ATLANTA – The Justice Department is awarding more than $6.4 million in grants to local civic groups, governments, and law enforcement agencies in Georgia to support public safety and community justice activities.
Fifteen grants will go to recipients in the cities of Albany, Americus, Athens, Butler, Columbus, Macon, Thomasville, Tifton, and Warner Robins.
“These grants address many of the greatest concerns our citizens have today, which boil down to safer communities for all,” said Peter Leary, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia. “This kind of support for our community and law enforcement partners’ efforts goes hand in hand with our focused efforts to reduce violence and hold the most violent offenders accountable.”
Three of the grants are worth nearly $1 million each. In Albany, a group called This WORKS Inc. will partner with the Dougherty County School System to provide a behavioral health program that will include antiviolence education.
The Muscogee County School District in Columbus will use its grant funds to support efforts to prevent group-based retaliatory violence.
The Taylor County School District in Butler will put its grant toward improving school safety and increasing access to mental health care for students.
Athens-based Area Committees to Improve Opportunities Now Inc. will receive nearly $785,000 to support a 36-county program providing employment coaching and mentoring for young people before and after their release from the criminal justice system.
Thomasville will use a grant of more than $435,000 to launch a law enforcement and mental health co-responder program for real-time responses to emergencies.
Macon-Bibb County will put a $385,000 grant toward expanding its domestic violence unit by adding an investigator and prosecutor.
The city of Columbus will use a grant of nearly $120,000 to buy protective gear for law enforcement and jail personnel, add two K-9 units and provide a new smart app giving residents early warnings of emergencies.
The grants are being provided through the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate Republican Caucus has suspended freshman Sen. Colton Moore after he unsuccessfully pushed for a special legislative session to investigate Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
Moore, R-Trenton, mounted his bid for a special session despite Gov. Brian Kemp publicly dismissing the idea and over the objections of the other 32 Republican state senators.
In a statement issued Thursday, the caucus accused Moore of using false statements to whip up public sentiment against those opposed to a special session .
“Senator Moore has a right to his opinion,” the statement read. “However, during his advocacy for his ill-conceived proposal, Senator Moore has knowingly misled people across Georgia and our nation, causing unnecessary tension and hostility while putting his caucus colleagues and their families at risk of personal harm.”
Moore drew national attention with his call for a special legislative session. He argued lawmakers could override Kemp’s objections by signing a petition demanding a special session, but he only convinced two other legislators to sign it.
At a news conference early this month that drew a raucous crowd of sign-waving supporters, Moore accused his legislative colleagues of “cowering” rather than stepping up and insisting on a special session.
Kemp had rejected the idea one week earlier during a news conference of his own, arguing Willis had not done anything illegal.
The caucus statement went on to accuse Moore of violating caucus rules on multiple occasions.
“[Moore] was given every opportunity to simply adhere to the rules going forward,” the statement read. “Unfortunately, he has refused and was suspended by leadership from participating in the caucus until he agrees to abide by the rules, which he voted for at the beginning of his term.”
Moore was elected to the Senate last year, succeeding longtime Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, representing Senate District 53 in Northwest Georgia.
The suspension from the Republican Caucus does not preclude Moore from continuing to represent his constituents in the Senate. The suspension is indefinite.
Correction: This story originally reported that U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens, was among House Republicans holding out against a short-term spending bill. On Friday, Clyde voted in favor of a bill that would have kept the government funded through Oct. 31.
ATLANTA – With the federal government barreling toward a shutdown later this week, Georgia Democrats are warning of lost paychecks for service members and federal civilian employees, interrupted Social Security and welfare benefits, and closed national parks.
While the U.S. Senate is moving forward with debate on a bipartisan stopgap funding bill aimed at keeping the government open after the end of the federal fiscal year at midnight Saturday, a small group of far-right House Republicans is blocking attempts by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to get a floor vote on a short-term spending bill.
The group of GOP holdouts includes Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Rome.
If the government shuts down at midnight Saturday, nearly 64,000 Georgia service members could be forced to work without pay, according to a news release from the Democratic Party of Georgia. More than 167,000 Georgians who are federal civilian employees in jobs considered essential also may have to work without being paid.
Georgia seniors could see a delay in Social Security checks, while more than 220,000 low-income Georgia mothers, infants and older children could lose monthly food benefits.
“It’s shameful that while Georgia Democrats are working in lockstep to deliver for Georgia families, Georgia Republicans … are risking Georgians’ livelihoods with a devastating government shutdown in pursuit of their extreme agenda,” Georgia Democratic Party spokesperson Ellie Schwartz said this week.
“Republicans are forcing families to brace for two extremes: a government shutdown that would devastate Georgians or extreme cuts that would raise costs and slash funding for child care, schools, veteran services and more.”
For their part, the Republican holdouts are looking to use the budget impasse as leverage to force spending cuts upon reluctant Democrats and push other priorities.
For Greene, it’s cutting off further U.S. funding for Ukraine. President Joe Biden is seeking another $24 billion in additional security and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
“For weeks, I’ve been asking for Ukraine funding to be a standalone vote, not cash hidden inside of other bills. For a moment, it seemed like that would happen. But it didn’t,” Greene said this week in a statement aimed at her Northwest Georgia constituents.
“This means billions of your hard-earned money will be at the disposal of Joe Biden, his State Department, and his [Defense Department] to be spent on his proxy war against Russia.”
