ATLANTA – Rural Georgia is suffering from failing schools, inadequate health care and lack of economic opportunity, conditions that make politicians’ boasts the state is No. 1 for doing business ring hollow.
That’s the message Georgia lawmakers heard this week from experts who have been studying the plight of the Peach State’s rural communities for years.
“With the exception of 11 or 12 counties, much of Georgia is in a very distressed situation,” David Bridges, interim director of the Georgia Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovation, told members of the House Rural Development Council Wednesday. “If we’re going to be the No.-1 state for business, we must define the state as 159 counties, not 11 or 12.”
It’s a message lawmakers have been hearing since 2017, when House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, created the council to look for ways to improve rural Georgia’s economy. Wednesday’s meeting marked a reboot of the council after a period of inactivity with new co-chairmen and many new members.
“We want to do things to make rural Georgia stronger, to make people want to live there,” said Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper, one of those new co-chairs.
The 2020 Census highlighted the heart of rural Georgia’s dilemma: a loss in population. It showed that 68 of the state’s 159 counties have suffered population declines since 2010.
The populations of three counties – Dooly, Telfair and McIntosh – have fallen by more than 20% during the last decade. Numerically, Dougherty County led the way, with a population decline of 8,775.
Rural Georgia’s population also is aging. Georgians ages 65 and older now make up 19% of the population in rural counties, a figure that is projected to increase to 22% by 2030.
With that older population comes greater demand for government services, said David Tanner, associate director for state services and decision support at the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.
“Older people retiring in North Georgia is putting more pressure on health programs,” he said.
However, the greatest disparity between rural Georgia and the urban counties surrounding Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah and other Georgia cities is educational attainment, said Charlie Hayslett, a retired public relations consultant who writes a blog titled “Trouble in God’s Country.”
“It may be the single biggest problem affecting the dynamics of rural Georgia,” he said.
If metro Atlanta were a state, Hayslett said, it would rank second to Massachusetts in the percentage of the adult population with at least a four-year college degree. Georgia’s other 147 counties would rank second from the bottom in that category, behind only Mississippi, he said.
The 12 counties in metro Atlanta also have outstripped the other 147 in enrollment in University System of Georgia colleges and universities, he said.
Bridges, who also serves as president of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, said the coronavirus pandemic is worsening rural Georgia’s plight in some ways, including putting more stress on the region’s workforce.
But Tanner said there is a silver lining to COVID-19. He said the movement of Georgians out of rural areas appears to have slowed since the pandemic struck, with the increase of working from home.
He said improving broadband connectivity in rural communities would go a long way toward encouraging that trend.
“If [rural areas] have great broadband they can attract the remote worker,” Tanner said.
Bridges said reducing government regulation and bureaucracy also would help speed help to rural Georgia. While he praised Gov. Brian Kemp’s creation this year of a Rural Innovation Fund to help local elected officials and economic development leaders create jobs, he said the $40 million initiative appears to be tied up in red tape.
“We have no idea how to get our hands on that money or what the process and rules are,” he said.
Bridges conceded that solving the challenges facing rural Georgia will be difficult.
“The problems are deeply rooted. They can’t be fixed overnight,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t acknowledge them and address them.”
ATLANTA – Georgia will use $5.8 million in federal coronavirus relief aid to market a tourism industry that suffered losses during the pandemic, Gov. Brian Kemp said Thursday.
Travel spending, tourism jobs and overall economic impact from tourism have all declined during the pandemic, but the damage could have been worse.
Visitation to Georgia during fiscal 2020 nearly matched the record set during the previous fiscal year, as domestic overnight and day trips to and within Georgia helped offset the loss of international visitors and conventions.
Tourism generated 410,000 jobs statewide in fiscal 2020 and produced an economic impact of $53.72 billion. The Georgia Department of Economic Development has yet to release figures from fiscal 2021, which ended June 30.
The influx of COVID-19 relief funds to the agency’s tourism division will help build on the success of the state’s tourism recovery marketing campaign launched earlier this year,called Ready. Set. Georgia.
“This funding will help Georgia’s travel and hospitality industry compete in a highly competitive marketing landscape,” Kemp said.
The state’s travel website also is performing well. ExploreGeorgia.org has recorded 15 consecutive months of record-breaking traffic, with more than 11 million visits during fiscal 2021, an increase of 59% over the previous fiscal year.
