Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain on August 3, 1492.
On August 4, 1753, George Washington became a Master Mason at the Masonic Lodge No. 4 in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
On August 5, 1774, Royal Governor James Wright issued a proclamation banning assemblies to protest British policy.
On August 6, 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia began debating the first draft of the Constitution of the United States.
President Abraham Lincoln imposed the first federal income tax on August 5, 1861 at the rate of 3 percent on all income over $800 per year.
On August 3, 1910, Georgia became the ninth state to ratify the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allows Congress to levy a tax without apportioning it among the states.
On August 5, 1910, Gov. Joseph Brown signed legislation outlawing betting on election outcomes.
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as President on August 3, 1923 after Warren Harding died in office.
On August 4, 1944, Anne Frank, her family, and two others were found by Nazis in a sealed area in an Amsterdam warehouse. They were sent first to a concentration camp in Holland, then most were sent to Auschwitz. Anne and her sister Margot died from Typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March of 1945.
On August 4, 1958, a wagon train left Dahlonega, headed to Atlanta to pay tribute to the mighty General Assembly deliver 43 ounces of gold to be used to coat the dome of the State Capitol.
The caravan transporting 43 ounces of gold from Dahlonega to the State Capitol to be used in gilding the dome arrived in Roswell/Sandy Springs area on August 5, 1958. At the current price of $2,386.80 per ounce, that would be worth $102,632.40.
President Ronald Reagan began the process of firing all striking Air Traffic Controllers on August 5, 1981.
On August 3, 1982, Michael Hardwick was arrested, setting in motion the prosecution that would eventually lead to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Bowers v. Hardwick.
The World of Coca-Cola opened on August 3, 1990 between Underground Atlanta and the Georgia State Capitol.
On August 4, 1993, Nolan Ryan, the greatest middleweight fighter pitcher in major league baseball history, hit Chicago White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura, and Ventura charged the mound.
Divers raised the turret of USS Monitor near Cape Hatteras on August 5, 2002.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Governor Brian Kemp issued Executive Orders #08.03.24.01, declaring a state of emergency for Hurricane Debby, and 08.05.24.01, authorizing the Georgia National Guard to assist in the state of emergency.
Savannah-Chatham Public Schools announced earlier closure on Monday and canceled classes Tuesday and Wednesday in anticipation of Debby, according to the Savannah Morning News.
The Savannah-Chatham County Public School System announced Sunday afternoon that schools would dismiss early on Monday and be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Private K-12 schools as well as public and private colleges and universities have also shared updates about class cancellations and changes to operation schedules due to the pending impact of Tropical Storm Debby.
The Savannah Morning News has more on local closures.
The City of Savannah posted a list of streets to avoid because of possible flooding and a number of local government closures, according to the Savannah Morning News.
The City of Savannah has released its list of streets to avoid during Hurricane Debby as they are prone to flooding.
The area is expected to receive as much as 30 inches of rain during the storm, which is likely to lead to heavy damage from flooding.
The following impacts to City services will begin on Tuesday, Aug. 6:
All non-emergency essential City government offices will be closed.
In-person payments at the Coastal Georgia Center for utility, tax, license, and other fees will be closed.
Street cleaning night services will be suspended.
The Dean Forest Landfill and Bacon Park Convenience Center will be closed.
Sanitation routes will shift to a modified schedule on Wednesday.
Recorder’s Court will be closed.
In-person services with the Office of Special Events, Film, and Tourism will be suspended.
Building closures, including all services within, will include City Hall, Civic Center, Community Centers, Cultural Arts Center, Floyd Adams City Services Complex, Savannah Municipal Services Annex and the Savannah Entrepreneurial Center.Non-emergency public safety offices will be closed, to include police records.
Should rainfall totals reach the forecasted amounts of 10-30 inches it will exceed the City system’s capacity and serious street flooding will occur.
The City will implement an orderly closure of street sections in flood prone areas. More information on street closures will be provided on Monday.
As a reminder for hurricane season, it is a good time to review personal emergency plans and replenish or create an emergency kit. As a common practice, individuals, families, and businesses are encouraged to review general storm preparation activities:
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson issued a curfew, according to WTOC.
According to a post the Mayor made on Facebook, a curfew for the City of Savannah will begin Monday night at 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Glynn County schools are also affected by the expected landfall, according to The Brunswick News.
The Glynn County School system announced in an email Sunday that all schools and district offices will be closed on Monday and Tuesday, pushing all open houses to Wednesday.
