by Dave Williams | Feb 17, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Albany-based Phoebe Putney Health System and Atlanta’s Morehouse School of Medicine agreed Monday to enter a partnership aimed at improving health-care access in an area suffering from a shortage of medical providers.
Southwest Georgia’s largest and most comprehensive health system and the historically Black medical school signed a memorandum of understanding to participate in multiple education, research, and community benefit initiatives.
The agreement will establish a regional Morehouse School of Medicine campus at the main Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital and provide clinical training to Morehouse students and residents at hospitals and clinics throughout the Phoebe system.
“Morehouse School of Medicine is committed to increasing and diversifying the health-care workforce, especially in historically underserved rural and urban communities throughout Georgia, the nation, and the world,” said Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president and CEO of the Morehouse medical school. “That includes creating opportunities for young physicians to receive exceptional training in communities where they can have the most meaningful impact.”
“There is a nationwide shortage of physicians that is particularly acute in small urban and rural areas like Southwest Georgia,” added Scott Steiner, the Phoebe Putney system’s president and CEO. “We must be better at growing our own by providing more opportunities for physicians with a connection to Georgia to train in our part of the state.”
Phoebe and Morehouse already have built a strong relationship. For years, Morehouse medical students have completed elective rotations at Phoebe.
The two institutions have also worked together in programs providing free prostate cancer screenings and pairing Phoebe nurses with first-time mothers before and after delivery.
Phoebe and Morehouse will establish an executive committee to oversee the partnership and a steering committee that will meet monthly to track progress toward shared goals.
by Dave Williams | Feb 17, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia cities, counties and school districts are scrambling to meet a March 1 deadline for deciding whether to opt out of offering a property tax break the state’s voters approved last fall in a constitutional amendment.
But legislation pending in the Georgia House of Representatives would extend that deadline by four years.
The constitutional amendment, which Georgians ratified with 63% of the vote, prohibits local governments from raising residential property assessments in a given year by more than the annual rate of inflation, even if a home’s market value has gone up more.
Last year’s legislation gave cities, counties and school districts until March 1 to opt out of the measure. To do so, they must file an opt-out resolution with the Georgia secretary of state’s office and hold at least three public hearings.
House Bill 92, which cleared the House Ways and Means Committee nearly two weeks ago, would extend that deadline to March 31, 2029.
Those additional four years could slow what has been a rush by local governments – particularly school districts – to opt out of the tax break in order to protect a key revenue source funding their operations, committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, the bill’s chief sponsor, told committee members before the Feb. 5 vote advancing the measure.
“Many of the conversations that I have had with local governments have indicated that if there was some sort of test period or trial period … they might be more inclined to try this out,” he said.
But Clint Mueller, executive director of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia, said no trial period is going to sway a local government that has initially opted to offer the tax break to later opt out because to do so would in effect be lifting a cap on homeowners’ tax liability.
“Can you imagine the political fallout of opting out if you’ve already given something?” he said. “That would be political suicide.”
Mueller said local governments’ fears of a looming property tax relief measure depleting their coffers are overblown.
“They can still make up lost revenues through the millage setting process,” he said. “This whole the-sky-is-falling mentality doesn’t wash.”
Rep. Trey Kelley, R-Cedartown, a cosponsor of House Bill 92, called it the most “taxpayer-friendly” legislation he has seen in the last two years.
“I don’t understand how any elected official in the state of Georgia who care about taxpayers could opt out of this legislation,” he said.
The bill now heads to the House Rules Committee to schedule a floor vote.
by Dave Williams | Feb 14, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Massachusetts-based electric vehicles supplier has abandoned plans to build a manufacturing facility in Bulloch County.
Aspen Aerogels Inc., which makes thermal barriers that insulate the batteries on electric cars from fires, announced Thursday in an investor call that instead of building a second plant near Statesboro, it will increase production capacity at it East Providence, R.I., plant.
Gov. Brian Kemp announced the Statesboro project back in 2022. At the time, the company was planning to invest $325 million in the plant and create more than 250 jobs. Production had been expected to start late in 2023.
“In early 2023, pre-empting a reset in EV demand expectations, we decided to right-time the construction of our planned second aerogel manufacturing facility in Statesboro, Georgia, and subsequently ramped up our external manufacturing capacity,” Ricardo Rodriguez, Aspen Aerogel’s chief financial officer and treasurer, wrote this week in a news release.
“(However), in this most recent quarter, the external manufacturing model has fully demonstrated its ability to efficiently increase aerogel supply. We are confident that a capital-light and modular capacity plan provides the most efficient path to creating value.”
