Georgia Trend Daily – March 25, 2019
March 25, 2019 Albany Herald
Plant Vogtle expansion loan guarantees in place
Staff reports that MEAG Power announced Friday it has closed on $414.7 million in additional loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy to go toward the energy collective’s share of the construction of nuclear Units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro. At the same time, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Gov. Brian Kemp, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and North America’s Building Trades Unions President Sean McGarvey joined Southern Company Chairman President and CEO Tom Fanning and Paul Bowers, Georgia Power’s chairman and president and CEO, and hundreds of workers and special guests at the nuclear expansion project to announce the closing of approximately $1.67 billion in additional DOE loan guarantees for Georgia Power’s share of the project.
March 25, 2019 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
Flavor of Georgia Winners
Mary Ann DeMuth reports, for 33 inventive finalists, the wait is over. University of Georgia’s (UGA) 2019 Flavor of Georgia Food Product Contest has chosen a grand prize winner. Suzi Sheffield and Atlanta’s Beautiful Briny Sea took home the grand prize, as well as first place in the sauces and seasonings category.
March 25, 2019 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta corporations bank on beekeeping begetting better business
Ben Brasch reports, there’s an increasing buzz around some of metro Atlanta’s largest corporate campuses. Chick-fil-A, Delta, Marvel movie site Pinewood Studios, Georgia Power and AT&T all acquired bee boxes from Bee Downtown, a North Carolina-based sustainability and leadership development business.
March 25, 2019 Savannah Morning News
Monitor: Savannah Area economy strengthens during Q4
Katie Nussbaum reports that the Savannah area economy closed out 2018 on a positive note with gains in all key economic sectors, according to the fourth quarter Coastal Economic Monitor. The Monitor is a publication of the Center for Business Analytics and Economic Research under the direction of Michael Toma at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong Campus.
March 25, 2019 Rome News-Tribune
Economic Development: Something is right in Rome
Doug Walker reports that Rome and Floyd County leaders have changed the way new industry is to be recruited in the future, but something must have been going right over the course of the last several years. The Georgia Department of Community Affairs has upgraded Floyd County from a Tier 2 to a Tier 3 county for tax credit incentives for new and expanding industries.
March 25, 2019 GlobalAtlanta.com
Irish Innovators Target Atlanta Ahead of Fintech South
Trevor Williams reports that Enterprise Ireland, a government agency that supports Irish firms going abroad, led a group of seven Ireland-based innovators to Atlanta to help them navigate the community of investors, customers, partners and government officials as they aimed to deepen inroads into the U.S. market.
March 25, 2019 Gainesville Times
What’s expected as inland port brings change to Ga. 365 corridor
Gainesville-Hall County is hoping to address traffic impacts along the growing Ga. 365 corridor in northeast Hall, but a future major player in the area — the Georgia Ports Authority — also has that issue on its radar. “We’re working on all of that,” said the authority’s chief administrative officer, James C. McCurry Jr., at a February Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce meeting. “We want to make sure that the plan is the best that it can be for the community, as well as the market.”
March 25, 2019 Athens Banner-Herald, UGA
UGA opens entrepreneur-focused Studio 225
Matt Weeks reports that student entrepreneurship at the University of Georgia has a new home, thanks to a just-opened building at the interface of North Campus and downtown Athens. Studio 225, named for its West Broad Street address, will be UGA’s Student Center for Entrepreneurship.
March 25, 2019 Valdosta Daily Times
Push on to strengthen farm law
Jill Nolin reports that successful lawsuits against the hog industry in North Carolina have farmers and agribusiness interests in Georgia sounding the alarm that the state’s prized agriculture industry could be vulnerable to costly complaints over the sounds and smells of farm life.
March 25, 2019 Brunswick News
Sea Island requested, received special treatment in H.B. 445
Wes Wolfe reports that the Sea Island Company called its shot on language essentially exempting the island from the Shore Protection Act under House Bill 445, and, according to state Department of Natural Resources staff, it’s standard operating procedure. Indeed, the Sea Island carve-out, presently listed in lines 84-89, wasn’t part of the bill as it was envisioned at the beginning of the 2019 session.
March 25, 2019 Saporta Report
Under new legislation, Georgia might double spending on tire and hazardous cleanup
Maggie Lee reports that every time you buy a new tire in Georgia, you pay a $1 fee. State law says that money should pay to clean up illegal tire dumps and similar work. State reality is that millions of those dollars don’t. The law that binds those dollars to tire cleanup, recycling or closing landfills isn’t actually binding on the Legislature when it writes the budget every year. (Sounds strange, but it’s true.)
March 25, 2019 Gwinnett Daily Post
Political Notebook: Congressional candidates blast Ga. Senate over abortion bill passage
Curt Yeomans reports that Democrats from Gwinnett County who are running for Congress took the Georgia General Assembly to task on Friday and Saturday for its passage of strict anti-abortion legislation that has come to be known as The Heartbeat Bill. The state Senate passed House Bill 481 on a 34-18 vote Friday.
March 25, 2019 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Stacey Abrams group seeks ‘Fair Count’ of 2020 Census
Greg Bluestein reports that Stacey Abrams launched a nonprofit group Monday designed to ensure that hard-to-count populations are tallied during the 2020 U.S. Census, which will shape how taxpayer dollars are spent and trigger the redrawing of the state’s political maps. The organization, Fair Count, will focus on minorities, non-English speakers, renters and others who are more likely to be skipped in the once-a-decade headcount of the U.S. population.
