DECATUR – The Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Gang Task Force took part in 549 gang-related investigations during the fiscal year that ended June 30, up from 343 in fiscal 2020, its first full year in operation.
“Two years in, this Gang Task Force certainly has made an impact on gangs and violence crime,” Gov. Brian Kemp, who formed the task force in 2019, said Thursday during a news conference at GBI headquarters. “This enhanced state law enforcement presence is making progress in taking criminals off our streets and restoring law and order.”
Kemp created the task force during his first year in office, declaring that going after street gangs and human trafficking would be a top priority for his administration.
The GBI has become particularly active during the past year as violent crime spiked in Georgia and across the country, a trend law enforcement professionals and political leaders have attributed in part to tensions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Along with law enforcement components of other state agencies, the GBI stepped in to help police in Atlanta crack down on street racing. At the same time, the GBI helped local law enforcement agencies across the state target gang activity.
“No matter where in Georgia, we wanted to make sure local law enforcement could reach out to specially trained GBI agents,” GBI Director Vic Reynolds said.
Reynolds said the GBI has helped investigate 70 different gangs and subsets of gangs during the last two years, including longtime nationwide street gangs like the Bloods and the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood..
The GBI also has developed Georgia’s first statewide database for gang activity. The agency plans to start rolling out data from local law enforcement agencies early next year.
But Reynolds said the task force’s greatest accomplishment thus far has been raising awareness that Georgia has a gang problem.
“To solve the problem, we first have to acknowledge the problem,” he said.
The rise in crime in Atlanta has become a political controversy, with Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms blaming Kemp for reopening businesses closed because of COVID-19 sooner than other states, a step she said encouraged out-of-state residents anxious to get out of their homes to come to Georgia and wreak mayhem.
Kemp said Thursday Atlanta’s crime wave is the result of inadequate enforcement of the law.
“A lack of elected leadership in the city is creating an anti-police, soft-on-crime environment,” he said. “I’m ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with any local law enforcement agency to go after violent crime and street racing. [But] I am not going to put my people on the front line.”
Reynolds said targeting street gangs is the best way to tackle the rise in crime. He cited statistics showing up to 90% of violent crimes being committed in the U.S. are being perpetrated by gangs.
“If we go after the gang members, the majority of violent crime will cease to exist,” he said. “This is a solvable, fixable crime if we allow law enforcement to do our job.”
ATLANTA – Two Republicans challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia say they’re encouraged by their early fundraising results.
But with a head start on the two, Warnock sported a much larger campaign war chest through the end of the second quarter June 30.
Warnock, who is seeking reelection next year, reported raising $7 million in April, May and June. Combined with fundraising undertaken prior to the second quarter, the incumbent had $10.5 million on hand at the end of last month.
Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Gary Black and Atlanta banking executive Latham Saddler, a former Navy SEAL officer, entered the Senate race much later than Warnock.
Black raised more than $703,000 during the first three weeks of his campaign, the Republican reported Thursday. All but 50 of his 670 contributions were from Georgia.
“I feel like the home-grown candidate, the harvest has been bountiful, and we have a lot to be thankful for,” Black said.
Saddler has raised more money than Black, bringing in more than $1.4 million through June 30. But his fundraising came during a 10-week period.
“The momentum and the support this campaign has developed in such a short time frame speaks to the fact that Georgians are ready for new leadership in Washington,” Saddler said. “They want a next-generation conservative leader for the job.”
Kelvin King, a small business owner and Air Force veteran from Atlanta, entered the Republican race for Senate in April. King had not reported his second-quarter fundraising results as of Thursday.
Other Republicans reportedly weighing jumping into the contest are holding off to see what University of Georgia football icon Herschel Walker does. Former President Donald Trump has been urging Walker to run, but Walker has yet to declare himself a candidate.
Warnock won the Senate seat over Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler in a January runoff. Because the Democrat is completing the unexpired term of retired Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, he must run against next year to win a full six-year term.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s two U.S. senators are pushing legislation to let Georgia and 11 other states that have not expanded Medicaid coverage through the Affordable Care Act do so through a new “look-alike” federal program.
Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff introduced the Medicaid Saves Live Act this week to extend Medicaid to up to 4 million low-income Americans who earn too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid but not enough to buy coverage on the private market.
“Expanding Medicaid is the single most effective solution to close our state’s coverage gap,” Warnock told reporters Wednesday during a conference call.
The original version of the Affordable Care Act then-President Barack Obama steered through a Democratic Congress in 2010 required states to offer Medicaid coverage to residents earning incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level.
