Georgia History
On January 24, 1915, the first transcontinental telephone call was placed from Jekyll Island, Georgia
January 24, 1933 saw the first sales tax in Georgia proposed to fund schools and aid for farmers.
On January 24, 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. became co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, sharing the pulpit with his father.
On January 24, 1987, some 12,000 to 20,000 civil rights protesters marched in Forsyth County, a week after a smaller protest. From the New York Times reporting:
CUMMING, Ga., Jan. 24— This small town in Forsyth County was overwhelmed today by civil rights marchers, members of the Ku Klux Klan and their sympathizers and an army of National Guardsmen and law-enforcement officers who kept the opposing groups separated.
Guarded by what a spokesman for the Governor’s office called ”the greatest show of force the state has ever marshalled,” a crowd of marchers estimated at 12,000 to 20,000 funneled slowly into Cumming, where a week earlier counterdemonstrators, throwing stones and bottles, disrupted an interracial ”walk for brotherhood” prompted by the all-white county’s racist legacy.
As the marchers headed into Cumming, which has a little more than 2,000 people, they found waiting for them, behind a stern-faced force of 2,300 guardsmen and police officers, a group of hundreds if not thousands of white, mainly young, rural men and women, repeatedly shouting, “N***er, go home!”
Whatever the final figure, the march was one of the largest civil rights demonstrations since a 1965 rally that followed a march from Selma, Ala. to Montgomery. The rally, led by Dr. King, drew 25,000 people.
Seriously, read the Times report.
On January 24, 2001, the Georgia House of Representatives approved legislation changing the state flag to the Barnes design with the state seal on a blue background and a banner depicting five previous flags that flew over Georgia.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Yesterday, Governor Nathan Deal extended the state of emergency in South Georgia to nine additional counties.
He is also extending the executive order to run through midnight on January 30.
The state of emergency now exists in the following 16 counties: Atkinson, Baker, Berrien, Brooks, Calhoun, Clay, Colquitt, Cook, Crisp, Dougherty, Lowndes, Mitchell, Thomas, Turner, Wilcox and Worth. Mitchell and Dougherty Counties, previously impacted by similar severe weather, are now covered under this emergency declaration.
Gov. Deal plans to visit the affected areas on Wednesday, January 25.
Local leaders in South Georgia are asking the Trump Administration for federal assistance.
In Dougherty County, Georgia, where four people were killed, county commission Chairman Chris Cohilas said Monday that he has been “begging FEMA for boots on the ground,” referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“I’m asking President Trump to cut through the red tape and get people on the damned ground here,” he said.
The worst of the damage was in Georgia, particularly in Dougherty and Cook counties. Seven deaths were reported in Cook County, where a tornado demolished a mobile home park in Adel, NBC station WLTV reported.
“If you were to see it today, it’s like a war zone,” Adel Mayor Buddy Duke said at a news conference early Monday evening, his voice cracking with emotion.
“I’ve never seen the outpouring of love and support in any community that I’ve seen in the last day and a half,” he said. “We’re going to rebuild, and we’ll be back.”
Monday, Cohilas said a search was under way for a missing toddler who was swept away in rushing storm waters. But after four days of round-the-clock emergency operations, “we have exhausted every asset we have,” he said.
“The damage that we’ve suffered in our community is immeasurable,” he said. “Our people are suffering. They have no food, no home, no warmth, no hope.”
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“The state is making all of our resources available,” Deal said at an afternoon news conference. State officials said they are continuing search and rescue efforts in South Georgia, with more than 250 state employees working to clear debris, and provide shelter and disaster relief.
In an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a FEMA spokesman said the agency is working on the Jan. 9 assistance request from the Albany area to deal with the first round of storms that hit the town early this month. The agency also did initial damage assessments across Dougherty County Monday, including aerial observation, the spokesman wrote.
Additionally, the state has requested that FEMA work with state emergency officials to do federal and state preliminary damage assessments to help with individual and public assistance requests. A FEMA liaison officer is working with responders at the emergency operations center.
How to Help South Georgia Tornado Victims
WMAZ television has a list of places in Middle and South Georgia where donations can be taken.
Tift County Sheriff Gene Scarbrough posted a request for bottled water on Facebook:
The cleanup effort by our First Responders and cleanup crews is going to be a massive operation and they will need lots of water and other necessities to accomplish their tasks. Tift County citizens were lucky in dodging the many tornados that came through.
