ATLANTA – Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms ordered all but essential businesses closed late Friday as coronavirus cases in the city and across Georgia hit record levels.
Bottoms placed Atlanta back under Phase 1 stay-at-home guidelines just two days after imposing a mask-wearing mandate requiring people in the city to wear masks in all public places.
“Based upon the surge of COVID-19 cases and other data trends, pursuant to the recommendations of our Reopening Advisory Committee, Atlanta will return to Phase I of our reopening plan,” Bottoms said in a news release. “Georgia reopened in a reckless manner and the people of our city and state are suffering the consequences.”
Under Phase 1, which was in effect in Atlanta this spring until early May, residents are to make only essential trips such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy. Businesses such as restaurants and retail establishments are only allowed to provide curbside services.
Gov. Brian Kemp, who has not issued a mask-wearing order statewide, criticized the mayor on Wednesday for imposing restrictions beyond what the state is requiring and did so again following Friday’s order.
“Mayor Bottoms’ action today is merely guidance – both non-binding and legally unenforceable,” Kemp said in a prepared statement. “As clearly stated in the governor’s executive order, no local action can be more or less restrictive, and that rule applies statewide.”
Bottoms took action on the same day Georgia added more than 4,400 confirmed cases of COVID-19, a daily record. More than 111,000 Georgians have contracted the virus since the global pandemic began hitting the U.S. back in March.
As of 3 p.m. Friday, Fulton County had 10,021 confirmed coronavirus cases overall. The county had suffered 321 deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began along with 1,230 hospitalizations.
Despite the governor’s warnings that local mask-wearing requirements can’t be enforced, a growing number of Georgia cities have imposed them. The city of Augusta imposed a masking mandate on Friday, joining Atlanta, Savannah and East Point.
Also on Friday, Kemp announced plans to reopen the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta for standby hospital beds and medical equipment to help handle the recent influx of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections fell in June for the third month in a row but not as precipitously as the previous two months, the state Department of Revenue reported late Friday.
State tax revenues declined by 8.8% last month compared to June of last year. That marked a slight improvement over the 10.1% drop-off reported in May and a huge jump over the nearly 36% plunge in April at the height of the statewide economic lockdown brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Individual income tax collections were off only slightly in June, by 0.6% compared to the same month a year ago. Net sales taxes fell by 1.9% during the month.
Typically volatile corporate income tax receipts, however, fell sharply in June by 56.5%.
With the tax payment deadline delayed until July 15 this year because of COVID-19, corporate tax payments last month were down 53.9% from June of last year. On the other hand, corporate tax refunds rose by a steep 40.9%.
Falling tax revenues since spring resulting from the coronavirus-driven recession were the key factor driving $2.2 billion in state spending cuts the General Assembly imposed in the fiscal 2021 budget lawmakers adopted late last month.
Revenues didn’t drop quite as much as had been anticipated, allowing the legislature to avoid furloughing teachers and state employees. However, there wasn’t enough money to fund either the pay raises Gov. Brian Kemp had proposed in his original budget recommendations or to consider a second installment on a state income tax rate cut the General Assembly passed two years ago.
Coronavirus has sickened tens of thousands and killed thousands more in Georgia. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Gov. Brian Kemp is poised to reopen the Georgia World Congress Center for standby hospital beds and medical equipment amid a recent increase in COVID-19 positive cases and hospitalizations in the state.
The governor also plans to tap a metro Atlanta hospital for an extra 100 surge and ICU beds, as well as fund additional staff at health-care and elderly care facilities in Georgia amid the COVID-19 uptick.
A 200-bed alternative care facility was activated in April at the World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta as COVID-19 cases soared and state officials rushed to boost emergency bed capacity. Its operations were paused in late May as Kemp moved to relax business restrictions and jump-start the state’s flagging economy.
The renewed state-driven buildup of hospital capacity comes as local hospitals have warned the number of patients being admitted for COVID-19 is edging up, particularly among younger Georgians, according to the governor’s office.
“On a daily – if not hourly – basis, we are monitoring hospitalizations by region, and the governor continues to hold weekly conference calls with hospital executives to gauge needs,” said Kemp’s communications director, Candice Broce.
Amid the buildup, state officials noted patients with COVID-19 are seeing shorter hospital stays through use of the treatment drug remdesivir and because their cases are less acute, in part due to their age.
Hospitals in the state will also likely continue conducting revenue-generating elective medical procedures despite the current COVID-19 increases, Broce said. Elective surgeries were put on hold earlier this year but resumed in late April as COVID-19 cases began slowing and hospitals sought to ease financial strain.
State officials also expect to see an increase in the number of positive COVID-19 test results in the coming days after testing specimens dropped off over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Georgia is negotiating “new solutions” to expand in-house test processing and results turnaround with more details forthcoming, Broce said.
As of Friday afternoon, more than 111,000 people in Georgia had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel strain of coronavirus that sparked a global pandemic. It had killed 2,965 Georgians.
ATLANTA – Georgia House Speaker David Ralston is living up to his pledge to consider moving criminal justice reform beyond the hate crimes bill the General Assembly passed last month.
The House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee, which has jurisdiction over Georgia’s criminal laws, is scheduled to meet Monday to hear testimony on the state’s citizen’s arrest law.
