Rabun County Sheriff Chad Nichols accepts a $65,000 opportunity grant from North Georgia Community Foundation CEO Michell Prater (right). The money will be used to hire a mental health counselor.
The North Georgia Community Foundation (NGCF) finished out 2022 by awarding a total of $618,172 in grants to 43 nonprofit organizations. The recipients were chosen through NGCF’s Opportunity Grant and Community Grant Programs funded through the NGCF Community Fund.
In addition to the allotted grant funding this year, fundholders contributed additional support to the grant initiatives by providing dollars from their personal charitable funds at NGCF.
“As the NGCF Community Fund grows, we are able to further the impact of our grant programming,” says NGCF President and CEO Michelle Prater. “We are also fortunate to work with fundholders who come alongside our efforts to support organizations here in our community.”
The NGCF Opportunity Grants Program focuses on funding new or expanding programs and initiatives that address key community issues.
The Foundation awarded $65,000 to the Rabun County Sheriff’s Office to hire a mental health clinician. The sheriff’s office is among five recipients that received a total of $150,000 this year and would not have been able to implement their programs without NGCF’s funding. The other programs include:
J’s Place Recovery received a $25,000 grant for its Recovery Treatment Assistance program. The grant will be used to provide scholarships for treatment.
Reboot Jackson was awarded $20,000 for its Creating Lasting Family Connections Program. The grant money will go toward staff and volunteer training.
St. Paul Methodist Church received a $15,000 matching grant for its After School & Summer Enrichment Program. The money will be used to pay the salary of a new part-time director.
Forsyth County Senior Service received a $25,000 matching grant to help fund a part-time social worker.
The HUB of Habersham, Franklin County Mentor Volunteer Program, and Northeast Georgia Food Bank are also among this year’s recipients.
The NGCF Community Grants Program provided $468,172 in grants to 38 nonprofit organizations across North Georgia that work to improve the quality of life in the community. Both operational and programmatic grants were funded, with awards ranging from nearly $1,500 to the maximum award amount of $25,000.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish serves as a sequel to a spinoff. While the first movie was moderately entertaining, this sequel improves on it by providing more humor and better voiceover work from its cast. It’s visually pleasing despite a climax that feels overstuffed.
Antonio Banderas returns as the titular feline who’s become a legend in the fairytale world he lives in. That all changes after he defeats a giant monster, but in the process, he’s hit by a bell and soon discovers he’s on his ninth and final life.
Puss decides to give up his life of adventure and joins a home occupied by a woman who has earned the right to call herself a crazy cat lady. He meets a dog disguised as a cat (Harvey Guillen) who tries to be friends with Puss, but he’s having none of it.
Puss encounters Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears, and they tell him of a Wishing Star that has the power to give its finder any wish they desire. Puss sees this as his chance to get back his other eight lives. Also searching for the Star is “Big” Jack Horner (John Mulaney), who wants to use it to have all the magic in the world.
Salma Hayek is back as the voice of Kitty Softpaws, who runs into Puss and still holds a grudge against him for leaving her standing at the aisle on their wedding day. She also wants to find the Star.
The movie has sequences of gorgeous animation that look like it came straight out of a storybook. The imagination in this sequel builds on what the first movie offered while giving us some new and much more clever one-liners and sight gags that both kids and adults can appreciate.
At first, I wasn’t sure whether Puss in Boots warranted a follow-up, but I’m glad we got it. It’s a rare second chapter that, as mentioned, builds on the fun rather than rehashing it.
Banderas, Hayek, and the rest of the cast are having a lot of fun with their roles, and the screenplay allows them to do something with their characters as well as the newer ones.
The movie’s weakness is that the climax does play the card of giving us too much action just when we think it’s over and then starts the story up again.
Nevertheless, kids will enjoy it due to its zany characters, raucous humor, and joyful energy. Adults who loved the first one will probably enjoy it for the same reasons.
Grade: A-
(Rated PG for humor, language, action/violence and some scary moments.)
On Friday, Dec. 23, 2022, the U.S. House passed a $1.7 tirllion funding package that will fund the government through the end of next year. The package was approved 225-201, with the majority of Republicans voting against the measure. (livestream image live.house.gov)
WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — The U.S. House voted Friday to approve a sweeping $1.7 trillion government spending package that carries along with it dozens of new initiatives, including an update to how Congress certifies electoral votes for president and new protections for pregnant workers.
The 225-201 bipartisan vote, with one member voting present, sends the 4,126-page measure to President Joe Biden for his expected signature. The evenly divided U.S. Senate voted 68-29 to approve the bill Thursday after adding several bipartisan amendments to the package.
The vote was sparsely attended, with dozens of Democrats and Republicans voting by proxy, an option that was put in place by Democrats during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and which is expected to end next Congress when Republicans take control of the House.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat in his last days as majority leader, spoke in support of the omnibus but lamented the process that pushed lawmakers up against a pre-Christmas deadline that comes nearly three months into the fiscal year.
“This does not come as a surprise to any of us that we have to fund the government of the United States of America,” he said.
Hoyer criticized the U.S. Senate, where lawmakers didn’t debate any of the dozen spending bills in committee or on the floor before negotiators began working on the catchall omnibus spending package near the end of the year.
