President George Washington gave his farewell address on September 19, 1796.
The period for a new election of a Citizen, to Administer the Executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person, who is to be cloathed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those, out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you, at the sametime, to do me the justice to be assured, that this resolution has not been taken, without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation, which binds a dutiful Citizen to his country–and that, in withdrawing the tender of service which silence in my Situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness; but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.
On September 19, 1863, the Battle of Chickamauga was joined between the federal Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans and the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Gen. Braxton Bragg.
Thirteen marchers were shot and killed and forty more wounded in Camilla, Georgia at the Camilla Massacre on September 19, 1868 as marchers to a Republican Party rally were gunned down.
President James Garfield died on September 19, 1881, of wounds sustained on July 2d of that year. Garfield is one of seven Presidents born in Ohio – he and William McKinley, were both killed by assassins.
Chickamauga National Battlefield was dedicated September 19, 1895.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Voters in State House District 28 will go to the polls at a yet-undecided date to re-vote in the Republican Primary, according to The Northeast Georgian.
A judge in Banks County has ordered an election redo in the race for the Georgia House of Representative District 28 seat.
District 28 State Rep. Dan Gasaway filed a lawsuit June 7 in Fulton County Superior Court against defendants Habersham County Election Supervisor/Chief Registrar Laurel L. Ellison, his opponent Chris Erwin and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp alleging a districting error affected results of the May 22 election, which he lost to Erwin by 67 votes across Banks, Habersham and Stephens counties.
Court will reconvene at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to decide when the new election will be held.
Voters for the November elections must be registered by the October 9 deadline, according to the Statesboro Herald.
The state requires that early voting be offered for at least 15 weekdays plus one Saturday, but counties make different provisions for it. In Bulloch County, the one location available for early voting the entire three weeks, Oct. 15-Nov. 2, will be the Elections and Registration office at the annex. Besides being open for advanced voting 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday, the annex will be the only location for Saturday voting, Oct. 27, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
However, the local Elections Board is providing two additional early voting sites for shorter periods. The Honey Bowen Building, 1 Max Lockwood Drive at the Fair Road Park, will open for voting for five days, Oct. 29-Nov. 2, from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Additionally, an early voting location will open on the Georgia Southern University campus for three days, Oct. 23 through Oct. 25, also 8 a.m.-5 p.m. The location is Room 1042 of the Russell Union, 85 Georgia Ave.
Usually provided just for general elections, the on-campus site has drawn much higher participation in presidential election years than in gubernatorial elections like this one. In 2012 when President Barack Obama won re-election, 1,932 voters turned out at the Russell Union. In November 2016 when President Donald Trump was elected, 2,084 people voted there. But in 2014 with the last governor’s race, only 236 people voted on campus, said Bulloch County Election Supervisor Patricia Lanier Jones.
Click here to check that your voter registration is up-to-date and correct.
Democrat Stacey Abrams told voters to “stay woke” in a campaign appearance in Columbus, according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
Also staying woke: Former President Jimmy Carter, who is supporting Abrams for Governor, according to the Associated Press.
“Rosalynn and I are fully supporting Stacey for governor, and I don’t want anybody to be doubtful about that,” Carter said, standing in front of his town’s medical clinic, down the block from his 1976 presidential campaign headquarters.
“One of the main reasons is our deep concern about medical care in Georgia,” Carter continued.
He and Abrams joined in a recitation of dire health care statistics as they chided Georgia’s current Republican leadership, including Kemp, for opposing expansion of the Medicaid government insurance program for poor and low-income workers.
Kemp retorted Tuesday that he also prioritizes rural health care, and said Abrams wants to “double down on big government programs that cost too much and fail to deliver.”
More than a half dozen community hospitals have closed in Georgia in recent years under the weight of treating uninsured patients – treatments required by federal law. Abrams said that of Georgia’s 159 counties, 79 have no obstetrician-gynecologist, 64 have no pediatrician, 76 are without a psychologist, 52 counties are without social workers, and nine counties have no physician of any kind. She said the largest provider of mental health services in the state is the prison system.
Carter said the situation “grieves me very much.”
The answer, he and Abrams said, is accepting the federal government’s offer of expanded Medicaid coverage, a deal that would require Georgia to put up 10 cents of every new Medicaid dollar spent, with the federal treasury covering the rest. Georgia, under outgoing Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, is among the 17 states to reject expansion, calling it too expensive.
Kemp takes the same posture, arguing that economic development and job growth will expand access to private insurance.
Republican Congressman Rob Woodall (R-Gwinnett and Forsyth) met Democrat challenger Carolyn Bourdeaux in a public forum, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Woodall — who has himself received contributions from out-of-state groups — pointed to out of state contributions to Bourdeaux’s campaign.
“That doesn’t make her corrupt, that doesn’t make her bad,” Woodall said. “It just makes California and New York incredibly interested in how we decide who (should be elected) this year.”
“To suggest we’re having some kind of rebellion in the 7th District of Georgia is just nonsense,” Woodall said. “To suggest there are a lot of angry New Yorkers and Californians who want to see Georgians do different things, that’s absolutely true.”
But Bourdeaux said, “People are fed up. They are fed up because of health care. They are fed up with special interest money. They are fed up with the traffic. They are fed up with a lot of the things that are happening in Washington, the rollback of environmental regulations, and there’s just a lot of energy out there.
“People are sick and tired of how we are doing business and Donald Trump is kind of the cherry on top.”
