Firefighters responding to a structure fire instead found a camper on fire in Cleveland on Tuesday.
The fifth-wheel camper was parked on a lot with other campers in the 6200 block of Highway 129 South. White County Public Safety says it was vacant. Firefighters from the county and Cleveland responded to the call around 8:30 a.m. on November 1.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
(GA Recorder) — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham will have to testify before a Fulton County special grand jury investigating 2020 election interference after the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected his attempt to quash the subpoena.
The Supreme Court’s unsigned decision sets up a scheduled Nov. 17 showdown – which would be the latest trip to Georgia in several weeks for the veteran senator, who is expected to face questions about whether he tried to pressure state election officials to overturn former President Donald Trump’s 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.
The Supreme Court’s order does exempt Graham from having to answer questions directly tied to his legislative duties.
Attorneys for the senator said that when he called the Georgia secretary of state’s office about the state’s procedures for disqualifying absentee ballots and other election matters, he was acting under his responsibilities of certifying elections and as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
According to the unsigned order, Graham’s speech or debate clause immunity does not justify blocking him from appearing before the grand jury. The Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause shields lawmakers from certain criminal or civil proceedings connected to their legislative duties.
Graham asked the Supreme Court last month to reverse a U.S. District Court judge’s ruling denying Graham’s motion to suppress the subpoena, with some restrictions on having to answer questions about details Graham discussed with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other officials as part of his “fact-finding” mission before certifying the election
Graham’s appearance is to occur before a 23-member panel that will issue a report with recommendations whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should pursue charges in a wide-ranging and long-running probe with dozens of witnesses that include some of Trump’s closest allies and Georgia political officials.
Willis initiated the investigation spurred by the public release of a recorded January 2020 phone call in which Trump pressed Raffensperger to find enough ballots to overcome Biden’s victory.
Last week, a South Carolina judge ordered Trump’s ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows to appear in the Atlanta courthouse after he fought the grand jury’s subpoena. Among those who have testified in the grand jury probe are Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, named by prosecutors as a target for his role in pushing baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud in Georgia.
Meanwhile, a Fulton judge in charge of overseeing the special investigation has ordered that Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp must testify following his Nov. 8 re-election bid against Democrat Stacey Abrams. The judge in that case rejected arguments that the governor could avoid a grand jury appearance because of executive privilege and sovereign immunity, which protects the state from being sued without its consent.
And the grand jury will also hear from nearly all of the 16 Georgia Republicans who, during a secret December 2020 meeting at the Capitol, served as fake electors and cast illegitimate votes for Trump. A judge ruled in July that the exception is Republican state Sen. Burt Jones, who participated in the meeting of fake electors. Jones does not need to testify in Willis’ investigation because she hosted a June fundraiser for his opponent in this year’s lieutenant governor’s race, Democrat Charlie Bailey.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating the death of a Hartwell man whose body was discovered early Tuesday morning on a Northeast Georgia highway.
According to Hart County Sheriff Mike Cleveland, a driver traveling on GA 172/Bowman Highway called 911 after their vehicle struck the body. Deputies responded to the scene and found 32-year-old Delphonso Heard dead in the road.
“It appeared Heard had been shot prior to being struck by two separate vehicles,” says Cleveland.
The Hart County Sheriff’s Office asked the GBI to assist in the investigation. Investigators are seeking the public’s help, too. They’re asking anyone with information about this incident to please contact the sheriff’s office at 706-376-3114.
Anonymous tips may be submitted to the GBI Tipline by phoning 1-800-597-8477 (TIPS) or online at https://gbi.georgia.gov/submit-tips-online.
WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — Democrats and Republicans have just a handful of frantic days left to convince voters who should control Congress before voting in the Nov. 8 midterm elections ends.
The two political parties are spending millions on campaign ads and mailers in the dozens of toss-up races that will determine control of Congress, while President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama and former President Donald Trump are hitting the campaign trail, from Florida to Iowa to Pennsylvania, to bolster candidates.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball, an election forecasting newsletter, expects control of the U.S. Senate—now split 50-50 between the parties— to come down to two pivotal states, Georgia and Nevada.
The newsletter predicts the remaining Senate races as favoring Democrats or Republicans, though some ratings could change in the days to come.