“This is simply not the right way to do it, but it must and should and will be done today,” he said.
Hoyer added that Congress has a “responsibility to address issues that undermine the strength and prosperity of American workers and families” and celebrated the spending package, including nutrition assistance, funding for child care, and money to reduce monthly utility bills as well as enhance retirement savings rules.
While Senate Republicans were involved in negotiations, House Republican leaders opted to omit themselves from the process, pushing instead to use a stopgap spending bill to hold over talks on the full-year spending bills until they control the chamber in January.
Republicans argued during floor debate Friday that it was wrong for Congress to pass a government funding package during the lame-duck session that comes between the November elections and the new session beginning in January. GOP lawmakers also opposed much of the spending in the bill and said they hadn’t had time to read it, following a Tuesday morning release.
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler said the omnibus “does nothing to effectively address any of the crises that we are currently facing.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is trying to secure the votes to become speaker, said the spending package was “one of the most shameful acts I’ve ever seen in this body.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, later challenged that assertion, questioning if McCarthy had forgotten the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters.
Following the sometimes tense debate Friday, nine House GOP lawmakers ended up voting for the spending package while one Democrat voted against the measure, and one voted present.
Spending increases for Pentagon, domestic programs
The bill includes $858 billion in defense spending, up from $782 billion during the last fiscal year, and about $773 billion in non-defense funding, an increase from the $730 billion that Congress approved during the last appropriations process.
Those spending levels were broken down into the dozen annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government for fiscal year 2023, which began on Oct. 1. The money will go to dozens of federal departments and agencies, including Agriculture, Defense, Homeland Security, national parks and public lands, and Transportation.
The package would provide about $40 billion in additional spending to help communities recover from natural disasters and $45 billion in military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine.
The legislation includes a bipartisan bill to update and clarify the 1887 Electoral Count Act to reinforce the vice president’s role as ceremonial. It also boosts the number of lawmakers needed to object to Congress certifying a state’s electoral votes for president from one member of each chamber to one-fifth of the members in each chamber.
The measure included a bill that would ban federal employees from having the social media app TikTok or any apps from ByteDance Limited on their work phones amid growing concern about the Chinese government’s access to the data the app collects from users’ phones.
Medicaid phaseout, pregnant workers
The package would allow states to begin removing some people from the Medicaid program for low-income individuals as soon as April 1. It would also begin to phase out the increase in federal funds that went to keeping people on Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican governors have been pressing for an end to the public health emergency and the requirement their states cannot kick people off the health care program. Twenty-five GOP governors wrote a letter to Biden earlier this week, saying the requirement is “negatively affecting states” by increasing the number of their residents on Medicaid and state investment in the program.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic,” they wrote, “states have added 20 million individuals to the Medicaid rolls (an increase of 30%), and those numbers continue to climb as the PHE continues to be extended every 90 days.”
The U.S. Senate added eight bipartisan amendments to the package before sending it to the U.S. House for the final vote.
Senators voted to add in the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to ensure “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant people; a bill expanding workplace protections for nursing mothers to millions more people not currently covered under a 2010 law; and language that gives local, state and tribal governments flexibility in how they use unspent COVID-19 dollars from the federal government.
The Senate added in a bipartisan provision that would allow the U.S. Justice Department, through the Secretary of State, to send Ukraine proceeds from seized assets of Russian oligarchs or other Russian entities under sanctions.
The U.S. House on Friday also agreed to send Biden a stopgap spending bill through Dec. 30 that will allow time for Congress to enroll the larger omnibus package and for the president to sign it.
The current short-term spending bill expires Friday at midnight, so the additional stopgap bill was needed to avoid a funding lapse or partial government shutdown.
Biden said in a statement released shortly after the vote that the package “is further proof that Republicans and Democrats can come together to deliver for the American people, and I’m looking forward to continued bipartisan progress in the year ahead.”
The House January 6th panel found former President Donald Trump incited an insurrection. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — The U.S. House Jan. 6 committee late Thursday published its findings in a nearly 850-page report that accused former President Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection and recommended Congress consider how to determine whether those found to be insurrectionists should be barred from holding office ever again.
The report caps 18 months of work for the committee, which the House voted to form, mostly along party lines, in June 2021. It details the committee’s central finding, gleaned through records reviews and dozens of interviews with White House, Trump campaign, and other officials, that Trump’s desire to overturn the results of a lawful and legitimate election was the driving factor in the unprecedented attack on the Capitol.
“[P]reventing another January 6th will require a broader sort of accountability. Ultimately, the American people chart the course for our country’s future,” Committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson wrote in his foreword to the report.
“The American people decide whom to give the reins of power. If this Select Committee has accomplished one thing, I hope it has shed light on how dangerous it would be to empower anyone whose desire for authority comes before their commitment to American democracy and the Constitution,” the Mississippi Democrat continued.
The report includes criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice for four counts against Trump, including inciting, assisting or aiding an insurrection.
It is the first time in U.S. history a congressional body has recommended to criminally charge — and not simply impeach — a former president.
The panel has no power to actually bring criminal charges and the Justice Department has not said how it will proceed, though Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate.
