ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia declined by 1,197 last week to 43,605, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
The agency paid out more than $168 million in benefits last week, bringing total benefits paid since the coronavirus pandemic exploded in Georgia last March to more than $15 billion, more than the last 27 years combined.
Meanwhile, the labor department announced a pilot project set to begin Nov. 2 that will allow claimants to schedule an online appointment with a claims representative to ask questions about their claim.
Each appointment will be assigned a two-hour window during which a representative will call the claimant. Almost 3,000 appointments will be scheduled during the program’s first two weeks.
“The addition of this online tool will further our ability to address claim issues,” Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said. “We have been adding personnel to our staff to help with general responses, and this addition will allow our experienced staff to focus on resolving claimant issues more efficiently.”
Claimants are urged to be ready to discuss their claim during the time frame allotted. Additional time slots will be added each Monday for the following week. On Monday, Nov. 2, the appointment scheduler will be available on the agency’s website and will be highlighted under the Spotlight area on the homepage.
Since March 21, the accommodation and food services job sector has accounted for the most initial unemployment claims in Georgia with 950,239. The health care and social assistance job sector is next with 456,145 claims, followed by retail trade with 419,395.
More than 167,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding careers, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs.
Paul Bowers (left) is retiring from the top spot at Georgia Power and will be succeeded by Chris Womack (right).
ATLANTA – Georgia Power Chairman, President and CEO Paul Bowers will retire next April after more than a decade leading the Atlanta-based utility, the company announced Thursday.
Bowers’ retirement will coincide with a key milestone at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project, the loading of fuel into the first of two new reactors being built at the site south of Augusta.
“It’s not a coincidence,” Bowers told Capitol Beat News Service Thursday. “That’s a signal that unit is ready to go commercial.”
Georgia Power’s Board of Directors has elected Chris Womack, executive vice president and president of external affairs at Georgia Power parent Southern Company, to succeed Bowers. Womack will begin serving as Georgia Power’s president Nov. 1, then take over the additional roles of chairman and CEO upon Bowers’ retirement.
Bowers has presided not only over the Plant Vogtle project but also has led Georgia Power’s transition toward relying less on coal for power generation and more on clean energy.
The utility currently gets 15% of its energy-generation portfolio from renewable sources and is heading toward 18% under a three-year plan the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved last year.
“Working with the commission, we’ll continue to add [renewable energy] taking advantage of new technological opportunities,” Womack said.
Womack joined Southern Company in 1988 and has held several leadership positions within the company and its subsidiaries, including stints at Georgia Power, Southern Company Generation and Savannah Electric. His resume also includes experience in human resources as a senior vice president at Southern Company, and he has served in a public relations role at Alabama Power.
“Chris checks all the boxes,” Bowers said. “He has developed into one of the great leaders of our company.”
Womack said getting units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle up and running will be a top priority. Approved by the PSC back in 2009, the project has been plagued with extensive cost overruns and lengthy delays caused in part by the bankruptcy of prime contractor Westinghouse.
However, Georgia Power has doggedly pursued completing the first new nuclear project to be built in the U.S. in decades, even as other utilities gave up after encountering technical problems with the next-generation Westinghouse AP1000 reactors.
Unit 3 is due to go into service in November of next year and Unit 4 is expected to follow one year later.
“Based on current projections, will have [Unit 3] online a couple of months early,” Bowers said.
Bowers joined Southern Company in 1979 at Gulf Power and has served as Georgia Power’s chairman, president and CEO for the past 11 years.
ATLANTA – Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has opened up a slight lead over President Donald Trump in Georgia less than a week before Election Day, according to a new poll.
The statewide survey of 504 registered Georgia voters conducted by New Jersey’s Monmouth University Polling Institute Oct. 23-27 found Biden’s support at 50% and Trump’s at 45%. The poll’s margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.4%.
More than half (58%) of the voters surveyed said they had already cast their ballots. Among that group, Biden enjoyed a huge lead, 55% to 43%. Trump held a 48% to 44% advantage among those who had yet to vote.
“Trump is likely to win the Election Day vote. The question is by how much,” said Patrick Murray, the polling institute’s director. “The Democratic voters left on the table at this point tend to be less engaged and thus harder to turn out. So, it is still possible for Trump to make up his deficit in the early vote.”
In demographic breakdowns, Trump held a solid lead among voters ages 65 and older, 58% to 42%. That’s a bit less of an advantage than the 61% to 36% margin for Trump in a Monmouth poll released last month.
However, Biden holds a 54% to 40% lead over Trump among voters under 50 years old, up from his 47% to 42% lead with this group last month.
No Democrat running for president has carried Georgia since Bill Clinton won his first term in the White House back in 1992.
Meanwhile, Democrats running for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats also fared well in the Monmouth poll.
Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff narrowly leads Republican Sen. David Perdue, 49% to 46%, well within the poll’s margin of error. Perdue was six points up on Ossoff in two previous surveys Monmouth released last month and back in July.
