on their crops and livelihood. In the coming weeks and months, it will be critical that we do all we can to support Georgia producers as they navigate lost income and determine the next steps forward in their operations. The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and University of Georgia Cooperative Extension stands ready to provide support in continued damage assessment and rebuilding our state’s No. 1 industry: agriculture.”
Building on calls from leaders in impacted states, participants in today’s press conference called for needed action to help Georgia farmers impacted by the storm. As with past storms, federal relief will be needed for Georgia’s No. 1 industry to recover. As Governor Kemp and Commissioner Harper have shared since before Helene’s arrival, impacted farmers should continue documenting the damage their operations have sustained to help ensure they are made whole.
Weathered But Strong: Georgia Hurricane Relief Fund
In response to Hurricane Helene, 40+ agriculture industry organizations, led by the Georgia Department of Agriculture, Georgia Farm Bureau, and Georgia Foundation for Agriculture, have joined together to create the Weathered But Strong: Georgia Hurricane Relief Fund. 100% of donations to the fund will go to help impacted Georgia farmers recover from Hurricane Helene. More information is available at www.supportgeorgiafarmers.org.
From the Capitol Beat News Service via the Augusta Chronicle:
Hurricane Helene caused at least $6.46 billion in losses to Georgia farmers, according to preliminary estimates released Thursday by the University of Georgia College of Agriculture & Environmental Science.
That represents direct crop losses, losses to businesses that support agriculture and forestry, losses to workers in those related industries, and estimated recovery and restoration costs that agricultural businesses will face.
Those losses could well go higher, as it will take months to understand the full scope of the damage.
United States Senator Jon Ossoff (D-Atlanta) pressed congressional colleagues on agriculture relief for Georgia, according to the Valdosta Daily Times.
Saying action was urgently needed to help storm-stricken farmers, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) said Wednesday Congress needs to step in with a disaster relief program.
Speaking to press and political leadership in a Zoom call, Ossoff said 34 senators had agreed in a bipartisan effort to press for such relief to help an agricultural industry crippled by Hurricane Helene.
Ossoff said initial estimates showed losses of 35% of the cotton crop, 10-30% of peanuts and four million acres of timberland attributed to the recent hurricane. Fall crops were defoliated and Georgia’s citrus crop also took a hit, the senator said.
“Damage assessments are needed for agriculture across the entire Southeast, not just Georgia,” he said. “There were very significant impacts across the entire ag economy.”
After Hurricane Michael slammed into Florida as a Category 5 storm in 2018, Congress took more than a year to put together a farm disaster bill. “We can’t wait that long again,” Ossoff said.
He also said he wants to check to see if any Small Business Administration disaster funds might become depleted before Congress is back in session.
Gov. Kemp provided a hurricane update in Savannah on Wednesday, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp visited the Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) Wednesday afternoon and provided an update on the state’s storm response and preparation on the heels of Hurricane Helene and hours before Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Kemp issued a state of emergency for counties that may feel impacts such as storm surge or tropical-storm force winds from Milton ― Chatham County is among them. Residents should be “weather aware” of those potential conditions and prepare for power outages or downed trees from already-strained systems from Helene, Kemp said.
“We want to overprepare and hope this storm for us at least overdelivers,” Kemp said.
Although Georgia is not expected to experience a direct hit, the Savannah area is expected to begin feeling the strongest winds from Hurricane Milton around midnight Thursday as the storm moves over the Florida peninsula. Gusts of 35-40 mph are expected to last into mid-afternoon before diminishing by early evening.
Georgia sent an Emergency Management Assistance Compact team to Florida after a request from Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, Kemp said. For Helene recovery, Georgia deployed 2,000 members of the state’s National Guard at its peak. As the state is able to pull those numbers back, there may be an opportunity to supply guard members to Florida if the need arises, Kemp said.
“We’ve been able to pull back some of our guard resources so we can redeploy them if needed to Florida,” Kemp said. “We just have to wait and see what, if anything, they would request of us.”
Gov. Kemp also spoke in Treutlen County, according to WTOC.