The eight-chapter report chronicles Trump’s “Big Lie,” his and others’ efforts to deliver a fake slate of electors to Vice President Mike Pence, the major events and players involved in the planning of the insurrection, and the committee’s witness interviews and information gathering.
Recommendations for the future
The report also includes recommendations to tweak the nation’s electoral process and guard against future insurrections through legislative action, including amending the Electoral Count Act of 1887 — a proposal that is part of Congress’ year-end government funding deal.
The panel also advises the courts and bar to review the conduct of attorneys who supported Trump’s actions or participated in activities “aimed at subverting the rule of law.”
It notes that under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, an individual who takes an oath to protect the Constitution but has “engaged in an insurrection” or given “aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution” can be disqualified from holding future state or federal office. The committee points out it referred Trump and others for possible prosecution, that he was impeached in the House, and that 57 senators also voted for impeachment.
“Congressional committees of jurisdiction should consider creating a formal mechanism for evaluating whether to bar those individuals identified in this report under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment from holding future federal or state office,” the report says.
“The Committee believes that those who took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and then, on January 6th, engaged in insurrection can appropriately be disqualified and barred from holding government office — whether federal or state, civilian or military — absent at least two-thirds of Congress acting to remove the disability pursuant to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the report adds.
Legislation that could create a process has been introduced in Congress by Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, it says.
Among other recommendations, the report says:
The government should ensure that federal agencies with investigative or intelligence jurisdictions employ a “whole-of-government strategy” to combat violent extremism.
Congress should enhance penalties for threats to election workers and expand protections for them.
Congress should “evaluate” policies of media companies “that have had the effect of radicalizing their consumers, including by provoking people to attack their own country.”
Congressional committees should further review evidence that Trump considered possible use of the 1807 Insurrection Act — which allows the president to deploy troops to suppress a rebellion– and consider risks to future elections
Those recommendations are not likely to find a receptive audience, as a Republican conference that has been largely dismissive — if not disparaging — of the panel’s work will take control of the House on Jan. 3.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump dismissed the report.
“The highly partisan Unselect Committee Report purposely fails to mention the failure of Pelosi to heed my recommendation for troops to be used in D.C., show the ‘Peacefully and Patrioticly’ [sic] words I used, or study the reason for the protest, Election Fraud. WITCH HUNT!,” he wrote.
Witness transcripts
The committee has also begun releasing transcripts of interviews its members and staffers conducted.
Transcripts released Thursday of the committee’s interviews with key witness Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman, detailed how those in Trump’s network became involved in her search for legal counsel.
Hutchinson’s interview transcript reveals key details that the committee alluded to Monday – that a Trump-affiliated attorney instructed a key witness to mislead or hide information from the committee.
Hutchinson testified that White House ethics lawyer Stefan Passantino instructed her to downplay and omit details surrounding Jan. 6.
“The less you remember, the better,” Hutchinson recalled Passantino telling her.
Hutchinson also recalled asking Passantino how to answer questions about things she overheard or were relayed to her secondhand, including details from a Secret Service official about Trump’s physical altercation with an agent inside his limousine on Jan. 6.
“What’s the line I draw here? Like, do I not ever say anything I overheard, because I overheard a lot of things?” she recalled asking Passantino.
“Look, the goal with you is to get in and out. Keep your answers short, sweet and simple, seven words or less. The less the committee thinks you know, the better, the quicker it’s going to go,” he replied to her, according to her testimony.
On the morning of her first interview, Hutchinson recalled being nervous and Passantino telling her “Your go-to, Cass, is ‘I don’t recall’ … If you start using that at the beginning, they’re going to realize really quick that they have better witnesses than you, and they’re not going to ask you as complicated of questions as you’re worried about.”
On Wednesday, the panel also published transcripts of 34 interviews, including with central figures in the scheme they say Trump led to overturn the election, such as former assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark and campaign legal advisers John Eastman and Jenna Ellis.
The witnesses largely invoked Fifth Amendment rights and executive privilege not to answer questions about Jan. 6 and the Trump effort to challenge the election results.
Multipart scheme
The committee’s seven Democrats and two Republicans have repeated the thesis of the report — that Trump led a multipart scheme to overturn the election results that escalated until the Jan. 6, 2021, attack — from the start of their public hearings.
And as the committee did in a series of hearings over the summer, the report details different elements of Trump’s push to invalidate his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump planned to declare victory in the election, regardless of the results, the committee said.
He then pressured state officials to fraudulently change results in some states he lost, most famously in a call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump told to “find” enough votes to erase his margin of defeat.
Trump and his allies worked to compile slates of fake electors to replace the legitimate Biden electors in states the outgoing president lost: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Some 84 Republicans, including dozens of party leaders, signed on to the bogus documents, which formed the basis for two of the panel’s charges against Trump: that he likely conspired to defraud the United States and that he conspired to make a false statement.
Trump also pressured officials at the Department of Justice to say it was investigating fraud in the election, though Attorney General William Barr and others had investigated and rejected several claims of fraud.
Barr called the sometimes-outlandish fraud allegations “bulls—,” he told committee investigators in a portion of a taped deposition the panel played in multiple hearings.
