On November 1, 1732, the Georgia Trustees met in London and chose the name and location of a new colony to be called Savannah.
On November 1, 1765, the British Parliament enacted the Stamp Act to raise revenue for military operations in the American colonies.
Passed without debate by Parliament in March 1765, the Stamp Act was designed to force colonists to use special stamped paper in the printing of newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, and playing cards, and to have a stamp embossed on all commercial and legal papers. The stamp itself displayed an image of a Tudor rose framed by the word “America” and the French phrase Honi soit qui mal y pense—”Shame to him who thinks evil of it.”
Georgia and the Creeks Indians signed a treaty on November 1, 1783 giving Georgia control of all land between the Ogeechee and Oconee Rivers.
An assassination was attempted against President Harry S. Truman on November 1, 1950.
On October 1, 2013, the University System of Georgia announced that Southern Polytechnic and Kennesaw State University would merge.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
The lucky winner of an auction will have the opportunity to blow Bill Clinton’s horn – a saxophone played by the former President in a 1992 stop to campaign campaign in Macon for Democrat Wyche Fowler is being offered for sale.
The historic horn will now be sold with the estate of former Central High School band director Bob Barnette, who died in April at age 76.
Two weeks after Clinton was elected, Barnette’s Sugar Bear Band was tapped to provide entertainment for a run-off rally for Wyche Fowler.
The Georgia Democrat senator couldn’t quite ride Clinton’s coat tails in the 1992 presidential election, and ultimately lost to Republican Paul Coverdell.
“I want to say as an old band boy, I love the Sugar Bear Band from Macon, Georgia,” Clinton said after hearing members play “Hail to the Chief.”
Macon was Clinton’s first stop out of Washington, following his election.
A voice from the press corps called out for Barnette to hand Clinton a sax.
The president-elect jumped at the chance to jam with the Sugar Bear Band.
Barnette’s widow, Annette, has not set a price on the saxophone, which comes with a lighted display case, but is seeking the best offer as she holds an estate sale Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 4667 N. Beechwood Drive.
Mary Jane Dunlap fulfilled her civic duty of voting at the age of 100. You have no excuse for failing to vote.
Andrea Springfield said there have been a lot of voters coming into the Whitfield County Courthouse for early voting recently, but Thursday Mary Jane Dunlap was the first 100-year-old.
Springfield works at the Whitfield County Board of Elections and Registrars and remembers Dunlap being very “nice and sweet”.
Dunlap, who moved to Dalton from south Georgia five years ago, told election workers she’s never missed an opportunity to vote because she was taught the importance of voting at an early age. “My parents believed that it was our duty to have a voice in the elections,” she said.
She said she’s proud of the number of people casting votes early.
“Voting is something that is our duty,” Dunlap said. “We’re voting for people that serve all of us,” she said, adding, “We all have preferences and you can express them by voting,” she said.
Dunlap is a former educator who holds a masters in teaching and also taught Sunday school for 40 years. And in July, she celebrated her 100th birthday with 65 of her closest relatives and three parties. One party was held a Royal Oaks, where Dunlap resides.
In her spare time Dunlap enjoys reading and having friends visit. Her favorite sports teams are the Atlanta Braves and the University of Georgia Bulldogs football.
Another Colonial Pipeline explosion in Alabama may impact fuel supplies and prices in Georgia.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division is restricting campfires in some Wildlife Management Areas due to extreme drought conditions.
“Due to the lingering and continued drought conditions, there is elevated risk of wildfire in north and central Georgia,” said John Bowers, Chief of WRD Game Management.
“Suspending the use of campfires on WMAs minimizes the risk of dangerous wildfires that threaten public safety and our forest resources. This action is consistent with the policy recently established for National Forest Lands by the USDA Forest Service and is supported by the Georgia Forestry Commission.”
Hunters and visitors to the affected WMAs must refrain from building, maintaining, attending or using a fire or campfire. Commercially available fuel stoves are excluded from restriction, according to Bowers.
Georgia and Florida met in a Portland, Maine courtroom to discuss water litigation between the states.
Lawyers for Georgia and Florida clashed on Monday in a long-running dispute over water rights in the watershed including Lake Lanier, with Florida blaming low river flows for imperiling fisheries and Georgia denying responsibility and saying water restrictions could imperil its economy.
Florida attorney Phil Perry said the Sunshine State’s neighbor flip-flopped and now claims that “Florida’s harms are imaginary and that Georgia has no responsibility.”
Georgia’s attorney suggested other factors including a dam and dredging in Florida are to blame for devastating the oyster industry in an Apalachicola Bay estuary.
“Florida is asking the court to put (Georgia residents) at the risk of significant hardship for no good reason,” attorney Craig Primis said.
