Tag: Tim Lee

29761 (male, top), 29762 (male, second), and 29763 (female, third) are white Lab mix puppies who are available for adoption beginning Friday from the Gwinnett County Animal Shelter.

It’s a crisis situation at many animal shelters across the state as new dogs, puppies, cats and kittens are brought it. If you’ve been considering adopting or fostering, today is the day.

29655 is a black, middle-aged Lab mix. Just old enough to start mellowing, but with his best years ahead, if someone will rescue or foster him. He’s available today from the Gwinnett County Animal Shelter.

The six puppies above were found outside, alone, in the freezing cold this week. They are at the Murray County Animal Shelter and need immediate foster or rescue, or they will be euthanized on Friday in the pre-dawn hours.

These three boxer-mix puppies are bouncy fun, and are also in need of immediate foster or rescue from Murray County Animal Shelter.

Shane Wilson lost a leg in a motorcycle crash five years ago, and more recently, he lost his service dog, Lucy, when she jumped out of the bed of his pickup truck. Lesson one: dogs don’t belong in pickup truck beds when underway. Some folks found her roadside near a Cracker Barrel and returned her. Lesson two: always keep dog treats handy.

The friends were getting breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Commerce when they saw Lucy. They walked down the exit ramp to get to her.

“We pulled out the treats and she just let me put the leash around her neck,” Davis said.

When Scoggins called him to say that she found Lucy, he was leery because he has had so many false hopes over the past six days.

Wilson told Scoggins to hold a dog treat up and say “Lucy, speak.” She did and Lucy barked. “I heard her bark and I said I’m on the way and I kind of hung up on her,” Wilson said.

“He was so happy, he was hysterical,” Davis said. “He immediately knew and said ‘stay right there, I’m coming’.”

The Exchange Club of Albany will hold its first AKC Southern Heritage Hunt & Show, which is open to all coonhounds and their owners, after a national coonhound event held in Albany for twenty-five years, was moved to Mississippi.

Both the dog show and hunt are “world qualifying,” AKC officials state, with winners cleared to move forward to the World Hunt Championship or 2013 World Show.

While secondary to the main attractions, there will be an aspect to the show, Brown said, that was not included for the UKC events: Malaysian Semara chickens. According to Brown, the birds are small — less than 19 ounces — colorful and they “kind of strut” when they walk.

Here’s your morning music treat.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections

The Special Election runoff in Senate District 11 in the lower-left hand corner of Georgia is taking a turn for the nasty. Jim Galloway notes that abortion has become an issue in the contest:

Over the long weekend, Georgia Right to Life dipped into the race with an email that included this:

“Dr. Dean Burke has not been endorsed by the Georgia Right to Life PAC or the National Right to Life Committee PAC. The NRLC PAC does not make state endorsements and its state affiliate – GRTL PAC – has only endorsed Mr. Keown. Any claims to the contrary are false.”

Political consultant Mark Rountree, working for Burke, says there’s no substantive difference between the two candidates on the issue of abortion. Local conversation, he says, has focused more on the $100 cap on gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers. Burke has pledged support for that limit, Rountree said, while Keown has not.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internet, anonymous cowards are suggesting that Burke is an abortionist and appear willing to lie to make the hit stick. It now appears to be the case that in Georgia Republican politics, an OB/GYN will always be labeled an abortionist whether it’s true or not. Just ask Dr. Carla Roberts.

Republican Scot Turner, who came in first with more than 48% of votes cast in the Special Election for House District 21, met political consultant Brian Laurens in a debate, and Turner claims victory.

“I feel confident that the voters in HD 21 saw a clear difference between the two candidates for this race tonight. As candidates, we have a very important obligation to present our values, understanding, and plans to fix what is broken in state government. I provided a message to the voters assembled with the clear choice to reform our ethics laws, implement economically-friendly tax reforms, and return the legislature to the citizens of Georgia with term limits. Those who participated in this public debate responded with overwhelming support, and I’m humbled by those responses.

“The serious issues facing our state and county all revolve around a cornerstone issue: fixing our broken government. On the one hand, my opponent gave his view of government, which maintains the status quo. I gave voters a vision for the future; a future where government serves the people and not special interests.”

Incidentally, today is Scot Turner’s birthday. You can wish him a happy one by donating online to his campaign, as long as you are a Georgia resident or business and not a lobbyist or PAC.

Another way of wishing him a happy birthday, if you live in House District 21, is to go vote early today in the February 5th runoff. As of yesterday morning, only 28 early votes had been cast.

“It’s extremely slow,” [Election Supervisor Janet] Munda added. “It looks like we may hit five percent this time.”

Munda was referring to the projection she originally predicted for the Jan. 8 special election for both the House and the Georgia Senate District 21 seats. The county ended up seeing a 10 percent turnout for that election.

Voters in the run-off will choose between Republican candidates Scot Turner and Brian Laurens, who came in first and second respectively in the January special election for the house seat.

Early voting started last Wednesday and will continue Monday through Friday through Feb. 1.

Voters who reside in the district, which encompasses Holly Springs, portions of BridgeMill, south Canton and parts of southeast Cherokee, can cast ballots between 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Albert L. Stone Elections Building at 400 East Main Street in Canton.

No voting will be held on Monday Feb. 4, and voters in the district will cast their ballots at 11 precincts in the district on Feb. 5.

The Bainbridge City Council seat vacated by Dean Burke in order to run for Senate District 11 in the Special Election Runoff on February 5th will remain vacant until November 5th, when it is filled along with two other council seats and the office of Mayor in the Bainbridge general election.

Former State Rep. Sean Jerguson led in campaign contributions in his campaign for Georgia Senate District 21, which opponent Brandon Beach won.

Governor Nathan Deal presented his budget to the Joint Budget Hearing yesterday.

Three percent cuts across the board, and slightly more funding for the state pre-K program, the HOPE scholarship, and juvenile justice reform.

He also continued his push to renew a hospital tax aimed at shoring up the state Medicaid program.

“I think it is critical,” said Deal. “We cannot afford to have a $700 million hole in our Medicaid budget,” said Deal.

Otherwise, the governor’s budget projects 4.8 percent revenue growth in 2014. That’s compared to the 3.9 growth seen this year.

If the revenue projection holds true, Georgia in 2014 would be back to where it was at its 2007 peak, before the recession.

House Appropriations Chair Terry England said the numbers are reason for cautious optimism, but warned the state isn’t out of the woods yet.

“The problem with that is we’re a larger state than we were in 2007 so there’s more people needing more services and resources, so even though you have that growth, the demand is still greater than it was in 2007.”

Accordingly, the 2014 budget includes increased funding for education and healthcare, but most would be used to simply keep up with population growth.

Senate Appropriations Chair Jack Hill said ultimately the final budget won’t veer too far from the governor’s recommendations.

“In years where you’re spending a lot of new money, there might be more needs and more wants than there are dollars, but we have such a lean budget to begin with, I don’t know what we’d have to fight over.”

Here’s the TL;DR version:

“We have reduced per capita spending of state dollars for our citizens,” [Deal] said. “Using 2012 dollars, we are spending money at a rate of 17 percent less than we did a decade ago. And we now have 9,000 fewer state employees than we did five years ago.”

The Georgia State Fiscal Economist also presented predictions.

Georgia’s economy should see slow but steady growth over the next few years as the job and housing markets continue to improve, the state’s main economist told lawmakers Tuesday.

Heaghney said that tax collections — an indication of the state of the economy — will be up 3.9 percent the rest of fiscal 2013, which ends June 30. The economy will pick up during the second half of the year and revenue should increase 4.9 percent next fiscal year, allowing the state to add about $550 million in spending, he said.

Heaghney told legislators that the state’s job growth is outpacing the national growth rate, and that “housing appears to have turned the corner, both nationally and in Georgia.”

Georgia is seeing an increase in information technology, business services, manufacturing and transportation jobs.

“We’d expect growth to pick up in the middle of 2013 and then accelerate the rest of the year,” he said. “In 2014, we should see much more rapid growth than we’ve seen prior to this year.”

Higher taxes, a sluggish global economy and the federal debt crisis will continue to weigh on the economy, he said, dampening consumer spending and adding uncertainty to the equation.

“This all creates an environment where there is still a lot of economic uncertainty,” Heaghney said. “We try to plan for that, but there are a lot of different ways the economy could move.

Part of the $19.8 billion dollar budget will be $4.3 million for the State Archives.

Supporters are pushing for an additional $1.5 million to expand public access to the state’s important and historical records dating to at least 1733, saying the additional money would reopen the archives from two to five days a week.

Gov. Deal’s budget will also allocate funds to implement criminal justice reforms from the last Session, and possible changes to juvenile justice this year.

He’s asking for $11 million for so-called accountability courts that offer an alternative for drug abusers, the mentally ill and others.

He also wants $4 million for a regional detention center for young offenders and a new youth development campus.

Today’s budget hearings will include the Departments of Correction, Juvenile Justice, Transportation, Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, Natural Resources, Agriculture, Labor and Economic Development. The agenda for the Joint Budget Hearings is available by clicking here. This link should have live video of the Hearings later today.

A local clothing boutique visited Friday by NBC 26 is still ringing up its merchandise the old fashioned way.

