The Speaker of the Georgia House said Friday that a proposed Buckhead City will not be approved in this year's legislative session.
Rep. David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) told reporters he believes the new mayor of Atlanta, Andre Dickens, deserves at least one year to address the issue of crime in Atlanta, the Associated Press reports.
Earlier, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday that he opposed approval of the Buckhead city proposal this year.
The DeKalb County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on Tuesday in support of proposed new maps for the county's seven commission districts.
The maps, which retain the existing structure of five commission districts (1-5) and two superdistricts (6 and 7), are based on preliminary maps that were unanimously approved by the BOC on Dec. 21 and sent to the General Assembly's Legislative & Congressional Reapportionment Office for review.
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| Districts 1-5 |
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| Districts 6,7 |
"The office proposed some minor changes to the map that brought deviation, which is the variance between the population of each district, down well under 2 percent," Commissioner Jeff Rader said before the vote. He said the legislative reapportionment office "was able to rectify some issues related to split precincts as well as rationalize boundaries along clear physical features such as roads and creeks."
Citizens who serve on a county-required zoning review panel say DeKalb County planning officials are withholding information about zoning applications they are considering and are preventing them from attending community meetings.
Members of the District 5 Community Council said at their Monday meeting that the county's Planning & Sustainability Department did not provide them with full copies of the rezoning application they were considering.
An applicant is proposing a 200- to 300-seat restaurant with 100 parking places, a rooftop bar and a patio for outdoor entertainment at 1726 Panola Rd. The application seeks to change the property's zoning from residential to commercial. The property borders a residential area.
"We need the entire packet so that we'll have access to it," said council member Jan Costello at the council's bimonthly meeting. "We just need the information."
Panel members, who are citizen volunteers appointed by county commissioners, also complained they were not notified of the neighborhood meeting that is required by county law to be held before a zoning application is submitted.
The "structurally deficient" designation by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) means that one of a bridge's key elements is in poor condition. More than two percent of Georgia's 14,987 bridges are in this category. It would cost $12 billion to repair them all, the association says.
A bridge on Houston Mill Rd. over S. Fork Peachtree Creek, built in 1958, ranks fourth on the list, with 18,960 daily crossings. A bridge on Cedar Grove Road over the Norfolk Southern Railroad has 9,560 daily crossings and is ranked sixth. Both are classified as "urban collector" roads.
The DeKalb Board of Commissioners voted on Tuesday to formally approve Presiding Officer Robert Patrick's new committee assignments.
Commissioner Lorraine Cochran-Johnson (Superdistrict 7, representing the eastern half of DeKalb County) will continue to chair the Public Works and Infrastructure (PWI) Committee, as she has done since 2020. She will also be a member of the Finance, Audit & Budget (FAB) Committee chaired by Commissioner Jeff Rader.
Commissioner Steve Bradshaw (District 4, parts of central DeKalb County) chairs no committees this year, but will serve on the FAB panel and the Employee Relations & Public Safety Committee (ERPS) chaired by Commissioner Ted Terry.
The DeKalb NAACP will hold a virtual MLK Parade on Monday, after cancelling its plans for a parade from Green Pastures Christian Ministries to MLK High School because of winter weather.
The kick-off ceremony for the virtual 20th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. parade will take place at 11:30 a.m on Monday. The virtual parade will follow, beginning at noon.
You can join the event at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87477330490
The theme for the parade is "Marching To The Sound Of Justice."
The City of Stone Mountain and the city's St. Paul AME Church are hosting a virtual celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday at 11 a.m.
The keynote speaker will be Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, presiding prelate of the Sixth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church.
The event can be viewed on the City of Stone Mountain's Facebook page, which appears to require a Facebook account to log in.
DeKalb County lawmakers expect election-year politics to dominate this year's General Assembly session, which will consider new county commission district maps and proposals for two new cities.
"I anticipate that many of the issues that we will be deliberating upon will be those issues that put the majority party in good stead with their base because this is an election year," State Rep. Billy Mitchell (D-Stone Mountain) told an online delegation town hall meeting on Saturday.