Congressional Democrats and many Republicans argue Ukraine must prevail in its war against Russia or Russian President Vladimir Putin will set his sights next on one or more NATO countries, forcing the U.S. to commit American ground troops.
Other GOP holdouts are objecting to the budget process itself, the perennial 11th-hour scramble in Congress to pass a single omnibus bill each year that covers the vast majority of spending, rather than the more orderly system of taking up the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund federal agencies one at a time.
But Democrats say such qualms aren’t worth shutting down the government.
“Make no mistake: If the government shuts down, leaving thousands of Georgians without the paychecks or services they rely on … Republicans will be squarely to blame,” Schwartz said.
ATLANTA – Five school districts in rural Georgia will receive $20,000 grants to pilot innovative educational programs, the state Department of Education announced Thursday.
The Clay, Crisp, Dooly, Macon, and Sumpter county school systems will get grants from the nonprofit Georgia Foundation for Public Education (GFPE) funded through a dollar-for-dollar state income tax credit program.
The five school districts were among school systems located in counties with populations of 35,000 or fewer invited to participate in a series of workshops that guided them through the process of developing innovative programs. Following the workshops, districts were given an opportunity to apply for the pilot program.
“The Georgia Foundation for Public Education is so proud to support these five districts and the innovative projects they have planned to expand educational opportunities for their students,” GFPE Executive Director Paige Pushkin said.
“These grants will fund creative, meaningful, and much-needed programs for students in rural Georgia. I can’t wait to see all that is accomplished.”
The Clay County School District will use the grant money to launch a mentoring program for third- through fifth-grade male students, a group that data found lacking in robust vocabulary usage, which hinders reading comprehension.
The Crisp County School District plans to open an early learning academy at the local elementary school to help young students recover from the learning loss they suffered when child-care centers were forced to close during the pandemic.
In Dooly County, the school system will use the grant to boost its academic rewards system to incentivize students who, in some cases, have been found to lack motivation. Students at the gifted level, those with perfect attendance, and selected “students of the month” will take part in monthly field trips to local businesses to gain career exposure.
The Macon County School District will launch an intervention program for at-risk students entering the ninth grade. The program will feature a mentoring component through which students will participate in college and industry visits.
The grant to Sumter County Schools will fund a program geared for faculty and staff members, following a recent survey that found many showing signs of decreased job satisfaction and burnout. A mental health and wellbeing space will be designated at each of the district’s five schools, featuring calm lighting, comfortable seating, and exercise equipment.
ATLANTA – Georgia environmental activists urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday not to let coal ash ponds at several coal plants operated by Georgia Power continue contaminating nearby groundwater.
Opponents of the Atlanta-based utility’s plan to leave coal ash in place at four of the 10 ash ponds it plans to close in place by 2028 testified during a virtual public hearing the EPA held to gather feedback on the federal agency’s proposal to deny Alabama’s coal ash permit program, which also calls for leaving coal ash in groundwater.
Georgia Power’s coal ash plan calls for the company to phase out its fleet of coal-burning plants. With the coal plants being retired, the utility plans to spend $9 billion to close all 29 of its coal ash ponds.
At 19 of the ponds, ash is to be excavated and removed. The other 10 are to be closed in place.
Coal ash contains contaminants including mercury, cadmium and arsenic that can pollute groundwater and drinking water as well as air.
The EPA issued a rule in 2015 prohibiting utilities from leaving coal ash in groundwater when they close ash ponds. Last year, the federal agency denied an Ohio utility’s request to leave coal ash at a closed pond in contact with groundwater.
On Wednesday, Jesse Demonbreun-Chapman, executive director of the Coosa River Basin Initiative, said a draft ash pond closure permit Georgia Power is seeking from the state Environmental Protection Division (EPD) for Plant Hammond near Rome violates the 2015 EPA rule.
“[The EPD] continues to refuse to pull permits that are clearly not in compliance,” he said.
Fletcher Sams, executive director of Brunswick-based Altamaha Riverkeeper, said an unlined coal ash pond at Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer in Monroe County extends 85 feet into an aquifer, contaminating the groundwater there.
Georgia Power is using the state’s groundwater as a “permanent coal ash dumping ground,” Sams said.
Residents of nearby Juliette have sued Georgia Power, claiming their wells have been contaminated by polluted groundwater linked to high rates of cancer in the area near Plant Scherer.
“Our area has proven to have a cancer cluster, with a lot of children included,” Juliette resident Andrea Goolsby said Wednesday. “Closing [ponds] in place with coal ash in groundwater is illegal. … We have to uphold the law.”
The Georgia Power plan also calls for leaving coal ash in place in ponds at plants Yates near Newnan and McDonough in Cobb County.
Representatives of Georgia Power say the EPA has authorized Georgia’s coal ash permit program to operate rather than the federal program, one of only three states authorized to do so.
“We continue to work with Georgia EPD to ensure our closure plan remains in compliance with federal rules,” Georgia Power spokeswoman Kelly Richardson said. “We are committed to closure plans that are protective of the environment and the communities we serve.”
The Georgia EPD is authorized to issue permits to “properly closed” coal ash ponds that comply with federal and state regulations, added Laura Williams, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Natural Resources, an agency that includes the EPD.
The deadline for written public comment on the EPA’s plan to deny the Alabama coal ash permit program is Oct. 13.