Here on Phillip’s Farms, a family farm that was impacted by the storms in Soperton Georgia, state and local leaders gathered to talk to the impacted agriculture community led by Governor Kemp.
“It’s what Marty and I told people as we visited probably about a dozen counties now, literally just going by suburban county by county,” said Kemp. “That we see you, we see the damage that you have had to dealt with, we will not forget you, we will continue to work on this issue, no matter what size community you are in.”
Hundreds of farmers gathered Thursday morning all facing a loss.
According to University of Georgia’s Agriculture Department, there has been a reported 1.9 billion dollar impact to agriculture from Hurricane Helene.
Kemp says his efforts to support this community, started with more federal decelerations of aid to more rural counties.
“I said you need to send a signal that we are not going to forget that we know, we know what people are dealing with…and they added almost 30 counties immediately,” Kemp said.
The state’s Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper says working to fund what was lost is his goal.
“They’ve really come together, across all partisan divides and we’ve really been able to work together for all Georgia, for all farm families, forest owners, to help ensure we get the needed disaster aid across the finish line and work to get that done by the end of the year and do it in a block grant,” Harper said.
On the campaign trail in Macon, Gov. Kemp discussed cooperation with Florida for Hurricane Milton, according to the Macon Telegraph.
The remarks came during a campaign event in Macon for Noah Harbuck, Republican candidate for Georgia state House District 145. Hurricane Milton, which is set to strike Florida as a category 4 storm Wednesday night, loomed large over the event.
Kemp said he called DeSantis two days earlier to talk about the incoming hurricane and sent a National Guard Emergency Management Assistance Compact team to Florida to help with response and recovery.
“I just told him that if there’s things we can do in the aftermath of the storm to let us know,” Kemp said.
Georgia is also making preparations for evacuees fleeing Hurricane Milton, Kemp said. Several campgrounds and state parks have opened up to evacuees, and local governments across the state are working with the American Red Cross to open shelters.
Kemp said hotels across the state are already full, and he is using the Georgia Emergency Management Agency to tell evacuees looking for hotels to keep going north.
“We’re still focused on the cleanup, still got people without power,” Kemp said. “We’re going to be there as long as we need to, we’ve got a lot to do.”
“I know people are tired of these storms, but we just have to persevere during these times,” Kemp said.
Three Lowndes County precincts were damaged by Hurricane Helene but are expected to be operation for the November 5, 2024 General Election, according to the Valdosta Daily Times.
Facilities for three voting precincts were damaged but can be made operational in time for the vote, said elections supervisor Deb Cox.
Work on repairing the first two facilities has already begun, while work on fixing the Dasher City Hall should start by the end of the week, Cox said.
Early voting starts Tuesday, and ballots can be cast at the county elections office, 2808 N. Oak St., from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. through Nov. 1, elections workers said.
The Columbia County Board of Elections announced that hurricane damage will affect a voting location, according to WJBF.
According to the Columbia County Board of Elections, the polling location at the Savannah Rapids Pavilion will not be open for voters due to the damages caused by Hurricane Helene.
The Board of Elections state that for the November 5th General and Special Election, voters assigned to vote at Savannah Rapids Pavilion precinct will need to vote at Stevens Creek Community Church, located at 600 Stevens Creek Road, Augusta, Georgia 30907.
The Office of Attorney General Chris Carr (R-Cobb County) is investigating complaints of hotel price gouging after Hurricane Helene, according to Fox5Atlanta.
Georgia’s AG’s office says they have gotten over a dozen reports since Saturday of suspected price gouging at hotels.
“The role that our office has is to protect those most vulnerable in these situations, and if it’s possible, we will try to obtain restitution for consumers who have been harmed,” said Shawn Conroy, Consumer Protection Division at the Georgia Attorney General’s Office.
The AG’s office says businesses can raise prices during emergencies, but there needs to be a documented business reason beyond greed. Raymond says that behavior upsets him because he went through it after Hurricane Katrina.
“I feel real bad for them,” he said. “I know they’re going through a lot right now and just taking advantage of innocent people.”
If the AG’s office finds a price gouging violation, businesses can be fined up to $15,000.