“Georgia is a beautiful, diverse state,” state Commissioner of Economic Development Pat Wilson said. “Despite the challenges of the last year, with additional funding … there are optimistic signs that point to a tourism industry well positioned for future success.”
This story available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is turning up the heat on the Justice Department over its lawsuit challenging controversial election law changes the General Assembly adopted last March.
Raffensperger announced Wednesday he has filed a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) with the federal agency to release any records of contacts it may have had with civil and voting rights organizations in light of the lawsuit.
“We believe there’s potential they’ve been following orders from [2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee] Stacey Abrams and others,” Raffensperger said. “We think something is going on.”
The FOIA request calls for the release of communications between the Justice Department and 62 individuals and organizations, including Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group Abrams founded; the American Civil Liberties Union; the Southern Poverty Law Center; and Perkins Coie, a law firm that represents Democrats in voting cases.
The lawsuit, filed in June, accuses Georgia of violating the federal Voting Rights Act by denying or abridging the right of Black Georgians to vote based on their race or color by, among other things, reducing access to absentee voting.
The law, which the Republican-controlled legislature passed along party lines, replaces the signature-match verification process for absentee ballots with an ID requirement.
Raffensperger accused the Justice Department of unfairly singling out Georgia. For example, the new law’s requirement that Georgians wishing to vote by absentee ballot submit a driver’s license number or some other form of identification is the same provision imposed by the state of Minnesota, he said.
Likewise, the new law’s provisions for early voting in Georgia are less restrictive than current laws in New York, New Jersey and Delaware that are not being taken to court, he said.
“We’re being held to a higher standard than most other states,” he said. “We want Georgia treated the same as everyone else.”
Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight Action, dismissed Raffensperger’s FOIA request as political gamesmanship.
“The latest nonsense from Brad Raffensperger is more grandstanding and another sad move by a very desperate man,” she wrote in a Twitter post.
ATLANTA – Georgia has scored another victory in the decades-long tri-state water wars with Alabama and Florida.
In a decision issued late last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted Georgia’s request for water allocation from Allatoona Lake, which supplies Cobb County and the city of Cartersville.
The Corps’ decision on the Allatoona Lake supply came less than a month after a federal judge ruled in Georgia’s favor in a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s use of water from Lake Lanier.
“This is a generational pivotal moment for metro Atlanta that secures our water supply for decades to come,” said Katherine Zitsch, managing director of natural resources for the Atlanta Regional Commission. “[It] significantly increases our drought resiliency … [and] will encourage further smart infrastructure investments and efficient water use in the region.”
Both the Army Corps’ decision on Allatoona Lake and the court ruling on Lake Lanier stem from federal lawsuits the state of Alabama filed claiming the Corps was allocating too much water to Georgia at its expense.
The U.S. Supreme Court also sided with Georgia in a ruling in April rejecting a lawsuit the state of Florida filed alleging the water Georgia takes from the Chattahoochee River Basin has ruined the oyster industry in Apalachicola Bay.
The decision by the Corps on Allatoona Lake, dated Aug. 27, cited the building of the $100 million Hickory Log Creek Reservoir as a factor in its approval of the water allocation request submitted by the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority and the city of Cartersville.
The 411-acre reservoir in Cherokee County, which opened in 2013, conserves water by providing upstream storage.
Former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins has endorsed Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black for U.S. Senate.
Black, who is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock next year, picked up Collins’ support during a campaign event Tuesday at Black’s farm in Commerce.
Collins, R-Gainesville, left Congress last year to run for the Senate in a crowded contest eventually won by Warnock.
“Gary Black is somebody who will stand up for our values in Georgia,” Collins told a crowd of Black’s supporters. “We’re in desperate need of new leadership in Washington, D.C. … We need people who have the integrity Gary Black has.”
In the House, Collins was among the staunchest backers of former President Donald Trump, defending the president during impeachment hearings the House held in late 2019.
At Trump’s urging, University of Georgia football great Herschel Walker jumped into the Senate race last week. But that didn’t dissuade Collins from endorsing Black.
“I don’t care who else is running,” Collins said Tuesday. “I support Gary Black.”
The event at Black’s farm drew nearly 400 attendees and included a speech by former Gov. Nathan Deal, who endorsed Black in July.
Georgia Public Service Commissioner Bubba McDonald also spoke, and U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens, spoke to the audience by phone from Washington.
