Albany Mayor Bo Dorough (lower left, highlighted) states his case during a virtual Georgia Supreme Court hearing on May 21, 2020. (Georgia Supreme Court video)
The Georgia Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in a case that pits Albany’s mayor against the city’s hospital, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, which since March has seen a swell of patients infected with coronavirus.
Albany Mayor Kermit “Bo” Dorough, an attorney, is representing a Johns Creek accountant, Claude Wilson Geer, in an open-records lawsuit filed in 2018 seeking details of certain board meetings Geer claims may show potential conflicts of interest involving Phoebe Putney and how the hospital system set salary amounts for top executives.
The hospital argued those records are exempt from disclosure since they involve a private company, Phoebe Putney Health System, which does not directly own the hospital. It then filed a claim for attorneys’ fees and court costs, which was the subject of Thursday’s Supreme Court hearing.
Dorough called the hospital’s move to file a claim for attorneys’ fees before the open-records issues were resolved “heavy-handed” and said it could deter future transparency-focused lawsuits in Georgia.
“This case is about the operation of a community hospital,” Dorough said during Thursday’s hearing. “This is clearly an issue of public concern.”
Frank Middleton, an attorney representing the hospital, said the intent was to protect the hospital from bad-faith lawsuits and was permitted under state law.
“It doesn’t have a chilling effect as Justice [Charles] Bethel raised earlier,” Middleton said, noting language used in a question one of the court’s justices asked during the hearing.
Hearings in the Supreme Court case come as Phoebe Putney continues treating patients for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic. Dorough, who was elected mayor in December of last year, rallied behind the hospital as cases spiked in April.
Dougherty County, where Albany is located, figured as the state’s worst COVID-19 hotspot outside Atlanta as the highly contagious respiratory virus swept across the state starting in March.
Fewer coronavirus-positive patients have been admitted to Phoebe Putney in recent weeks, marking a hopeful trend that the virus’ spread is slowing. But as of noon Thursday, the hospital was still treating 75 patients for COVID-19 and was gearing up for a possible spike from upcoming Memorial Day activities.
Geer, who was born in Albany and runs a Facebook page criticizing Phoebe Putney, has alleged the hospital system overcharges for services, has purchased property by improper means and gives top executives “excessive and unwarranted” salaries, according to a 2018 affidavit.
Attorneys for Phoebe Putney have denied hospital administrators engaged in anything improper and have labeled the records requests as “bad faith” on the part of Geer, according to court filings.
A spokesman for Phoebe Putney dismissed Geer’s claims Thursday, noting the hospital compares data with other regional peer hospitals to ensure services are fairly priced.
The spokesman, Ben Roberts, also said board members provide conflict-of-interest disclosures and worked with an outside health-care advisory group, SullivanCotters, in setting executive compensation rates.
“It is important to note, the Georgia Supreme Court is taking up a legal technicality in the case you mentioned and is not hearing arguments on the merits of the suit,” Roberts said.
ATLANTA – Six working groups of educators, public health officials and representatives of state agencies and nonprofits will lead the effort to safely reopen Georgia schools closed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Gov. Brian Kemp and State School Superintendent Richard Woods formed the six K-12 Restart Working Groups Thursday to help provide guidelines for the safe reopening of schools for the 2020-21 school year.
“As we work to defeat this virus, we want to ensure Georgia’s students are safe, secure and learning,” Kemp said. “Georgians can be assured the safety of students, families and school staff is our first priority. These K-12 Restart groups will ensure we have experts at the table as we take measured steps forward.”
The 72 members will divide their responsibilities among working groups responsible for distance and professional learning; school meals; mental health and wellness; connectivity and devices; supplemental learning; and facilities, transportation and equipment.
“These working groups … will provide invaluable expertise and perspective as we ensure schools are prepared for the fall and have options to ensure learning continues, following the advice and guidance of public health officials on the national and state levels,” Woods said.
The following were named to chair the six working groups:
Caitlin Dooley, deputy superintendent of teaching and learning for the Georgia Department of Education (Distance and Professional Learning group)
Linette Dodson, school nutrition director for the Georgia Department of Education (School Meals group)
Ashley Harris, director of whole child supports and strategic partnerships for the Georgia Department of Education (Mental Health and Wellness group)
Jannine Miller, office of the governor (Connectivity and Devices group)
Shaun Owen, deputy superintendent of federal programs for the Georgia Department of Education (Supplemental Learning group)
Garry McGiboney, deputy superintendent for school safety and climate for the Georgia Department of Education (Facilities, Transportation and Equipment group)
Schools across Georgia have been practicing distance learning since mid-March, when the governor closed the schools to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
The State Transportation Board Thursday approved plans to overhaul the interchange of interstates 285 and 20. Credit: GDOT
ATLANTA – The State Transportation Board gave the green light Thursday to a planned overhaul of the interchange at interstates 285 and 20 in DeKalb County.