“We write up all the tickets by hand and then we add up the totals and the tax with a calculator,” Alex, a sales associate told NBC 26. She said the store is still charging seven percent sales tax.

“I didn’t know about it until you came in,” another associate said. “I didn’t know it was in effect starting January first. So, I haven’t started using it yet.”

We asked the Georgia Department of Revenue how it informed retailers in regions where the T-SPLOST passed.

“In December, we emailed an informational bulletin concerning T-SPLOST, concerning the TSPLOST going into effect to all businesses that e-file as well as other businesses who have signed up for that specific mailing list,” said Jud Seymour, communications director for the Georgia Department of Revenue.

Seymour said if stores missed the instructional email, they could’ve looked up the information online on the Georgia Department of Revenue’s website.

On December 27, 2012, my oath of office was administered by our Probate Judge (Keith Wood), with the final sentence stating, “. . . and that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of this State, so help me God.”

Therefore, I will fully exercise the power of the Office of Sheriff to protect and defend the Constitutional rights of the citizens of Cherokee County. My position is best stated by fellow Sheriff Tim Muller of Linn County, Oregon in his letter to the President. “We are Americans. We must not allow, nor shall we tolerate, the actions of criminals, no matter how heinous the crimes, to prompt politicians to enact laws that will infringe upon the liberties of responsible citizens who have broken no laws.”

Along with Sheriff Muller, other sheriffs throughout the country (including Georgia) and I, will not enforce any laws or regulations that negate the constitutional rights of the citizens of Cherokee County.

Nor shall those laws and regulations be enforced by me or by my deputies, nor will I permit the enforcement of any unconstitutional regulations or orders by federal officers within the borders of Cherokee County, Georgia.

Commissioner Allen insinuated that some school board members may have benefited personally from deals with outside companies.“The investigation should examine any companies or firms […] doing any business with the BOE [Board of Education] where funds might have been used to directly or indirectly unlawfully benefit certain members of the BOE,” Allen read from prepared remarks.He declined to offer any evidence that would lead federal prosecutors to investigate such a question.“These allegations,” Allen said without specifying or attributing any allegations directly, “must be investigated immediately by a federal authority, as the facts show a possible misuse of federal funds, not to mention state and local money as well.”

The Marietta Daily Journal profiles Jennifer Rippner of Acworth, a member of the new State Charter School Commission.

Georgia Power’s evacuation plan for people living near Plant Vogtle was reviewed by federal regulators.

A study has found that Plant Vogtle’s emergency evacuation plan for people within 10 miles of the nuclear site is adequate. But the study says traffic control points and better highway infrastructure would improve it.

The updated analysis was filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and was posted on the agency’s website last week.

Depending on the weather, time of day and other factors, Southern Nuclear’s consultants’ models found evacuations could take between 90 and 205 minutes.

At the Cobb County Commission meeting last night, a citizen was led out in handcuffs because he preferred to speak anonymously about backyard chickens.

During the first of two public hearings on a proposal to allow chickens on property under 2 acres in size, speakers on both sides of the issue provided emotional appeals to the board.

Banks Wise, 25, of Mableton, said he had planned to attend the board meeting just to listen to what others had to say about various code proposals, including the one on chickens.

But then he stepped up to the lectern to address the commissioners during the public comment period, and board chairman Tim Lee asked him to recite his name.

Wise declined. Lee asked several more times for him to give his name before the police officers escorted him out of the board room, handcuffed him and took him to a lobby elevator.

“The gentlemen was not following the rules of the commission,” Lee said. “I asked him multiple times. He did not, so the officers removed him.”

Wise said two things prompted him to speak to commissioners. One was a comment by a previous public speaker opposed to a code change for chickens. That speaker, Ron Sifen of Vinings, argued that homeowners had certain expectations with the zoning laws in place when they bought their homes. To allow chickens in their neighborhood was, therefore, wrong.

Wise said he wanted to argue that just because a law is on the books, it doesn’t make it constitutional.

“I’m saying that being able to have a chicken was always right. There was just at some point a very bad law,” Wise said.

Another point that bothered him was that Lee demanded that each speaker give his or her name.

Anonymous political speech is a revered tradition among those of us who love America; perhaps Mr. Lee should take a remedial class in the First Amendment.

Cobb County Chairman Tim Lee has also raised the issue that requiring businesses to use the IMAGE immigration verification program may be too unwieldy.

A documentary on urban chicken keepers, called “Mad City Chickens” will be shown in Rome, Georgia, at the Rome Area History Museum at 305 Broad Street on Saturday at 4, 7 and 9 PM.

McHaggee said the film is relevant locally, with the Rome City Commission currently wrestling with the issue of allowing chickens inside the city limits.

“We hope that this film will illustrate some of the issues our city has been discussing,” the couple said in a joint press release. “Furthermore, we hope that this film brings people together for a fun evening of entertainment and camaraderie.”

A supporter of small families owning livestock, McHaggee said she usually gets eggs from Morning Glory Farm in Cedartown and is concerned with the state of some of the breeds of chicken that need space to thrive.

“That’s part of the reason I feel so strongly about this,” she said. “There are some of the American Heritage breeds that are in trouble of becoming extinct.”

Gerald Jones Volkswagen-Audi in Augusta, Georgia has partnered with L.E.A.S.H. Rescue and will become a drop-off point for donations of dog food, toys and other materials, as well as holding adoption events. In honor of the partnership, today’s dogs are both from L.E.A.S.H. rescue.

Caine, above, is one of five dogs who came in together and he will be available for adoption soon after he is neutered. His brother, Abel, (below),will also need a home soon, and they are available separately or together. For more information, visit L.E.A.S.H. on Facebook or email them. If you’re not in the Augusta area, you can donate online.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections

Georgia Right to Life will hold “Together for Life 2013” at the steps of the State Capitol today, beginning at 11:30 AM. Former State Rep. Doug McKillip will deliver the keynote address, and the group will walk silently as a memorial.

The Georgia General Assembly will hold Joint Budget Hearings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in Room 341 of the State Capitol and convenes again on Monday, January 28th, 2013.

The agenda for the Joint Budget Hearings is available by clicking here.

Governor Deal is expected to address today’s joint budget hearing at 10:30 AM. Also addressing today’s hearing will be state fiscal economist Kenneth Heaghney, the Department of Education, the University System of Georgia, the Technical College System of Georgia, the Department of Early Care and Learning, the Student Finance Commission and the Secretary of State’s Office.

Wednesday’s budget hearing will include the Departments of Correction, Juvenile Justice, Transportation, Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, Natural Resources, Agriculture, Labor and Economic Development.

On Thursday, the joint committees will hear the Departments of Human Services, Community Health, Public Health, Revenue and the Office of Planning and Budget.

Former State Senator Chip Rogers will be paid $150,000 per year at his new job at Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Former state Sen. Chip Rogers will start his new job Tuesday earning a lofty $150,000 – making him the seventh executive at Georgia Public Broadcasting earning six-figures annually, despite a rather pedestrian title: Executive producer, community jobs program.

The position, like others at GPB, is paid solely through state taxpayers’ money. But it is more than Gov. Nathan Deal and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle each make in their public jobs.

And it is more than what some of Rogers’ new colleagues made in the last fiscal year, including GBP’s vice president for radio and its chief information officer.

What are the odds of Rogers providing color commentary if horse racing is passed in the legislature?

The State Auditor reports that most Georgia tax breaks go to individual citizens rather than large companies.

Tax collections so far this fiscal year are coming in below the projected rate, prompting Deal to order all state agencies – except K-12 education – to trim 3 percent from their spending. At the same time, costs for Medicaid are more than $300 million over budget already this year, not counting a nearly $700 million hole that would be left in the budget if the hospital tax isn’t extended.

Legislative budget writers started requiring governors in recent years to submit a document called the Tax Expenditure Report that estimates how much each tax break leaves in the private economy and out of the government’s use.

“Although not direct government expenditures, tax expenditures represent an allocation of government resources in the form of taxes that could have been collected (and appropriated) if not for their preferential tax treatment,” State Auditor Greg Griffin wrote in his letter delivering the report.

The largest tax breaks is the so-called personal exemption from individual income taxes representing $1 billion. Exemptions for retirement income, $697 million, Social Security, $140 million, and credit for taxes paid to other states, $185 million, are also among the largest ways private Georgians keep from forking more over to the government.

Exemptions from the sales tax also benefit individuals, including $509 million on food, $423 million for prescriptions, $171 million on lottery tickets and $8 million on school lunches. The sales-tax holidays that temporarily exempt school supplies save another $41 million.

Some business tax breaks are due to expire this year. A break on seed, fertilizer and farm chemicals that ended Jan. 1 totaled $150 in the last fiscal year. The exemption of certain machinery used in the manufacturing of consumer items expired the same time and amounted to $175 million last year.

One due to expire in June is the sales tax exemption for airplane engine-repair parts worth $7 million last year. It’s being pushed by companies like Gulfstream Aerospace which argues jobs would be lost if airplane customers took their business to states that don’t charge the tax.

The City of Atlanta will ask the legislature for a number of changes to existing law in order to help it with budget issues.

