On August 14, 1784, Russians invaded settled Alaska, founding the first permanent Russian settlement at Three Saints Bay.
Dentist, gambler, and gunfighter Doc Holliday was born on August 14, 1851 in Griffin, Georgia.
On August 14, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln hosted a group of African-American men at the White House to discuss emancipation of American slaves outside the United States as colonists.
The Second Battle of Dalton was joined on August 14, 1864.
The County Unit System of elections was created on August 14, 1917 when Governor Hugh Dorsey signed legislation by the General Assembly.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935. The road to perdition is paved with good intentions.
On August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrender to the Allies was made public in Japan.
In the afternoon of August 14, Japanese radio announced that an Imperial Proclamation was soon to be made, accepting the terms of unconditional surrender drawn up at the Potsdam Conference. That proclamation had already been recorded by the emperor.
A Special Session called by Governor Miller to address legislative redistricting after the United States Supreme Court threw out Georgia’s Congressional redistricting map was convened on August 14, 1995.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Netroots Nation attendees this past weekend shouted down Democratic State Representative Stacey Evans.
Democrat Stacey Evans’ speech to a conference of progressive activists descended into chaos on Saturday, as protesters interrupted her repeatedly and she struggled to make herself heard over chants of “support black women.”
Almost as soon as she took the stage, a ring of demonstrators – some holding stark signs criticizing her – fanned out in front of Evans. The chanting soon followed. Pleading repeatedly for the room to speaks – “let’s talk through it,” she implored – the demonstrators at times drowned her out.
One of the demonstrators, Monica Simpson, said she made her stand because she wanted to show she was “true to progressive values.”
Asked why Evans hasn’t met that standard, Simpson couldn’t point to any votes or policy stances. But she said she wants “a candidate that truly speaks to my community.”
“This is our opportunity, especially as black women, to make it known or clear that this is standing on true progressive values,” said Simpson, who lives in Atlanta. “And if you’re not, we’re going to make that clear.”
Abrams said in a statement that she would not “condemn peaceful protest” and that the demonstrators were voicing their concern with Evans’ support for a Republican-led effort to give the state new powers over struggling schools.
“From what I observed from Savannah, activists in Atlanta peacefully protested this morning on the critical issue of preserving public education for every family in our state,” she said. “The mantra of ‘trust black women’ is an historic endorsement of the value of bringing marginalized voices to the forefront, not a rebuke to my opponent’s race.”
Georgia Republicans spent Saturday coming together in Rome.
Georgia GOP Chairman John Watson called [Rome City Council candidate Randy] Quick up to the front of a crowd of over 350 at the Tillman Hangar and said even though the commission seats are nonpartisan his presence at the rally meant something. Quick, the general manager of Rome Radio Partners LLC, with a 42-year career in radio, will aim to grab one of the three Ward 2 commission spots up for grabs in November’s municipal election. He would be up against incumbents Jamie Doss, Sue Lee and Wendy Davis — who have said they intend to seek re-election — and Monica Sheppard, a freelance graphic designer and beekeeper, is campaigning as well.
The four announced GOP gubernatorial candidates — Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, Secretary of State Brian Kemp and State Sens. Hunter Hill, of Atlanta, and Michael Williams, of Cumming — attended the rally put on by the Floyd County Republican Party. Of the four, Cagle spoke first, following up an address from U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, of Ranger.
Augusta residents came together in response to events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
About 50 to 60 people gathered in downtown Aiken at the Newberry Fountain, and 50 to 75 came out to the Columbia County Amphitheater. About six people from Augusta’s Unitarian Universalist Church came downtown “to bear witness” to the city’s Confederate Memorial on Broad Street.
The gatherings were organized on social media Sunday, some prompted by a national group called Stand in Solidarity with Charlottesville, others springing up locally as people shared Facebook posts.
Senator Johnny Isakson will hold a Town Hall meeting tonight at Kennesaw State University.
“The reason town halls are so exciting is you never know what to expect, so I think given the issues of the day from health care to North Korea, I think it will probably be a very interesting evening,” Isakson told Around Town on Friday. “I do telephone town halls every six weeks in Washington, so that’s six to eight a year, and I do town halls in August when I’m traveling the state, and I do town halls in campaign years. It’s been 40 years. I’ve done a lot.”
What is his philosophy regarding town halls?
“The whole key to town halls is for you as an elected official to be approachable,” he said. “If you’re running for an office, and you have town halls, that demonstrates that you’re willing to be approachable. If you get elected, and you serve and you have town halls, it demonstrates that you are willing to be approachable. I think the people that have the biggest problem with town halls are the people that don’t have them.”
There is a down side to letting anyone in the door and that is boorish professional agitators. How does he handle rabble-rousers?
“I don’t try and talk over people. If you have somebody that’s trying to disrupt, I just let them try without talking over them and it goes away pretty fast, because it’s kind of like a one-man demonstration. But you don’t let things like that get under your skin because 90 percent of the time when somebody is doing something disruptive, it’s because they want to get under your skin.”
Monday’s town hall begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Dr. Bobbie Bailey & Family Performance Center and is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and will be offered on a first come, first served basis. Doors will open for the event at 6 p.m.
