On September 5, 1774, the Continental Congress convened for the first time at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia; delegates attended from all the colonies except Georgia.
The Heart of Atlanta Motel opened at 255 Courtland Street in downtown Atlanta on September 5, 1956. It included a three-story diving platform reached by spiral stairs and a pool large enough to hold a ski boat. African-Americans were not allowed at the Heart of Atlanta. [Photos © Georgia State University]
After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned racial discrimination in interstate commerce, the Heart of Atlanta’s owner sued the federal government, asserting that the Act was an overly broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.
The resulting decision by the United States Supreme Court upheld the Act, finding that Congress was within its authority to ban racial discrimination in businesses affecting interstate commerce.
Atlanta Time Machine has a webpage with interesting images of the Motel.
On September 5, 1969, United States Army Lieutenant William Calley was charged with murder in connection with the deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. An Army inquiry listed 30 people who knew of the event and charges were filed against 14; Calley was the only conviction. Later, President Nixon paroled Calley. From 1975 to 2005 or 2006, Calley lived and worked in Columbus, Georgia, before moving to Atlanta. In 2009, Calley apologized for the events at My Lai while speaking to a meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Your humble narrator is considering moving to Idyllwild, California, where a Golden Retriever serves as Mayor.
Phyllis Mueller, Mayor Max’s chief of staff, helps her furry friend rub elbows, usually giving away business cards and small stuffed animals to the people she and Max meet.
She also helps the mayor with the day-to-day office work.
“My role as the chief of staff is to help run the vision for what is the mayor’s office for Idyllwild, so we actually run a real mayor’s office for Idyllwild,” Mueller said.
Mayor Max has been in office for five years, and will hold his ceremonial role for his lifetime. But how did a dog become mayor in the first place?
Because it’s a non-incorporated town, Idyllwild has no actual human mayor. In 2012, the nonprofit Idyllwild Animal Rescue Friends decided to sponsor the town’s first mayoral election, in which local residents were allowed to nominate their dogs or cats for office.
“So, six years ago, Idyllwild decided to elect its first mayor. And you had to be a local resident, but you couldn’t run yourself. You could run your pet,” Mueller said. “In a voted election, 14 dogs and two cats ran, and we decided to have an election to raise money for animal rescue. So, you paid a dollar a vote, and you were encouraged to vote a lot.”
I have previously served as Chief of Staff to three different Golden Retrievers, so I consider my California job prospects pretty solid.
Vice President Mike Pence will appear at an event to boost the Georgia Republican Party next week, according to the AJC.
Pence is set to host the Sept. 13 fundraiser at an Atlanta hotel to boost Kemp in the race against Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is seeking to be the first Democrat to hold the state’s top office since 2003. Three people with direct knowledge of the event told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of the plans, which were later confirmed in an invite.
The fundraiser will raise cash for the Georgia GOP and will also feature Gov. Nathan Deal, U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Johnny Isakson, and state House Speaker David Ralston. It is not currently open to the public.
The vice president has become a frequent presence in Georgia, stumping for Trump during the 2016 campaign and Karen Handel’s bid for the 6th Congressional District. He also recently quarterbacked an event touting the GOP tax bill and visited Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day Festival.
Pence also has another connection to Georgia. His top aide, Nick Ayers, is a Georgia native who was an adviser to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and his first-cousin, U.S. Sen. David Perdue.
Georgia farmers could receive up to $50 million from the federal government as new tariffs come online, according to the AJC.
Cotton producers are expected to reap the largest share of Georgia-bound U.S. Department of Agriculture money, according to the trade group, which projected roughly $42 million going to local farmers based on their 2018 harvest.
Peanut, pecan and blueberry producers could also receive some assistance under the initial $4.7 billion aid package rolled out last week by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, but just how much help is still unclear.
The Trump administration is seeking to bolster U.S. farmers as trading partners such as China and the European Union continue to ratchet up retaliatory tariffs on scores of American goods, from apples to motorcycles.
Governor Nathan Deal yesterday announced that express lanes will open on I-75 and I-575 on Saturday.
This infrastructure project, the largest of its kind in state history, adds approximately 30 miles of express lanes along I-75 from Akers Mill Road to Hickory Grove Road, and along I-575 from I-75 to Sixes Road.
The first 14 days of operation will be free for motorists with registered Peach Passes to encourage commuters to utilize the express lanes. More information about the Northwest Corridor Express Lanes is available here.
Deal will attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday, Sept. 12, at 10 a.m. to celebrate the completion and opening of the project.
Georgia Public Service Commissioner Chuck Eaton (R) has received the support of both organized labor and business interests, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
“Where it’s the Democratic mission to elect Democrats, it’s the unions’ vision to elect candidates that support their workers, that support jobs,” said Moses Todd, a former Augusta Commission member who is president of the 12-county East Central Georgia Labor Council of the AFL-CIO.
Todd said the group did its best to block Democratic candidate John Noel, who spoke of shuttering the Plant Vogtle expansion, and was left with Miller, who “is not where we want her to be as far as jobs go” at Vogtle or on a future addition of two more nuclear reactors in west Georgia.