In the U.S. House, the Crystal Ball predicts that 218 seats, the minimum number to control that chamber, are at least leaning toward Republicans with 195 as safe, likely or leaning toward Democratic wins. The remaining 22 races are rated as toss-ups.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said who will hold the majority in the U.S. Senate is still too hard to predict, though he expects Republicans will oust Democrats from control of the U.S. House.
“I think the Senate is still up in the air,” Kondik said. “I guess, given the environment, you might expect things to maybe break toward the Republicans at the end, but I think if you go race-by-race, you don’t necessarily see that. The other confounding factor is that Georgia still seems likelier than not to go to a runoff, which could punt the battle for Senate control until December.”
The Georgia Senate race is close, with Republican challenger Herschel Walker up by 1.6 percentage points over Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, according to the Real Clear Politics polls average.
But polls are within the margin of error. One poll from the New York Times/Siena has Warnock up by 3 percentage points, and another poll by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has Walker up by 1 percentage point.
Georgia had record voter turnout on the first few days of early voting, the Georgia Recorder reported, with more than 1 million Georgians casting their ballots—a 70% increase over this point in the 2018 midterm election.
Nearly 26 million Americans had voted early as of Monday through a combination of in-person and mail-in ballots, according to the United States Elections Project.
The neck-and-neck Nevada race, which features Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and former Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt, is seen as both a potentially deciding race and a barometer of the national mood.
Consistently one of the closest races in polling all year, the Nevada contest was tied in the late October New York Times/Siena survey. Each candidate received 47% support, with 4% declining to state a preference.
In U.S. House races, Kondik said, Republicans are favored to become the majority party, with the question being how many seats they pick up as opposed to whether they gain control.
Kondik said Biden’s negative approval rating—which Gallup found at 40 percent a week ago—is one of the key factors that Democrats are dealing with this election cycle, not necessarily objections among voters to any one policy position. Abortion rights, inflation, crime and immigration all have been fought over this election cycle.
“To me, more than any single issue, I think it’s just… how much does Biden’s negative approval rating drag down Democrats, and you can tie a lot of policy questions in with that,” Kondik said.
Many Democrats, he said, have been able to gain more support in polls than Biden, allowing them to run ahead of the president, though that could erode heading into Election Day.
That could allow Republicans to win Senate seats in Arizona, Nevada or Pennsylvania, or even possibly other races currently favored for Democrats, Kondik said.
Even in states and districts that normally favor Democrats, several races are in play.
In Oregon, for example, Republicans could hold multiple U.S. House seats for the first time in 26 years. Three of six House races are competitive, in part because the state added a seat after redistricting last year.
But the new district—rated as leaning toward Democrats—isn’t Republicans’ most likely pickup. That would be a race to replace longtime Democratic incumbent Kurt Schrader, whom Jamie McCleod-Skinner ousted in the May primary. Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates the race lean Republican, and the Oregon Capital Chronicle recently reported the national political climate appears increasingly likely to give the seat to Republicans.
Despite the current odds, Democrats plan to campaign down to the wire and are calling on Obama to help close the deal.
Obama has stumped for Democratic candidates in several battleground states during just the past week, including stops in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. He’s also set to rally in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on Saturday to bolster Democrats in one of the closest Senate races in the country, between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz.
First lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have joined the campaign push as well, visiting battleground states or places Democrats are only narrowly favored to win.
Biden is also on the trail, traveling to Florida Tuesday to talk about Social Security, Medicare and prescription drug prices before flying to New Mexico on Thursday to talk about student debt forgiveness. He’ll then join Obama at the Philadelphia rally Saturday.
Republicans are traveling the country too, with Trump campaigning with Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley as well as incumbent GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds. And senators not up for reelection this cycle, like Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the head of the Senate GOP campaign arm, are traveling to tightly contested states like New Hampshire, where incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan faces GOP challenger Don Bolduc.
Republicans gaining control of the U.S. House, even if they don’t pick up the Senate, would lead to substantial changes in the bills that come to the floor and how the chamber functions.
For example, GOP leaders would likely remove the metal detectors that members and staff must walk through before entering the U.S. House, installed following the Jan. 6 attack by pro-Trump rioters.