The city of Atlanta’s legislative wish-list for the 2013 General Assembly includes changes in state law that would allow the city to increase taxes on alcohol, sell condemned and blighted property to private parties, designate sales tax revenue disbursements by tenths of a cent rather than a full penny, and charge the public school system for the cost of running school board elections.

One proposal — such as slicing penny sales taxes into smaller increments of one-tenth of a percent, which could go to different purposes — is similar to those pushed this year by Cobb County.

A sales tax levied in Atlanta at a tenth of a percentage point could generate about $11 million or $12 million in revenue per year.

Yolanda Adrean, who represents northwest Atlanta on the City Council, said the proposal would provide municipalities with much-needed flexibility.

“If a penny of tax could be split between more than one priority, it could allow the city to move on some very crucial needs,” Adrean said. “I’m not suggesting that we add a penny of sales tax. In a time where there’s a great deal of sensitivity to how much you’re taxed and where that money goes, this gets everyone focused. There are lots of pressing needs that are not getting funded.”

As for the similar fractional-tax measure for Cobb County,

State Rep. John Carson (R-Northeast Cobb) told Around Town on Thursday that he would introduce a bill, possibly as soon as this week, that would pave the way for such special local option sales taxes, also known as “fractional SPLOSTs.” The tax would be charged increments of a twentieth of 1 percent, if passed. At present the sales tax can only levied in increments of 1 percent, although receipts from that 1 percent are often divided among several jurisdictions.

In theory, they also would prevent situations in which a governing body, knowing that a full penny SPLOST would raise X amount of dollars, proceeds to inflate its SPLOST-project list in order to match the expected revenues.

The concept has the backing of Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee.

Carson’s bill would apply statewide and allow counties and cities to charge less than a full 1 percent sales tax. A similar bill is soon to be introduced in the state Senate, said Sen. Judson Hill (R-East Cobb).

Senator Lindsey Tippins (R-West Cobb) told Around Town the Cobb School District has approached him in the past about introducing legislation for partial-penny SPLOSTs.

If approved by the Legislature, voters would then have to approve a constitutional amendment before the tax could be levied on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis.

“I have told them I feel like you can accomplish the same thing by doing a SPLOST for a specified number of months based on what your true need is and make a promise to the voters that you won’t go back to them for five years for another tax,” Tippins said. “So if you need to collect 60 cents on the dollar, you could collect it for three years and promise not to go back for five.”

“Now obviously the action of that board would not be legally binding on a subsequent board, but whoever wanted to go back and change that would be facing political suicide, so in actuality you could bind the board so if anybody on the school board says ‘We want to do a partial penny,’ we can accomplish the same thing without a constitutional amendment.”

Separately, Senator Tippins told the MDJ that he voted for the Hospital Bed Tax because it was the “lesser of two evils.”

Tippins said the alternative to levying the tax is forgoing federal matching funds and paying for Medicaid services through the state budget.

“So you’d be taking another $700 million out of existing state funding, and that would come from other agencies,” Tippins said. “You’re going to be hitting education very, very strongly, and all the other good services that the state provides. The reality is that money would have to come from somewhere because the state in their agreement to access the federal stimulus money cannot change the delivery pattern for Medicaid until 2014, so we’re locked in under the same eligibility and also under the same payment program.”

Fulton County’s next budget may include furloughs for lawyers and less funding for libraries.

Fulton’s countywide property tax rate has declined over the last decade, and most residents won’t see an increase this year. Under the proposed budget, residents of unincorporated South Fulton would see a 19 percent property tax increase to pay for police, fire and other municipal services. That would cost the owner of a $200,000 an extra $100 a year.

Fulton County would trim spending in its general fund – which pays for countywide services like courts, libraries and elections – 2 percent this year under the proposed $569.4 million budget.

Among other things, proposed cuts would lead to reduced library hours and spending for various social service programs. At a public hearing earlier this month, more than 60 people – many of them senior citizens – urged commissioners to restore funding for various programs.

DeKalb County will likely raise property taxes, its favorite method of balancing its budget.

As a result of declining property tax revenue and the incorporation of the city of Brookhaven, commissioners will have to consider spending cuts or a potential property tax rate increase proposed by DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis. The 1.9 percent millage rate increase would cost almost $49 dollars more a year for owners of a $200,000 home.

In December, Ellis proposed a more than $562 million dollar budget. In addition to a potential millage rate increase, the budget calls for a three percent cost of living adjustment for DeKalb County’s lowest paid workers, 25 additional police officers and maintaining $30 million dollars in reserve funding. Commissioners will have until the end of February to adopt the budget.

After serving two four-year terms on the Judicial Qualifications Commission, Jack Winter, who also is a former Chairman of the Fulton County GOP, will rotate off the Board. Governor Nathan Deal named Richard Hyde, whose investigations have led to a number of JQC actions and judicial resignations, as Winter’s replacement.

The Fulton County Republican Party named Mary Norwood as its appointee to the Fulton Board of Elections.

The President of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, State Rep. Tyrone Brooks, supports the resolution by Senator Barry Loudermilk expressing regret at the state’s history of slavery.

Georgia Carry is challenging local regulations on the carrying of guns via handwritten letters.

Handwritten letters, dated Jan. 18, from James Camp of Temple, a GeorgiaCarry.org founder and recent state Senate candidate, were hand-delivered to Carrollton Mayor Wayne Garner and Carroll County Commission Chairman Marty Smith.

In the letter to Garner, Camp challenges a city ordinance prohibiting firearms on the GreenBelt trail and another which says firearms cannot be carried by parade participants.

The letter to Smith challenges a county ordinance which says the commission chairman, in times of local disasters or emergencies, can suspend the sale, distribution, dispensing or transportation of firearms, alcoholic beverages, explosives and combustible products and can close businesses which sell them.

Sure enough, after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote about inconsistencies in the list of banned vanity tags, two lawyers are suing on First Amendment grounds after their client’s choices, which included GAYPWR, were rejected. Surely a Miata would convey  that message clearly enough.

Georgia Republican Convention Cycle 2013

Rachel Little has released a list of endorsements in her bid for Chair of the Gwinnett County Republican Party that includes Congressman Rep. Austin Scott, State Rep. Tom Kirby, the GOP chairs of Muscogee, Rockdale, Newton, Bibb and Barrow counties, and former Gwinnett GOP chair Chuck Efstration.

Joseph Brannan, who was recently elected Chairman of the Second District Georgia Republican Party, will run for election to a full term.

Recently, the Gwinnett County Animal Shelter has taken in three litters of puppies, causing a space shortage. This means increasing euthanasia, and all dogs there are at risk. These three pit mix puppies are among those who are available for adoption today.

Also among the dogs at risk at Gwinnett County Animal Shelter are this German Shepherd baby boy with awesome ears, and a senior Pomeranian who deserves to live his sunset years in a loving home.

Between now and December 23d, all dogs and cats at Gwinnett County’s shelter can be adopted for the low cost of $30.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections

Newt Gingrich left the door open for another presidential run in 2016.

The former Republican presidential candidate and House Speaker said he has not ruled out running for president in 2016 — but first the GOP must take on a “very serious analysis” of what went wrong in 2012, Gingrich said.

“I have no idea at this stage,” Gingrich said, referring to another run for the White House.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed says that Georgia might become winnable for Democrats in 2016.

“Georgia is an achievable target for Democrats in 2016,” said Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, a frequent Obama surrogate during the campaign. “What you’re going to see is the Democratic party making a drive through the geography from Virginia to Florida.”

That will be easier said than done — particularly when the Democratic nominee is not Obama — but powerful forces in the region are eroding GOP dominance. The trends pose difficulties for a Republican Party shifting toward Dixie since the “Southern strategy” of the Nixon era, which sought to encourage white flight from the Democratic Party.

In Florida, the portion of all votes cast by whites this year fell to 66 percent, down from 73 percent in 2000. In Georgia, the number of white voters declined while African-American registrations increased nearly 6 percent and Hispanic voters grew by 36 percent.

Legislators who represent Clayton County are determined to ensure that their county remains the butt of late-night talkshow humor by defending Sheriff-elect Victor Hill.

From an article by Rhonda Cook at the AJC:

To remove Hill is “totally disrespectful to the voters of Clayton County,” said Sen. Valencia Seay, D-Riverdale. “Allow the judicial system to do what they do.”

Rep. Darryl Jordan, D-Riverdale, has drafted a letter asking the governor to leave Hill alone until the criminal case is resolved with a trial.

“It seems to me, governor, that when certain people can’t get their wishes at the voting booths, then they employ raw, unmitigated, egregious and flagrant attacks on the Voting Rights Act,” he wrote. “This is unconscionable. The people of Clayton County are tired of this shabby and condescending treatment from people who don’t even live here.”

From Jim Galloway’s Political Insider:

Once Hill takes his oath of office in January, Gov. Nathan Deal has the option of suspending Hill until his legal issues are resolved. The Georgia Sheriffs’ Association last week recommended the governor take that route, and even suggested a replacement.

[S]tate Sen. Valencia Seay, D-Riverdale. “I was appalled and taken aback when I heard the sheriff’s association giving a recommendation for a replacement of our sheriff-elect,” she said. “The voters were crystal clear when they elected [the] sheriff-elect. They were crystal clear when they rejected the former sheriff.”