The labor council and Augusta Building and Trades union represents more than 6,000 workers at the nuclear power plant, Todd said.
Chris Clark, the president of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, credited Eaton with the state’s economic prosperity.
“Commissioner Eaton has played a key role in Georgia’s incredible job growth for the last decade,” Clark said in a statement.
“I’m for working families, I’m for jobs, and what brings us all together is the understanding that we need reliable and low-cost energy supply,” Eaton said.
Georgia Supreme Court Justice Harold Melton was sworn in as Chief Justice, according to GPB News.
Harold Melton was appointed to the state’s supreme court in 2005 by then Gov. Sonny Perdue. Perdue introduced the new chief justice before he took the oath and credited him with avoiding make the court a polarizing branch of government.
“I’m glad that within this state, they’re looking at us to apply the law,” Melton said. “They’re not asking us to impose individual viewpoints and we are holding ourselves to the public as that being our assignment.”
A State Senate Study Committee chaired by Sen. Steve Gooch (R-Dahlonega) is considering school starting dates, according to the Dawson County News.
“As we celebrate Labor Day each year as the unofficial end of summer, most of our public schools have been back in full swing for nearly a month,” Gooch said. “Additionally, August is typically the hottest time of year when energy bills reach their peak and student athletes’ safety is a big concern. I believe that for these reasons and others, it is a good time to take a look at how we compare to other states who still utilize a more traditional school calendar with their start dates after Labor Day.”
Gooch said the committee looks forward to hearing from all key stakeholders on how this shift would impact Georgia public schools, students, parents and the tourism industry. The goal is to determine if a later start date is feasible and if it would provide additional opportunities for families to take a vacation together while increasing the availability of summer workers for Georgia’s booming travel and hospitality industries.
“We will review these possibilities while also ensuring that there will be no disruption to the education of our children,” Gooch said.
Muscogee County courts have been disrupted by leaks at the Columbus Government Center, according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
Since June 18, the Muscogee County court system has been in a state of disarray and flux because of flooding in the Columbus Government Center that has rendered more than half of the main courtrooms unusable and forced some judges to be moved out of their offices and into an office building a couple of blocks away.
Criminal trials are being held in the remaining Government Center courtrooms, while many criminal hearings are being held in the courtrooms adjacent to the Muscogee County jail.
Some civil proceedings, including divorce trials and child custody hearings are being delayed or moved to makeshift courtrooms in the Government Center or the courthouse in neighboring Harris County. A recent civil trial in front of Superior Court Judge Bill Rumer was held in a meeting room inside the Columbus Convention & Trade Center that was converted into a temporary courtroom.
“Our two largest courtrooms are knocked out of commission,” [Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit Chief Superior Court Judge Gil] McBride said.
Columbus City Council heard about problems with the Government Center, according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
On top of the work that will be needed to fix the damage caused by the flooding, [Public Works Director Pat] Biegler says the building needs nearly $6 million in immediate repair work. That includes $2.5 million for drain line replacement; $800,000 for new air conditioner controls; $80,000 to change gate values to ball valves; $50,000 for cut-off valves on each floor; and $50,000 for lock replacements.
Also in that nearly $6 million estimate is $2.45 million needed in fire safety work, Biegler said. This includes $1 million for a new sprinkler system, $850,000 to pressurize the stairwells and $600,000 for a new fire alarm system.
“And that’s not everything that needs to be done,” Biegler said. “If we are going to replace the building down the road, we need to make a decision to invest and move forward with some of these projects.”
“That is just getting the building in the short-term to the state we can have normal operations through the period of time it’s going to take to get us to the point we have the funding to either renovate or construct a new building,” [City Manager Isaiah] Hugley said.
Statesboro City Council approved spending nearly $69k to study establishing a transit system, according to the Statesboro Herald.
Although the money will come now from the city’s general fund, it is to be repaid from the $450,000 earmarked for Statesboro public transit from the new five-year, countywide Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. That will leave a little more than $380,000 from the T-SPLOST for actual investment in the transit system. But one purpose of the study will be to determine what kind of bus, van or other transit system Statesboro can support.
The council unanimously approved hiring Connetics Transportation Group to do the research, but not before some council members questioned spending a substantial portion of the transit funds on a study. That prompted Mayor Jonathan McCollar to own the quest for public transportation as a “mayoral initiative” with a broad purpose.
The Savannah-Chatham County Public School System saw no improvement in student scores on the Georgia Milestones Assessment System after implementing a program designed to improve scores, according to the Savannah Morning News.
The Glynn County Commission will consider whether to accept a $2.5 million dollar beach renourishment grant, according to The Brunswick News.
Three county commissioners, including St. Simons, Jekyll and Sea islands commissioner Peter Murphy, met with state officials earlier this year to discuss the grant. In February, Murphy said the county would be “foolish” not to take advantage of the money.
The Jekyll Island Authority accepted a $2.5 million DCA grant from the same pot at a recent meeting. Director of Marketing Megan Hood said the money will go towards constructing and repairing 16 beach accesses from Brice Lane to Tallu Fish Lane, and a revetment crossover at Driftwood Beach on the north end of the island.