"There's probably going to be at least two cityhood issues that will have to be analyzed and deliberated upon and discussed. I would encourage you to stay active, get involved, let your state senator and state representative know how you feel about these issues because that carries the day," Mitchell said.
A proposal for a new city in south DeKalb County, first launched in 2014, remains active. Previously called Greenhaven, proponents are now calling it the City of DeKalb. There is also a proposal for a city encompassing Atlanta's Buckhead shopping and business district.
"The effort to have Buckhead secede from the City of Atlanta is on the table," State Sen. Elena Parent (D-Atlanta) said, adding that she assumed most DeKalb legislators "would be adamantly against that for a variety of reasons." She said Georgia's Governor, Lieutenant Governor and House Speaker have "been a bit lukewarm to that, but it remains a very dangerous issue and, frankly, it's been over a decade since the state should have revamped its approach to the creation of new cities and put a better process in place. This is yet another example of why that should have been done."
Legislators will also consider revamped DeKalb County commission districts. The Board of Commissioners approved new district maps without revealing them publicly or allowing the public to comment on them directly at a commission meeting. Critics say the proposed maps would divide county neighborhoods while favoring existing cities.
State Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur), the chair of the DeKalb Senate delegation, acknowledged the county's proposed maps. "We appreciate their input but the responsibility of redistricting and reapportioning in DeKalb County lies squarely on the state legislature and not the county commission," he said.
"It's the delegation's responsibility to redistrict the seven commission districts for DeKalb County," Jones said. "We have members of DeKalb County government that have a lot more members in the district than some of the DeKalb County government officials on the south side of the county."
Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates), chair of the county's House delegation, encouraged DeKalb County residents to provide comments to the county's state legislators on the "tentative" proposed maps. "Our process is just starting, your opportunity to weigh in is invited," she said. "All of us will be involved."
Lawmakers said Republicans can be expected to make further changes to Georgia election law, building on last year's legislation that restricted the locations of ballot drop boxes and increased state influence on local election boards.
"They're literally creating cheating empires," Mitchell said. "There's going to be an attempt, primarily through the local legislation process, to change the non-partisan nature of these election boards. They started last session and I expect to see much more of that."
Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, who is running for Lieutenant Governor, will "tack much harder to the right in order to try to win the primary," Parent said. He is "now pushing for the elimination of all [ballot] drop boxes, which was not a position he was taking last year," she said.
Teacher pay raises will be on the agenda, as well as mental healthcare reform and gambling, such online sports betting, destination resorts and horse racing, said Mitchell.
He said permit-free gun carry legislation will be considered. "This is a big issue to the base of the majority party," Mitchell said. "There are those who believe that you ought not to have to apply and have a permit to carry a gun in public. It's an incredible notion when you think about it."
Former DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones says he has filed a complaint with the Georgia Secretary of State's office, alleging that the county violated state election rules by placing a ballot drop box on private property.
Jones, a Republican candidate for governor, alleges that DeKalb County advertised, listed and used an absentee ballot box located on privately owned property in violation of State Election Board Rule 183-1-14-0.6-.14, the Albany Herald reports.
"I will always be a fighter and protector of election integrity and voters' rights," Jones said in a news release.
Jones announced he was switching to the Republican Party at a pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., just hours before the violent Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He said last year that Georgia's November 2020 presidential election was "fixed."
A Fulton County prosecutor has told the Associated Press she expects to ask for a special grand jury to investigate efforts by Donald Trump and others to overturn the Georgia election results.
The DeKalb Board of Registration and Elections will hold its regular monthly meeting on Thursday, January 13, at 4:30 p.m. The agenda for the meeting has not yet been published.
Public comments of two minutes or less can be made through the Zoom link:
https://dekalbcountyga.zoom.us/j/97184078303
The county says it will also stream the meeting at:
https://video.ibm.com/channel/dctv-channel-23
Stonecrest Mayor Jason Lary appeared in court Wednesday on criminal charges of wire fraud, conspiracy, and federal program theft related to $6.2 million in COVID-19 relief assistance received by the city.