But Trump wouldn’t be deterred. Barr stepped down and Trump moved his pressure campaign to his replacements, according to the committee’s evidence.
“Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” Trump said in a Dec. 27, 2020, call with Justice Department leaders, according to acting Attorney General Jeffrey Donoghue’s testimony to the panel.
When nearly all the Justice Department leaders threatened to resign if Trump pursued a plan to use the department to further the fake electors plan, the president relented, according to witnesses who testified to the committee.
But Trump continued to push Pence to use the fake electors to declare that it was unclear who won and thereby delay the certification of the election on Jan. 6, according to the report.
Trump also summoned his supporters to the Capitol for a protest on the day election results were to be certified. Despite knowing some were armed, Trump encouraged them to march on the Capitol in a speech on the morning of Jan. 6.
Pence refused to support Trump’s plan, placing the vice president in danger on the day of the attack. Rather than protect Pence, a Trump tweet inflamed the mob that was chanting its desire to “hang Mike Pence.”
The Pence tweet was one example of what the committee called Trump’s dereliction of duty for 187 minutes on Jan. 6, as he watched the insurrection unfold on a White House dining room TV without taking any action to intervene.
Shaking the foundations of democracy
Trump’s conduct was the first challenge to the peaceful transition of presidential power since the Civil War — and the first ever by a sitting U.S. president. It shook the foundation of U.S. democracy, committee members have said.
“Jan. 6, 2021, was the first time one American president refused his constitutional duty to transfer power peacefully to the next,” committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, said Monday during the panel’s final meeting. “The Select Committee has recognized our obligation to do everything we can to ensure this never happens again.”
The panel’s final recommendations urge Congress to reform criminal statutes to include harsher penalties for those involved in obstructing a joint session of Congress and the peaceful transition of power.
The report also added details about efforts by Trump and those close to him to interfere with the panel’s investigation.
In the days before an interview with the committee, a witness was offered a job that would make her “very financially comfortable” by those apparently linked to Trump. The committee did not specify which witness.
Additionally, the committee cited concern from the Department of Justice regarding Trump’s Save America PAC, which the Washington Post has reported is paying the legal bills of lawyers involved with Trump’s attempts to keep classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago residence secret.
“This Committee also has these concerns, including that lawyers who are receiving such payments have specific incentives to defend President Trump rather than zealously represent their own clients,” the report stated.
GOP response
Though the committee was nominally bipartisan, with Republicans Cheney and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois joining seven Democrats, most House Republicans dismissed it as a partisan exercise.
During 2021 negotiations about the panel’s makeup, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, rejected two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s picks for the committee, Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio, because their close contact with Trump may have brought them within the purview of the investigation.
McCarthy responded by pulling all five of his picks, even those Pelosi didn’t object to.
Those five Republicans produced their own report Wednesday on the security failures of the attack. House Democratic leadership and the leaders of the U.S. Capitol Police left the complex unprepared for the security threat they faced, the GOP report said.
The Republicans who remained on the Jan. 6 panel did so in defiance of their leader and will not return to Congress in 2023. Kinzinger retired, while Cheney lost her primary reelection by a wide margin.
The committee referred four Republican House members, McCarthy, Jordan, Arizona’s Andy Biggs and Pennsylvania’s Scott Perry to the House Ethics Committee for failure to comply with subpoenas. Each had communication with Trump about the election or the attack that would have been relevant to the investigation, the committee said.
Jordan and Biggs each released statements attacking the committee’s legitimacy.
“This referral is their final political stunt,” Biggs said in a Monday tweet. “The J6 Committee has defamed my name and my character and I look forward to reviewing their documents, publishing their lies and setting the record straight” in the next Congress.
“This is just another partisan and political stunt made by” the committee, Jordan spokesman Russell M. Dye wrote in an email.
McCarthy did not address the referral directly, but criticized the panel in a Wednesday tweet promoting the GOP report.
“Pelosi’s Select Committee has been focused on political theater and posturing,” he said.
A representative for Perry did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Next steps
The House resolution creating the Jan. 6 committee, formally named the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, calls for it to dissolve 30 days after its final report.
That dissolution will likely come sooner, as the new House Republican majority sworn in on Jan. 3 will not retain the panel.
In the next two weeks, the panel is expected to release more deposition transcripts and other materials it used to produce its report.
A Habersham EMC lineman works to restore service to members who lost electricity in Winter Storm Elliott. The local cooperative reports most of its outages have been in Rabun County, one of six Northeast Georgia counties in its service area. (photo courtesy HEMC)
Tens of thousands of Georgians remain without electricity as Winter Storm Elliott moves through the state. Severe, high winds downed trees and powerlines, interrupting service to customers overnight. Damage and outages are primarily concentrated in North Georgia and metro Atlanta.
“Our teams are working safely and as quickly as possible to restore service in these extreme winter conditions as we continue to deal with high winds and icy roads,” says Georgia Power Manager of Storm Center Operations Ryan Poole.
By noon Friday, Georgia Power had restored service to approximately 120,000 customers statewide, and EMCs had restored service to over 23,000 members. Outage maps are posted online to keep customers updated on restoration efforts.