From the AJC Political Insider:
But do not assume that Isakson is walking into a chaotic lion’s den. Cobb County is his home turf. Local Republicans will do their best to fill as many seats as possible. Jason Shepherd, the chairman of the Cobb GOP, is an adjunct professor of political science at KSU. His class will be wrapping up just as the town hall meeting begins.
And then there’s Sam Olens. The KSU president is likely to introduce Isakson on Monday. Olens is the former state attorney general, only recently liberated from the tyranny of Republican primaries. He’ll have a campus police force at his beck and call. If diplomacy fails to reign Monday night, it will fall to Olens to handle the situation — not Isakson.
Hall County Commissioners heard from opponents of short term rentals at Lake Lanier.
Residents from a neighborhood on Lanier discussed the issue with commissioners at a work session on Tuesday and said two homes in the neighborhood are being used only for short-term rentals, with most being for weekends.
“In our neighborhood, we know that the reasons why the neighbors did what they did is because when they were given the choice of selling the property or renting it out, they move out on the weekends and make a whole lot more money than they do annually,” homeowner Randy Kauk said. “So, we’re worried this problem is going to get worse before we do what we need to confine it.”
Kauk and other neighbors said they have encountered issues with excessive noise, trash being left behind and having renters host parties that go late into the night. Neighbors said one property brought a bus full of people.
“These homes are no longer a rented home — they’re a lodging service. They’re an event venue,” Kauk said. “They are renting these things out to weddings, hip-hop parties and longer parties.”
“This doesn’t sound like a nuanced issue to me,” [County Attorney Ken Jarrard] said. “If you’ve got eight boats at a dock and you’ve got folks there until 6 a.m. and you’re advertising it as an event venue and you’ve got weddings and sorority parties and things of that nature, it doesn’t sound to me like we’re on that dicey, thin area between what is truly just a party that went awry versus a dedicated commercial use.”
Jarrard said the county may need to look into an ordinance for short-term rental services, which are not required to pay the same taxes as hotels and that his office working with the county’s code enforcement department may help.
Port Wentworth first responders received training for treating opioid overdoses.
Last week, more than a dozen service members from Port Wentworth police and fire departments completed Naloxone training as a measure of harm prevention. Naloxone, commonly known as Narcan, is medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdoses and can restore normal respiration to a person whose breathing has slowed or stopped.
We are going to take action,” said Port Wentworth Police Chief Matt Libby. “We are here for one job and that’s to save people.”
In the past two years, Port Wentworth has had at least 15 overdose incidents, according to Sgt. Kenneth McDonald.
“Some have been fatal and some have not,” he said. “Our main goal with this training was to reduce those fatal incidents to as close to zero as possible. If we can save just one life it will be well worth it. … From a comparison standpoint these types of calls are not as common as many others we see. However, they are becoming more commonplace as the epidemic of addiction continues to spread.”
And the epidemic’s spread is due to an increase of opioids available by prescription, said David Gaskin, a Savannah internist who helped to lead Thursday’s training.
“It is just unbelievable — the logarithmic rise of opiate overdoses,” he said. “ Unfortunately, what happened a few years ago was the burgeoning use of narcotics. You did not used to have a lot of narcotic pain medicines.”
Coweta County Commissioners heard no opposition to a proposed property tax hike.
A public hearing on Coweta County’s proposed property tax increase lasted over an hour, and there were several speakers – but none spoke against the tax hike.
Two more hearings are scheduled for Aug. 22. One will be at 7:30 a.m. and the final hearing will be at 6 p.m., during the regularly-scheduled county commission meeting. The commissioners are set to adopt the millage rate at that meeting.
The county is proposing a property tax millage rate that is an 8.6 percent increase over the rollback millage rate for properties in the unincorporated areas of the county and a 6.7 percent increase for the cities and towns.
The 2016 rate was 6.27 mills for unincorporated areas and 7.47 for incorporated. The proposed 2017 rate is 6.63 mills for unincorporated and 7.63 for incorporated.
The proposed millage rate will mean an increase over last year’s property taxes of approximately $36.68 on a $200,000 home with a homestead exemption in the unincorporated areas, and $33.74 on a home in the cities and towns.
A “mill” is $1 of tax on every $1,000 of assessed value. In Georgia, real estate is assessed at 40 percent of the fair market value.
The 2017 rollback rate is 6.106 for unincorporated and 7.148 for incorporated.
Roswell Mayor Jere Wood blames State Rep. Betty Price (R-Roswell) for his ouster via lawsuit.
The longtime mayor says the reason he is out is because state Rep. Betty Price sabotaged the City Council’s attempts to have the City Charter amended to “clarify” a recent amendment for term limits on the City Council.
Wood said he fully expects Price to take advantage of the situation and run for mayor herself.
“Absolutely I’m considering it,” she said. “I would be happy to serve. It is tempting.”
Wood pointed out Price was a member of the Roswell City Council in 2010 when the charter amendment was crafted and sent to the Georgia General Assembly. So she was in a position to know what the council’s intent was at the time term limits were instituted.
