The Ceylon tract (Photo Credit: Open Space Institute)
ATLANTA – The Georgia Board of Natural Resources put its stamp of approval Tuesday on funding for 13 land conservation, restoration and parks projects across the state.
More than $21.4 million to pay for the projects will come from the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Fund, raised from a sales tax on sporting goods the state’s voters overwhelmingly approved as a constitutional amendment in 2018.
In four previous cycles of funding going back to 2020, the fund has allocated more than $97 million to projects in 54 counties, Soheila Naji, the program’s coordinator, told board members before Tuesday’s unanimous vote. Those state funds were accompanied by $175 million in matching money put up by the state and local government agencies, recreation authorities, and nonprofit groups that applied for grants, Naji said.
Six of the 13 grants are going to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), with the rest going to cities, counties, the Jekyll Island Authority, and the Trust for Public Land.
Here is the list of projects funded through the 2023-24 round of grants:
City of Ringgold Slabtown Park and South Chickamauga Blueway $811,500.00 City of St. Marys Tabby Trail for Eco-tourism and Stewardship $1,735,400.00 GADNR, Coastal Resources Division Noyes Cut Ecosystem Restoration Project, Phase II $1,321,500.00 GADNR, Wildlife Resources Division Mocama Tract addition to Ceylon Wildlife Management Area $2,100,000.00 GADNR, Wildlife Resources Division Dugdown Mountain Corridor-Treat Mountain Expansion $2,100,000.00 GADNR, Wildlife Resources Division Conasauga Wildlife Management Area – Springbank Tract $550,000.00 GADNR, Wildlife Resources Division Habitat Restoration on State Lands, Phase 3 $629,500.00 GADNR, Wildlife Resources Division Outdoor Recreation Enhancements on State Public Fishing Areas $1,600,000.00 Glynn County Coast Guard Beach Park $3,000,000.00 Jekyll Island State Park Authority From Golf to Wildlife Corridor Recreational Park $1,602,300.00 Lanier County Improving Recreation & Water Quality $1,491,057.00 Pike County Parks and Recreation Authority Pike County Recreation Complex Improvements $1,500,000.00 Trust for Public Land Chattahoochee RiverLands Regional Trailhead $3,000,000.00
The project list heads next to the Georgia House and Senate budget subcommittees with jurisdiction over the DNR for final approval.
ATLANTA – A state Senate committee unanimously approved a new version of legislation Monday defining antisemitism and incorporating it into Georgia’s hate crimes law following a hearing that featured emotional arguments for and against the measure.
House Bill 30 passed the Georgia House of Representatives last year but died in the Senate. It would establish as part of state law the definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental organization founded by Sweden’s prime minister in 1998.
The bill provides for additional penalties when crimes are committed because the victim is Jewish.
Last year’s bill ran into criticism that it was ambiguous in its application, Senate President Pro Tempore John Kennedy, R-Macon, told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday. Kennedy is the chief sponsor of the new version of the measure, which he said provides greater clarity.
“This substitute clearly sets out the government’s duties,” he said. “Agencies can rely on the definition to determine if antisemitism is present.”
Rep. John Carson, R-Marietta, the House bill’s chief sponsor, cited a dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents in Georgia as reason to pass legislation defining antisemitism.
“Without a standard definition, it’s easy for antisemites to hide behind that ambiguity,” he said.
An hourlong hearing before Monday’s vote drew speakers supporting and defending the bill, including Jewish Georgians on both sides.
Several opponents argued the legislation could be used to silence critics of the war Israel launched in the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas massacred Israeli Jews in October.
“This bill will not keep us safe,” said Marisa Pyle, an organizer for Jewish Voices for Peace Atlanta. “What it does do is silence Palestinian and Muslim Georgians.”
“Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism,” added Sig Giordano, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. “There have always been anti-Zionist Jews.”
But Eric Robbins, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, said the overwhelming majority of Georgia’s Jewish community support the bill.
“Antisemitism is real,” he said. “Whatever we need to protect ourselves from antisemitism … is absolutely important.”
David Lubin of Dunwoody, whose daughter Rose was killed in November while fighting in the Israeli Defense Force, said the rise in antisemitic violence has forced Jews to add security barricades at Jewish facilities.
“A large percentage of Jewish Georgians are living in fear,” he said.
“This is not about politics,” added Sally Levine, executive director of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust. “We just don’t want our children to get hurt.”
House Bill 30 now heads to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full Senate.
ATLANTA – A Georgia House committee approved legislation Monday aimed at a court ruling late last year that blocked implementation of a new oversight board for local prosecutors the General Assembly created last year.
The bill, which cleared the House Judiciary Committee (Non-Civil), would allow the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission to set its own rules and regulations.
Senate Bill 92, which the legislature’s Republican majorities passed mostly along party lines, tasked the Georgia Supreme Court with reviewing the new commission’s standards of conduct. But the justices ruled last fall that the high court lacks the authority to conduct such a review, effectively blocking the bill from taking effect.
Georgia lawmakers created the oversight commission to investigate complaints lodged against local prosecutors and potentially discipline or remove the target of a complaint on a variety of grounds including mental or physical incapacity, willful misconduct or failure to perform the duties of the office, conviction of a crime of moral turpitude, or conduct that brings the office into disrepute.
