ATLANTA – Low-income tenants of subsidized housing in Georgia shared harrowing stories of horrendous living conditions ignored by landlords with a U.S. Senate subcommittee Monday at a hearing in Roswell.
“My unit flooded constantly with raw sewage … floating pieces of fecal matter, eaten food and toilet-paper debris,” Miracle Fletcher, a former tenant at Trestletree Village Apartments in Atlanta, told the Senate Human Rights Subcommittee meeting at Roswell City Hall.
“The everyday smell of the foul odor of feces that would normally cause one to cringe after smelling it became the dreadful smell we endured daily.”
The subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., launched inquiries last fall with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) into alleged mistreatment of tenants by landlords in Georgia and nationwide.
“We’ve heard from families who live in apartments plagued by severe mold and pest infestation, who lack basic plumbing, or whose floors were so rotten they collapsed,” Ossoff said at the start of Monday’s hearing.
“When many of these tenants asked their landlords for help, that help never came. And worse, they sometimes reported facing retaliation or eviction.”
Fletcher and other Georgia tenants of subsidized housing talked about similar experiences they have had when they complained to landlords.
Latysha Odom said she moved into Heritage Heights Apartments in Griffin in 2019 and soon discovered , her bedroom ceiling was leaking every few days.
“Each time, the management company told me it wasn’t a leak,” she said. “They blamed my upstairs neighbor, saying she was letting the toilet overflow or didn’t have a shower curtain.
“After consistent leaks, my ceiling actually collapsed. … The only thing the management company ever did was replace the ceiling panels, but that didn’t actually fix the problem. … No one came and actually fixed my ceiling until 2023.”
Esther Graff-Radford, a lawyer who represents tenants living in subsidized housing, said landlords receiving millions of dollar in government subsidies often ignore complaints from tenants forced to live in appalling conditions.
“These landlords are supposed to be providing housing that is kept up to a basic repair standard,” she said. “The sad truth is subsidized landlords in Georgia who are getting government rent money are not providing the basic housing we taxpayers are paying for.”
Graff-Radford said tenants who complain not only get nowhere with landlords, but HUD inspectors often take landlords’ word that repairs have been made.
“There’s no real consequence for the landlord,” she said. “People outside the metro-Atlanta area are often just out of luck when it comes to finding legal representation or alternative housing.”
Ayanna Jones, another lawyer who represents low-income tenants, said the federal government should do a better job enforcing laws against shoddy housing, starting with stepping up funding for inspections,
“Nobody’s going to change their behavior if there are no consequences,” she said. “There has to be more teeth behind these consequences.”
The Macon Mega Rail Terminal at the Port of Savannah
ATLANTA – The Port of Savannah set a record for rail traffic last month at the port’s Mason Mega Rail Terminal, the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) announced Monday.
The rail terminal handled 46,890 containers in February, an increase of 39% compared to the same month last year.
The ports authority’s Appalachian Regional Port in Northwest Georgia also set a February record, moving 3,825 containers, up 23% over February of 2023.
Altogether, rail accounted for 19% of the ports authority’s container trade last month, with the remainder moving by truck.
“GPA has made significant investments in rail infrastructure,” said Griff Lynch, the ports authority’s executive director. “That’s going to play a key role in capturing our next growth target – a greater share of the market in locations such as Dallas, Memphis, and beyond.”
Meanwhile, overall traffic in containerized cargo at Savannah was up 14.4% in February compared to the same month last year.
Lynch welcomed two consecutive months of growth after a difficult start to the current fiscal year last summer and fall. He said he expects the improving volumes to carry the GPA to a stronger second half of fiscal 2024, which ends June 30.
ATLANTA – The second of two additional nuclear reactors being built at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle has begun generating electricity and connecting to the electric grid for the first time.
Connecting to the grid is part of ongoing startup testing for Unit 4 at the nuclear plant south of Augusta. Next, operators will continue raising power at the reactor to 100%.
Vogtle Unit 3, the first of the new reactors, went into commercial operation last summer. Unit 4 is expected to go online during the second quarter of this year.