In the other contest, a blanket primary with 20 candidates on the ballot to fill the unexpired term of retired Sen. Johnny Isakson, Democrat Raphael Warnock holds a big lead with 41% of the vote. Warnock has gained steadily, up from 21% last month and just 9% in July, mostly at the expense fellow Democrat Matt Lieberman, who has fallen in the Monmouth poll to just 4% from a high last summer of 14%.
Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, appointed to the seat by Gov. Brian Kemp late last year, and GOP U.S. Rep. Doug Collins of Gainesville are in a close battle for second, with Loeffler holding the advantage 21% to 18%.
“Loeffler and Collins are now battling it out for a spot in the runoff,” Murray said. “It may come down to who is seen as the stronger Trump loyalist among Republican voters.”
With no one likely to win more than 50% of the vote, the margin needed to avoid a runoff, the expected second round between Warnock and either Loeffler or Collins would be held in early January, possibly determining whether Democrats take control of the Senate or Republicans keep their majority.
ATLANTA – Electric membership cooperatives (EMCs) are offering to accelerate the deployment of high-speed internet in rural Georgia through a deep discount to telecom providers for attachments to EMC utility poles.
But one of those providers, the Georgia Cable Association, is calling the proposal a “gimmick” that would do nothing to increase the availability of broadband in unserved rural communities.
Under legislation the General Assembly passed in June, the state Public Service Commission (PSC) will decide later this year how much EMCs can charge telecom companies for pole attachments. Pole fees have long been a sticking point as the EMCs and providers work to solve the “digital divide” between Georgia’s urban/suburban centers and rural areas.
In documents filed with the PSC late last week, the EMCs proposed what they are calling the “Georgia Solution,” a plan to charge broadband providers just $1 per pole per year for pole attachments. The offer would be good for five years as long as the new attachments bring broadband service to unserved rural EMC customers.
Georgia EMCs currently are charging telecom providers $20 per pole per year on average for broadband attachments, well above the average of about $7 per pole set by the Federal Communications Commission.
A second component of the EMCs’ plan would reduce wait times for providers to get permits for pole attachments, improving efficiency and lowering costs.
“The brave and bold solution offered by the EMCs creates real savings for broadband providers, ensures broadband expansion for those who desperately need it, and ensures consumers’ investment in broadband expansion does not leave this state,” said Dennis Chastain, president and CEO of Georgia EMC, the trade association for local EMCs representing about 4.4 million Georgians. “It’s one solution to connect all of Georgia.”
But officials with the cable association say the EMCs’ offer isn’t enough of an incentive to spur telecom providers to invest what would be required for a significant broadband expansion because it’s only good for five years. After that, EMCs could return to charging fees the providers argue are too high.
“It has no real long-term benefit,” the association said in a statement.
The cable association also points out the $1-per-pole offer only applies to new pole attachments in unserved areas. To generate enough savings to make the numbers work for providers, the EMCs would have to offer a “just and reasonable” rate for pole attachments statewide, the association argues.
In testimony filed with the PSC this week, the cable association cited an offer by Comcast to spend $27 million over three years expanding broadband into unserved rural areas if the PSC sets a “cost-based” pole attachment fee. That investment would represent almost three times the $10 million in savings Comcast would expect to achieve from lower pole fees.
Charter Communications has put another $10 million investment on the table, about twice what it would save from lower pole attachment costs.
“That’s doing exactly what we said we were going to do – put the savings into unserved areas,” the cable association said.
The two sides will have a chance to expand upon their written arguments next month when the PSC holds hearings on the pole attachment fees issue.
The commission is due to decide in mid-December the rates Georgia EMCs will be allowed to charge providers under all pole attachment agreements entered into on or after next July 1.
Part of the Cabin Bluff property in Camden County will become a state wildlife management area. (Photo Credit: The Nature Conservancy)
ATLANTA – The Georgia Board of Natural Resources voted Tuesday to acquire nearly 8,000 acres of the historic Cabin Bluff property in Camden County for designation as a state wildlife management area.
The Nature Conservancy and the Open Space Institute bought the property in 2018 along with an adjacent tract of nearly 3,200 acres. The smaller site is slated to become a retreat for a Jacksonville, Fla.-based church congregation.
Located just across the Intracoastal Waterway from the Cumberland Island National Seashore, Cabin Bluff includes a diverse landscape of salt marshes, tidal creeks and longleaf pine woodlands. It serves as habitat for threatened and endangered species including the gopher tortoise, wood stork and eastern indigo snake.
“Cabin Bluff and neighboring Ceylon are significant natural areas in Georgia,” said Kim Elliman, president and CEO of the Open Space Institute. “An incredible array of native species will continue to call the property and its waters home, and the public will have more access to the land than ever in its history.”
Several government agencies and nonprofits chipped in the $11 million purchase price of the portion of the property due to become a wildlife management area.
More than $2.5 million came through the first round of Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Act funding, a program Georgia voters approved as a constitutional amendment on the 2018 statewide ballot. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided $3 million in grants, and the Open Space Institute contributed 500,000.
The wildlife management area will be set aside for recreational pursuits including fishing, hunting, kayaking, wildlife viewing and nature photography. The state will officially assume ownership of the land next year.
The land also will serve as a buffer to the adjacent Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base.