The dispute focuses on the watershed that includes Lake Lanier and stretches down through western Georgia, eastern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The Chattahoochee and Flint rivers flow through Georgia and meet at the Florida border to form the Apalachicola River, which flows into the Apalachicola Bay.
Alabama, which could enter the legal fray, has sided with Florida, encouraging a cap on Georgia’s use.
Governor Nathan Deal has named current Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) Clyde L. Reese III to a vacancy on the Georgia Court of Appeals effective December 1st.
“Commissioner Reese’s extensive legal experience in both the public and private sectors make him the ideal candidate to join the Georgia Court of Appeals,” said Deal. “He has demonstrated his unwavering commitment to the well-being of Georgia’s citizens while running one of Georgia’s largest state agencies. Commissioner Reese also showed remarkable capabilities in implementing state law when he worked in the attorney general’s office. I am confident that his knowledge and experience will make him a true asset for the Georgia Court of Appeals and Georgia law for many years to come.”
Reese is the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH). He was previously an assistant attorney general for the state of Georgia and general counsel for the State Health Planning Agency. Reese practiced health care regulatory law in the private sector from 2003 through 2007. He returned to state government in 2007 as the executive director of the Division of Health Planning at DCH. Reese was commissioner of DCH in 2010 prior to serving as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services from 2011 through 2013. He specializes in health care regulatory and administrative law. Reese earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University and a law degree from Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. He has five children and resides in Douglasville.
Reese said in a statement Monday, “I am extremely humbled and honored by Governor Deal appointing me to a seat on the Georgia Court of Appeals. I am gratified by his confidence in me and intend to work very hard to be an able colleague to the other members of the Court of Appeals. It is even more of an honor to be named to replace a legend of our state and the legal world, Judge Herbert E. Phipps.
“It has been a privilege to serve in the Deal administration over the past six years. We have navigated many complex waters in human services and health care and I appreciate that opportunity.
”I would like to thank the Board of Community Health, my senior staff, and all employees of the Department for their support and hard work.”
There was no announcement Monday of who would replace Reese at Community Health.
Medicaid expansion is expected to be a major issue in the 2017 Session of the Georgia General Assembly, and the next Commissioner of DCH will have his or her work cut out.
Johnny Isakson is at 50 percent in a new poll by 11 Alive, while Democrat Jim Barksdale trails by 12 points.
The survey shows Trump with 49 percent of the vote in the state; Clinton has 42 percent and Libertarian Gary Johnson has three percent. Six percent of voters surveyed are undecided.
Georgia’s high school dropout rate is higher than the national average, according to a new report by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Irish news website TheJournal.ie is surveying voters in American cities called Dublin, and visited Dublin, Georgia.
Georgia is far from the reddest of red states – but anything other than a Donald Trump win there next week will be a shock.
Four years ago, the state comfortably chose Mitt Romney with Barack Obama only really winning out in the state’s two big cities – Atlanta in the northwest and Savannah along the state’s Atlantic coast.
About halfway between the those two major hubs, just off Interstate 16 linking them, is Dublin, GA.
In some ways it’s quite mixed, Laurens County has a Republican congressman and Dublin’s sheriff is a Democrat.
Dublin’s make-up is also relatively even, between black and white residents.
But as with many towns across the nation, this presidential campaign has certainly tested harmony between the two main political parties.
If there’s one thing both sides can agree on though, it’s that 2016 is different.
“I’ve never seen an election like this,” that’s the blunt assessment of Ronald Schwartz, a Republican chairman in the area and the county manager for Donald Trump 2016.
Congressman Rob Woodall (R-7) told the Georgia Transportation Alliance that Georgia is developing a reputation for transportation funding.
In 2015, the Legislature passed HB 170, which imposed new taxes that will raise about $900 million a year for transportation projects, and Woodall said encouraging more state responsibility for transportation was one of the aims when Congress passed a five-year, $325 billion transportation bill in December 2015.
“That (bill) was less keep the bridges from falling down and let’s make sure the roads don’t develop any problems. It was a maintenance bill,” he said. “I can’t get the votes to raise revenues for transportation and get serious about transportation because folks don’t trust us they way they trust states and localities.”
The federal bill will provide $6.8 billion to Georgia over the next five years for transportation.
“We get 14 percent more than most other states,” he said.
He said Georgia ranks No. 8 among the 50 states in the amount of money it will get from the bill.
“This was a good bill for Georgia, but we got a great deal because Georgia was willing to step up and take responsibility for itself,” he said.
Republican Drew Ferguson debated Democratic candidate Angela Pendly in the 3d District.
Fulton County has seen 168,138 early voters so far and exceeding the 2012 early voting total.
Fulton’s turnout thus far has already exceeded that from four years ago, when about 152,000 people voted early. And county officials expect to set a new record of more than 220,000 early voters by the end of the week.
Gwinnett County is on track to break its early voting record this year.