The use of proxy voting, which allows House members to vote remotely via another member, would likely go away as well. While Republicans have used the feature of the COVID-19 pandemic frequently, they’ve also criticized Democrats for keeping the practice in place. And several news stories have pointed out that members, who are only supposed to proxy vote if they cannot attend in-person due to COVID-19, have frequently used it to attend events or campaign.
Republican House leaders’ so-called Commitment to America, released in September in Pennsylvania, outlines the party’s legislative goals should they regain control. And while it’s short on actual details, it says the GOP would reduce government spending, advance abortion legislation and make changes to Social Security and Medicare.
House Republicans are also eyeing the debt limit and government funding deadlines as a way to force Democrats to the negotiating table for spending cuts, should the GOP regain control of Congress following the midterm elections.
Republicans in the U.S. Senate, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, haven’t detailed exactly what they’d do if given control of that chamber.
Democrats have said if they get two more years of unified control of Congress, they’d move to try to codify Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that recognized abortion access as a constitutional right.
Democrats have also said they will try to advance elements of their climate change, health care and tax package that was slimmed down in the U.S. Senate to get the backing of centrist Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Divided government is much more likely at this point, however, with Biden remaining in control of the White House and Republicans controlling at least one chamber of Congress.
The split would force both parties to work together on basic responsibilities, though possibly not bigger legislation like the bipartisan infrastructure law or the semiconductor and manufacturing law known as the Chips Act.
Tevi Troy, senior fellow of the Presidential Leadership Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former deputy secretary of Health and Human Services in the George W. Bush administration, said during an online discussion this week that losing control of the Senate “would have grave implications for Biden’s ability to get the people he needs into office.”
“Pretty much, if Biden picks someone to serve in his government, he’s generally getting them through,” Troy said. “That would not be the case if there is a Republican Senate and certainly not if you get 52 or 53 votes.”
If Republicans gain control of the U.S. House, Troy said investigations into the Biden administration and congressional oversight hearings would serve an important role for the GOP, though he cautioned GOP leaders against making that the predominant focus.
“If McCarthy is smart—and again he says he’s learned the lessons of 2010—he will see these investigations as kind of a pressure valve, a way to get some of the more partisan elements within his party to get the satisfaction they’re looking for in terms of investigating things that need oversight,” Troy said, referring to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.
“If McCarthy’s smart, that cannot be the overall, sole focus of this new Congress,” he added. “And nobody is voting for Republicans to take over solely to do investigations. The American people want policy wins, they want accomplishments. And I think oversight is one element of what a Congress does. But I think if they just do oversight, it will be a failure.”
Based on history alone, Democrats are facing an uphill battle trying to hold onto both chambers, given that the president’s party typically loses seats and often control of Congress during the first midterm election.
The landmark first midterms of Bill Clinton’s presidency in 1994 saw Democrats lose 54 seats in the House, upending a majority they’d held since 1955. In the Senate, Democrats lost nine total seats, moving to the minority party for the first time since 1987.
But Republicans actually gained eight seats in the House following the 2002 midterms, the first of George W. Bush’s presidency. And Republicans went from 50 Senate seats to 51.
Obama’s first midterm election test came in 2010, when Democrats lost 64 seats in the House. In the Senate, Democrats went from 57 seats with two independent members caucusing with them to 51 seats with two independents as part of the caucus.
Republicans lost 42 seats in the House during the 2018 midterms, the first contest during Trump’s one term in office. But Republicans picked up two Senate seats that year, according to records from the House and historical information from the Senate.
_______________
Jacob Fischler and Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.
Maurine Traylor Wall, age 87 of Clarkesville, passed away Monday, October 31, 2022.
Born in Decatur, Alabama on July 27, 1935, Mrs. Wall was the daughter of the late Clarence Aubrey Traylor and Lola Mae Patterson Traylor. Maurine grew up near Albany, Georgia. After high school graduation, she moved to Atlanta where she met her future husband, Lewis Arthur Wall. Maurine and Lewis were married in 1954. They settled in Decatur and then later in Clarkston, Georgia where they raised their three children, David, Katrina, and Stoni.
Maurine worked for the Internal Revenue Service in Atlanta as a Revenue Agent for 30 years. After Maurine retired, she remained in Clarkston until 2004 when she moved to Clarkesville, Georgia.