“The governor’s purpose is to help with repairs to damage that might have been suffered during (hurricanes) Matthew and Irma, both,” Murphy said Tuesday.
Women’s Voices of Glynn County will hold a Get Out the Vote rally on Saturday, according to The Brunswick News.
Flint Energies, an electric membership corporation serving parts of 17 Georgia counties, will refund $3.89 million to current and former customers, according to the Macon Telegraph.
The Gainesville Board of Education wants public input on the district’s E-SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for Education), according to the Gainesville Times.
Superintendent Jeremy Williams said each of the four “listening sessions” scheduled at schools next month would “engage different levels of the community” and include small breakout groups of students, parents, teachers and community members to identify spending priorities.
The current E-SPLOST, which was approved in 2015 with 74 percent of voter support, is projected to bring in $6 million to $7 million annually for Gainesville City Schools over the five year-life of the tax (until 2022). The first collections began last fall.
Gainesville City Schools received more than $29 million during the previous round of E-SPLOST that ended last year, which rebuilt the Fair Street School, and paid for re-roofing work at three schools and emergency systems upgrades.
With just one high school and middle school, school board officials said the focus of the next round of E-SPLOST, if approved by voters in 2020, will be on facilitating growth in grades six through twelve.
The Augusta Commission decided on a fee structure to pay for street lights, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
The commission voted 7-3 to go with Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle’s plan to charge residences $85 a year and businesses $107.36, with Commissioners Sammie Sias, Ben Hasan and Marion Williams voting no.
Guilfoyle and Sias had proposed two different fee structures to rescue what is supposed to be a self-supported fund but is now $1.2 million in debt due to an outdated fee system where some pay more than $900 a year and nearly 17,000 homeowners pay nothing. That debt would have risen to $2 million next year.
Guilfoyle’s plan leaves those in the Urban District, who pay a collective $1.6 million a year through their current property taxes, at the same rate and charges 40,216 homeowners in the Suburban District and 2,982 exempt properties countywide a flat $85 yearly fee. The county’s 7,347 businesses will pay $107.36 a year.
Those homeowners who pay nothing, many because they do not have streetlights in their neighborhoods, would continue to pay nothing. About a third of the exempt properties are owned by the city, which Guilfoyle has calculated would cost $90,000 a year. His proposal raises $5.772 million a year, with $5.6 million for what Guilfoyle calculated to be the cost of running the program this year plus $172,000 to pay off the deficit over seven years.
Chief Judge Arch McGarity of the Flint Judicial Circuit, is retiring, and the Judicial Nominations Commission is considering applicants to replace him, according to the Henry Herald.
Gwinnett County will consider the needs of pedestrians and cyclists in future transportation projects, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
[Gwinnett County Transportation Director Alan] Chapman said the idea behind the policy is to take the needs of various types of transportation into account when planning and designing a road project. That includes everything from transit stops, stations and park-and-ride lots to spaces for bicyclists and pedestrians.
“We would consider it with any of our road improvement projects, but the other additions would include sidewalks and pedestrian facilities at intersections, multi-use paths for cyclists and then potential transit improvements that would be in line with what we’ve got proposed in our transit development plan,” Chapman said.
“If we’ve got a road project where we know we’ve got a future (bus rapid transit route), we may try to accommodate that BRT or it could be for a rapid bus line, the queue-jumper type lanes or if we know we’re going to establish a local route, it could be pull outs for buses to get out of the travel lane at a potential bus stop.”
Gwinnett County is holding two events aimed at hiring poll workers for November elections, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
The candidates for Secretary of State agree that their race is the second-most important on the ballot, according to the Rome News-Tribune.
The Democrat in the race, John Barrow, held a meet-and-greet fundraiser at the Rome Area History Museum last week and stopped by the Rome News-Tribune.
“This is probably the most important job nobody knows anything about,” Barrow said.
[Republican Brad] Raffensperger, a state House representative and owner of an engineering design firm, told the 40 or so local Republicans he is running for three reasons.
“No. 1 is to make sure only Americans vote,” he said to an outburst of applause. “No. 2 is to make sure Georgia is a great place to find a job and, No. 3, a great place to open a business.”
All three candidates agree it’s time to replace Georgia’s electronic voting machines with a system that has a verifiable paper trail. Raffensperger emphasized voter ID as the key to safe and fair elections; Barrow put his focus on improving cyber security.
“It’s never been easier to vote in Georgia, but it’s also never been easier for folks to be left off the rolls because of some glitch,” Barrow said.
The Floyd County Board of Education is considering ending participation in a federal program to provide free meals to all students, according to the Rome News-Tribune.
Floyd County Schools is expected to end its participation in a federal program which provides free meals to all students, after $500,000 was lost in supporting it last year, and a similar hit is expected if the program is continued for the duration of this school year.
If the Floyd County Board of Education votes to step away from the Community Eligibility Program at October’s meeting, a process would begin to make sure all students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch have applied to do so before paid meals start back up in January.
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