When the lawsuit was filed to declare Wood’s fifth term violated the charter, Price had left her council seat and was a member of the Fulton Legislative Delegation in the Georgia House.
Thus she was one of the arbiters over the “fixes” the current members of the City Council tried to implement that would keep Wood lawfully serving his current term and eligible to serve one more.
Wood said she had to know the City Council’s intent at the time was to allow him two more terms.
Forsyth County is strengthening its ordinance on massage parlors in reaction to allegations of prostitution.
Coweta County municipal election candidate qualifying begins next Monday.
State Rep. Scot Turner (R-Holly Springs) continues the Sisyphean task of building support to reform civil asset forfeiture.
A local legislator is on a mission to strengthen constitutional rights regarding civil forfeiture. State Rep. Scot Turner, R-Holly Springs, held a town hall meeting Thursday and spoke with about 15 residents on House Bill 832.
The piece of legislation would require a conviction before the state could legally seize an individual’s belongings.
The effort, he said, is to “re-establish the concept of innocent until proven guilty.”
“Today the law specifically states that if you are charged with a crime and you are found not guilty of that crime, you are not entitled to have your stuff given back to you,” Turner said. “It literally states in the law, ‘a finding of not guilty, does not entitle the property owner to gain possession of the property.’”
The proposed bill by Turner requires the court to stay the civil proceedings until the criminal case is completed and requires there to be a criminal conviction before the civil lawsuit can advance.
“What I have introduced is a simple one page bill. We will not change anything that law enforcement does — they can still take it and put it in a bank account pending the outcome of your criminal trial,” he said. “If you are found not guilty, then you can come ask for your money back and I am obligated to give it to you because you were found not guilty.”
2018 Elections
Two incumbent Republicans received new opponents over the weekend.
Two Coweta residents and former veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, Chuck Enderlin and Bryce Remkes both announced their candidacies for 2018 – seeking the offices of Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District and Georgia State House District 71 respectively.
Enderlin, a graduate of the Naval Academy and member of the Marine Corps Reserves, is a resident of Newnan and a pilot with Delta Air Lines.
In his announcement, Enderlin emphasized core democratic principles such as affordable health coverage, a strong public education system and the beliefs veterans fight for.
“The sacrifices made by our vets won’t go unnoticed, and we’ll be safer by the strength of our national character, not through bombast and bluster,” Enderlin said. “We stand up and fight even when the situation is grim, and I can think of no more worthy cause than the principles on which this country was founded. Sharing the same rights and ideals is something I have pledged my life to and continue to fight for to this day.”
Remkes, an Air Force Academy graduate, also served as a pilot during the War on Terror and now resides in north Coweta County. Like Enderlin, Remkes also used the “common sense approach” of the military to get things accomplished on a local level.
“When you’re in combat, you don’t have time to quibble and bicker,” Remkes said. “You come up with solutions and get the job done. The military does that better than anyone else.”
Seeking the seat currently held by David Stover, Remkes said the district deserves better.
“We don’t need the type of representative that demonizes and squabbles with his own party and is unresponsive to his own constituents,” Remkes said. “We need someone who stands up for values we hold dear like quality education, treating our veterans well, and getting along because that’s what local politics are all about.”
Shane Hazel, Republican challenger to Congressman Rob Woodall (R-Gwinnett) was profiled by the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Brookwood High School graduate Shane Hazel has been preparing to run against Woodall as a Republican in recent weeks. The Marine Corps veteran and Cumming resident’s campaign was the topic of a flurry of tweets posted on Twitter late this last week though.
Hazel said on his campaign website, www.shanehazel.com, that he is “excited to bring a Limited Government Republican message to the 7th Congressional District.” He also refers back to military service and takes aim at establishment Republicans on the site.
A statement of candidacy for Hazel could not be immediately found on the Federal Election Commission’s website, but official candidate qualifying for the seat won’t happen until next spring. The FEC’s website shows the last time a Republican filed a statement of candidacy to run against Woodall was for the 2012 election, at the end of the congressman’s first term.
Hazel joins a growing number of people aiming to unseat Woodall, who was first elected to Congress in 2010 when former Rep. John Linder retired. Six people are now running against the four-term congressman, including Democrats David Kim, Steve Reilly, Kathleen Allen, Ethan Pham and Melissa Davis.
Marc Alan Urbach of Dunwoody announced he will run for Governor.
After running in the November presidential election, the Dunwoody resident announced Aug. 12 he is running for governor in the 2018 election.
Urbach went public with his campaign plans at the Georgia Republican Assembly’s convention in Moreland, near Newnan. In an interview four days before his public announcement, he said he is running for governor for several reasons.
He got five votes as a certified write-in candidate in the presidential election but will be on the ballot as a regular candidate in the gubernatorial race once he qualifies.
Urbach was asked how he expects to become governor against Republican opponents that already hold statewide office such as Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
“I know I’m Jewish (he would be Georgia’s first Jewish governor if elected), but of all the times in American history for a person to come out of nowhere to become the governor, this may be it,” he said. “Matt Bevin did it in Kentucky (in 2015). He had no political experience. He was part of the Tea Party.”
Urbach said he’s confident he can triumph.
Comments ( 0 )