Maurine had enviable amounts of energy in her younger days. She loved to go on walks around Stone Mountain, and she water skied well into her late 50s. Maurine was an avid Braves fan and rarely missed a game. If she was not able to watch the game on television, she was sure to listen to it on the radio. She attended all of her children’s many sporting events (and later, the sporting events of her grandchildren).
Mrs. Wall had a very strong faith throughout her life and was a member of Hills Crossing Baptist Church in Clarkesville. She always looked for ways to serve the Lord, her family, and her friends. She was an excellent seamstress and made beautiful clothing and quilts for her children and grandchildren. She was an incredible cook and made countless Southern meals for her family and friends. Some of her specialties included fried okra, creamed corn, macaroni and cheese, turkey dressing, chicken and dumplings, red velvet cake, and German chocolate cake. She enjoyed making meals for her church, and also for a men’s shelter in Habersham County. She was a caring and loving person who always made time to catch up on the phone or in person with her many family members and friends. Even in her final days, you could tell how much Maurine loved you just by her smile.
Mrs. Wall spent the last 7 months of her life at Vernon Springs Senior Living in Sandy Springs. She had many wonderful caregivers and nurses while she was there, and her family is so grateful for the kind and loving care that she received.
In addition to her parents, Mrs. Wall is preceded in death by her husband Lewis Arthur Wall, granddaughter Rachel Wall, brother Robert Traylor and sister Emma Jane Moore.
Survivors include sons and daughters-in-law David and Gloria Wall of Peachtree Corners and Stoni and Lisa Wall of Stockbridge, daughter, and son-in-law Katrina Wall Moody and Peter Costa of Atlanta, brother Frank Traylor of Kennesaw, grandchildren Stefanie Mitchell (Matt), Aaron Moody, Virginia Wall, Charles Wall and Natalia Wall, great-grandchildren Wade, Brooks and Bo Mitchell, as well as numerous nieces, nephews, and extended family.
Funeral services will be held at 2:00 PM, Friday, November 4, 2022, at Hills Crossing Baptist Church with Rev. Walter Singletary, officiating.
Interment will follow the service in the church cemetery.
The family will receive friends at Hillside Memorial Chapel on Friday, November 4th, from 12:00 PM until the service hour.
An online guest book is available for the Smith family at www.HillsideMemorialChapel.com.
Arrangements are in the care and professional direction of Hillside Memorial Chapel & Gardens, Clarkesville, Georgia. (706) 754-6256
It took four months, but two suspects are now in custody for an armed holdup in Athens.
Arrest warrants were signed in July for Quintavis Tillman and Alyssa Ivey, both 22. They’re accused of robbing a 29-year-old Athens man at gunpoint in broad daylight on Jefferson Road on July 5, 2022.
On October 30, officers arrested Ivey, of Eatonton, for being a party to the crime of armed robbery. With assistance from the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, police arrested Tillman, of Athens, the following day. They charged him with armed robbery, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
Athens-Clarke County Police Lt. Shaun Barnett says the investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact Detective Harrison at 762-400-7361, or via email at [email protected].
WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday questioned the legality of race-conscious policies in college admissions, as the justices weighed two cases that could upend the admissions process many colleges use to try to boost diversity on campus.
At issue are two cases that challenge the lawfulness of affirmative action at Harvard University, the nation’s oldest private university, and the University of North Carolina, one of its oldest public universities.
Depending on the scope of the court’s ruling, the outcome of these lawsuits could affect admissions at hundreds of colleges and universities across the country and even potentially affect broader efforts like workplace diversity programs.
The oral arguments, scheduled to last just over two-and-a-half hours, stretched for nearly six hours in one of the most controversial cases before the court this year
Members of the court’s conservative wing, who now make up a 6-3 majority of the bench, questioned if it is legal for universities to consider race and for how long such policies should endure.
Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative justice from Pin Point, Georgia and the only Black man on the Supreme Court, asked each of the lawyers who argued in favor of UNC’s admissions process to explain how racial diversity benefits the educational experience of students.
“I didn’t go to racially diverse schools but there were educational benefits. And I’d like you to tell me expressly when a parent sends a kid to college that they don’t necessarily send them there to have fun or feel good or anything like that. They send them there to learn physics or chemistry or whatever they’re studying,” Thomas said to Ryan Park, the attorney representing UNC. “So tell me what the educational benefits are to that?”
Park referenced studies that found diverse groups of people perform at a higher levels, have less group-think, more sustained disagreement and more efficient decision-making outcomes.
