Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for August 2, 2023

Georgia delegates Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776.

On August 2, 1983, the United States House of Representatives voted to observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a federal holiday on the third monday in January.

On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait.

President Barack Obama visited Georgia on August 2, 2010 – his first trip to Atlanta and second to Georgia after his election in November 2008. The occasion of his 2010 trip, like his trip to Atlanta yesterday, was to deliver a speech to the Disabled American Veterans Conference at the Hyatt Regency. From his 2010 speech:

As a candidate for President, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end.  Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy for Iraq and for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility. And I made it clear that by August 31st, 2010, America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing — as promised and on schedule….

As agreed to with the Iraqi government, we will maintain a transitional force until we remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of next year.

At the same time, every American who has ever worn the uniform must also know this: Your country is going to take care of you when you come home. Our nation’s commitment to our veterans, to you and your families, is a sacred trust. And to me and my administration, upholding that trust is a moral obligation. It’s not just politics.

That’s why I’ve charged Secretary Shinseki with building a 21st century VA.  And that includes one of the largest percentage increases to the VA budget in the past 30 years. We are going to cut this deficit that we’ve got, and I’ve proposed a freeze on discretionary domestic spending. But what I have not frozen is the spending we need to keep our military strong, our country safe and our veterans secure. So we’re going to keep on making historic commitments to our veterans.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

New Jekyll Island Authority Executive Director Mark Williams spoke about his job with The Brunswick News.

Williams is one month into his new position as executive director of the Jekyll Island Authority, and he shared updates with the Rotary Club about ongoing projects and upcoming endeavors on Jekyll.

Williams most recently held the title of commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and he shared an overview of the DNR’s operations in the state.

He served as Georgia DNR commissioner since 2010, and he served in the state House of Representatives for District 178 from 2005 to 2010.

A St. Simons resident, Williams said the Jekyll position offers a kinder commute than his DNR job in Atlanta. Opportunity and timing collided to make the new job possible, he said.

“We have the largest budget ever this year, $43 million, which I’m told is bigger than the city of Brunswick’s, for perspective,” Williams said. “It is a big enterprise over there across the sound.”

“Probably within the next two to three weeks we’ll be opening the first medical clinic on Jekyll,” Williams said. “If you’ve been in the Beach Village, it’s upstairs, but we do have an elevator installed.”

United States Senator Jon Ossoff (D-Atlanta) will host a telephone Town Hall to discuss changes to healthcare for veterans, according to the Dalton Daily Citizen News.

On Wednesday at 6 p.m. Ossoff will hold a live telephone town hall alongside Maj. Gen. Thomas Grabowski, retired commander of the Georgia Air National Guard, to brief veterans across Georgia about expanded health benefits through the bipartisan PACT Act, which was signed into law last August. Ossoff championed this legislation to expand U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange and other toxic substances.

While there is no deadline for veterans to sign up for PACT Act benefits, veterans who file a claim by Wednesday, Aug. 9, may be eligible to receive benefits backdated to August 2022. Georgia veterans can find more information about the PACT Act and apply for benefits at VA.Gov/PACT.

Dougherty County Sheriff Kevin Sproul announced he will not run for reelection in 2024, according to WALB.

Sproul has announced his endorsement for Dougherty County Chief Deputy Terron Hayes to take his place.

The City of Edison in Calhoun County is in perilous financial straits, according to WALB.

“They’re in a serious crisis, really.”

City of Edison Attorney Tommy Coleman says the city of Edison is more than $400,000 in debt, and they haven’t had an audit in five years.

The new fiscal year started July 1, and still no budget.

“We have to deal with where we are right now, which is in a very bad financial spot,” said Coleman.

“Our needs right now are very immediate,” said Coleman. “We know where some of the bills are, we need to get those paid off. I think after that, it will begin to moderate, and they will be able to manage it well.”

Coleman says from what he can tell, the money wasn’t spent illegally — but was mismanaged.

One city department impacted by the financial troubles has been the police department. Coleman says they are now down to two employees.

“That seems to be an ongoing discussion of how to make payroll each Thursday, and how to pay for those essential services that citizens of cities expect to have,” said Coleman.

The Oconee County Board of Education adopted a millage rate for the new fiscal year, according to the Athens Banner Herald.

The Oconee County Board of Education approved a new millage rate of 15.0 mills for the fiscal year 2024 during a meeting Monday, according to a release from the BOE office.

The board has reduced the millage rate five times since fiscal year 2013 “moving from 18.5 to the current figure of 15.0,” BOE officials said.

The board previously approved a nearly $106 million 2024 budget at its June meeting.

The tax increase for an owner-occupied home with a fair market value of $500,000 is about $258.

The BOE announced that among key costs in the budget are:

• Health insurance employer contribution increase ($5,000,000)

• Twenty-four new growth positions ($2,272,000)

• Step increases for all eligible staff ($785,000)

• Academic and coaching supplement increases ($326,000)

• Funds for the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office for traffic control ($169,000)

• Salary adjustments for paraprofessionals ($120,000)

• Technology improvements ($107,000)

• A $2,000 supplement for special education paraprofessionals ($58,000)

Augusta Commissioners are considering adopting the rollback millage rate for property taxes, according to WJBF.