Seay said the sheriff’s association had acted “prematurely,” and in “total disrespect to the voters in Clayton County.”

Expanding Medicaid would cost the State of Georgia “only” $2.5 billion dollars, according to a story in the Atlanta Journal-Consitution, while allowing the state to cover more residents and bringing in $33 billion in federal money. The only problem? Georgia can’t afford the $2.5 billion, which liberals call a “modest increase in spending.”

Gov. Nathan Deal has said Georgia can’t afford to expand the program, which is already facing a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars, even with the substantial federal help. Deal’s budget office pegs the cost of Obamacare and a Medicaid expansion to the state at $3.7 billion through 2022.

Deal has also expressed concern that the federal government — already facing a $16.3 trillion deficit — won’t hold up its end of the bargain.

Advocates of entitlement programs have long lowballed future costs to taxpayers, Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said.

“Regardless of whether the new costs are $2.5 billion, $4.5 billion or $6.5 billion, the state of Georgia doesn’t have the money to pay for it without a huge tax increase, crowding out all other spending or both,” Robinson said.

“For a modest increase in spending, we get a pretty dramatic increase in coverage,” said Tim Sweeney, a health care policy analyst at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

“Someone thinks it’s free money when it’s not,” he said. “If we go bankrupt, there’s no way to bail out the United States,” said Ron Bachman, a senior fellow at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an Atlanta-based think tank focused on market-oriented proposals.

Last night, Common Cause held a public forum to discuss financing of a proposed new Atlanta stadium.

The Georgia World Congress Center Authority and the Atlanta Falcons have been negotiating a deal for a potential new stadium for the past two years. The facility, which would cost a minimum of $948 million but is expected to surpass $1 billion, would replace the 20-year-old Georgia Dome.

More than 100 people came to the Monday evening forum organized by Common Cause Georgia, which featured Georgia World Congress Center executive director Frank Poe on the panel.

“Our focus has been to try to get the best deal possible for the authority and the state of Georgia” for a new stadium, Poe said.

Common Cause Georgia board member Wyc Orr, a panelist, said more information is needed on what infrastructure or other costs the city of Atlanta, the state and Fulton County could be responsible for. “Those are critical details that we think should be known in advance,” Orr said.

Georgia Tech associate professor Benjamin Flowers, another panelist, called for more discussion on what the public could get in return for its investment.

A poll commissioned by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in July found that 67 percent of respondents oppose using hotel-motel tax money for the building.

Today, Georgia Power executives will appear before the Georgia Public Service Commission to update the agency on progress and expenses in the construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle.

Twice a year, the utility’s executives testify before the commission about the plant’s progress. On Tuesday, they will review expenses from January to June so the commission can determine if they are permissible and should be passed onto customers.

Georgia Power has already reported $900 million in possible cost overruns. But the expenses are the subject of a lawsuit so officials said there won’t be testimony about them Tuesday.

Commission chair Tim Echols says the hearings help decide who should bear added costs.

“Commissioners essentially become the risk-sharing mechanism for consumers,” he said in an interview. “We’re their eyes and ears on that board, making a decision whether things are passed along to them via their electric bill or whether those expenses are born by Southern Company and Georgia Power.”

Mark Williams is a spokesman for Georgia Power.

“The project is progressing well,” he said in an interview. “We are more than one-third of the way through with the construction. There will be some details about the costs — all the costs that have been expended to this point on the project.”

The United States Energy Department is seeking plans for a demonstration project to address nuclear waste storage. The SRS Community Ruse Organization is currently studying whether the Savannah River Site might have a role in a storage solution.

That study, to be completed early next year, is not specifically connected to the recent demonstration project notice, but would certainly explore the site’s possible role in projects involving outside locations or businesses.

“There is a potential that SRS could play a part of it, but we haven’t heard of anything specific to that proposal,” McLeod said, noting that such a demonstration project would likely require participation from a utility-owned, actively operating power reactor.

Walter Jones writes that energy production policy may be shifting at the Georgia Public Service Commission.

What happened is the Georgia Public Service Commission voted 3-2 to endorse efforts by a start-up company to overturn a law, the Territorial Act, that has divided the state for four decades into geographic monopolies for 94 utilities run by cities, rural cooperatives and the giant Georgia Power Co.

The upstart, Georgia Solar Utilities Inc., seeks its own monopoly as a generator of solar power with permission to sell to retail customers. Since it can’t produce electricity when the sun isn’t shining, it would always be dependent on other utilities for supplemental power as well as for transmission, billing and customer support.

The commission vote doesn’t guarantee General Assembly agreement, but it does provide a push.

The commissioner who sponsored the resolution, Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, had been in the legislature in 1973 and voted in favor of the Territorial Act.

“I was there in 1973 when the act — legislation was passed,” he said. “Solar wasn’t even in the dictionary, I don’t think, at that time, much less photovoltaic…. It was something that wasn’t anticipated at that time.”

He argued for removing obstacles to consumers who want access to more power generated from renewable sources.

McDonald wasn’t the only veteran policymaker whose vote demonstrated a change of position. Commissioner Doug Everett, a great-grandfather and conservative legislator in the 1990s, also supported McDonald’s resolution.

“You know, everybody in here realizes I’ve always fought solar because I did not think the technology was there for cost effectiveness. But it’s changed, technology has changed,” he said.

The cost of photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity has plummeted in recent years and by 30 percent in the first six months of this year due to a price war between Chinese producers. The result is solar is becoming competitive without tax breaks, mandates and subsidies from other energy sources, Everett said.

“But something else has changed that disturbs me even more, and very few people mention this. But this (federal) administration has said it’s going to destroy the coal industry,” he said.

The Dougherty County Commission voted to levy a 2% excise tax on energy used in manufacturing.

Votes by Georgia counties on the excise tax, which Commission Chairman Jeff Sinyard stressed was a “continuation” of special-purpose local-option sales tax and local-option sales tax funds already being collected by the county, became necessary when the state approved 2012 legislation to phase out the 4 percent energy tax that the states collects from those businesses over the next four years.

“I’d like to reiterate that this is not a new tax on our manufacturers,” District 1 Commissioner Lamar Hudgins said. “We’re voting to continue collecting the local tax.”

Governor Nathan Deal previously said that repeal of the state sales tax on energy used in manufacturing was an important component in attracting new jobs from Caterpillar and Baxter International.

Former Gwinnett County Commissioner Shirley Fanning Lasseter will report to federal prison next month to begin serving her sentence for accepting bribes in association with rezoning votes.

Lasseter, who was mayor of Duluth for a decade before becoming a county commissioner, will begin her 33-month sentence for bribery Dec. 12 in a Marianna, Fla. prison, according to an order filed in federal court before Thanksgiving.

In the face of a lawsuit challenging Gwinnett County’s funding of Partnership Gwinnett with the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, the County Commission may double down with another payment.

This time, though, the county’s annual Partnership Gwinnett agreement — on Tuesday’s zoning hearing agenda — stipulates that the money must go to a new nonprofit set up for the economic development program, keeping the money from mingling with the chamber’s private donations.

“With the need for jobs and business investment, I believe that it is critical we continue to focus on economic development,” Chairwoman Charlotte Nash said Monday, lending her support to the program credited with bringing 12,000 jobs to the county. “I also believe that combining resources and efforts across community segments strengthens Gwinnett County’s position relative to other communities with which we must compete.”

Pat Robertson’s Regent University will continue to pursue federal intellectual property claims against a renamed Georgia Regent University in Augusta.

The University of Georgia wants to aggressively invest in research to move into the elite circle of national research universities. Georgia Tech has received $1.8 million in federal grant money to actually perform research into microbial diversity. Football loyalties aside, which approach do you think will be more welcome in the Appropriations Committee this Session?

For more news on Georgia education issues, visit www.GaNewsDigest.com and look for the Education heading. The website is updated throughout the day and also features sections on Politics, Energy, and Transportation issues.

The consolidation of two hospitals in the Albany area is before the United States Supreme Court as the Federal Trade Commission charges that the merger was anti-competitive.

The justices heard arguments in the federal government’s claim that two private corporations used a public hospital authority to complete a deal that left one company as the owner of the only two hospitals in Albany, Ga. The Federal Trade Commission says the deal violates federal antitrust law.

The question at the high court is whether an exception in antitrust law for actions taken by a state or its agencies — in this case, the hospital authority — shields the transaction from federal concerns.

Lower federal courts allowed Albany’s Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital to buy Palmyra Medical Center from Hospital Corporation of America for $195 million over the FTC’s objection.

Georgia DOT will try to use more small businesses as part of a federal initiative.

Beginning next year, the Georgia Department of Transportation plans to increase efforts to encourage and help small businesses in doing business with the department and its consultants and contractors, state officials said last week.

As part of a federal initiative designed to foster increased nationwide small-business participation in government contracting, DOT plans to promote opportunities for eligible small businesses though its acquisition of materials and professional and technical services, as well as transportation consultant and construction contracts.

The goal of the program will be to facilitate such opportunities “of a size and scope that can reasonably be performed by competing small businesses,” including Disadvantaged Business Enterprises, states a press release from the DOT.

The AJC writes that massive overtime payments to MARTA employees raise safety concerns.