Thomas sounded unmoved: ”Well, I guess I don’t put much stock in that because I’ve heard similar arguments in favor of segregation too.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked how religious diversity is considered in the admissions process and why it has “disparate treatment” from racial consideration.
RELATED Affirmative action supporters rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court
The more liberal justices, who are in the minority, defended the use of race in admissions and argued it would be difficult to achieve diversity without any consideration of race.
Justice Elena Kagan, the former dean of Harvard Law School, noted the importance of racial diversity on college campuses because they are “pipelines to leadership in our society.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned if a college could consider the breadth of a student’s experience without consideration of race.
She presented a hypothetical example of a Black student, descended from slaves who were not allowed to attend UNC, who would not be allowed to write about that in his application. But a white student, descended from generations of UNC graduates, would be able to reference the importance of that family connection.
“What I am worried about is … the context of a holistic review process of a university that can take into account and value all of the other background and personal characteristics of applicants, but they can’t value race,” Jackson said in arguments with the lawyer challenging UNC’s policies.
“What I’m worried about is that it seems to me to have the potential of causing more of an equal protection problem than it is solving,” Jackson added.
Jackson participated in the debate of the UNC case but not the Harvard case. Jackson, the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and sat on the Harvard Board of Overseers until last spring.
Since 1978, the Supreme Court has maintained that colleges and universities may consider race or ethnicity as a “plus factor” in admissions to try to create more diversity on campuses.
Schools cannot have racial quotas or use race as a sole determining factor. It is one factor among many they may consider in acceptance.
But the victories for affirmative action have been narrow in the last three different Supreme Court decisions, where the justices split 5-4, 5-4, and 4-3 to uphold its constitutionality.
The Supreme Court last ruled on an affirmative action case in 2016, recent history in the timeline of case law.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito were the dissenters in the 2016 decision. Now they have three more conservatives on the bench with them: Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.
Several of those more conservative justices questioned if the policy should endure. They noted that one of the precedent-setting cases itself warned that such policies should not go on forever. The 2003 Grutter vs. Bollinger case that allowed the limited use of race in college admissions also forecast that affirmative action would no longer be needed 25 years after the ruling.
The court’s conservative justices asked if colleges are reaching the end of that timeline, 19 years later.
“When do you read or do you calculate, to the extent you consider it at all, the 25-year limit?” Kavanaugh asked.
They also questioned how to determine if the goals of affirmative action are ever reached.
“How do you know when you are done? When would you have the endpoint?” Barrett asked.
“I don’t see how you can say that the program will ever end,” Roberts told UNC lawyer Ryan Park.
Gen. Elizabeth Prelogar, solicitor general for the Department of Justice, joined the defendants to argue in favor of current policies. She noted racial diversity is particularly important at the nation’s military schools and academies to help ensure a more diverse officer corps that reflects the diversity of enlisted soldiers.
But she said the effects of a ruling could be much more broad.
“The petitioner seeks a sweeping ruling that would harm students at schools and colleges throughout the nation. A blanket ban on race conscious admissions would cause racial diversity to plummet at many of our nation’s leading educational institutions,” Prelogar said.
“Race-neutral alternatives right now can’t make up the difference, so all students at those schools would be denied the benefits of learning in a diverse educational environment. And because college is the training ground for America’s future leaders, the negative consequences would have reverberations throughout just about every important institution in America.”
But the immediate effects in Georgia could be muted because of a decades-old court ruling.
In 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled in favor of a trio of young women who were rejected from the University of Georgia, which, at the time, awarded a bonus to non-white and male applicants.
The court found that the admission process violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Most Georgia public colleges now do not consider an applicant’s ethnicity, according to information aggregated by CollegeData.com, with exceptions including Georgia Tech and Georgia College and State University. Emory University, the state’s largest private school, also considers an applicant’s race.
Georgia’s nonwhite student population has grown in recent years, increasing from 46% of the population in spring 2012 to 49.3% in 2017 to 54% this spring. The same time period has also seen Georgia’s population as a whole become more diverse, according to census numbers.
The nonprofit Students for Fair Admissions filed the lawsuits to argue that consideration of race is discriminatory and violates civil rights laws.