The project, expected to cost $350 million to $450 million, will include reconstructing three ramps, adding new collector-distributor and auxiliary lanes and replacing several bridges, Meg Pirkle, chief engineer for the Georgia Department of Transportation, told board members before Thursday’s vote authorizing the work.
The often congested interchange on the east side of metro Atlanta’s Perimeter Highway is ranked as the nation’s 25th-worst highway bottleneck, Pirkle said.
The project will be built on a design-build-finance model, the same that was used to build the Northwest Corridor toll lanes project in Cobb and Cherokee counties, and in the redesign of the I-285/Georgia 400 interchange, a project that is still under construction.
Under a resolution the State Transportation Board adopted Thursday, the DOT will manage the project. The State Road and Tollway Authority will enter into a contract with a road-building company and private-sector consultants to design, construct and finance the work.
The project timetable calls for the DOT to issue a request for qualifications this summer and select a short list of finalists in October. Two requests for proposals will follow in November and January, with the contract to be awarded during the third quarter of next year.
Construction is due to begin in 2022, and the new interchange is scheduled to open to traffic in 2025.
In other business Thursday, Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry reported that traffic around the state is starting to pick up after falling off dramatically during the initial weeks after the state’s economy was shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic
At the low point early last month, traffic on the state’s highways was down 40% to 50% on average, McMurry said. It has rebounded since then and is now 25% to 30% below pre-pandemic levels, he said.
“It’s an indicator of what the economy is doing,” McMurry said.
McMurry said truck traffic in Georgia only fell off 10% to 20% at the height of the lockdown and is now back to normal.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate skyrocketed last month to a record high 11.9%, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Coronavirus-induced joblessness rose by 7.3% during April alone, sending unemployment well past the previous record of 10.6% set at the height of the Great Recession in December 2010.
“However, the cause of this high unemployment rate differs greatly from that of the previous record,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said. “I have no doubt that we will recover just as quickly and get back to our record lows once again.”
But for now, Georgia’s job outlook is not a pretty picture. The huge jump in unemployment is being reflected in unprecedented numbers of initial unemployment claims, which rose by 333% last month to reach a total of 1.35 million.
The monthly total of initial claims filed in April was higher than the number for each of the last four years combined.
The accommodations and food services sector accounted for the most unemployment claims, with more than 323,000 filed last month. The trade sector was a distant second with more than 172,000 claims, followed by health care and social assistance, which accounted for more than 151,000 claims.
April showed a decrease of 624,126 employed Georgians, bringing the total to nearly 4.3 million, the lowest number of employed residents in eight and a half years.
Jobs in Georgia were down by 492,100 over the month, the lowest number of jobs on record in six years.
Voters wait in line at a precinct in Cobb County on May 18, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is urging voters to cast ballots by mail rather than in person for the June 9 primary election as the start of early voting this week drew long lines and wait times at many precincts.
Polls opened Monday across the state for the three-week early voting period ahead of the primary election, which was delayed from March 24 and May 18 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Precincts have already seen long lines despite relatively small turnout with voters forced to keep their distance from each other and spend time canceling absentee ballots they requested since they are voting in person.
The small sample size of early voters has state and county election officials gearing up for potential precinct challenges that may lie ahead in the upcoming June 9 primary, even as Georgia is poised for historic levels of mail-in voting.
Raffensperger and several county election officials asked voters Wednesday to consider taking the absentee-ballot route, either by sending their ballot in the mail or putting it in temporary drop-off boxes that counties have set up.
Doing so would help relieve Election-Day pressure for volunteer poll workers, many of whom are older adults more vulnerable to health risks from coronavirus, officials said. It would also cut down the amount of time voters spend waiting next to each other in line.
“Considering the health risks posed by COVID-19, Georgians should seriously consider submitting an absentee ballot by mail for the June 9 elections,” Raffensperger said in a statement Wednesday.
“While we understand the Georgia tradition of in-person voting and look forward to returning to normal in-person voting in future elections, the extra precautions necessary to preserve voter and poll worker health during the pandemic will result in long wait times and an increased health risk that could be avoided through absentee ballots for this election,” Raffensperger added.
Raffensperger’s office also announced Wednesday the state has purchased 35,000 reusable face masks and 30,000 bottles of hand sanitizer that will be sent to county election offices.
Nearly 1.5 million Georgians to date have requested absentee ballots for the primary, a figure much larger than the roughly 223,000 mail-in ballots cast in the high-turnout 2018 gubernatorial election. Of those, county election officials have already collected about 400,000 completed absentee ballots.
The push by Raffensperger for more voters to choose mail-in ballots comes despite President Donald Trump bashing the method Wednesday, calling it ripe for voter fraud. The president threatened to withhold federal funds for Michigan after that state – like Georgia – began sending absentee-ballot request forms to all its registered voters.
Raffensperger announced in mid-March that his office would send absentee ballot request forms to Georgia’s roughly 6.9 million voters. He has also created an advisory group for mail-in voter fraud, though critics have blasted that move as voter intimidation and unnecessary due to the lack of evidence of widespread absentee voter fraud in the state.