MARTA Police Officer Jeremiah Perdue puts in massive work weeks protecting the transit-riding public. He worked enough overtime to more than triple his pay, taking home nearly $163,000 in the 12 months ending in June.

Perdue, who earned $108,000 in overtime in one year , wasn’t alone in working excessive hours. About 130 police officers and 90 bus drivers boosted their salaries by 50 percent that fiscal period, with 55 officers and 20 drivers nearly doubling their pay. A handful, like Perdue, earned more in overtime than they earned in regular salary, according to records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

While some might applaud such a work ethic, the overtime logged by MARTA bus drivers and police officers raises serious financial and safety concerns for the nation’s ninth-largest transit agency.

MARTA rules allow those employees to work 16 hours straight, but sleep deprivation experts say such schedules impair judgment and make drivers, police officers and others who work in potentially life-threatening situations a danger to both themselves and the public.

I suspect State Rep. Mike Jacobs (R-City of Brookhaven), who chairs the legislative committee that oversees MARTA, will raise financial concerns about this as well.

The City of Dunwoody added starting its own school system to its list of legislative priorities for 2013.

“It’s not about the city of Dunwoody and our school system,” said Council [Member] John Heneghan. “It’s about local control and our school system. When you work at the capitol it’s not about a municipality, it’s about what is best for the general populace of the state of Georgia.”

Meanwhile, the left-behinds in North DeKalb are exploring creating yet another city.

The new Briarcliff Woods East Neighborhood Association (BWENA) sponsored the information-only meeting at Oak Grove Methodist Church.

“People underestimate how complicated it is,” former legislator Kevin Levitas, who hosted the meeting, said. “It takes a couple years to get a city up and running. People have to understand they are in for a very long haul, with some heated discussions.”

State Sen. Fran Millar, state Rep. Tom Taylor and former state senator Dan Weber described the process Dunwoody went through before it was incorporated.

The Cobb County Commission will figure out how to dispose of an $18 million dollar surplus; Commission Chair Tim Lee proposed “a plan to allocate the additional money includes paying off debt, rolling back the county’s millage rate by .2 mills and technology upgrades to the county’s court system.”

A wildfire in North Georgia has closed the approach trail for the Appalachian Trail in Georgia.

Ogeechee Riverkeeper Dianna Wedincamp is stepping down to start her own environmental consulting firm.

“She hit the ground running and has gotten us in good position,” said Don Stack, an attorney with Stack & Associates, which represents the Riverkeeper. “She probably decided it’s an appropriate time to take a breath and have a normal life.”

When I read a Savannah Morning News headline that “The hunt is on at Bethesda Academy,” my first thought was that I thought the hunting season for high school students started in December.

Over the last three years students enrolled in the historic school and home for boys have helped clear pine thickets, planted native grasses and converted 400 acres into a lakeside sanctuary for wild birds and the hundreds of quail they raise each year.

Now the public can book guided quail and pheasant hunts at the Bethesda Sanctuary.

They’ll even train your dogs to hunt.

“We’re talking about sporting dogs,” said Tom Brackett, director of the Wildlife Management Program at Bethesda. “We can’t train your French poodle.”

True fact: poodles were bred to retrieve waterfowl.

27637 is one of the black or majority-black dogs and cats who are available for adoption for only $30 tomorrow at Gwinnett County Animal Shelter during their weekly “Black Friday Sale.” 

Georgia Politics, Campaigns & Elections

Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson asked City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney to submit her resignation and the City Council will discuss the issue on October 4th.

Council members met in a specially called work session [September 26th] to discuss numerous performance issues, including problems with Purchasing Department operations.

Because this afternoon’s session was advertised as a work session, not a meeting, council chose to exercise an abundance of caution and not take any formal vote that might violate state Open Meetings law. A special meeting will be scheduled and duly noticed for the vote, which would be to either accept her resignation or terminate.

Issues between Small-Toney and the Board have included her hiring of an administrator who lacked qualifications his resume claimed, questionable expense reports, and problems in the purchasing department with paying the City’s bills. The Savannah Morning News opines that Small-Toney should go, as the Board and Mayor have lost confidence.

[T]his system requires the mayor and council to have full confidence in their city manager, who’s the most powerful person in city government. It’s the foundation on which council-manager form of government rests. But once that faith and trust is gone, so is the foundation. Then, it’s only a matter of time before public services suffer and citizens become the victims.

A billboard on I-85 in Gwinnett County urges Asian-Americans to vote in seven languages.

According to AALAC Executive Director Helen Ho, “Most first generation immigrants say, well you know, I came here for my children and their future. They will be leaders in America; they will be full Americans, and they will vote,” said Ho.  “And what we’re trying to get everyone to understand is that, just like in every other thing, children model the behavior of their parents. The parents need to model civic leadership for their children and vote.”

That’s why the billboard features children’s faces.  Ho says placing the sign in Gwinnett County was another obvious choice.

“Gwinnett County is, beyond our city and our state, in terms of our region, it really is the flashpoint of immigrant growth.  So we knew that we had to put the billboard there,” said Ho.

Lee Anderson’s campaign for Congress is asking Democrat incumbent John Barrow whether taxpayer funds were used in the filming of Barrow’s new political ad.

“It’s time for Barrow to fess up and let us know where he got the cars and how much did it cost the taxpayers to film his commercial? We are all waiting,” [Anderson spokesperson Ryan] Mahoney wrote in an e-mail….

Barrow spokesman Richard Carbo had a quick response: The cars were airport rental cars that merely resembled a Government Services Administration fleet.

“We rented 20 cars from Enterprise at Augusta airport,” Carbo said. “We’ll call them ‘props’ for the commercial.”

“No taxpayer funds were used for anything,” he said.

Carbo provided The Augusta Chronicle a copy of an expense document showing that Friends of John Barrow paid $3,499.33 for 18 rental cars on Aug. 13. He said the logos were sign magnets the campaign used to make the cars appear to be government vehicles.

Candidates in the Special Election for Senate District 30 appeared together at a forum sponsored by the Carroll County Tea Party.

The candidates were quick to demonstrate their support for a “personhood” amendment to give legal protection “from womb to tomb” and to voice their opposition to abortion.

“We had some tough battles in the General Assembly this year, trying to determine when abortions take place,” said [State Representative Bill] Hembree, who resigned his House seat earlier this month to campaign for the Senate. “I will always stand up for right to life. Every human deserves the right to live, and to take away a child and not give them a chance, that’s unimaginable to me, as a father, a son and as a dad and husband. They don’t get to enjoy the freedom we have because they are taken. All I can say is, as your senator, I will vote every day for life.”

“When I became speaker, together with Rep. Hembree, we voted on a bill for women’s right to know,” said Richardson. “It had been out there for 15 years and never voted on. We’ve made great strides in this state and I feel there’s more to do. We can only do as much as allowed by the federal government. I think the Constitution already protects life, and if we can do more to protect it, I want to do more.”

Richardson said he doesn’t want to see the courts use the personhood amendment to throw out death penalty cases. He said such unintended consequences sometime happen.

“The bottom line is that we should be pro-life and protect babies who can’t protect themselves,” he said.

Richardson said he backed an adoption bill which gives tax credits for people to adopt babies out of foster care.

Hembree said Georgia is losing jobs in general, not only on the farms and he has sponsored legislation to help.

“House Bill 1023 says if you know someone unemployed and getting unemployment benefits, your company can hire these folks and you get tax benefits,” he said.

He said the foundation of the country’s economy is small businesses creating jobs.

“The government needs to get out of the way and let small business do what they do best,” Hembree said. “I’m a small business owner and I employ five people. I make the payroll every two weeks. I know how difficult it is to balance a budget and to employ people. I’m on your side to make sure we get people back to work.”

Republican State Senator Frank Ginn is being criticized by gay blog Project Q Atlanta for saying of his gay opponent,

Ginn, a good old boy with a freshman term under his belt who engaged in a not-so-thinly veiled attempt at gay-baiting – the old “gay and gay-friendly are bad, so vote for me” argument – on Monday.

[A]fter mutual campaign appearances in 2010, he personally does not feel comfortable appearing with Riley.

“I really don’t like being on the stage with this guy,” Ginn said. “He’s just not my cup of tea.”

Republicans will pick up a State House seat even before election results are in, as Atlanta Unfiltered writes that Rick Crawford will switch parties if he’s elected as a Democrat in November.

Rick Crawford was just nominated to serve another two-year term as a Democrat, but he says he’s switching to the Republican Party if he wins re-election in November.

Crawford, who had been pondering his party affiliation for a while, said Democrats’ endorsement of same-sex marriage pushed him over the edge. “I thought, ‘My time here is done,’” he said.

But his conversion is “not just a one-issue thing,” Crawford said. “My profile and my thinking of the way things ought to go was just not something that [Democrats] would ever entertain again.”

Cobb County Chairman Tim Lee will be doing a dog-and-pony show about his HOST Homestead Option Sales Tax Proposal for much of 2013

In general, a HOST is intended to roll back a portion of property taxes charged on primary residences and offset that with a new sales tax. Lee said the average Cobb County household has the potential to save several hundred dollars a year on their property tax under the plan. However, if a HOST were put in place today, the sales tax would increase to 7 percent.