Republican Gwinnett County Commissioner Lynette Howard and Democrat challenger Ben Ku met in a forum this week, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
There were a few eyebrow raising moments, such as when Howard, who praised the way the county’s transportation handled roads and other areas of Gwinnett’s transportation network, criticized Gwinnett County Transit’s bus system. The criticism came as she explained how money from Gwinnett would go to MARTA, if the referendum is approved.
“For every penny that is collected, 29 percent will go directly to MARTA to work on the bus system and getting that up and running in a better way than Gwinnett County can do it because we’re not good at that,” Howard said.
Ku later jumped on the juxtaposition of her praise for the transportation department and the criticism of the bus system.
“Why has it taken so long to address this issue of the growing congestion and traffic that we’ve had in Gwinnett,” he asked the commissioner.
Howard said, “These buses are very expensive and we’ve gotten federal dollars and done the best we can, but we do do transportation better than anyone. I don’t know how many of you find pot holes in your neighborhood when you go to and from work, but we try to address them quickly. If you go to any other jurisdiction, you won’t find that.”
In Augusta, nine men were arrested and indicited for alleged gang activity, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
The indictments are against nine members of the gang Sex Money Murder. Of those nine, three also face federal indictments. Sheriff Richard Roundtree said the investigation started around 10 months ago and is still ongoing.
According to Roundtree, SMM is part of a larger street gang known as Blood Nation that is based in New York. Roundtree said SMM has operated in the area for some time.
He said one of his campaign promises was to help establish a gang unit in Richmond County and that he has accomplished that with the gang task force, which aims to “disrupt, dismantle and neutralize” gangs in the area.
This is the third large indictment against a gang after the indictments of the gangs Hilltop and LOE, known as Loyalty Over Everything. Roundtree doesn’t want to stop there.
“The sheriff’s office, along with our federal and local partners, are currently focused on additional organizations as we speak and that we believe will result in additional arrests and prosecutions in the very near future,” Roundtree said. “Our message is simple, if you are still engaging in gang activity in Richmond County, that it might not be today, it may not be tomorrow, it may not even be next month, but know that your turn is coming.”
Two Macon men were convicted in Bibb County Superior Court of murder and gang charges, according to the Macon Telegraph.
Addonis Xavier Rhodes, 19, and Curtis Dewayne Jackson Jr., 25, were found guilty after jurors in Bibb Superior Court deliberated for about two hours.
On the night of Oct. 27, 2015, [Venard] Mays, 23, answered the back door at the Second Street home where he lived with his mother just south of downtown.
Prosecutors said five young men with ties to the Crips street gang were out in the yard looking for a book bag that contained guns and possibly drugs.
When Mays, who had been at work that day, told the gangsters that he didn’t know about any book bag, they apparently didn’t believe him and some of them opened fire on Mays, shooting him through the door. A bullet from a .40-caliber pistol struck him in the groin, killing him.
“Welcome to Macon,” Bibb prosecutor Jason Martin told jurors as he began his closing argument Tuesday morning, “where you can’t open your door because you might get shot by the gang that stashed a gun in your bushes.”
The Lowndes County Board of Education will now require citizens to sign up before noon the preceding Friday in order to make comments in a Monday evening meeting, according to the Valdosta Daily Times.
The previous policy allowed the public to sign up and speak the night of the Monday meeting.
The public participation policy change was first read by Superintendent Wes Taylor at the Sept. 10 work session.
He said he believes the policy change would make problem solving between the public and the school system “more effective and productive.”
“Board meetings are meetings for the board conducted in public — they’re not really designed to be public meetings,” Taylor said. “We’re not trying to take away their right to participate in public.”
Gainesville City Council voted to revise its alcohol ordinance, according to the Gainesville Times.
Distilleries, facilities that manufacture distilled spirits, were not previously allowed in the city. Anyone wanting to open a distillery still needs to get a license. Annual licensing fees for distilleries are $3,000, the same for wineries and breweries.
While plans for Gainesville Distilling Co. fell through in June, officials have said other entrepreneurs have reached out about opening distilleries in the city.
The new ordinance also doubles the amount of beer that someone can sample at a growler shop to 48 ounces. For wine, people are still limited to 24 ounces. Whether someone is drinking beer or wine, that means they are limited to three drinks.
Thomasville City Council held closed executive sessions to interview finalists for the City Manager position, according to the Dalton Daily Citizen.
A Middle Georgia physician was sentenced in federal court to more than 8 years in prison for allegedly operating a pill mill, according to the Macon Telegraph.
Chatham County prosecutor Frank Pennington II has joined the United States Attorney’s Office, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Congressman Sanford Bishop announced nearly $9 million dollars in Community Development Block Grants for his district, according to the Albany Herald.
Savannah’s Historic District Board of Review is supporting a plan by the federal government to build a new federal courthouse annex in historic downtown, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Glynn County Commissioners are considering banning golf carts from some public roads, according to The Brunswick News.
Bainbridge City Council passed a FY 2019 budget, according to The Post-Searchlight.
The United States Navy is considering new rules for operations that may impact Right whales off Georgia’s coast, according to The Brunswick News.
Rome’s Public Safety Committee heard from proponents and opponents of a proposed smoking ban, according to the Rome News-Tribune.
Gwinnett County Commissioners voted for a zoning variance to allow a new distribution center, codenamed “Project Rocket,” according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
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