County spokesman Joe Sorenson said 70,689 Gwinnett voters had voted early as of 4 p.m. on Monday. He said the county’s record for early, or advance in-person, voting is 88,798, which was set in 2008.
“We are on track to far exceed our previous record for advance in-person voting,” Sorenson said.
Although there are now eight advance in-person voting locations open around Gwinnett County, voters can still expect a long wait before they get to cast their ballots.
“Early voting has been going well,” Sorenson said. “We started this morning with no waits or short waits at most locations. Volume has built throughout the day. It built quickly once word of the short waits got out.”
The prediction of a record-breaking early voting turnout in Gwinnett comes on the heals of news that more than 1 million Georgia voters have already cast ballots through in-person and absentee voting.
Dougherty County saw more than a thousand voters this weekend.
Dougherty County was one of only 10 counties in the state of Georgia to offer early voting on Sunday.
It was a successful weekend at the polls.
Lines were long on both Saturday and Sunday.
At one point, the wait was over 3 hours.
1,044 people stood in line to vote.
Nearly a quarter of Lowndes County voters have turned out already in the General Election.
Columbia County has had more than 23,500 early ballots cast so far.
Middle Georgia voters may see tax increase referenda on their ballots this year.
The big pitch comes for Macon-Bibb County voters, who will decide if they want to keep paying a 1-cent sales tax on the dollar for public projects. Collection would start in 2018, and it would last until it raises $280 million. If passed, the special purpose local option sales tax — or SPLOST — would fund projects from sewer works to parks to a courthouse expansion.
Pulaski County will also vote on a 1-cent sales tax proposal. It’s a continuation of a sales tax that people already pay in the county, which is set to expire at the end of October, Pulaski County Commissioner M.A. “Butch” Hall said. If approved, collection would start in April 2017. Over six years, it’ll raise about $6 million, he said, to be spent on public safety, City Hall, recreation, roads and bridges.
Putnam County residents will vote on a “freeport exemption” — a tax break on the inventory sitting in distribution centers that’s waiting for delivery to customers. The point is to try to woo those kinds of warehouses to the county and create jobs, Commission Chairman Stephen Hersey said. He said the budget impact will be very little, probably less than $50,000.
The city of Roberta and Crawford County will vote on whether to close City Hall and merge the two governments into Roberta-Crawford Countyunder an elected county commission.
Chatham County District 6 Commissioner Lori Brady, a Republican, faces Democratic challenger James “Jay” Jones on election day.
Augusta Commissioners are considering building a $62 million facility to turn waste into electricity.
Lowndes County FFA won more national awards than any other group at the FFA National Convention.
Colquitt Regional Medical Center and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine will work together to develop a plan for a satellite campus of the Pennsylvania-based medical school.
“The positive impact this endeavor to establish a location in South Georgia will have on physician recruitment and workforce development will be substantial,” Colquitt Regional President & CEO Jim Matney, said in a news release. “Building a premier site for rural medical education has been a long-term goal for Colquitt Regional, and we are glad to partner with PCOM in bringing a campus to this region.
According to Perry Mustian, President/CEO of Archbold Medical Center in Thomasville, Georgia, a new campus in the region would have a tremendous economic, academic and clinical impact, in addition to allowing the collaborative efforts of regional hospitals and physician networks to enhance the medical education pipeline and ensure access to quality care.
“We look forward to bringing our college’s 117 years of experience in educating physicians and health sciences professionals to the South Georgia area,” said Jay Feldstein, DO, president of PCOM, was quoted in the news release. “This Memorandum of Agreement, signifying our mutual respect and trust, begins the extensive process with our accrediting agency to make this possibility come true within the region. While much has been done to get us to the point of signing this agreement, we all recognize that much remains to be done. We enthusiastically look forward to a successful outcome for all.”
A new distillery will open in Dahlonega featuring a Maker’s Mark alumnus as master distiller.
It’s a boutique distillery that creates small-batch, hand-crafted, Appalachian-style spirits.
The distillery, located at 2148 Town Creek Church Road in Dahlonega, will focus on wheated bourbon products and also plans to offer a botanical gin with lavender.
The bourbon products, with names inspired by the Dahlonega Gold Rush, will come in a variety: unaged, somewhat aged (aged less than two years), and the 1829, a bourbon aged two years in oak.
The gin bottle features an old map of Dahlonega.
Eventually they got Dave Pickerell onboard as their master distiller.
“He is the master distiller, he will take us through every step, every nuance,” Kelly said, adding the knowledge Pickerell is sharing with them is priceless.
Pickerell was master distiller at Maker’s Mark Distillery for 14 years. He now works with budding craft distilleries — like Stillhouse Creek — as a consultant.
Whatever else comes of the 2016 elections, I’d anticipate an uptick in demand for bourbon.
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