In the North Carolina case, it argues the university discriminates against white and Asian American applicants by giving preference to Black, Native American or Hispanic applicants.
The group accuses Harvard in particular of discriminating against Asian American applicants in order to boost representation from other groups. According to the group, Asian American applicants are significantly less likely to be admitted to Harvard than similarly qualified white, Black or Hispanic applicants.
“What Harvard is doing to Asians, like what it was doing to Jews in the 1920s, is shameful, But it’s a predictable result of letting universities use race in highly subjective processes,” Cameron Norris, the lawyer arguing against the Harvard policy, told the court. Harvard limited the number of Jewish students it accepted in the 1920s.
The cases are the pinnacle of decades of legal challenges from Students for Fair Admissions, a group started by Edward Blum, a retired financier and conservative legal activist who has launched other lawsuits over what he sees as racial preferences in school admissions.
_____________
The Georgia Recorder’s Ross Williams contributed to this report
The November 8 general election is just one week away. Georgia voters hoping to beat the lines on election day have just a few days left to cast early ballots. Early voting ends on November 4.
Already, 1.6 million Georgians have voted.
According to state elections officials, Georgians have cast 1,505,447 early in-person ballots and submitted another 155,104 absentee mail-in ballots through October 31.
Georgia has posted record early voting turnout since the polls opened on October 17. Election officials continue to encourage voters to take advantage of the flexibility offered by early voting. Most counties offer multiple early voting locations, but on election day, voters must vote at their assigned precincts.
According to the secretary of state’s office, 1,054 ballots have been rejected statewide – accounting for .06% of the total votes cast. Those voters will receive “cure notices” explaining how they can cure any discrepancy.
To find early voting locations and hours in your county, visit the My Voter Page on the secretary of state’s website.
Ninth District Opportunity is now taking applications for its home heating and water assistance programs. Households within the nonprofit’s service area in which every member is age 65 and older or homebound due to health reasons may apply beginning November 1st.
If enough funds are available, the general public may apply beginning December 1st.
Qualifying households may receive a one-time payment of up to $500 to their primary heating vendor and up to $300 to their home water supplier.
When applying for assistance, you must present verification of age for everyone in the home, verification of all household income received within the past 30 days, verification of Social Security numbers for everyone in the home, verification of citizenship, and your most recent home heating or electric bill and water bill.
To apply, contact Ninth District Opportunity’s scheduling system by phone at 855-636-3108 or through the Ninth District Opportunity website.
Athens police have made an arrest in the October 21 shooting that left one teen dead and another hospitalized.
On October 28, Athens-Clarke County police arrested Jeffery Rice, 26, of Athens, for his involvement in the fatal shooting on Gaines School Road. Police charged Rice with murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and three counts of violation of the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.
On the afternoon of October 21, police responding to a report of a shooting in the 100 block of Gaines School Road. They found a 19-year-old male dead and an 18-year-old male wounded. He was transported by EMS to a local hospital.
Preliminary information released by police immediately following the shooting indicated the two teens had shot each other.
Athens-Clarke County Police Public Information Officer Lt. Shaun Barnett says the investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact Detective Johnson at 762-400-7060, or via email at [email protected].
Anyone with information about criminal street gang activity is asked to phone ACCPD’s Crime Tip Line at 706-705-4775, email the Gang Unit at [email protected] or leave an anonymous tip on the Gang Unit’s website.
(GA Recorder) — Georgia’s film tax credit helped bring blockbuster productions like “Stranger Things,” “Ozark” and “Spiderman: No Way Home” to the state, along with an estimated $4.4 billion in spending during the 12 months ending June 30.
But a new report from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts finds lingering concerns about the program’s transparency and rising cost to the state treasury.
The program, passed in 2005, offers a tax credit of up to 30% for production companies that spend at least $500,000 on qualified productions. The amount of the annual credit more than doubled between 2013 and 2019, growing from $407 million to $961 million. The Georgia Department of Economic Development estimates credit amounts for 2021 and 2022 exceeded $1 billion, making Georgia’s incentive the largest of any state.
But unlike most states that offer film tax incentives, Georgia does not put a cap on the amount of credit granted. New York and California, the states with the next largest incentive amounts, cap theirs at $420 million per year. The state auditor’s office recommended Georgia cap its credit to reduce financial risk to the state.