Wednesday was planned as the first day of school. The school year will now start on Thursday, Aug. 8, barring any other delays.
Other agencies will also be closed for the hurricane, according to The Brunswick News.
The county will activate its Emergency Operations Center at noon on Monday and will likely activate its emergency shelters as well. The timing and locations of the shelters will be made public once they have been established.
County, city and school offices are closed Monday along with the Marshes of Glynn Libraries, College of Coastal Georgia, the Glynn County Health Department and the Brunswick-Glynn County Joint Water and Sewer Commission.
The F.J. Torras Causeway will remain open unless it becomes impassable because of flooding. The Sidney Lanier Bridge will remain open unless sustained winds reach 40 mph or higher. The Department of Transportation makes the decision on closing the bridge.
Glynn County had not declared an emergency as of Monday morning or issued any evacuation orders. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency for all counties in the state on Saturday.
Jekyll Island Authority offices, the Mosaic museum, golf and tennis centers, putt-putt course, the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and others were closed on Jekyll Island.
From the Valdosta Daily Times:
Schools in Valdosta, Lowndes County and Echols County will be closed Monday and expect to be open on Tuesday, pending the storm’s impacts.
City of Valdosta and Lowndes County government offices will be closed Monday. Only essential personnel are required to report to their designated locations.
Port Wentworth declared a State of Emergency, according to WTOC.WSAV covers other municipal closures.
Tybee Island interim City Manager Michelle Owens spoke about their preparations, according to WTOC.
WTOC published a listing of closures.
WALB has a list of closures in Southwest Georgia.
The National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings for Brooks and Lowndes Counties, according to WALB.
The Southwest Health District announced closures in a number of coastal counties, according to WALB.
Tift County schools will be closed today, according to the Tifton Gazette.
“After meeting with the Emergency Management Agency and other officials, and to ensure the safety and security of our students and staff, the decision has been made to close all Tift County Schools on Monday, August 5th,” Tift County Schools stated on social media Sunday afternoon. “We will continue to monitor the weather, road conditions, and any impact on facilities to make decisions beyond Monday.”
Staff has been asked to work remotely Monday.
School began Friday for Tift and it has already been an adventurous start. A power outage kept Tift County High mostly in the dark Friday. An afternoon outage affected the Tift County Board of Education.
Jenkins County School System will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, according to WJBF.
The Columbia County School District rebutted online rumors of their school system being closed today, according to WJBF.
The Columbia County School District wants to make parents aware that an image circulating on social media claiming that Columbia County schools are closing Monday due to Tropical Storm Debby is false.
“The Columbia County School District is aware of a fake image circulating on social media containing false information regarding school closures. The information in the image is false. In the event of school closures parents will be notified directly and the information posted on our district and school websites.”
WRDW covers school closures in the Augusta area.
Jenkins County students in Millen will go to school on Monday, Aug. 5, but the school system will close on Tuesday, Aug. 6, and students will not report back until Thursday, Aug. 8. The school will be preparing a bag of meals for each student to take home Monday with breakfast and lunch for three days.
Burke County students will return to school Monday, but there will be no after-school activities involving buses due to the weather.
Emanuel County students will return to school Monday, but they will not attend on Tuesday based on the recommendations from the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
Of course, the other major hurricane to impact Georgia landed in Atlanta on Saturday in the form of a Trump-Vance rally. From USA Today via the Savannah Morning News:
Former President Donald Trump tore into Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Saturday, claiming the fellow Republican was hurting his reelection campaign in the Peach State. Trump also criticized Kemp for not helping his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy and he’s a very average governor,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Atlanta in one of several comments aimed at Kemp, along with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, another Republican who resisted Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss to President Biden in the state. “Little Brian Kemp,” Trump called the governor.
Trump’s attacks reignited tensions between him and Georgia Republicans. The former president lost the state narrowly in 2020 and heavily pressured Kemp and Raffensperger to reverse his defeat. Trump was indicted last year by an Atlanta grand jury for his attempt to overturn the election.
“In my opinion, they want us to lose,” Trump said of Kemp and Raffensperger.
Trump’s attacks on Kemp and Raffensperger are notable given Georgia is one of a handful of battleground states that will determine the winner of the upcoming presidential election and Kemp is popular in the Peach State.
Kemp hit back at Trump earlier on Saturday, responding to a post the former president made on Truth Social which also went after the governor’s wife, Marty Kemp.
“My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats – not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past,” Kemp said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.”
During his rally, Trump claimed Kemp was to blame for crime in Georgia, saying “Atlanta is like a killing field,” under his leadership. Georgia “has gone to hell,” Trump said.