Habersham EMC has been updating its members through social media, thanking them for their patience and reminding them of the extreme conditions their line crews face.
Georgia Power, too, acknowledges the hardships on crews and customers.
“To our customers directly affected by this winter storm, we recognize it’s extremely cold and that we’re in the midst of the holiday season. On behalf of the Georgia Power team, we thank you for your patience and understanding,” says Poole.
The state’s largest utility says its crews are working “around the clock” at power generation plants to ensure their ability to meet increased demand in these extremely low temperatures.
Subfreezing temperatures are expected through Christmas. Wind chill warnings and advisories remain in effect through Christmas Eve. Public safety officials urge people to remain indoors if possible. If you must go outside, make sure to dress warmly in layers, fully covering your skin with hats, gloves, face masks, and scarves to prevent hypothermia.
Dorothy Jean Gibson Glenn, age 68, of Toccoa, Georgia, went to her heavenly home on Tuesday, December 20, 2022.
Dorothy was born on August 31, 1954, in Clayton, Georgia, to the late Garnett Ervin & Lena Eller Gibson. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, Billy Joe Glenn & by her granddaughter, Stacey “Star” Cash.
Survivors include her son, Michael Finley (Ann) of Gainesville, GA; daughter, Amanda McFalls Yearwood (J.D.) of Toccoa, GA; step-daughter, Marcia Glenn (Mandy) of Martinez, GA; step-son, Philip Glenn of Jefferson, GA; step-son, Thomas Glenn of Snellville, GA; step-daughter, Wanda Glenn of Commerce, GA; grandchildren, Ariana Johnson (Dom), Logan Finley, Mikayla Finley, Destiny Cheatham, Waylon Bryars, Savannah Glenn, Urijah Glenn, as well as three great-grandchildren, numerous nieces, nephews, and close friends.
A memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, January 07, 2023 ,at The House of Prayer Ministries, 350 Dicks Hill Parkway, Mount Airy, Georgia. 30563 with Rev. Jan Conley & Rev. John Conley officiating.
Vogel State Park in Blairsville is one of nearly two dozen state park warming stations set up throughout Georgia. (Facebook)
The State of Georgia is feeling the first effects of the arctic front that’s sweeping the nation. To assist homeowners who may lose power and stranded motorists, Georgia State Parks are opening warming stations for public use.
There are three warming stations set up in the Northeast Georgia area at Fort Yargo in Winder, Vogel State Park in Blairsville, and Richard B. Russell State Park in Elberton. There are at least 20 other shelters located at parks across the state.
All shelters have restrooms but no food or bedding. ParkPass fees will be waived for those using warming stations.
To find a full list of warming stations and their availability, please refer to the map and spreadsheet below.
Availability of warming stations at Georgia State Parks as of 6:25 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 23, 2022. (Source: Georgia State Parks)
Superior Court Judge Raymond George recites the oath of office administered by White County Probate Judge Don Ferguson (Daen Dyer/WRWH.com)
White County has a slate of newly reelected officials ready to resume work at the turn of the year.
During a joint swearing-in ceremony on Thursday, White County Probate Judge Don Ferguson administered the oath of office to Enotah Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Raymond George, White County District 2 Commissioner Lyn Holcomb, District 3 Commissioner Edwin Nix, and District 4 Board of Education Member Linda Erbele.
George, Holcomb, Nix, and Erbele were reelected during the November 8 general election. Their current terms end on December 31, 2022.
District 4 Board of Education Member Lindy Erble administered the oath of office by Probate Judge Don Ferguson (Dean Dyer/WRWH.com)
District 3 Commissioner Edwin Nix administered the oath of office by Probate Judge Don Ferguson (Dean Dyer/WRWH.com)
District 2 Commissioner Lyn Holcomb takes the oath of office administered by Probate Judge Don Ferguson (Dean Dyer/WRWH.com)
An electric vehicle charges up at a Georgia Power station located in the parking lot of a Burger King in Columbus. (Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder)
(GA Recorder) — Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake for the state’s future embrace of electric vehicles going into the new legislative session in January as Georgia pursues ways to boost the economy through a growing green industry.
The Georgia Public Service Commission this week approved a plan for Georgia Power to spend a total of $53 million over the next three years for the Make Ready program that helps businesses provide charging points for electric vehicle drivers. As part of a federal bipartisan infrastructure law passed in 2021, the state will also receive $135 million to develop its own portion of the national network.
On Tuesday, the PSC staff and Georgia Power reached an agreement to set aside 65% of the utility company’s earlier $81 million proposed for the Make Ready program over the next several years. That compromise was struck after state regulators pushed back on the utility’s initial plans to more steeply hike rates charged to consumers. The new plan also allows auto dealers to participate.
A joint state House and Senate study committee also recently released a slate of recommendations meant to help the state adapt to the electrification of transportation. Disagreements between the industry and utility companies on how to collaborate in the development of infrastructure supporting electric vehicles have been the most contentious part of the process, according to the joint study committee.
Over the last decade, plug-in electric car sales have grown in Georgia and across the U.S., with infrastructure development taking place mostly in large metropolitan areas such as Atlanta. Yet, Georgia’s rural areas could also benefit from new jobs created by factories such as Rivian’s billion-dollar electric truck manufacturing facility.
Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols, who often posts photos of himself with electric vehicles on social media, said that restoring a significant portion of the funding for the EV program is essential since it will expand access and help smaller communities.
The legislative study committee failed to reach a consensus, though, on the roles that Georgia Power and electric membership cooperatives should play in providing the infrastructure needed to charge electric vehicles.
Republican Rep. Alan Powell of Hartwell said that he has heard concerns from Georgia residents about having Georgia Power or a subsidiary competing with the retail businesses when it comes to selling electricity to charge EVs. In his remarks, he said he has his own apprehension about letting Georgia Power have the ability to pass those costs along to residential customers.
Sen. David Lucas, a Macon Democrat, opposed putting a restriction on a power company to provide power to an electric vehicle station and was upset that a deal between utilities and private enterprises wasn’t reached.
“The problem is, what do you do when people are traveling in rural Georgia? If nobody comes in to do it, then the power (company) entirely has the resources to go and put one in those communities where they aren’t served,” Lucas said.
Perry Republican Sen. Larry Walker said he is reluctant to restrict the development of charging stations at this early stage.
“I do understand that private business owners need some certainty, and if they’re gonna make a big investment in charging stations, they don’t want to do that and then, in the next few months or a year or whatever, have the public utility come next door to them and undercut them,” Walker said.
Rather than charging by the time it takes to recharge, the study committee suggests having convenience stores and other retailers charge by the kilowatt hour.
During this week’s Georgia Power rate case, the Public Service Commission also amended to allow automobile dealers to benefit from the company’s electric vehicle program.
“Make Ready has already been used to enable charger locations near the Port of Savannah and along key routes to the Atlanta airport, and it’s already proven essential to incentivize the deployment of transformational EV charging technology,” Echols said at Tuesday’s rate case hearing.
In addition, the Georgia Department of Transportation plans to use federal funding to improve EV charging access in rural areas. A fast charging station will be built every 50 miles along U.S. 82 between Albany and Brunswick and along U.S. 441 between Dublin and Cornelia as part of the agency’s plans.
These new stations will be built through public-private partnerships, so the state will not own, operate or maintain them. A competitive solicitation process will be used to find private partners.
Currently, about a dozen stations meet the standards along those corridors. Another 30 or more stations need to be built or upgraded.
“GDOT will fulfill its obligation, under federal law, to act as a niche investor in the buildout of a national infrastructure network to enable EV charging where there is clear consumer demand yet also limited private sector interest to invest without the availability of publicly funded subsidy,” the transportation department’s deployment plan states.
Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville is the flagship hospital of Northeast Georgia Health System.
The woman who helped guide the growth of Northeast Georgia’s largest healthcare system is stepping down. Tracy Vardeman, the chief strategy executive for Northeast Georgia Health System, is retiring after 31 years. Her last day will be December 31.
Tracy Vardeman
Prior to joining NGHS, Vardeman served for five years as the director of marketing and communications at Lanier Park Hospital in Gainesville. Over the last three decades, she molded the shape and trajectory of NGHS through her work, first as the director of planning and then as chief strategy executive.
“Very few people have had an impact on the health of our entire region like Tracy has,” says NGHS President and CEO Carol Burrell. “From leading a campaign to get state approval to bring heart surgery to Gainesville in the early 2000s, to pushing the vision of what is now the NGMC Braselton campus throughout the 2010s, to uniting community leaders in the fight against COVID-19 in the 2020s – she has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to improve the lives of many she’ll never meet. And, in true Tracy fashion, she didn’t retire until we had a clear plan to keep the work going.”
Melissa Tymchuk is succeeding Vardeman in her position and will now serve as chief strategy executive in addition to her current role as chief of staff. Tymchuk worked in the Strategic Planning and Marketing division as executive director of strategic marketing before becoming chief of staff in 2017. She has also served in additional interim roles as needed – including as NGHS chief human resources officer and chief development officer of the NGHS Foundation.
Melissa Tymchuk
Vardeman’s departure is not the only major shift in NGHS leadership. The system welcomed a new president for its flagship hospital earlier this month. John Kueven most recently served as a senior vice president with Atlanta-based Wellstar Health System, where he oversaw its Cobb and Paulding hospitals. Prior to that, he served as the chief operating officer of Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital, just outside of Houston, Texas.
In his role as president of NGMC Gainesville, Kueven oversees the hospital’s operations, its New Horizons long-term care centers and mental and behavioral health services provided through Laurelwood.
NGHS this year also welcomed a new chief of human resources officer. Diane Poirot took over the job in August after a national search. Poirot most recently served in the same role at Yuma Regional Medical Center in Arizona. Prior to that, she served in human resources leadership with several health systems, including CHI St. Luke’s Health and Harris Health System, both in Houston, Texas.
Poirot also has human resources experience in industries outside of health care, such as Travis County Government in Austin, Texas, The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, and USDatalink in Baytown, Texas.
WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — The U.S. Senate passed a massive $1.7 trillion funding package Thursday that carries emergency aid for natural disaster recovery and the Ukrainian war effort, pushing past disputes over immigration policy and barely meeting a Friday deadline when current funding runs out.