I am asking everyone that can help to bring as many cases of water as you can possibly afford to the Parking lot of the Tift County Sheriff’s Office tomorrow and the next couple of days, where we will have a truck and or trailer to load depending on the need, to distribute to for our friends to the South during this very horrific effort. We can do this folks!!!! P.S. Any items y’all hear that they need, please bring them and we will get it to them .
Cook County Probate Judge Chase Daughtrey has set up a website for donations to local efforts.
11Alive has information on how to donate to Red Cross specifically to help South Georgia efforts.
A GoFundMe account has been opened to raise funds for victims in Cook County’s Sun Shine Acres trailer court.
Committee Meeting Schedule
7:30 AM ALL HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEES 341 CAP
1:00 PM SENATE PUBLIC SAFETY – CANCELED 307 CLOB
1:00 PM SENATE INSURANCE AND LABOR – CANCELED 450 CAP
1:00 PMHouse Ad Valorem Sub of Ways & Means 133 CAP
1:30 PM Sales Tax Sub of Ways & Means 133 CAP2:00 PM SENATE ECON DEV & TOURISM MEZZ 1
2:00 PM SENATE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES – CANCELED 450 CAP
2:00 PM HOUSE GAME, FISH & PARKS 403 CAP
3:00 PM TRANSPORTATION 450 CAP
3:00 PM HOUSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 506 CLOB
3:00 PM HOUSE ENERGY, UTILITIES & TELECOMM 403 CAP
4:00 PM SENATE JUDICIARY 307 CLOB
State government leaders will tour Fort Gordon, where the Army is locating its U.S. Army Cyber Command.
Gov. Nathan Deal, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, will tour Fort Gordon’s cyber facilities. They will visit units in the Cyber Center for Excellence to get a first-hand look at work already being done at the Army post.
The Cyber Command complex will be constructed in two phases. The $85.1 million, 179,000-square-foot first phase is scheduled for completion in May 2018 for the Army Cyber Command, which is known numerically as the Second Army and is also responsible for providing information assistance to “boots on the ground” personnel in active war zones.
The second phase, scheduled for completion in early 2019, will house the Army Cyber Protection Brigade, which maintains and defends the nation’s defense networks; and the post’s joint-force operations, which include Navy, Air Force and Marines’ cyber and intelligence personnel. The combined Army Cyber Command Complex will have space for more than 1,200 service members and civilian contractors by late 2020, greatly expanding the small task force of cyber personnel now on the post.
Atlanta’s tech industry could be helped by the Cyber Command location, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
[E]nthusiastic Atlanta-based cybersecurity industry executives say the halo effect of a state-backed research and training hub will pay dividends for Atlanta’s cybersecurity sector by driving private investment to the sector, attracting cyber companies and nurturing home-grown startups.
The center will train Georgia teachers in cyber instruction aimed at elementary and secondary school students, said Calvin Rhodes, executive director of the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA), the state agency coordinating the initiative.
A key tool in those education and training programs will be the center’s cyber range, a virtual environment that will create scenarios for students to practice what they’ve learned.
The cyber range will have practical applications for small cyber companies that can’t afford their own range.
“We can bring in start-up or mid-size companies that want to leverage the range to try out a product,” Rhodes said.
The State House Military Affairs Working Group is working “to find ways to improve the military value of our bases, expand economic opportunities and ensure that Georgia remains the very best state for our war fighters and our veterans to live and thrive,” according to State Rep. Dave Belton (R-Buckhead), via the Macon Times.
“One thing … we heard over and over again is that military bases want better education, specifically K-12 education in Georgia. They feel like Georgia’s K-12 education is the biggest detriment to keeping its military bases,” Belton said.
“We hate to go tell the … school boards what they have to do,” Belton said. Instead, he’s suggesting committee members come up with a resolution urging city and county school boards to offer school choice to military families, and then offer to help any who choose to do so.
On the tax front, some committee members want to exempt military retirement income from state taxes.
But they don’t yet have the correct legalese to propose that. State Rep. Richard Smith, R-Columbus, told the committee that the Legislature’s official lawyers reported to him that it’s not legal to exempt one kind of federal retirement income.