Trump attacked Gov. Brian Kemp on his social media site before his rally and said Kemp should be “fighting Crime, not fighting Unity and the Republican Party.” He also criticized Kemp’s wife, Marty, for saying she would write in her husband’s name for president this fall instead of voting for the Republican nominee.
At Saturday’s rally, Trump assailed Kemp in a roughly 10-minute tirade, blaming him for his loss to Democratic President Joe Biden and for not stopping a local district attorney from prosecuting him and several associates for his efforts to overturn the results.
“He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy. And he’s a very average governor,” Trump said. “Little Brian, little Brian Kemp. Bad guy.”
Going to Atlanta put Trump in the state’s largest media market, including suburbs and exurbs that were traditional Republican strongholds but have become more competitive as they’ve diversified and grown in population. Thousands of supporters packed the same arena for a Harris rally days earlier.
Kemp will chair the Republican Governors Association for the 2026 election cycle, when he is leaving office. And he’s widely known to be national Republicans’ top choice to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in that midterm cycle.
Kemp has said he didn’t vote for anyone in this year’s primary but will vote for the Republican ticket in November.
Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative host in Georgia, said of Trump, “He can’t help himself.”
“Donald Trump is really trying to build unity in Georgia by attacking the sitting Republican Governor whose ground game he will need to win and also that Governor’s wife,” Erickson wrote on X. “And if he loses, it’ll be because of this stuff, not a stolen election.”
Taking the stage first, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, credited Trump with “exposing a massive coverup of the president’s mental incapacity” during the fateful June debate that ultimately led to Biden’s exit from the 2024 campaign, before lighting into Harris as “a San Francisco liberal who is so far out of the mainstream.”
From the Capitol Beat News Service via the Gwinnett Daily Post:
In a rousing 90-minute speech to cheering supporters, Trump assailed Harris as a “California socialist” who has failed to secure America’s borders in her role as the White House’s “border czar.”
“Ninety-four days from now, we’re going to win the great state of Georgia in an epic landslide,” Trump declared during Saturday’s rally at the Georgia State University Convocation Center, the same venue where Harris had led a rally four days earlier. “We’re going to evict this radical incompetent administration from the White House.”
“On Day One, we will seal the border, stop the invasion, and send the illegal aliens back home,” he said.
Trump also addressed violent crime in Georgia and America, a key theme of his campaign ads, and tied it to illegal immigration.
Specifically, he cited the murder last February of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed while jogging on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. A 26-year-old Venezuelan man allegedly in the country illegally has been charged with the crime.
“Kamala Harris let in a savage monster who murdered Laken Riley,” Trump said. “Laken’s blood is on Kamala Harris’ hands.”
Trump also criticized fellow Republican Kemp for refusing to call a special session of the General Assembly to address allegations of election fraud after Democrat Joe Biden narrowly defeated Trump in Georgia four years ago. Dozens of court rulings in Georgia and other states found no widespread fraud.
On Saturday, Trump accused Kemp of being disloyal after then-President Trump endorsed Kemp in his first run for governor in 2018.
The former president also went after GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused to help Trump “find” 11,780 votes in an infamous phone call early in January, 2021.
“The two of them are doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win,” Trump said.
At a rally at the Georgia State University Convocation Center in Atlanta, in a speech that lasted more than 90 minutes and that was peppered with grievances about his loss four years ago, Trump falsely claimed, “I won this state twice,” referring to the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Trump lost to Biden by roughly 12,000 votes in Georgia in 2020. Last year, the former president was indicted by an Atlanta grand jury on charges related to his efforts to subvert the results of that election in that state. On Saturday, he complained that he might not have ended up in legal jeopardy if Kemp and Raffensperger had cooperated with his attempts to reverse the 2020 results.
Trump added that he thought Georgia had slipped under Kemp’s leadership. “The state has gone to hell,” he said.
The Harris campaign provided a statement Saturday night from Geoff Duncan, a Republican who was the lieutenant governor of Georgia during the 2020 election, denouncing Trump.
“Tonight, we heard a particularly unhinged, angry version of the same Donald Trump that Georgia rejected in 2020,” said Duncan, who has endorsed Harris.
Amy Kremer, the newly elected Republican National Committee member from Georgia, amplified a social media post from pro-Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell that said Kemp and other GOP officials deserved the backlash.
“This will never stop until there is accountability,” Kremer wrote on X. “Lock them up!”