As the legislature wrapped up its 2020 session late last month, Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said legislation introduced by state Rep. Carl Gilliard, D-Garden City, aimed at eliminating citizen’s arrests in Georgia was worth serious consideration.
But the speaker said lawmakers didn’t have time during the final rush toward adjournment to go beyond the hate crimes bill the legislature passed during the final week of this year’s session. He promised to hold hearings on other criminal justice reform proposals in order to craft legislation for the General Assembly to take up during the 2021 session starting in January.
The right of Georgians to make a citizen’s arrest was at the heart of the fatal shooting last February of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man gunned down while jogging on a street near Brunswick. Three white men, including a father and son, were arrested and charged with murder after a video of the incident surfaced in April.
Gilliard’s bill was among more than a dozen criminal justice and policing reform measures that were filed last month when the legislature returned to the Capitol after lawmakers took three months off to discourage the spread of coronavirus.
During a news conference to call attention to his bill, Gilliard said the citizen’s arrest law is outdated and gives untrained civilians a reason to perpetrate violence in the name of law enforcement.
“We need to understand that citizen’s arrest is dangerous more often than not,” Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, said at the time.
Other measures likely to get an airing in legislative committees this summer and fall include proposals to repeal Georgia’s stand-your-ground law, prohibit police officers from engaging in racial profiling and ban no-knock search warrants.
A landmark court ruling has led to nearly half of Georgia’s most high-risk sex offenders being released from their ankle monitors over the past year, marking a legal quandary that state lawmakers fell short in addressing during the 2020 legislative session.
State officials tasked with recommending how to monitor sex offenders in Georgia say legislation filed in the 2020 session would address the problem going forward by handing final authority to judges, rather than a state-run review board.
But criminal defense attorneys argue the proposal does not include certain legal avenues for sex offenders who often lack the means to appeal their punishments and who would benefit from more focus on treatment than lifetime ankle monitoring.
So far, 520 of 1,108 people in Georgia classified as “sexually dangerous predators” most at risk for committing future sex crimes have been freed from GPS tracking devices, according to Tracy Alvord, executive director of the state Sexual Offender Registration Review Board.
She expects 17 more sexually dangerous predators will be off ankle monitors by the end of this year, leaving local law enforcement agencies and the state Department of Community Supervision to rely more on reports from concerned citizens to monitor sex offenders in lieu of electronic tracking.
“There’s only so much you can do unless someone commits another crime,” Alvord said. “Now, they have less idea unless there’s a report that they’re engaging in some kind of disturbing behavior.”
Legislation brought by Rep. Steven Sainz, R-Woodbine, in the General Assembly session that wrapped up last month was aimed at revising state law on sex-offender sentencing that the Georgia Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional in March 2019.
The high court ruled a longstanding practice of electronically monitoring some sex offenders in Georgia after their sentences and probation have been completed should not be allowed to continue, blocking a state law that requires automatic lifetime monitoring for sexually dangerous predators.
The issue centered on a process in which the review board decides how to classify a sex offender based on a risk scale, with the highest risk carrying automatic lifetime monitoring. Those highest-risk offenders mark a fraction of Georgia’s roughly 12,000 sex offenders, according to Alvord.
Sainz’s bill called for making the decision on lifetime monitoring part of a judge’s sentence from the start instead of via the review board. It would have only addressed future sex offenders, not those who have already been released from monitoring.
“My bill was a very tailored approach,” Sainz said. “It intentionally wasn’t a huge number [of offenders], but that number we’re dealing with per year would be the most needed offenders to have that tool long-term.”
House Bill 720 passed out of the state House of Representatives but stalled as lawmakers grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic. Sainz said he plans to work on the bill with Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, and bring it back for next year’s legislative session.
Critically, the bill proposes automatic lifetime-monitoring sentences for sex offenders who commit more than one felony sex crime such as rape, trafficking, child molestation and child pornography.
But automatic sentencing could prevent judges from imposing penalties on a case-by-case basis, potentially tying the hands of a judge who might opt for lifetime probation or more intensive treatment, said Jill Travis, executive director of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
“It completely removes judicial discretion, which we believe is an important feature that should remain in the law,” Travis said. “Individual assessment is key, not just a blanket crime ‘A’ plus crime ‘B’ equals a lifetime monitoring.”
As it stands, Travis said the review board’s process for recommending sex-offender classifications leaves little room for appeal for offenders who often cannot afford legal representation. She said the state should put more resources into behavioral and psychological treatments aimed at curbing recidivism.
“That’s the best thing that should happen,” Travis said. “Strapping a monitor on them for life doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not going to commit another offense.”
But ankle monitors can help local police authorities prevent sex crimes by allowing them to easily determine if a GPS-tracked offender is going somewhere that is off limits like a school or has come into contact recently with people they shouldn’t, said the review board’s Alvord.
She said the intent is to stave off repeated sex crimes while also managing a constant stream of new cases. Each month, the review board receives a list of around 200 new sex offenders from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, Alvord said.
Establishing legally sound rules on ankle monitoring would help state and local authorities keep up with the heavy workload in the effort to protect Georgians from sexual predators, Alvord said.
“Our front-line people do a really, really good job despite the limitations we have legally,” Alvord said. “They’re really having to compensate on waiting for [Sainz’s bill] before it goes through.”