The latest progress update on the project, which Georgia Power announced last Friday, follows the Feb. 14 announcement that Unit 4 had safely reached initial criticality, a key step during startup testing that shows operators have safely started the reactor.
The state Public Service Commission (PSC) voted in December to let Georgia Power pass on to customers almost $7.6 billion of its costs in building the two additional nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, the first in the United States since the 1980s.
The project was originally expected to cost $14 billion when the PSC approved it in 2009 but has more than doubled due to a series of cost overruns and delays in the construction schedule. The project will increase the average monthly residential customer’s bill by $8.95.
ATLANTA – Lawyers for former President Donald Trump and several co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case asked a judge Friday to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case.
During a three-hour hearing, defense lawyers argued Willis is guilty of a conflict of interest for benefiting financially from her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, who she hired as lead prosecutor in the case.
“She received a personal financial benefit of over $9,200 that she can’t account for,” said John Merchant, a lawyer representing co-defendant Michael Roman. “If the court allows this kind of behavior to go on, the entire public confidence in the system will be shot.”
While both Willis and Wade have acknowledged their romantic relationship, a key point of contention is whether it began before Willis hired Wade in November 2021 or after Wade was brought into the Fulton County investigation of Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over the Republican incumbent in Georgia.
Robin Yeartie, a former friend of Willis who worked as an executive assistance to the district attorney, testified last month that the two began dating in 2019 after meeting at a conference.
But on Friday, Adam Abbate, an assistant prosecutor in Willis’ office, told Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee that Yeartie was a disgruntled former employee with an ax to grind against Willis for forcing Yeartie’s resignation from the office.
“She had absolutely no knowledge of the relationship,” Abbate said.
Another point the two sides argued over Friday was the burden of proof the defense carries in the case. While Merchant said the defense only has to show that Willis’ conduct gave the appearance of a conflict of interest, Abbate said Trump’s legal team must demonstrate an actual conflict occured.
The defense also took Willis to task for a speech she gave at a Black church in Atlanta shortly after her relationship with Wade surfaced in a motion lawyer Ashleigh Merchant filed in January.
Willis told the congregation she and Wade were being targeted because they are Black and that God is on her side in the case.
“She chose to pull out the race card and the God card,” said Craig Gillen, a lawyer representing co-defendant and former Georgia Republican Chairman David Shafer.
Trump lawyer Steve Sadow said Willis gave the church speech in an effort to prejudice future jurors who will hear the case against the defendants and their lawyers, a charge Abbate denied.
“There’s absolutely no evidence the defendants’ due process rights have been harmed in any way,” he said.
The two sides also argued over the validity of cellphone records that show almost 2,000 phone calls and 9,800 text messages between Wade and Willis during the first 11 months of 2021. The two have testified their romantic relationship didn’t start until early 2022.
Defense lawyers also cast doubt on Willis’ testimony that she did not receive any financial benefits from her relationship with Wade because she always paid him back in cash for whatever he spent on her.
“Prosecutors don’t act like this. Lawyers don’t act like this,” Gillen said. “They need to go.”
Abbate countered that Willis tended to keep cash around as a safety net, an assertion defense lawyers were unable to contradict. He also poked holes in the cellphone evidence by arguing that data from cellphones does not reliably reveal exact locations.
“It doesn’t prove a relationship,” he said. “It proves they were in communication with each other.”
At the end of the hearing, McAfee said he would issue a ruling within two weeks.
The Georgia Capitol building in Atlanta (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Crossover Day has come and gone in the General Assembly this year, with some bills making the deadline to remain eligible for passage in 2024 and others falling by the wayside.
Significant progress has been made on sports betting and reforming Georgia’s Certificate of Need (CON) law governing hospital construction.
Lawmakers have taken steps toward reining in state tax incentives that attract jobs but cost Georgia taxpayers, starting with the popular but expensive film tax credit. After years of inaction on tort reform, lawmakers have passed a bill aimed at a narrow aspect of the issue.