“We’re going to continue to look to see how these other states are doing it,” Smith said, “to see if we can adapt our system to that. But as it now stands its pretty much dead until we can figure out a new way to do it.”
State Rep. Bruce Broadrick, (R-Dalton) introduced a resolution to dedicate name an intersection after Whitfield County Deputy Durwin Potts, who died after a traffic accident while responding to a call from another deputy.
Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens weighs in with his thoughts on repealing Obamacare.
Hudgens made the comments in a Jan. 13 letter to U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who, along with other House leaders, wrote to governors and insurance commissioners asking for their views on health care changes under the new Congress.
“I welcome any action by the federal government that truly shifts authority away from Washington, D.C., and returns it to Georgia and allows our state to set policy in areas so important to the lives of our citizens,’’ Hudgens wrote.
Hudgens said in his letter that the health care law’s requirement for most people to have insurance or be penalized did not work in resolving the pre-existing condition problem, leading to what he called significant cost increases.
A high-risk pool for high-cost individuals, funded by the feds and run by states, would allow the risk pool for other people “to function normally,” said Hudgens.
Hudgens also supports insurers selling policies across state lines, even though a Georgia law allowing such sales has not led to any takers.
The Georgia State Commission on Petroleum Pipelines recommends extending the current moratorium on oil and gasoline pipeline construction in Georgia for another two years while the commission continues to study the issue.
That moratorium is set to expire June 30. Controversy surrounding the use of eminent domain and environmental concerns over the proposed Palmetto Pipeline spurred the ban. Houston-based Kinder Morgan proposed the pipeline to carry gasoline from its terminal in Belton, S.C., through Georgia to Jacksonville.
Ultimately, the Georgia Department of Transportation denied the pipeline the authority to condemn private property along the route, and the Superior Court of Fulton County upheld that decision on appeal.
[The Commission] held three public hearings last year including a kickoff one in Savannah on Oct. 20 to gather citizen input.
Commission members included lawmakers and representatives from business, agriculture, local government and conservation along with a representative from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Gil McBride is asking the GBI to investigate a settlement between Muscogee County School District and a police officer who was hit by a school bus.
Katie Frost writes for the Newnan Times-Herald about her trip to the Trump inaugural.
Cobb County Republicans celebrated the inaugural with a watch party.
On March 21, 2017, Coweta County voters will decide whether to extend a one-cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for Education (E-SPLOST).
If approved, the so-called ESPLOST V could generate as much as $134 million over a five-year collection period. Revenue is used to fund specific projects like artificial turf for athletic fields. Proposed projects will be identified by the school system before the March vote.
The Georgia Ports Authority set another monthly record for year-over-year growth in container traffic.
The Georgia Ports Authority posted 12.3 percent growth in year-over-year container volumes for December – an increase made even more impressive by the fact that December 2015 reflected inflated cargo numbers as the threat of a strike on the West Coast sent more containers Georgia’s way.
December’s 292,172 twenty-foot equivalent container units – know as TEUs – marked a new record for the ports, Executive Director Griff Lynch told the GPA board Monday at its first meeting of 2017.
The growth in containers was replicated in December’s roll-on/roll-off cargo, with 63,967 autos, trucks and heavy equipment units handled at Colonel’s Island in Brunswick and Ocean Terminal in Savannah – also a 12.3 percent increase year-over-year.
Overall, the port marked its busiest year ever in loaded container traffic in 2016, moving 2.94 million TEUs, an increase of 71,083 over 2015. Counting loaded and empty containers, the Port of Savannah moved 3.64 million TEUs in calendar year 2016.
Reporting on the status of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, Lynch said the first contract for the the sediment basin area work was awarded in September and is currently 16 percent complete. Dredging of the outer harbor entrance channel is about 40 percent complete, and work on the dissolved oxygen sites up and down the river is 15 percent finished and on schedule to be done by the end of this year.
The board also heard an update on GPA’s newest inland terminal, the Appalachian Regional Port in Northwest Georgia. Port officials estimate the CSX rail route will reduce Atlanta truck traffic by 50,000 moves annually and expand GPA’s target market in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Each container moved by rail from the inland terminal will offset 355 truck miles on Georgia highways.
Hyundai’s announcement of $3.1 billion in US investment could help Georgia, where sister company Kia has a West Point plant.
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