The Bryan County Board of Elections denied eligibility challenges against 859 voters because the complainant did not attend, according to the Statesboro Herald.
Bryan County resident Jenifer Hilburn submitted an excel spreadsheet to Bryan County, challenging whether certain voters were eligible to vote. According to state code O.C.G.A. § 21-2-229, “Any elector of a county or municipality may challenge the qualifications of any person applying to register to vote in the county or municipality and may challenge the qualifications of any elector of the county or municipality whose name appears on the list of electors.”
That prompted a hearing, which was scheduled Thursday afternoon in Richmond Hill. But in a turn of events, Hilburn was a no show. That prompted Bryan County attorney Aaron Kappler to ask board members from the Bryan County Board of Elections if they wanted to deny the challenge because Hilburn was not present.
They all agreed to do so.
Kappler shared some of the reasons for Hilburn’s inquiry.
“They range from, for instance, the national change of address database indicated a potential change of address,” said Kappler. “Another basis was the perception that the property may have been zoned for different use other than residential use. For instance, a person may have been challenged because the address might be zoned commercial rather than zoned residential.”
Thursday’s meeting was supposed to be a way that Hilburn could present the evidence needed to prove that these 859 voters didn’t meet the requirements to be registered here in Bryan County. While she didn’t show up, many locals were still extremely frustrated as they got here tonight, saying they spent days trying to get the paperwork they needed to prove their rights to vote.
Now many of the people challenged, like Bickley, are hoping the county will take action against Hilburn.
They say the amount of time, not only each of them had to put towards this, but also the money wasted by county resources to write and send out all of these letters as the board fielded phone calls for days, should be enough for the county to want to pursue action against Hilburn.
The Glynn County Board of Elections and Registration will add 51 poll workers for the November 5, 2024 General Election to comply with the new hand count requirement, according to The Brunswick News.
Local officials with the Republican and Democratic parties are seeking 51 poll workers to hand count ballots on Election Day.
Christopher Channell, director of the Glynn County Board of Elections and Registration, said his office knew more than a month ago that a proposed requirement by state elections officials for a hand count of ballots was under consideration after the polls close on Election Day, Nov. 5.
Channell estimates it will cost anywhere from $1,500 to $2,500 to train and pay the new poll workers, whose only task will be to count ballots after the polls close.
An additional cost will be to the Glynn County Sheriff’s Office, which has a deputy assigned to each of the 17 polling places for security and to ensure the chain of custody when memory cards and ballots are delivered to the main board of elections office in Brunswick. The deputies will be working longer than planned because they have to escort the poll managers back to the main office with the ballots after they are counted.
Channell said it will take several hours to train the new poll workers how to count the ballots, which will be their only task. There will be at least two training sessions scheduled once both parties find the people willing to be trained for the task.
Elections officials have 20 poll workers who are trained and prepared to serve as backups for poll workers who don’t show up on Election Day, but Channell said he will only use them to count ballots if the parties can’t find volunteers to be trained. He said he can spare only about 10 trained poll workers to ensure he has backup for the ones on the day shift.
“I don’t expect any delays,” Channell said of the results being posted online and in the office.
State elections officials made the requirement to increase the safety and accuracy of elections, but Channell said there are already plenty of safeguards to ensure the integrity of the vote count.
“This is a bad idea,” he said. “It’s an unnecessary step.”
Republican United States Representative Andrew Clyde faces a Democratic challenger in the General Election, according to AccessWDUN.
The number one issue to Clyde is inflation.
“Inflation in the economy is the number one issue,” Clyde said on WDUN’s “The Martha Zoller Show.” “President Biden’s policies have caused 40-year high inflation.”
Cash is a mom and business owning Georgia native and also spoke on “The Martha Zoller Show.”
For her? The top priority is women’s rights.
“As a 51-year-old woman, I have fewer rights today than I had when I was born,” Cash said.
When asked about Clyde’s top issue of inflation, Cash said that the government has less control on prices than people realize.
“Yes, inflation is horrible,” Cash said. “We live in a capitalist society, we have large corporations who have admitted on record to price gouging us incessantly.”
The League of Women Voters of the Dalton Area hosted a candidate forum, according to the Dalton Daily Citizen News.
Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood, a Democrat, has held that office since 1993. He faces Republican Darren Pierce, an 18-year veteran of the sheriff’s office who said he has served as a sergeant in both the Uniform Patrol Division and Narcotics Unit.
Shawn Harris, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s 14th Congressional District which includes Whitfield and Murray counties, retired last year as a brigadier general after a 40-year career in the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps. He noted he entered the military as a private and ended his career as a general, which he said is rare.
Harris is challenging incumbent Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is seeking her third term.
Registered nurse Cathy Kott of Whitfield County is the Democratic Party candidate for state House of Representatives District 6, which includes Murray County and northeast Whitfield County. She faces incumbent Republican Jason Ridley of Chatsworth, who is seeking his fifth term in that office.
Kott noted Georgia is one of 10 states that has not expanded Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act of 2010, which provides funding for states to expand the pool of people covered by the program. Many state lawmakers have said they fear the impact Medicaid expansion would have on the state budget.
Kott promised to support Medicaid expansion if elected, saying it would help low-income people.
League organizers said Ridley was invited to the forum but was unable to attend.
Early voting starts Tuesday, Oct. 15, in the Whitfield County Courthouse and concludes Friday, Nov. 1. Voting will take place each weekday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. except Oct. 24 and Oct. 31, when it will take place from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Early voting will also take place Saturday, Oct. 19, and Saturday, Oct. 26, in the courthouse from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Democrat Robert ‘Buck’ Shannon and Republican Ben ‘Ty’ Matthews are running to succeed Peach County Sheriff Terry Deese, according to 13WMAZ.
In separate sit down interviews, [13WMAZ] discussed the three issues you said were most important to you when it comes to the sheriff’s race: violent crime, ethics in government and immigration.
How would you handle situations involving undocumented immigrants who have committed non-violent versus violent crimes?
Matthews: “We will also build a relationship with our immigration and ICE and have those people moved to their system. If they’re causing problems here and they’re here illegally, they need to be removed from our country.”
Shannon: “There’s the HB 1105 that we’re gonna continue to do, so if somebody comes to jail and they don’t have the correct documents and they’re a immigrant were we fill out the forms and turn it into ICE.”
Incumbent Muscogee County Sheriff Greg Countryman Sr. (D) meets Republican challenger Mark Lajoye in the General Election, according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
Countryman defeated Lajoye in the 2020 election, with Countryman receiving 50,812 votes to Lajoye’s 27,765, the Ledger-Enquirer reported.
Countryman previously worked for the Columbus Housing Authority police and the Muscogee County Sheriff’s office before becoming marshal in 2005 prior to being elected Muscogee County’s first African-American sheriff.
Lajoye spent 40 years in the infantry, airborne and special operations forces after joining the Army at age 18. He also worked for the Columbus Police Department for 13 years.
Macon hosts five contested races for the Georgia General Assembly, according to the Macon Telegraph.
Columbus area hosts two contested Congressional elections and three for the Georgia General Assembly, according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
Statesboro City Council re-did their required public meetings before a property tax increase but lowered the tax hike, according to the Statesboro Herald.
After a second round of hearings, Statesboro City Council again concluded its 2024 property tax millage rate hike decision with Mayor Jonathan McCollar casting his tiebreaker vote to end a 2-2 council deadlock, but adopting a compromise rate one-tenth of a mill less than the first time.
The final rate adopted with that 3-2 decision during a Thursday, Oct. 3 called meeting is 8.625 mills, or a half-mill more than last year’s 8.125, and not the full 1-mill increase to 9.125 mills that City Manager Charles Penny recommended. Because the state law known as the Georgia Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights requires local governments to count increased revenue from inflation in assessed property values as a tax increase, the city would have had to roll the rate back the rate to 7.326 mills to avoid announcing a tax increase and holding three hearings.
As originally proposed, the 1-mill increase would have been a 12.3% hike in the rate itself, combining with assessment inflation to be a 24.56% rise in tax on properties on average. So, the half-mill increase actually adopted amounts to a 6.15% rate hike and limits the inflation-compounded total increase to about 18.4% on average.