The bill, supported by both Democrats and Republicans, now goes to the U.S. House, which is not expected to vote on it until Friday. The overwhelming majority of Republicans there are expected to vote against sending the measure to President Joe Biden after unsuccessfully trying to hold over negotiations until next year when they’ll control that chamber. Biden has said he would sign the omnibus bill.
The package, approved on a 68-29 Senate vote just hours after an address to Congress by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, includes $45 billion in new military and humanitarian aid to assist Ukrainians in their fight against Russia’s invasion. That brings the U.S. investment in the war to more than $111 billion. Sixty votes were needed for passage.
It would also make notable changes, negotiated by lawmakers, in the state-federal Medicaid health insurance program for low-income Americans and people with disabilities. The package would allow states to begin removing some millions of residents from Medicaid as soon as April and would phase out the bump in federal funding states got during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep people on the health care program.
The measure was the last Senate vote of the current Congress; lawmakers will reconvene in January.
Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, Arkansas Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, South Dakota Sens. Mike Rounds and John Thune and Indiana Sen. Todd Young were among the 18 Senate Republicans who voted for passage.
Pregnant workers, Title 42
Before approving the bill, senators voted to reject seven amendments and adopt eight during a four-hour vote series. The modifications to the package included provisions dealing with standards for pregnant workers; state use of COVID-19 funding; and protections for nursing mothers. Senators rejected amendments dealing with Title 42, a controversial public health policy used to turn away migrants at the border.
Among the votes:
Senators voted 73-24 to adopt an amendment from Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy that added the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to the package. Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr., a primary sponsor of the bill, said the amendment would set a standard for “reasonable accommodations” to ensure “that if a woman is pregnant in the workforce, she can do her job and have a healthy and safe pregnancy.” Cassidy argued the measure would do “what we want for ourselves, our wives, our sisters and our daughters.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also backed its inclusion, saying “the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is one of the most significant improvements to workplace protections in years. Tens of millions will be covered under this legislation, especially millions who work low-income jobs, long hours and get little support.” The measure is extremely close to a version of the bill approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, though lawmakers strengthened “protections for religious employers,” according to Cassidy’s office.
The Senate adopted by voice vote an amendment from Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn and California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla that would give local, state and tribal governments more flexibility in how they use unspent COVID-19 funding from the federal government.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, had their amendment adopted by voice vote. It would allow the U.S. Justice Department through the Secretary of State to transfer proceeds seized from Russian oligarchs under sanctions or other Russian entities under sanctions to Ukraine.
The Senate, 92-5, adopted an amendment from Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley and Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski that added the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act to the package. Merkley said the amendment broadens a bill Congress passed in 2010 to allow nursing mothers time and space to pump breast milk while at work. Murkowski said the provision is “good for babies, it’s good for new mothers, it’s good for employers to get these women back into the workforce.” HELP Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement the measure would “help close loopholes that leave nearly nine million working moms uncovered by federal protections to ensure they have reasonable break time and a private place to pump.”
The Senate rejected an amendment from Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester that would have addressed Title 42. The pandemic-era policy, originally put in place during the Trump administration, allows the border patrol to turn away migrants under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s public health authorities. Title 42 was set to expire Wednesday, but the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in an ongoing court case, temporarily keeping the program in place until the justices can take further action. “This amendment keeps Title 42 until a permanent plan is in place, boosts desperately needed border funding for security, invests in our agents and officers, and stops the flow of dangerous drugs,” Sinema said. Tester said the provision would have approved additional funding “for judges and legal officials to ensure orderly processing” as well as providing resources for law enforcement at the Southern border and overriding the Biden administration’s decision to sunset Title 42. The 10-87 vote on the Sinema-Tester amendment, which would have provided $8.7 billion, fell short of meeting the 60-vote threshold set for adoption.
The Senate rejected a separate Title 42 amendment from Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee that would have extended Title 42 by preventing the federal government from spending any money to end the designation. The vote was 47-50. Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin spoke against Lee’s amendment, saying “this is not about public health anymore. It is our excuse for not tackling the very real challenge and coming up with a border policy on a bipartisan basis.”
House and Senate GOP split
The decision by House Republican leaders to sit out the bipartisan negotiations on the funding package and whip against the bill marked a stark contrast with Senate GOP leaders, who helped shape the legislation and voted for the measure.
Senate Minority Leader McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Wednesday morning that the bill is “imperfect but strong” and lauded a large boost in defense spending.
“Senators have two options this week: We will either give our armed forces the resources and certainty that they need, or we will deny it to them,” McConnell said.
He noted that a failure to pass the omnibus would lead Congress to instead have to pass additional stopgap spending bills that would give the “military real-dollar funding cuts because of inflation, and give Defense Department leaders no certainty to plan and invest.”
McConnell also backed the investment in Ukraine, saying it’s “morally right.”
“But it’s not only that. It’s also a direct investment in cold, hard American interests,” McConnell added.
Schumer hailed the domestic spending increases in the legislation during a Wednesday morning floor speech, noting it would boost federal child care assistance funds by 30% and make permanent a program that allows kids to access school meals during the summer months.