Lania Boone, a bookkeeper for the Municipal Resource Partners Corporation, Inc., an entity contracted by Stonecrest to disburse the relief funds, has been charged with conspiring with Lary to steal the money.
Federal prosecutors said that approximately $108,000 in stolen funds were used to pay off the mortgage on a lakefront home that Lary owned, $50,000 went to paying Lary's back taxes, and $7,600 went to pay college tuition and rent for Boone's son. Money was also used for political purposes, they said.
The Stone Mountain Memorial Association, the state-chartered authority that oversees Stone Mountain Park, on Monday announced its next meeting will take place at 11 a.m. on Monday, October 25 at the Evergreen Conference Center inside the park.
The agenda for the meeting indicates it will include a year-to-date financial report and an executive session not open to the public.
The last meeting of the SMMA was on September 20. The SMMA board is seeking a business to operate the park's attractions and replace a Herschend Family Entertainment subsidiary that is leaving the park next summer after more two decades.
A portion of the Oct. 25 meeting will include public comments, but the agenda says speakers must be "scheduled" prior to the meeting. Only five members of the public will be allowed to speak and they will be limited to three minutes each.
In August, the association voted to adopt a new logo that removed a depiction of the mountain's carving of Confederate leaders. The carving on the mountain, the largest bas-relief sculpture in the world, remains. It portrays Confederate figures Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.
A Get Out To Vote rally is scheduled to take place in downtown Stone Mountain on Saturday, October 23, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The event on Saturday will take place adjacent to the Stone Mountain Visitor's Center and the city's main parking lot on Main St.
The City of Stone Mountain granted a permit for the event to St. Paul AME Church, which is located on Third St. in the city's Shermantown neighborhood.
Speakers, candidates and music will be featured at the rally, which is intended to encourage voting in the upcoming November election.
A 45-year-old Newton County Man was arrested on Friday in Stone Mountain as part of a state and local investigation into online exploitation and child molestation.
Derrick Crooms was arrested by federal marshals acting on a tip. He was charged with two counts of incest, two counts of aggravated sexual battery, two counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of child molestation and one count of enticing a child for indecent purposes. He was transported from Stone Mountain to the Newton County Jail.
The GBI has been working on an investigation with the sheriff's offices in Newton and Oconee counties for almost a year, following a request from the Oconee County Sheriff's Office. Their probe alleges the crimes occurred in Newton County as well as at other locations around the country.
The GBI says the arrest is part of an ongoing effort by its Internet Crime Against Children Task Force, a program created by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Crooms' wife, Rachel Overton, a traveling nurse, was arrested in February in Wisconsin. Authorities said she was aware of but failed to report Croom's criminal acts to law enforcement. After she was returned to Georgia, she was charged with third-degree cruelty to children and failure to report as mandated. She has been released on bail.
Tips about similar crimes can be provided to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation Unit at 404-270-8870 or submitted anonymously by calling 1-800-597-TIPS(8477), online at https://gbi.georgia.gov/submit-tips-online, or by downloading the See Something, Send Something mobile app.
State Rep. Billy Mitchell (D-Stone Mountain) was among those who spoke at a U.S. Senate Rules Committee hearing held in Atlanta on Monday regarding new restrictions in Georgia's voting law.
The field hearing was held the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta, the Associated Press reports.
U.S. Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff were among those who criticized revised limits on registration periods, runoff voting, drop boxes and a provision that would allow the General Assembly's majority party to bypass local election officials.
Mitchell, who chairs the Georgia House Democratic Caucus, said that last provision allows "cheating umpires" who could replace local officials with political appointees "whose only concern is the will of the person who appointed them."
"If they don't like the outcome of an election, they can simply and immediately just take over the election board," the Washington Post quoted Mitchell as saying. "For that reason alone, these election laws should concern us all."
According to the Albany Herald, Mitchell noted that courts rejected every lawsuit alleging voting fraud in last year's elections. "With the highest level of voter participation and the lowest number of challenges, why would you want to change that?" Mitchell asked the Senate panel.