The city initially attempted to hold its three Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights hearings at noon and 6 p.m. Sept. 10 and 5:30 p.m. Sept. 17. But only Penny and other staff members and a few citizens – and none of the council members or mayor – attended the noon Sept. 10 hearing, and only Mayor Pro Tem Shari Barr, the District 5 council member, attended that evening’s hearing.
All the current council members and mayor attended the 5:30 p.m. Sept. 17 hearing, which was part of a regular meeting during which the council, after extensive debate, arrived at the compromise rate of 8.725 mills – the mayor’s reluctant suggestion after Barr offered 8.625 mills. That vote was also 2-2 with McCollar’s tiebreaker making it 3-2. The District 1 seat is currently vacant, leaving the council with just four district members.
But Cassandra Mikell, one of the co-founders of the Bulloch Action Coalition, had stated during the Sept. 17 hearing that the first two “hearings” had been invalid because a quorum of the council was required. Soon after the meeting, City Attorney Cain Smith agreed, noting Georgia Department of Revenue policy and an abortive legal challenge Mikell and BAC co-founder Lawton Sack brought against the Bulloch County Board of Education in 2023.
So, the mayor and council scheduled a new set of public hearings for Sept. 26 at noon and 6 p.m. and Oct. 3 at 6 p.m., and had a quorum present for all three. Penny did not present his slide show and detailed argument over again, but summarized, stating that even with a full 1-mill increase, the city would need to spend about $700,000 from its accumulated general fund \balance to balance the budget.
The Rabun County Sheriff’s Office reported arresting a teen for threats against a county school, according to AccessWDUN.
A press release Wednesday from the RCSO says they responded, along with Student Response Officers (SRO) to reports of a domestic disturbance that involved a 15-year old student within the city limits of Clayton on Tuesday, October 8. Upon the student’s arrival to the Rabun County High School campus Tuesday morning, SRO’s located the unidentified student to check on their welfare.
The RCSO release adds that while speaking to the SRO’s and the student’s legal guardian while on the campus, the student then, “made violent threats against the school.”
Deputies immediately arrested the juvenile on charges of making terroristic threats and acts, and could face additional charges, while the case remains under investigation.
The Georgia Senate Safe Firearm Storage Study Committee will recommend legislation to provide , according to Atlanta News First via WALB.
State Senator Emanuel Jones led the committee. He said they’re preparing a final report for state lawmakers after testimony from organizations, parents, and leaders.
“People need to be made aware of what is happening with senseless gun violence in Georgia. We can’t wait for the next mass shooting to say something about it and stand up,” said Jones.
The committee met four times. Their third meeting fell on the same week as the Apalachee High School shooting.
Jones said they plan to recommend sensible gun storage legislation and ways to support communities to cut off gun violence.
Atlanta City Council member Liliana Bakhtiari is accused of assault, according to Fox5Atlanta.
It began as an outing in Atlanta’s oldest public park. It ended up in a heated argument between an Atlanta City Council member and a security guard. The incident took place at Oakland Cemetery in southeast Atlanta. Council member Liliana Bakhtiari says she feared for her safety. The security guard says the council member assaulted him.
According to the report, [security guard] Montfort says he didn’t have a flashlight and could not see the faces of the people he called out to. Montfort said a woman walked up to him and put her hand in his face. He told her to back up. She then pushed him down, Montfort said in the report. He also says the woman knocked off his hat and hit him across his forehead. He says the woman who assaulted him was Council member Liliana Bakhtiari.
The district 5 council member, however, says in the report she heard a scream from the dark. She thought she was in danger and wanted to protect her friends. According to the report, Bakhtiari said she did not know if he was holding a gun or a bat.
The report says Bakhtiari told police Montfort was close to her face, yelling. According to the report, Bakhtiari says she pushed him away from her.
Bakhtiari issued a statement that said she was in the park for a friend’s wedding proposal. “My friends and I were approached by an aggressive and unidentified man in the dark. I became scared and felt in danger. I regret how the situation unfolded. I take accountability for my actions and I hope that protocols prioritizing de-escalation are enacted.”
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