“I’ve been hearing from my constituents and from those who are not my constituents, but I think we’re going to have to look at it to see what legal parameters that we have and what we can do. If it means rolling back, we’ll look at rolling back,” said Commissioner Tony Lewis.

The Administrator’s office and the Finance Department are telling commissioners that they are recommending city leaders adopt the rollback tax rate, which would represent a 16% reduction in property taxes.

“I think we need the tax revenue. We definitely need the revenue; however, I think that folks have been hit hard with the increase in assessment,” said Commissioner Jordan Johnson.

The administrator tells commissioners even though the rollback rate helps property owners, it hurts city coffers costing more than half of a million dollars in revenue, which has commissioners saying in future budgets, the city will need to look at cutting expenses.

“We’ve done no cutting. We’ve not looked at that. We’ve done nothing in relation to that so I think that’s something we need to seriously look at. The salaries for our higher-level people keep escalating. I don’t see services commensurate to the dollar value we’re paying,” said Commissioner Alvin Mason.

The final vote on the roll back rate is scheduled for August 29th, and it will be reflected in this year’s tax bills slated to come out in September.

Augusta will use Accountability Courts to address homelessness, according to WRDW.

“In those situations, a participant in our drug court, mental health court, or veterans court is a participant who has been charged with a crime and is referred to our program because they meet criteria. They are diverted from traditional prosecution and held accountable for those charges, but with that, we started to address the root cause of substance abuse and mental health,” said Court Administrator Nolan Martin.

After deputies make contact with people on the street, Martin says the District Attorney’s Office acts as the screen to determine if that person is charged or eligible for accountability court.

“They are diverted from traditional prosecution and held accountable for those charges, but with that, we started to address the root cause of substance abuse and mental health,” said Martin.

Martin says the goal is for the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office to use other resources in the community for help. Those could include social services, the Department of Public Health, and educational facilities in the area.

“If you send someone to prison time after time and you don’t change their paradigm, you don’t change their education, you don’t change their job skills, you don’t change anything about them, they’ll get out and return to the life they once led and that’s the nature of recidivism,” said Martin.

The Floyd County Board of Elections and Registration adopted a plan consolidating voting locations, according to the Rome News Tribune.

The vote to approve was unanimous; board member Gary Stamper was not present at the meeting.

The changes consolidate a number of precincts and other changes create combined city and county voting precincts. Floyd County Elections Supervisor Akyn Trudnak said the city and county precincts had been separate locally, but having city and county voters casting ballots in the same precinct is commonplace in most of Georgia.

Fulton County Magistrate Court is going online ahead of an expected high-profile indictment, according to the AJC.

The Magistrate Court of Fulton County is directing those with hearings in the coming weeks to avoid going to the downtown Atlanta courthouse and connect virtually instead.

In a Facebook post, officials said anyone with court scheduled for a selection of dates between Monday and Aug. 18 should use a Zoom link, which can be requested by phone or email. The post was accompanied by photos showing orange barricades placed around the courthouse to enhance security ahead of the expected indictment of former President Donald Trump.

Geography determines access to maternal healthcare, according to the AJC.

More than one in three Georgia counties where thousands of Georgia mothers give birth each year is a “maternal care desert,” according to a report released Tuesday by the March of Dimes. Partly as a result, the report found, 17% of those who gave birth received no or inadequate prenatal care.

The finding on Georgia’s lack of resources for pregnant women, especially those in rural and lower-income communities, is the sober backdrop to the recent announcement that Georgia’s rate of maternal mortality remains among the worst in the nation, and surged during the early pandemic. The state’s Maternal Mortality Report found that almost all maternal deaths in Georgia were preventable.

It also found Black women were more than two times as likely as white women to die from pregnancy.

Overwhelmingly, when women die during pregnancy or for reasons related to pregnancy in the year after giving birth, there were symptoms that could have been avoided or treated better, the state has found. The main causes in Georgia included hemorrhage, mental health conditions, heart and vascular conditions and blood clots, and high blood pressure associated with pregnancy. More than half of maternal deaths happen in the year after giving birth. Georgia has recently extended Medicaid, the health insurance program for poor children and some poor adults, to all low-income pregnant women for 12 months, up from six months, after they give birth.

Separate research by the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce has found that about half of Georgia’s counties have no ob/gyn.

“The problem is, the system doesn’t value maternal care,” she said, reimbursing doctors too little for treating Medicaid patients, and making it complicated for midwives to be reimbursed at all.

Medicaid funds more than half of deliveries in Georgia. Yet Medicaid’s reimbursement rates to doctors is so low, Arp said, that obstetric practices will lose money if they don’t mix in other services. Ob/gyns who opt instead to work for bigger companies find themselves stacked with exhausting patient loads.

And that’s when low-income patients manage to get on Medicaid at all, she said. Arp recounted seeing Georgia’s Medicaid program over the years go through periods where it took three to five months to enroll patients. All the while, those patients waited for the state to process the paperwork, and they would not get prenatal care, Arp said.

“And then you may get to a point where no practice will take them because they’ve got too far along,” Arp said. “Then they show up at the hospital and say ‘I’m 32 weeks.’”