“It’s supposed to be a dollar-for-dollar offset, substituting a dollar of sales tax for a dollar of property-tax relief on your homesteaded property,” said Clint Mueller, legislative director for the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia.

Lee hopes that after presenting more detailed plans to residents next year, commissioners will vote next fall to request local legislation in the 2014 General Assembly. If both of those are approved, county voters would decide the issue in November 2014.

The HOST proposal was a campaign pledge Lee made in his re-election bid this summer.

The Richmond County Board of Education will hold public sessions to inform voters about the Charter School Amendment on November’s ballot.

Richmond County school officials have come out against the amendment, saying state-run charters will divert money away from an already underfunded public system.

Board members have said they are not against the concept of charter schools but are against having a state-run school within a district without having control of the operation.

“If it’s something that’s taking away from public education, we can’t be for it,” Pulliam said. “We’re already hurting. It’s like a poor man that’s got no food and clothes sharing all his food and clothes with the neighbor. You’re not going to have anything left.”

Unemployment in North Georgia is down from 8.6% to 8.1% according to preliminary numbers from the Georgia Department of Labor.

The rate decreased because there were 910 fewer layoffs in manufacturing, construction, transportation and warehousing, administrative and support services, educational services, health care and social assistance, and accommodations and food services. Also, the area’s labor force declined by 1,221, partially because some students left summer jobs to return to school.

Metro Athens continued to have the lowest area jobless rate at 6.7 percent, while the Heart of Georgia-Altamaha Regional Commission had the highest at 12.2 percent.

Metro Gainesville declined to 7.2 percent in August, down five-tenths of a percentage point from 7.7 percent in July. The rate was 8.1 percent in August 2011.

The DeKalb Republican Party is hosting a private screening of the film 2016: Obama’s America tonight at 7 PM, with remarks at 6:30. Buy your tickets online here.

In Loganville and some other cities, voters in November will face voting two separate times:

David Dempsey runs a fruit stand in Loganville. He is among the legions of Americans who grew up with the concept of one man, one vote.

But because Dempsey lives in the city of Loganville, he will have to vote twice on November 6th in order to take advantage of his full electoral rights.

“Did not know we had to vote twice on election day. This is all new to me,” Dempsey said. “I have never, ever heard of having to vote twice on election day.”

Loganville will essentially have two elections November 6th. One will be for the candidates ranging from president to county offices. The other will be for Sunday liquor sales inside the city of Loganville.

11Alive News has uncovered similar dual elections, with different precincts, in the following cities:

In Gwinnett County: Grayson, Dacula, Loganville

In Bartow County: Taylorsville, Emerson

In Fayette County: Fayetteville

In Douglas County: Douglasville

Lynn Ledford, the Gwinnett County election director, says Loganville didn’t submit its election in time to get on the county’s election ballot.

“Ours had already been programmed at that point,” Ledford said. “And once you get your ballot programmed, if you add anything to it, it changes the data base, it changes everything you had done at that point. You would have to retest all of your equipment, you would have issues with the paper absentee ballots and with other things like that.”

Ledford agrees that it makes no sense to hold separate elections on the same day.

Power Transmissions

Georgia Power filed a proposal to buy up to 210 megawatts of solar energy from private producers via competitive bids.

The utility said Wednesday it will buy more than 10 times the amount of solar electricity it currently gets from solar farms and rooftop array by 2017. If added today, the additional electricity would catapult the state to No. 4 in use of solar power, according to the most recent data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The plan calls for Georgia Power to buy an additional 210 megawatts from solar sources. One megawatt can power about 450 homes or one SuperTarget store. The utility generates 16,000 megawatts in total, with coal, natural gas and nuclear the dominant generation sources.

Georgia Power, the state and the Southeast have been criticized by alternative energy advocates for lackluster use of renewables such as solar and wind power.

Chuck Eaton’s opponent in the November General Election, Democrat Steve Oppenheimer, is one of those liberals saying that Georgia should have paid more for solar before it became cost-competitive and criticizes Eaton for what he calls a “flip-flop” and a “battlefield conversion” on solar power.

Eaton has consistently stated for more than a year that he would look at adding solar if and when it became affordable, but why would liberal activist Steve Oppenheimer let the truth get in the way of his radical green agenda?

Earlier this week, in an Op-Ed published in the Savannah Morning News, Eaton laid out the criteria for conservative analysis of solar proposals:

In discussing this initiative, I laid out a three parameters: it shouldn’t cause higher rates; it must be a good strategic fit; and bids to provide utility scale solar power should be subject to a competitive bidding process to ensure the best value to ratepayers.

Republican Chuck Eaton, and his opponents, liberal Democrat Steve Oppenheimer and Librarian Libertarian Brad Ploeger will meet in a GPB debate to be televised October 21st.

Commissioner Chuck Eaton, who’s running for re-election, said he’s looking forward to the opportunity to talk about the commission’s efforts to minimize utility rates for families and as an attraction to employers.

“This year we’ve reduced electric rates for homeowners by 6 percent, eliminated the job-killing sales tax on energy used in manufacturing, and maintained the reliability and affordability that make Georgia a great place to live and an attractive location for companies,” said Eaton, a Republican.

Georgia Power is listing for sale its Plant Riverside on Savannah’s West River Street.

“It could be utilized as retail, residential, office, hotel or a combination of those uses,” Georgia Power spokeswoman Swann Seiler said. “The hope of Georgia Power is that it becomes an asset not only for downtown but the entire city of Savannah.”

Plant Riverside long was an invaluable asset for the community in providing electricity. The property first became home to a power facility in 1882 when electric lights first came to Savannah.

Savannah Electric brought the current plant building online in 1913, and it was Savannah’s sole source of power until the mid 1950s.

The commissioning of Plant McIntosh in Effingham County in 2005 led to Plant Riverside’s closing.

The River Street facility, expanded six times and powered by coal, oil and natural gas over the course of its life, had a capacity of 100 megawatts. Five of its eight steam units still worked at the time of its closing.

Atlanta Gas Light opened a new pipeline to Helen, Georgia yesterday.

“We were here to dedicate the new gas line in Cleveland just over a year ago, so this expansion to Helen is allowing us to reach more and more customers in White County,” said David Weaver, vice president of regulatory and government affairs with Atlanta Gas Light.

The project was projected to cost $6 million and was part of the Integrated Strategic Corridor project designed to extend natural gas service to unserved areas of the state.

Helen Mayor Judy Holloway said the project has helped put Helen into the 21st Century, and she said a number of potentials customers have already expressed interest in hooking up to the new pipeline.

Ends & Pieces

The Gwinnett Historic Courthouse opened 127 years ago this month and oversaw the growth of Gwinnett County from new settlements to a major metropolitan community. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt was on trial in the Courthouse for obscenity when he was shot by a sniper.

MUST Ministries is asking for donations to its food banks in Cobb and Cherokee County, as shelves are becoming bare.

The nonprofit organization, which helps families in emergency need, is also gearing up for the Thanksgiving holiday, one of MUST’s busiest times of the year.

“We literally were down to just three days of food at one point last week,” said Kaye Cagle, director of marketing and public relations, of the empty shelves at the agency.

“We have had such a huge demand over the summer, and we received less donations, demand was up and supply was down,” she said.

The agency distributes about 2,500 cans of food a week, a total of about 2,000 pounds. Last year MUST served 22,000 people who turned to the agency for food.

Right now the agency is in dire need of canned meats such as tuna and chicken, boxed dinners, canned beef stew, canned beans, powdered milk and canned fruits.

The organization also needs dried beans and dried potatoes, spaghetti sauce and noodles, and breakfast items such as oatmeal and grits.

Another need is peanut butter and especially jelly, Cagle said.

“We are always out of jelly. We give bread away every day and we like to give anyone who needs it the peanut butter and jelly so they can have a meal,” she said.

For 15 years, MUST Ministries in Cherokee County has been distributing boxes of Thanksgiving dinner items to around 1,000 families annually.

Non-perishable items can be brought to the MUST office at 141-B Marietta Road in Canton Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Frozen items for Thanksgiving will be accepted Nov. 19-21, from 8 to 9 a.m.

With the help of the Air Force ROTC, baskets will be distributed Nov. 19-21 to families who preregister through MUST.

The MUST Donation Center is located at 1210-B Kennestone Circle in Marietta and is open Tuesday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Timothy is the tan-colored puppy above (the black one is adopted), he is two months old and has spent a month in the Cobb County Animal Shelter, where he lives in cage 332. If you adopt him, he will be vaccinated, chipped, and neutered.

Suri and Kimmi, the black puppies, are his sisters, and are still available from the Cobb County Animal Shelter (the tan girl has been adopted). They are right next door to Timothy in Cage 331 in the puppy are. Adoption also includes vaccinations, micro-chipping, and spaying.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Today is Primary Runoff Election Day and includes runoffs in nonpartisan elections, such as most judges. You may vote today, even if you didn’t vote in the Primary, although if you voted in a partisan primary in July, you may not vote in the other party’s runoff. Polls are open from 7 AM to 7 PM. You will need to bring your photo ID and the Secretary of State’s office has information on which forms of ID are acceptable. If you do not have your ID when you arrive to vote, you may still cast a provisional ballot, as you may do in case of certain other problems. If you cast a provisional ballot, you will have three days to produce proper ID to election officials to have your ballot counted.