Republican state Sen. Colton Moore of Trenton, who was exiled from the GOP caucus a year ago, echoed Trump’s accusation that Kemp was trying to hinder him in November by saying the governor should “campaign for commie Kamala.”
And ultraconservative activist Kandiss Taylor promised to mobilize election deniers and organize “an offensive” to “secure” Georgia’s vote.
Meanwhile, dozens of Georgia Republicans, and even a few Democrats, promoted Kemp on social media or found other ways to express their support for the two-term governor after Trump’s tirade.
Said one veteran political wag: “I don’t remember a time where this many people — on both sides of the aisle, inside and outside of the state — have publicly had the governor’s back.”
Throughout his roughly 90-minute remarks, former President Donald Trump repeatedly called out Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a close ally sitting near the stage. A few times, Trump glowingly invoked Jones even as he bashed Gov. Brian Kemp.
As Jones prepares to run for Kemp’s seat in 2026, he’s relentlessly branding himself a Trump loyalist. But he also doesn’t want to get on Kemp’s bad side. That was clear in a statement Jones sent us after the rally.
Said Jones:
“I am friends with both the president and the governor and as much as I would like for my friends to be friends sometimes that is not the case … and that’s ok. The bottom line — this country can’t take 4 more years of the mess Joe Biden and Kamala Harris created. We have one shot to fix it this November and I am going to do everything I can to make sure Donald Trump is in the White House, not Kamala Harris.”
Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan (X-Forsyth County) trashes Trump in an Op-Ed in the AJC.
Meanwhile, Georgia Republican Party Chair Josh McKoon declared Duncan persona non grata in the Georgia GOP, according to the AJC.
On Friday, Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon sent Duncan an open letter demanding that he “cease referring to yourself as a Republican” and said the party would take actions to “protect the Republican brand” from his influence.
The one-term former lieutenant governor has long been a vocal critic of Donald Trump, but Duncan has more recently emerged as a forceful GOP supporter of Harris. He’s also said he’s open to speaking on her behalf at the Democratic National Convention this month.
McKoon said the party’s state executive committee will consider a measure to permanently ban Duncan from qualifying as a Republican for any state office. The Republican National Committee will consider a similar request from McKoon regarding running for national office.
The Georgia GOP also plans to adopt a resolution condemning Duncan’s “self-serving and hypocritical behavior” that formally expels him from the party, although Georgians don’t register by party anyway. And McKoon said Duncan will be “treated as a trespasser” if he seeks to attend any Georgia GOP event.
“Consequently, you are not and never will be considered a Republican ever again,” McKoon wrote. “I request that you govern yourself accordingly.”
Duncan dismissed the attack as political pandering from someone who has “decided to lick the boots of Donald Trump, a man who spent most of his life registered as a Democrat, donating to Democrats and supporting Democratic candidates.”
And he mocked McKoon for devoting more than $1.7 million to help pay the legal fees for several of Trump’s codefendants in the Fulton County racketeering case – and for McKoon’s short-lived bid for Secretary of State in 2018.
“I sleep soundly every night comfortable with not only my conservative credentials,” Duncan wrote, “but also the knowledge that I don’t wake up every day hoping I won’t have to defend the indefensible conduct of a morally bankrupt man who couldn’t pick you out of a police lineup, even if he tried.”
McKoon’s letter to Duncan began with the kind of nasty personal attacks increasingly common in partisan wars in recent years.
“In a life otherwise devoid of accomplishment (e.g. dropping out of college, failing as a minor league baseball player, starting a series of sketchy businesses), your nominations by the Republican Party were signal honors, without which you would have never served as a member of the Georgia General Assembly or the Lieutenant Governor of this Great State.
Many of Trump’s Georgia allies cheered McKoon’s letter, while others suggested Duncan wasn’t worth the effort. Jones, his successor, this week brought up Duncan’s background as a pitcher in the Miami Marlins’ minor-league system to hammer his political shift.
“He was a minor leaguer then. He’s a minor leaguer now,” Jones said. “Everything Duncan does is amateur hour.”
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns (R-Newington) announced an effort to protect Republican legislative incumbents, according to the AJC.
A coalition of groups aligned with Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns plans to spend roughly $1 million to mobilize voters of color, women and new voters to back Republicans in competitive state legislative districts in November.
The surge of spending reflects the increasingly close races for legislative seats in suburban Atlanta and middle Georgia where Republicans are fighting to hold their districts or topple Democratic incumbents.
Georgia’s Future, an outside group tied to Burns, said Monday it will spend roughly $750,000 on the campaign. The House Republican Caucus plans to dish out another $250,000 to identify and engage minority voters in competitive districts.