Demand for electric vehicles hasn’t grown as much in recent years as EV manufacturers expected, resulting from a combination of factors including high sticker prices, an insufficient number of charging stations, and government policies that have discouraged car buyers from purchasing EVs.
The Trump administration recently froze a $5 billion program aimed at funding the construction of EV charging stations.
by Dave Williams | Feb 14, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The state House of Representatives passed legislation last year offering tax credits to Georgians who buy safe firearm storage devices such as trigger locks and gun safes, but the bill died in the state Senate.
Doing nothing is no longer an option following last September’s mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County that killed two teachers and two students. During the opening weeks of this year’s General Assembly sessions, lawmakers have introduced a series of bills aimed at improving school safety.
“Our children are our future,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said early this month during a news conference unveiling a comprehensive school safety measure. “This House is committed to leaving no stone unturned when it comes to securing their safety.”
House Bill 268 calls for improvements in information sharing among schools through a new anonymous app for tips alerting law enforcement personnel or mental health-care providers that a troubled student could pose a treat to themselves or others.
The measure also would establish a statewide information-sharing database to allow the timely transfer of pertinent student data between school systems. The 14-year-old student at Apalachee High arrested for the murders, Colt Gray, had just transferred from another school.
The bill also requires school systems to create threat management teams, provides for the mandatory suspension of students who make terroristic threats, and offers tax incentives to encourage gun owners to purchase safe gun storage equipment.
On the Senate side, majority Republicans are backing legislation requiring schools to install alert systems that could be triggered discretely to warn nearby law enforcement agencies of an active shooter. Senate Bill 17 – Ricky and Alyssa’s Law – is named in honor of Ricky Aspinwall, the coach at Apalachee High who died in the September shooting, and Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the students killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
The bill also requires schools to develop maps showing first responders the layout of school buildings, including access points.
“The big picture is to save minutes, save time, to let first responders take down an active shooter and protect the lives of children and teachers in the building,” Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the Senate Education and Youth Committee Thursday.
“Time equals life,” added Lori Alhadeff, the mother of Alyssa Alhadeff and founder of the nonprofit Make Our Schools Safe. “We need to get our kids and teachers to safety quicker and reduce the response time for first responders.”
The committee approved Anavitarte’s bill, and it appears headed toward passing the full Senate. Legislation backed by Senate Democrats, however, likely faces tougher sledding.
The main difference between the approach Republicans and Democrats are taking on gun safety is that Democrats want to require firearm owners to store their weapons safely, while GOP lawmakers favor offering tax incentives to encourage gun owners to voluntarily take steps to secure their firearms.
Senate Bill 49, introduced by Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, criminalizes making a firearm accessible to anyone younger than 17 without adult supervision or leaving an unsecured firearm in a place where children are likely to gain access to it.
Parent criticized Republicans for merely encouraging gun owners to store their weapons safety rather than mandating safe storage.
“If you as an adult have a gun in an unsafe location and children can gain access to it, or if you give a child a gun, the message they’re sending is, ‘Please don’t do that,’ ” she said. “The message should be stronger.”
Georgia Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, has introduced similar legislation in the House providing criminal penalties for adults who allow children access to firearms. She held a news conference on her bill recently with Apalachee High School students and their families.
“The families were appreciative of Speaker Burns and his attention to the issue of school safety but, like many, feel it does not go far enough to address the gun violence at the heart of the problem,” Au wrote in an update on the legislative session to her constituents.
Burns said he supports the Republicans’ voluntary approach to gun safety rather than a mandate to protect Georgia gun owners’ Second Amendment rights.
by Dave Williams | Feb 13, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A New York City man has pleaded guilty to running a massive investment fraud scheme involving a planned commercial real estate project in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.
Elchonon “Elie” Schwartz, 46, admitted his guilt on one count of wire fraud in federal court Wednesday and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
According to information presented in court, Schwartz began soliciting investments in the proposed Atlanta Financial Center in May 2022 and subsequently in a mixed-use building in Miami Beach, Fla. He ultimately raised $62.8 million from more than 800 investors.
However, before either real estate project closed, Schwartz diverted the funds to his personal bank account and accounts for other unrelated commercial real estate investments he controlled.
Schwartz spent the money, among other things, on luxury watches and stocks and options in a brokerage account. In July 2023, both of the corporate entities he formed to receive investments in the two projects filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“Seeking to do nothing more than pad his own bank accounts and buy expensive luxury items, Elie Schwartz betrayed hundreds of investors who sought the opportunity to invest in these commercial real estate projects,” said Richard Moultrie Jr., acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
“This office is committed to protecting investors from individuals, like Schwartz, who defraud donors out of their hard-earned money and seek to prioritize their own greed at the expense of legitimate investors.”
Schwartz is scheduled to be sentenced in May.