Majority Republicans supported the measure as a way to sanction prosecutors in Georgia cities led by Democrats who they said were reluctant to prosecute certain crimes.
But the legislation applies to both Democrats and Republicans, Rep. Joseph Gullett, R-Dallas, the bill’s chief sponsor, told committee members Monday.
“I don’t believe this is a partisan issue,” he said. “No one trusted the judiciary anymore. … We need to be able to trust our system.”
During last year’s debate, legislative Democrats said an unelected commission could usurp the will of local voters in elections of district attorneys. Similar arguments came up on Monday.
Rep. Shea Roberts, D-Atlanta, said having a commission look over the shoulders of local prosecutors could act as a disincentive.
“I worry about who’s going to be willing to run for these seats when we want quality people,” she said.
Forsyth County Solicitor-General Bill Finch, a Republican, raised similar concerns. The new commission also would have jurisdiction over complaints against local solicitors as well as district attorneys.
“This bill will substitute the will of the voters of Forsyth County who put me in office,” Finch said. “That’s a dangerous thing.”
Republicans on the committee defeated an amendment proposed by Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick, D-Lithonia, that would have guaranteed Democratic legislative leaders the ability to appoint two of the commission’s members.
House Bill 881 now moves to the House Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full House.
ATLANTA – Coastal Georgia lawmakers are backing legislation that would make it easier for owners of marshland property under grants that date back to the 1700s to establish that ownership.
But opponents argue the bill would make the process so easy it would encourage false claimants to step forward and take advantage of state tax credits at the expense of the rightful owners of the environmentally fragile marsh – the public.
About 36,000 acres of coastal marshland in Georgia are privately owned, about 10% of the state’s total marshland, through titles that go back to grants from the English king or – later – a Georgia governor.
But when owners seek to establish clear title to their properties, they must navigate a cumbersome, expensive process through the state attorney general’s office that can take years to complete.
The foot-dragging by the state is on purpose, Jerry Williams, who owns a marshland tract on the Ogeechee River, charged Jan. 11 at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the bill. Any marshland not owned privately is owned by the state as a public trust.
“They throw everything at the law they can try to delay, to try to muddy the waters, to make it cost-prohibitive for a private landowner to defend their title.”
House Bill 370 would turn over the process of reviewing claims to marshland property to the State Properties Commission, which would have 180 days to decide whether a claim is valid.
“It places a shot clock on the review and response,” said state Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, the bill’s chief sponsor. As a lawyer and member of the Judiciary Committee, Reeves is working with a group of coastal House members to shepherd the legislation.
The Judiciary Committee passed the bill last year, but it made no further progress before the Crossover Day deadline for legislation to pass at least one of the two chambers in the General Assembly.
Reeves said a key provision in the bill limits the use of privately owned marshland to conservation purposes.
“There’s not going to be any development. There’s not going to be any construction,” he said. “The Georgia coast is one of the jewels in the crown of this state, a beautiful area. This bill will protect it.”
But Alice Miller-Keyes, vice president of coastal conservation for the Brunswick-based environmental organization 100 Miles, said House Bill 370 would flip the burden of proof for ownership of coastal marshlands from the property owner to the state. If the State Properties Commission fails to decide a case within the 180-day deadline, the title is certified by default, she said.
“This could result in thousands of acres of marsh being privatized without a valid crown grant,” Miller-Keyes said. “This bill could facilitate a massive giveaway of Georgia’s pride and joy – our coastal marshlands.”
April Lipscomb, a lawyer with the Atlanta-based Southern Environmental Law Center, said the bill’s provision restricting development of marshland properties is vague and unenforceable.
“There are no deadlines for people to meet in order to show they are restricting the use to conservation,” she said.
Kevin Lang, a lawyer from Athens who owns property on Little Cumberland Island, said the bill is designed to make it easier for owners of marshland property to qualify for conservation tax credits.
“This bill is not a conservation bill. This bill is a money bill,” he said. “This bill is about creating a mitigation bank where someone can sell mitigation credits for restoration.”
The Judiciary Committee passed the bill and sent it on to the House Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full House.
ATLANTA – A Middle Georgia man with a history of arson and sending death threats pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to mailing threatening communications to government officials.
Travis Leroy Ball, 56, of Barnesville pleaded guilty to one count of mailing threatening communications, a charge carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
According to court documents, the FBI obtained a letter in March of last year addressed to U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell in which the writer claimed to be a U.S. Secret Service agent who had investigated one of the defendant’s prior cases.
In the letter – later revealed to have been written by Ball – he demanded that the charge in Ball’s most recent federal cases be dismissed and that he be released from federal custody.
Using the name of a former cellmate, Ball also wrote letters to the federal court in Valdosta and to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., threatening to kill employees and their families, as well as burn down property.
“Death threats against public officials are taken extremely seriously by our office and will result in prison time,” said Peter D. Leary, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia. “Keeping people safe is the highest priority of our office and our law enforcement partners. These types of threats cannot and will not be tolerated.”
Ball also wrote a letter to the Upson County Sheriff’s Office last July, claiming to be an FBI agent working on a top-secret case. The letter demanded that Ball’s photos and personal information be removed and deleted from jail records.
The FBI compared the various letters, handwriting, letterhead, postage stamps, the language of the letters, and the “INMATE MAIL” stamp on each letter and determined Ball wrote them while in custody. Officers also found writing material and stamps in Ball’s cell.