“Where Washington has failed, Georgia has succeeded,” Burns said. “And by meeting voters where they are, we can share our vision for a brighter future and empower them to participate in the democratic process.”
The GOP groups plan to highlight income tax cuts, teacher pay raises, criminal justice initiatives and a mental health overhaul to target voters of color, women and recent transplants to Georgia. It also finances a 30-second ad that contrasts the “chaos in Washington” with conservative state-based policies.
The Burns-aligned organizations didn’t specify which districts they will target. But Gov. Brian Kemp and national Democrats are already pouring resources into a handful of state legislative races that could be up for grabs.
They include seats held by Democratic state Reps. Jasmine Clark of Lilburn and Farooq Mughal of Dacula, along with Republican state Reps. Deborah Silcox of Sandy Springs, Scott Hilton of Peachtree Corners and Matt Reeves of Duluth.
State legislators may reconsider earlier decisions to move state post-seconary education from quarters to semester, according to the Capitol Beat News Service via the Moultrie Observer.
Georgia lawmakers are having second thoughts about switching the University System of Georgia from a quarter to a semester system back in 1999.
A state House study committee will begin meeting soon to take a fresh look at whether both the university system and the Technical College System of Georgia – which moved to semesters in 2011 – should switch back to quarters.
“There’s no preconceived outcome here,” said Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta, chairman of the House Higher Education Committee and a member of the study committee. “It’s just to assess the situation and some of the things that could be impacted if we were to change this. … We know some significant work would have to go on.”
When the switch from quarters was made, arguments in favor of going with a semester system included aligning Georgia’s university system with the approximately 70% of the nation’s colleges and universities operating on semesters. That made transfers within and across systems easier.
Greater administrative efficiencies and reduced administrative costs also were anticipated.
But a quarter century later, legislative leaders say they see a downside to semesters.
“The conversion from the quarter system to the semester system has resulted in longer terms with more classes and fewer graduation cycles,” according to the language of a resolution the House passed unanimously in March to create the study committee. “Some question whether semesters are the better option for students or for workforce development.”
“An expeditious path to entering the workforce is an important consideration for those looking to graduate from one of our fine institutions of higher learning, as well as those looking to hire those graduates,” Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, told the website State Affairs in June. Blackmon couldn’t be reached by Capitol Beat this week.
Martin said complications that would have to be worked out include how to coordinate the university and technical college systems’ quarters with Georgia’s high schools, which would continue to operate on the semester system.
University system administrators also would have to figure out how to handle the Christmas holiday break, which would occur during the middle quarter rather than between the first and second semesters, Martin said.
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” he said.
Besides Blackmon and Martin, the House study committee will include three other lawmakers: Reps. Mike Cheokas, R-Americus; Ginny Ehrhart, R-Marietta; and Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta.
Hall County launched a website with information on the proposed Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for Transportation (T-SPLOST), according to AccessWDUN.
Hall County’s government has launched an informational webpage to display what transportation projects could be funded by a proposed Transportation Special Local Option Sales Tax that is set to be on the ballot in November.
A TSPLOST is a one-cent sales tax that funds transportation projects and has to be approved by voters before being implemented. Hall County Commissioners voted in July to place a TSPLOST on this year’s ballot after getting agreement from all municipalities within the county.
The TSPLOST would run for a maximum of 6 years and is projected to bring in around $390 million.
The new informational site launched by the Hall County Government includes an interactive map showing road projects that could be funded by TSPLOST dollars.
“The role of our local government is to serve our citizens, and we want to make sure we are providing them with the necessary information and facts so that they can make an educated decision when voting yes or no on the Transportation SPLOST ballot question in November,” [Hall County District 3 Commissioner Gregg] Poole said. “The interactive map is a great tool that can help citizens gain a better idea of exactly what these projects entail and how they would affect their daily commute.”
Burke County Sheriff Alfonzo Williams is requesting more funding, according to WRDW.
Sheriff Alfonzo Williams says the budget request is to help with hiring, training and employee retention.
But some county leaders are firing back, mentioning the recent removal of “Gregory T. Coursey” signage from the front of the building without seeking the board’s approval on Wednesday and past budget requests.
A member of commission: “Commission voted to put the names on there. The name is not on there.”
Sheriff Williams: “The name is still there and the building has not been renamed, and I am just reminding commission does not pay for the grass to be cut, the commission does not have it go get cleaned.”
Others say the money is needed to keep up the standard of law enforcement response they need.