Back in March, Rome Republican and Senate Finance Chair Sen. Chuck Hufstetler tried to do just that, proposing a cap of $900 million on the credits, but his colleagues eventually nixed the proposal.
“It just keeps growing, and I could get into the things we’re paying for, private jets and chefs and personal trainers and stuff that probably needs cleaning up,” Hufstetler said in a committee meeting.
But the program has received broad support from lawmakers of both parties. Atlanta Democratic Sen. Nan Orrock told the committee messing with it would be reckless.
“I just feel very cautionary about our whacking this tax credit that’s made us the third highest state in the country for film activity,” she said. “So it’s hard to have a comfort level with that being added in. It just seems incautious to me.”
Film is big business in Georgia – the state reported hosting 32 feature films, 36 independent films, 269 television and episodic productions, 42 commercials and 33 music videos between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.
Tax credit supporters compare the $4.4 billion spent in 2022 with a combined $1.4 billion from 1973 to 2008. They point out that Georgia went from having 45,000 square feet of stage space in 2010 to having more than 3 million square feet in 2022, with more than 4 million square feet planned for the next two years, much of that supported by local investment.
The pro-credit side says all that movie making brings additional jobs not directly accounted for by studios, such as local carpenters, caterers, electricians, and engineers.
But importing movie magic comes at a cost — an average of more than $300 per household — and the film industry’s halo effect is often overstated, said Kennesaw State University economist J.C. Bradbury.
“I have no doubt that that happens, but what is not easily seen is that these people would not be otherwise unemployed if not for the film industry,” he said. “We don’t subsidize a lot of the other industries that would be producing other (jobs). We don’t have a high unemployment rate in Georgia. Local Georgians who are employed in the film industry would otherwise be employed in other occupations within Georgia, and we would be just fine. There’s been a lot of research done on the economic stimulus effects of subsidizing the film industry, and no studies have found any stimulus.”
The state auditor’s office found Georgia has done a better job of realistically portraying the economic impact of the film tax credit on the state economy after significantly overstating the benefit for years, but the department of economic development’s reporting on film production jobs “is still misleading at times.”
For example, auditors found that economic development touted that productions filmed in Georgia delivered $9.2 billion in total wages, but it did not disclose that that number included distribution jobs including movie theater workers.
Auditors said state officials claimed “tens of thousands” of Georgians were employed in film production, while federal data showed approximately 10,700 Georgia jobs in film production.
A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Economic Development did not reply to a request for comment for this story, but in a written response to the audit, the department said it “stands by its reporting of the direct spend and job figures related to the film industry in Georgia, as this information comes directly from its expenditure form collected from all applicants, as well as other reputable sources.”
The auditors found another mixed bag in the amount of credit benefits going to residents of other states.
In 2016, 88% of the credit went to companies with no permanent locations in Georgia, and 53% of the wages used toward the credit were paid out to non-Georgians. Most other states with a film incentive require or incentivize hiring residents.
“We are covering 30% of the cost of most of the economic activity that’s taking place and the transfer of resources to people who don’t even live in the state of Georgia, and are earning extremely high wages from doing so, a lot of Hollywood talent coming here,” Bradbury said. “And simply paying them to do a job they would have otherwise done in Hollywood in the state of Georgia is really just sending that money outside the state. It’s not enriching Georgia.”
The legislature hasn’t made any changes to incentivize hiring Georgia residents, but a bill requiring credit recipients to disclose more of their operations should reduce credits earned for out-of-state expenditures, the auditors found. A separate report released in July found the state economic development department fully or partially addressed all findings related to the credit’s administration.
An Alto man remains behind bars following his arrest over the weekend on drug charges.
Narcotics investigators with the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office arrested 34-year-old Johnathan Maxwell Venziano on October 28. They took him into custody following a search at a residence at 185 Alonzo Wade Road.
Sheriff’s investigators were asked to assist with a search at the residence of an individual on active probation.
During the search, authorities say they located approximately four ounces of methamphetamine, digital scales, and plastic baggies. Additionally, investigators located approximately 10 ounces of marijuana, the sheriff’s office says.
Investigators charged Venziano with trafficking methamphetamine, possession of meth with intent to distribute, and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. They also charged him with a parole violation, online jail records show. All four counts are felonies.
Venziano is being held in the Habersham County Detention Center without bond.