But there was no action before Crossover Day on private school vouchers, another priority of Gov. Brian Kemp and legislative Republicans that has failed to make it through the General Assembly for years. And legislation making sweeping changes to Georgia’s election laws also did not survive Crossover Day.
Last Tuesday’s 41-12 vote in the state Senate in favor of a constitutional amendment asking voters whether to legalize sports betting in Georgia represents the most progress legalized gambling has made in the General Assembly. Senators already had passed an “enabling” bill spelling out how sports betting would be operated in the Peach State.
Any lawmakers who might be wavering on sports betting could be convinced to support the constitutional amendment because it puts the question in the hands of Georgia voters.
“I trust the people of Georgia to make the right decision,” said Sen. Carden Summers, R-Cordele.
The most significant CON reform legislation in years also won passage in the state House of Representatives on Tuesday, billed as a compromise between doing nothing and repealing the law entirely.
The bill would accelerate the state’s review of CON applications, remove spending thresholds governing hospital construction projects and raise the cap on the state tax credit supporting rural hospitals from $75 million a year to $100 million.
“Given the rapid evolution of health care in this country, we need to look for ways to make health care accessible and affordable,” said Rep. Butch Parrish, R-Swainsboro, the bill’s chief sponsor, who chaired a special committee on health care last year.
The most popular state tax incentive, the film tax credit, appears to be in for a haircut.
The House passed legislation on Crossover Day setting up 10 criteria to qualify for the richest form of the tax incentive. Film producers who can meet at least four of the 10 would be eligible for a 30% credit.
While the film tax credit is largely responsible for making Georgia a world leader in the industry, its fiscal impact of $1 billion a year makes it by far the most expensive tax incentive in the state’s job-attracting arsenal.
The legislation is likely to draw major pushback from the industry as it moves over to the state Senate. Opponents argue it would threaten the future viability of film and TV productions in Georgia at a time the Peach State has risen to third in the world.
Kemp put the brakes on an expected push for comprehensive tort reform at the start of the 2024 legislative session when he declared it too heavy a lift for one year. Instead, the Senate passed a narrowly focused bill last month to limit the ability of plaintiffs in lawsuits against commercial truckers to file suit directly against a trucking company’s insurance carrier.
Tort reform advocates could take solace that some progress is being made on their issue. Not so for Republican supporters of major changes to Georgia’s election laws. Crossover Day came and went without the Senate taking up legislation making it easier for individuals to file voter challenges and doing away with automatic voter registration.
GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger responded quickly late Thursday night after the House failed to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to pass a constitutional amendment declaring only U.S. citizens could vote in Georgia elections. House Resolution 780 picked up 98 votes in the final vote taken on Crossover Day, well short of the 120 needed to pass a constitutional change.
“The border crisis and the (Biden) administration’s failure to act make it necessary for Georgia to take swift action,” Raffensperger said. “Multiple organizations with ties to Democrats are currently suing to end critical citizenship verification in our registration process, potentially exposing our elections to foreign interference, and diluting the power of legally restricted voters.”
Voting rights advocates celebrated the defeat of the most far-reaching elections law changes.
“Mass voter challenges are a recent phenomenon that allow any Georgia citizen to question the validity of voter registrations across the state,” said Joey McKinnon, executive director of the group Georgia Values Action. “That’s not concern over election integrity. It’s a way to cast a cloud of suspicion over honest Georgia voters and create a false narrative.”
While Republicans could take heart that the constitutional amendment limiting voting to U.S. citizens at least made it to the House floor, a private-school voucher bill that cleared the Senate’s GOP majority along party lines last year hadn’t shown up at all through Crossover Day.
The issue isn’t polling well with Georgia voters. A poll released on Tuesday by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute found most registered voters in Georgia oppose vouchers.
But school-choice advocates needn’t be completely discouraged. Like any other measure that failed to survive the Crossover Day deadline, vouchers still could emerge during the 2024 legislative session’s final weeks by being attached to another bill that remains alive in either the House or Senate.