When you vote today, I’d be interested in hearing how it went. Relevant information includes your county and precinct, what time you voted, how crowded it was, your voter number (ask the poll workers), and any impressions you or the poll workers have about the pace of voting. Visit the website and put it in the comments or email me.

Last week, Karl Rove updated his electoral map, moving Georgia from “safe Romney” to “leans Romney” but that may reflect a dearth of publicly-released polling in the state, rather than an actual change in the electorate.

Yesterday, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals let stand the “show your papers” provision of Georgia’s House Bill 87, an immigration reform bill.

The decision upholds an injunction against Section 7 of the law, which made it illegal to transport or harbor an illegal alien in Georgia. But it reverses an injunction against Section 8 of the law, which authorizes law enforcement officers to investigate the immigration status of criminal suspects who cannot provide particular documents to prove their status.

The opinion of the panel is available here. The next step is a decision by the litigants whether to appeal to have the case heard by the entire Eleventh Circuit.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said, via press release,

“I am pleased that the the 11th Circuit has reversed the lower court’s injunction and allowed Section 8 of HB 87 to stand. While I disagree with the Court’s decision on Section 7, after over a year of litigation, only one of the 23 sections of HB 87 has been invalidated. We are currently reviewing the 11^th Circuit’s ruling to determine whether further appeal would be appropriate at this stage of the case.”

The “football puppies” are a group of eight Golden Retriever mix puppies who are available for adoption through Angels Among Us Rescue. They were abandoned in an office park and ended up in an animal control shelter. “Texas” is the puppy pictured below. It is primarily rescue organizations like Angels who are able to take an entire litter of puppies, which are distressingly common at shelters. You can donate online or download applications to foster or adopt through this excellently-run organizations.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Pro-tip: runoff candidates are required to file a campaign contribution disclosure six days before the runoff.

Here’s the newest three-step runoff move.

Step One: edge your way into a runoff.

Step Two: challenge you opponent to a series of debates.

Step Three: express amazement when the front-runner declines the invitation, and use it to bludgeon him for the rest of the runoff.

Senator Bill Heath kicked off this year’s runoffs by challenging Bill Carruth to a series of “Show the Facts” debates in Haralson, Paulding, and Polk counties.

Heath stated that he has reserved the Paulding Chamber of Commerce in Paulding for Monday, August 6th; the Sewell Mill – Cherry Blossom Room in Haralson for Tuesday, August 7th; and the Rockmart Community Center in Polk for Thursday, August 9th.

“Every single thing I have said during this campaign about myself and my opponent has been 100% true and documented. In stark contrast, Bill Carruth has consistently and intentionally lied and misled the voters about his record and mine. It’s time for Carruth to put up or shut up. I challenge him to meet me at these locations and bring the documentation. I can back up everything I have said and will gladly present it to the public at these debates,” said Heath.

“Let’s see if Carruth has the courage to actually face real scrutiny from public documents standing in front of the voters and the media.”

Carruth replied that he’d gladly debate as long as Heath would first sign the pledge to support a cap on lobbyist gifts and address that pesky ethics complaint filed against Heath

Carruth apparently accepted the challenge Friday evening by email.

“While this is clearly another desperate attempt to deflect attention away from your lackluster record as a State Senator nevertheless, I welcome the opportunity to debate the real issues facing the voters,” Carruth wrote in his response. “I think there are many differences between me and you of which the voters of the 31St Senate District need to be made aware. I look forward to highlighting those differences in a public forum.”

In the runoff election for Cobb County Chair, Bill Byrne skipped step two and is using incumbent Tim Lee’s refusal to participate in a debate sponsored by the East Cobb Civic Association as an excuse to bring up everything Lee has going against him.

On Sunday, Jill Flamm, president of the East Cobb Civic Association, emailed our campaign, telling us that she had cancelled a chairman candidate forum because Lee had refused to participate.

In addition, in a Monday afternoon email to MDJ editorial page editor Joe Kirby, Lee declined to participate in an MDJ-sponsored debate with Byrne next week, which would have been carried live by TV 23.

With unemployment in Cobb County at 16%, foreclosures increasing monthly, Chairman Tim Lee led the effort that raised property taxes by 16%, water rates were increased by 12%, while public safety employees were furloughed in Cobb County for the first time in history. Tim Lee was wrong to raise your property taxes. There were alternatives.

Even after the T-SPLOST was defeated overwhelmingly in Cobb County and the region, Tim Lee is pushing for an additional 1% HOST sales tax for the general budget. But he is misleading Cobb County voters in stating that it will offset 100% of property taxes. It doesn’t. As you know, 67% of property taxes goes to the school board. So now Tim Lee wants an additional sales tax that will force seniors and all taxpayers to pay more for groceries and their prescriptions!

In House District 66, second-place finisher in the Republican primary Mike Miller is accusing former State Rep. Bob Snelling of ducking debates.

Mike Miller,candidate for Ga. State House District 66, called on his opponent Bob Snelling to stop ducking debates after Mr. Snelling was a no-show at Saturday’s scheduled Douglas CountyGOP candidate forum for the House District 66 Run-off.

The PCRE has also learned that Miller further challenged Bob Snelling to three debates on ethics, education, and the economy in the district before the August 21st GOP Primary Run-off.

“I am disappointed that Bob Snelling would duck a scheduled forum for candidates in the House District 66 Run-off hosted by the Douglas County GOP,” said Miller. “The voters of Douglas and Paulding Counties expect candidates to explain their positions and debate their opponents before earning the opportunity to represent them. I challenge Mr. Snelling to a series of debates in the district so that voters can form informative opinions about this race before the Run-off.”

Speaking of HD 66, the GBI has completed its probe into payments to Douglasville officials for attending meetings that sometimes were not actual meetings but conference calls.The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has completed its preliminary investigation into whether some Douglasville elected officials received payments they weren’t entitled to.

GBI officials confirmed Tuesday that there are plans to present the findings of that probe to Douglas County District Attorney David McDade this week, saying that meeting would determine if the investigation would be extended and what comes next.

Unlike every municipality with a similar population in the metro area, where a straight salary is paid to elected officials, the mayor and council members in Douglasville are compensated based on meeting attendance. Council members are paid $125 per meeting with the mayor receiving $313 per meeting. At standard meetings, attendance is taken and submitted, but other meetings are sometimes turned in by individual elected officials. It was those submissions where the issues seem to arise.

Records viewed through an open records request by the Douglas County Sentinel showed that some elected officials often submitted items for payment that didn’t appear to qualify for payment and others that needed legal interpretation to see whether they qualified. Either way, payment for as many as 50 meetings that didn’t appear to fit the statute criteria were paid to some Douglasville elected officials in the last three years.

That ordinance was enacted in 1997 and clarified in 2007 and a provision that reads “In Sections One, Two, Three and Four, ‘attended’ means the elected official’s personal physical presence at more than half the duration of a particular meeting or session; ‘attended’ does not mean or include participation via electronic means.”

In the three years worth of records examined, the Sentinel found that five council members and former Mayor Mickey Thompson had been paid following their requests for payments for some meetings that did not appear to fit within the ordinance, for one reason or another. The former mayor had 20 submissions that fell into that category and two council members had 10 such meetings that were paid. The others had four or fewer during that time period that did not appear to fit into what is proper for compensation.

All the elected officials contacted about the payments by the Sentinel denied any wrongdoing or that they were paid for anything outside the ordinance.

Surprising no one, Todd Johnson’s attempt to qualify for Douglas County Sheriff as an independent failed to produce enough signatures to earn a spot on the ballot.

Johnson intended to run as a Democrat and began his campaign in January of 2011. However, he failed to qualify for the Democratic primary after submitting fingerprints on file with his employer, the Clayton County Police Department. Johnson was supposed to have his fingerprints taken by Douglas County Probate Judge Hal Hamrick, thus the ones he submitted did not suffice.

The Douglas County Board of Elections voted 4-1 to not allow his name on the ballot at a hearing a few days after qualifying ended on May 25. Ingrid Landis-Davis, the board’s only Democrat, voted against the motion.

Johnson then launched the campaign to run as an independent candidate. Getting his name on the ballot would require signatures from 5 percent of the registered voters in Douglas County, or about 3,810 signatures. Unfortunately for Johnson, that did not happen, leaving Democrat Derrick Broughton and incumbent Republican Phil Miller as the candidates who will appear on November’s general election ballot.

Georgia Senator Jason Carter is not running for Rhode Island House District 54, but his platform, in some cases word-for-word, is.

a local teacher who aspires to be the next representative in House District 54 lifted nearly all of his election platform from the website of Jason Carter, a member of the Georgia State Senate.

A North Providence resident and Providence educator, second-time District 54 candidate William “Bill” O’Brien copied approximately 1,000 words of Carter, an incumbent state lawmaker in Georgia and the grandson of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and pasted them onto his own website,www.williamobrien2012.com .