But a U.S. Supreme Court ruling two years later let states opt out of expanding Medicaid. A dozen Republican-led states – including Georgia – have chosen not to expand the program, citing the cost to taxpayers.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is pushing an alternative version of health-insurance reform in Georgia. The state submitted a waiver request to the federal government asking to move forward with a limited expansion of Medicaid, which the Trump administration approved last year.
But the waiver was put on hold by the Biden administration because of concerns over a work requirement.
The new legislation would require the federal Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services to create a new program looking like Medicaid that would offer coverage with no premiums and low copayments.
Unlike the Affordable Care Act, which requires states to pay a 10% share, states would not have to contribute any of the costs.
Warnock said the “robust incentives” his bill offers leave Georgia and the other states with no legitimate reason not to expand Medicaid.
“If you talk to any objective analyst, there’s no fiscal justification for that,” he said.
Ossoff said the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid has contributed to the closure of nine Georgia hospitals during the last decade.
Warnock said expanding Medicaid in Georgia would provide health coverage to nearly 500,000 low-income Georgians who can’t afford it now. He also cited a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation estimating Medicaid expansion would create 64,000 jobs in the Peach State.
“We help our physical health … but it is [also] a shot in the arm for the Georgia economy,” he said. “This helps keep Georgia’s health-care workforce strong.”
Warnock said he wants to make the bill part of a $3.5 trillion “reconciliation” package Senate Democrats reached agreement on Tuesday. Because of the rules involved in the reconciliation process, the package would need only a simple majority of the 100-member chamber to pass rather than the 60 votes normally required to get legislation through the Senate.
ATLANTA – Federal and Georgia transportation planners are looking to run a high-speed rail line connecting Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C., via Athens.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Georgia Department of Transportation, working with state transportation departments in North Carolina and South Carolina, have identified the 274-mile route as the “preferred corridor” for the Charlotte-to-Atlanta portion of a high-speed rail line that would continue northeast to Washington, D.C.
“The projected increases in population and economic growth for the Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion create a need for a carefully planned approach to improving rail infrastructure that will benefit Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, the southeastern United States and the nation,” the FRA wrote in its final environmental impact report on the project released last week.
“Intercity passenger rail is available for business and non-business travelers that is competitive with other modes of travel in terms of travel time, convenience and safety.”
The co-called Greenfield Corridor Alternative chosen for the project connects Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with the planned multimodal Charlotte Gateway Station. The line would run mostly along a new dedicated alignment from northeast Atlanta to Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
Due to the size and complexity of the project, the FRA and Georgia DOT are deferring decisions on the route the line would take approaching Atlanta as well as the location of rail stations, and the operating equipment and propulsion technology to be used.
The idea of connecting Atlanta and Charlotte via high-speed rail has been on transportation planners’ agendas for years, but support has varied depending on the makeup of Congress and which party occupies the White House.
President Joe Biden, who commuted daily between his Delaware home and Washington for decades while serving in the U.S. Senate, is a passenger rail enthusiast. Biden even mentioned the Atlanta-to-Charlotte high-speed rail project in a speech last spring marking Amtrak’s 50th anniversary.
With the preferred route identified, the next step for the project will be a 30-day waiting period to let the public review and comment on the chosen corridor.
Atlanta-based GreenSky has been fined for making unauthorized loans for home repairs.
ATLANTA – An Atlanta-based financial technology company is being fined $2.5 million following a federal investigation into complaints of unauthorized loans.
GreenSky Inc. announced Tuesday it has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to pay the fine and resolve consumer loans where there is insufficient evidence of customer authorization. The company did not admit any liability or wrongdoing.
GreenSky offers technology merchants can use to offer point-of-sale installment loans to consumers that its partner banks essentially fund. The company initially facilitated home improvement loans through such retailers as Home Depot but has since expanded into other areas, including elective surgery.
Between 2014 and 2019, GreenSky received at least 6,000 complaints from consumers who stated they did not authorize submission of a loan application. The company’s complaint investigations found its merchants were at fault in at least 1,600 cases.
“GreenSky’s careless business and customer service practices enabled its merchants to take advantage of vulnerable consumers who needed financial help to repair their homes and to pay for other critical retail services by setting up loans without consumers’ consent,” CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio said.
“For consumers to wind up in debt to GreenSky for loans they never knew about is simply wrong. The CFPB will not stand for practices that allow conduct like this in the marketplace.”
Besides the fine, the redress to customers called for in the agreement is capped at $9 million, including $3 million in cash and $6 million in credit through loan cancellations.
GreenSky President Tim Kaliban said the company already has implemented many of the protocols and business practices called for in the agreement.
“We are exceedingly proud of our record of consumer advocacy,” Kaliban said. “The resolution of this matter also allows us to devote our full and undivided attention to growing and strengthening our business, which is built on a foundation of integrity and trust.”