There was no vote on the budget.
Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Keith Higgins also asked for more funding, according to The Current GA.
The Glynn County Board of Commissioners deferred a vote to give District Attorney Keith Higgins a supplemental budget request of $362,000 after members of his financial staff made consequential financial blunders.
On July 16, 2024, at a special called meeting for the Glynn County Board of Commissioners, the board received a presentation from DA Higgins. Higgins revealed that the county’s prosecuting office was in dire financial straits — over budget by over $880,000 for the fiscal year 2024, which ended on June 30. To remedy the issue, he asked the county for $362,137.70, representing Glynn County’s 41% makeup of the total population of the five-county Brunswick Judicial Circuit.
During a hiring cycle in January 2024, the DA’s office hired three employees with county funding. At the time, the office was operating at a deficit — unbeknownst to Higgins.
In February 2024, Higgins received an email from the Glynn County Finance Department stating that there were overdue payments regarding reimbursement to the county.
“The staff that I have handling financial matters for me in the office miscalculated the amount of the county funds available to hire assistant DAs. They got it wrong,” Higgins told the commissioners.
When employees are hired with county funds, the checks are paid from the Glynn County Finance Department because they act as the payroll agent for all county-paid employees regardless of county. The DA’s office receives invoices from the finance department for the checks that they pay out. Subsequently, the DA’s office is supposed to reimburse the finance department.
“So in the cycle of reimbursing the county for payroll or disbursement of payroll, the first payments that stop payment stopped in November. No payments were made after that point in time. 60 days after the fact, had I known in December that we didn’t have the money to make payroll. We were behind. We had problems. There were things I could have done differently in January of 2024. Number one, I wouldn’t hire these Assistant DAs with a county paid salary.”
The Brunswick Judicial Circuit covers five counties: Appling, Camden, Glynn, Jeff Davis and Wayne.
Collectively, the five counties are home to over 200,000 people. Within the circuit, there are currently 6,640 open cases. The DA’s office has 16 assistant district attorneys and four investigators, according to the presentation.
With over 2,500 cases open in Glynn County, each of the five ADAs would have to take on 504 cases.
“Now, this isn’t the number that we need to do the job as it needs to be done. A study by the American Prosecutor Research Institute back in 1973 found that prosecutors should handle no more than 150 felonies or five 400 misdemeanor cases per year,” added Higgins.
A United States Postal Service letter carrier was arrested in Gwinnett County for allegedly stealing mail, according to AccessWDUN.
A United States Postal Services carrier was arrested in Gwinnett County after investigators allegedly discovered over 200 pieces of stolen mail and illegal drugs in his home and vehicle.
The USPS Inspector General contacted the Gwinnett County Police Department on July 31 regarding carrier Marcus Gregory after receiving several complaints filed by victims claiming they had not received their mail. Undercover officers began investigating Gregory the same day, and reportedly found him dumping mail in the woods near Williams Farm Road and Highway 316.
After Gregory allegedly dumped the mail, officers then saw him use illegal drugs in his work vehicle, according to a release from GCPD. Officers then pulled Gregory over and placed him under arrest. While searching the work vehicle, officers discovered more illegal drugs and a handgun.
A search of his personal vehicle reportedly led investigators to discovering an additional 215 pieces of stolen mail.
Officers served a search warrant of Gregory’s home on August 3rd and found more stolen mail.
Gregory was charged with DUI drugs, possession of a schedule I narcotic, possession of a firearm during a crime, theft of stolen mail, theft by taking, and obstruction. In total, Gregory was charged with 51 felony warrants and 9 misdemeanor warrants.
A woman was arrested in Burke County and charged with stealing mail, according to WRDW.
The Burke County Sheriff’s Office says on Tuesday at 5:45 a.m., dispatch received a call from a resident in the Northlake Drive Subdivision reporting a suspicious female rummaging through mailboxes in the neighborhood.
Upon arrival of Burke County Sheriff’s Office investigators, a search warrant was executed on Mabli’s vehicle.
Deputies say the search yielded a significant quantity of mail from Burke, Richmond and Grovetown neighborhoods, along with numerous credit cards, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and checks.
Initial findings suggest that stolen credit cards had been used for unauthorized purchases at local stores, according to the sheriff’s office.
Investigators are collaborating with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office and the United States Postal Inspection Service as the case progresses.
The Burke County Sheriff’s Office encourages anyone who may have been affected by mail theft in Burke, Columbia or Richmond Counties to report the incident to their local law enforcement agency.
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