But for a changed word or two here and there, like “North Providence” for “community,” O’Brien attributes almost all of Carter’s words on the two topics of education and jobs, found at www.carterforstatesenate.com , to himself.

www.carterforstatesenate.com/page/jobs

www.carterforstatesenate.com/page/education

* On jobs, statements by O’Brien and Carter reveal exactly the same sentiments:

“As I talk to families throughout the district, it’s clear that our economic struggles remain a major concern for most,” reads one snippet from O’Brien’s site, which remains virtually unchanged from when he ran two years ago.

“Our community is ripe for expansion in two of the nation’s most promising industries: bioresearch and green energy,” reads another statement that is identical on both sites. Carter then adds that his community has the potential to become a “Silicon Valley of the South,” while O’Brien believes his community can become the “Green Valley of the Northeast.”

O’Brien this week defended his decision to take Carter’s campaign statements and use them as his own. The action was not “plagiarism,” O’Brien emphasized, but a case of two “very good friends” and “liberal Democrats” each deciding to run for office two years ago and “coordinating” their “efforts” in doing so based on ideas formulated during their time together in the Peace Corps.

O’Brien said he sees what he did as no different from President Obama offering speeches written by someone else, though he did concede a difference, that the public is aware that Obama uses a speechwriter.

Carter also sees nothing wrong with O’Brien taking his material, especially since the Georgia lawmaker said he could do so in the first place.

“Bill has his permission to use my stuff,” he said. “I know Bill. He certainly didn’t do anything to make me mad, (and this) doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.”

Voting problems that affected 345 voters in HD 56 didn’t prevent Simone Bell from being certified as the winner of the Democratic primary against fellow incumbent Ralph Long.

The final vote count in the Republican Primary for CD12 shows Rick W. Allen and Wright McLeod close enough for McLeod to request a recount.

The final tally certified by Secretary of State Brian Kemp showed Allen edging McLeod by less than 1 percent of the 60,062 votes cast in the east Georgia district now held by Democratic Rep. John Barrow of Augusta. Because of the thin margin, state law guarantees McLeod a recount if he requests it within two business days.

McLeod’s spokeswoman, Holly Croft, said the Augusta attorney would not announce a decision immediately.

State Rep. Lee Anderson of Grovetown emerged as the GOP frontrunner in last week’s four-way primary, finishing with 34 percent of the vote – more than 5,000 votes ahead of his nearest competitor, but far from the majority he needed to avoid a runoff.

That left Allen and McLeod neck-and-neck for the runner-up slot needed to advance to the runoff. Even if McLeod asks for a recount of the vote, the result is unlikely to change. In an era of electronic voting, recounting ballots is much like punching the same numbers into a calculator a second time.

Someone in the Fulton County Board of Elections might want to borrow that calculator to figure out whether a reported 23,300% turnout in a single-voter precinct is plausible. Three other precincts in Fulton County reported turnout greater than 100%.

One precinct reported a 3,300 percent voter turnout. Fulton County said it is aware of the strange numbers and have reached out to the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State. The Secretary of State’s Office said they are also looking into why some of the turnout numbers are so far off.

“How does a precinct have a 154 percent turnout? Thirty-three hundred percent turnout. There’s a glitch somewhere,” [Sheriff candidate Richard] Lankford said.

Fulton County Board of Elections Chairman Rod Edmond said Monday night he is very confident in the results after Monday’s primary results certification.

Fulton County was the last county in the state to certify its election results and could face state fines over the delay.

Louis DeBroux writes that 32.6% voter turnout for the Bartow County Republican Primary is disappointing because the GOP races are de facto general elections.

Congressman Tom Graves endorsed Cindy Jones Mills in the GOP Runoff for Forsyth County Commission district 4.

“Cindy Jones Mills understands what it takes to run a business, create private-sector jobs, balance a budget and meet tough deadlines — that’s key for Forsyth County,” said Congressman Tom Graves. “Cindy Jones Mills will stand up for taxpayers and place principles above politics. She is the right kind of leader for Forsyth County.”

There’s a new Sheriff in town in Fayette County, where Republican primary voters turned out incumbent Wayne Hannah.

[V]oters still have to settle three runoff races on Tuesday, Aug. 21.

Two county commission posts and the race for the 63rd District seat in the Georgia House of Representatives remain for the taking since none of those candidates got more than 50 percent of the votes.

That means three more weeks of campaigning for county commission Post 2 candidates Sheila Huddleston and David Barlow and for commission Post 3 candidates Lee Hearn and Randy Ognio. Both races are on the Republican ballot and voters countywide are allowed to weigh in on both posts.

Campaigning is also extended for two Democrats seeking the new 63rd District seat in the Georgia House of Representatives, as the two leading vote-getters will face off: Ronnie Mabra and T.J. Copeland. Not all Fayette residents will vote in this race as the 63rd district is limited to the unincorporated Fayette area north and east of Fayetteville, along with nearly all of Fayetteville.

Voters are reminded that if they voted a Democratic or Republican ballot in the primary, they will have to use the same party’s ballot in the runoff election, said Elections Supervisor Tom Sawyer.

However, voters who chose a non-partisan ballot in the primary will be able to choose a Democrat or Republican ballot in the runoff election.

Call the result in that Sheriff’s race sweet payback for Barry Babb.

Babb and Hannah both worked for Fayette County when they ran against each other in 2008.

In what was seen as controversial move at the time, after winning the election, Hannah demoted Babb from captain to deputy and placed him at the county jail. Babb’s pay was cut as well.

“It was a time of solitude. It was a time of discomfort. It was a time of loneliness,” said Babb.

And speaking of state house candidate Ronnie Mabra, he’s the subject of a complaint for giving free wings to voters, regardles of whom they voted for. According to Andre Walker of Georgia Unfiltered,

O.C.G.A. §21-2-570 states, “Any person who gives or receives, or offers to give or receive, or participates in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for the purpose of registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate in any primary or election shall be guilty of a felony.”

It is illegal, in Georgia, to offer incentives to voters for voting.

Chris Harvey, lead investigator in the Secretary of State’s office, acknowledged receiving the complaint and opened an investigation August 6th.

I didn’t ask Andre, but I’m pretty sure this is totally unrelated to the fact that it was Mabra’s law firm that filed suit against Walker on behalf of Democratic Party of Georgia Political Director Rashad Richey.

Tom Crawford writes that the overwhelming passage of the ballot question about limiting lobbyist gifts was a message to Georgia’s elected officials that voters distrust them.

In the Republican primary, the vote was 87-13 percent in favor of “ending the current practice of unlimited gifts from lobbyists to state legislators by imposing a $100 cap on such gifts.”

In the Democratic primary, voters approved a similar ballot question by a 73-27 percent margin.

Those votes were a rebuke of House Speaker David Ralston, who took a $17,000 lobbyist-paid trip to Europe with his family in 2010. Ralston has blocked legislation that would limit lobbyist spending, and says the current state law requiring disclosure of expenditures is sufficient.

When he spoke to the Republican Party’s state convention in May, Ralston contended that “liberals” and “media elites” were the only ones pushing for ethics reform – an argument that lost much of its credibility when 87 percent of Republican voters supported the lobbyist spending cap.

Ralston seems to be falling into the same trap as Tom Murphy, who was speaker of the Georgia House for more than 28 years. Murphy became so blinded by the power of his office that he could not see how the political landscape in Georgia was changing.

Republican Insurace Commissioner Ralph Hudgens writes that state health insurance exchanges required by Obamacare are not in the best interests of Georgians.

It is my opinion that the creation of a Georgia exchange is not in our State’s best interest because such an exchange would be subject to the federal law, the mountains of regulations the have been promulgated since its passage, and the regulations that, to this date, have still not been finalized.

I welcome any action by the federal government that truly shifts authority from Washington D.C. back to Georgia and which allows our State to set policy in areas so important to the lives of our citizens. However, as the situation currently exists, the creation of a Georgia exchange would make our State little more than a tool to be used by the Federal Government to implement a law which I believe is misguided. I cannot recommend the creation of an exchange when doing so will not, in any meaningful way, allow our State to make decisions that we believe to be in our own best interest.

Paulding County Commission Chair David Austin is doubling-down on his support of T-SPLOST by criticizing legislators for being insufficiently supportive of the largest tax hike in Georgia history.

“The Legislature abandoned us,” Austin said. “Our own delegation turned their backs on us.”

He said District 31 State Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, did little to support the initiative and District 17 State Rep. Howard Maxwell, R-Dallas, “was on the fence” about his support. Heath and Maxwell voted for the bill in 2010 which set the vote this year for the 1 percent sales tax to fund transportation projects.

“The Legislature never did anything,” Austin said. “I thought they abandoned the governor and the Speaker of the House.”

However, Heath said in an e-mail, “I have consistently opposed raising taxes. I believe that one should live within their means.”

Events

Tomorrow, August 9th at 5:15, Congressman Jack Kingston and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will headline a rally for the Romney campaign at the Charles Morris Center, located at 10 East Broad Street in Savannah, 31401. To R.s.v.p. or for more information, contact Dabney Hollis via email dabneyh@me.com or Stephanie Jones stephaniegjons@me.com 404-849-7211.

On August 15th, beginning at 6 PM, Josh Romney will headline a fundraiser aimed at young professionals at the Park Tavern at Piedmont Park in Atlanta. Georgia Finance Chair Eric Tanenblatt will host with Congressmen Tom Graves, Rob Woodall, and Austin Scott expected to attend.