The package would also allow states to keep providing one year of postpartum health care coverage for patients within Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a change Schumer said is “a great breakthrough.”
“Discrimination in maternal care and at birth is a real blot on our country, and the fact that people of color have higher rates of mortality is a disgrace,” Schumer said. “This goes a good way toward trying to rectify that blot on our country’s pride.”
The sweeping $1.7 trillion spending package would fund the departments and agencies that make up the federal government, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, public lands and the Pentagon, through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Negotiators released the 4,155-page omnibus government funding bill early Tuesday morning, following months of back-and-forth between Democrats and Republicans about how much in additional money to provide during the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.
The bill includes $40 billion to help communities recover from natural disasters, including $5 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund, $3.7 billion for crop and livestock losses and $75 million for Interior Department wildland fire suppression activities.
The package carries along with it several bills that lawmakers have been negotiating for months, including legislation that would update the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to clarify the vice president’s role as ceremonial and increase the threshold for objecting to a state’s electors from one member from each chamber to one-fifth of each chamber.
Lawmakers wrapped in a bill that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to have oversight of cosmetics for the first time.
Medicaid plans, Afghan resettlement
The shifts in Medicaid come after 25 GOP governors wrote to Biden earlier this week, calling for an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency in April and arguing the designation is “negatively affecting states” by increasing the number of residents on Medicaid.
“This is costing states hundreds of millions of dollars,” the governors wrote in the letter.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic,” they wrote, “states have added 20 million individuals to the Medicaid rolls (an increase of 30%) and those numbers continue to climb as the PHE continues to be extended every 90 days.”
Democrats have emphasized other changes in the omnibus that will benefit children.
“I’m ecstatic that Medicaid and CHIP will now offer 12 months of continuous coverage for children to ensure that the 40 million children on Medicaid and CHIP have uninterrupted access to health care throughout the year,” said House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, in a statement.
“Thanks to this provision, and the additional two years of funding secured in this agreement for CHIP, our kids will no longer be subject to fluctuations in coverage that endangers their health and well-being.
“The omnibus also makes the option for states to offer 12 months of postpartum coverage permanent, which I hope all states will adopt to ensure new moms have access to health care in the critical first year after delivery.”
On other issues affecting families, the omnibus government funding package doesn’t include the expansion of the child tax credit that Congress approved during the pandemic, but had since lapsed amid disagreement about how it should be structured.
The measure also doesn’t include the Afghan Adjustment Act, a bipartisan bill that would have helped provide a pathway to permanent legal residency for certain Afghan evacuees.
Schumer said Tuesday that GOP leaders prevented the bill from going into the catchall spending package.
“It was a very high priority. It had some good Republican support, but unfortunately the Republican leadership blocked it,” Schumer said. “These are people who risked their lives for our soldiers and for our country.”
McConnell said the bill was left out, in part, because of the time crunch to negotiate the government funding measure in the last days of the 117th Congress.
“It is an important issue, but there were many things that one could argue were important that didn’t make it into the bill,” McConnell said. “That ought to be addressed. I think it’s important.”
Several former ambassadors to Afghanistan wrote a letter to Congress, as did three former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and several other retired military officers, urging lawmakers to pass the bill.
Without the Afghan Adjustment Act, the former ambassadors wrote, “tens of thousands of recently arrived Afghans will have to find an existing immigration pathway to remain lawful once their parole expires.”
“That will mean tens of thousands of new asylum claims, when the current affirmative asylum backlog is more than 400,000 cases with a broader immigration backlog of 1.4 million cases.”
Reginald Fay Cochran, age 88 of Lula entered heaven Thursday December 22, 2022 at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Gainesville.
Reginald was born November 30, 1934 in Lula to the late Clermon & Notha Oliver Cochran. He was the former partner of North Georgia Supply Company, Double C Dairy & Pro Truss. He was a member of the Clermont Masonic Lodge number 512. Reginald was a member of Holly Springs Baptist Church where he served as a deacon and a Sunday School teacher. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Sammye Lane “Bo” Anderson Cochran.
Left to cherish precious memories, wife, Hazel Cochran; daughters, Patti C. (Reece) Gilmer & Pam C. (Danny) Thomas; grandchildren, Gerran (James) Syfan, Dani Beth (Jeremy) Little & Andy (Chloe) Thomas; great grandchildren, Lily Reece Syfan, Luca Thomas & Rhea Thomas; close family friends, Wilma Grier, Steve Crumley & Tony Murphy; close families, Oliver Family, Anderson Family, Smith Family, Cochran Family, Head Family & Wiley Family and many many more friends and families that we love dearly.
Funeral services honoring Reginald will be held 3:30 p.m. Friday December 23, 2022 at the Ward’s Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Kyle Savage & Rev. Chris Gilbert officiating. Due to the climate, the graveside service will be held in the chapel. He will be laid to rest at Holly Springs Baptist Church Cemetery. The family welcomes friends and family at Ward’s Funeral Home Friday December 23, 2022 from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers contributions may be made to a charity of one’s choice.
You may sign the online guestbook or leave a condolence at www.wardsfh.com.
Ward’s Funeral Home of Gainesville is honored to serve the family of Reginald Fay Cochran.
