Georgia Trend Daily – Aug. 24, 2022
Aug. 24, 2022 GPB
Remembering Sandra Deal, former first lady of Georgia
Kristi York Wooten and staff report that former Georgia first lady Sandra Dunagan Deal has died at 80. She died Tuesday after a battle with cancer. Governor Brian Kemp announced her death from his Twitter account early Tuesday evening.
Human Potential: Common Good Atlanta offers courses to individuals incarcerated at Georgia prisons
Photo: Meg Buscema
Aug. 24, 2022 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
Organizations: Common Good Atlanta
Candice Dyer reports that Georgia has one of the nation’s highest incarceration rates. In 2008, Sarah Higinbotham, a doctoral candidate at Georgia State University, wanted to teach a literature class inside a prison and was surprised to learn that no program of that kind existed.
Aug. 24, 2022 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia authority acquires Rivian land, grading to start soon
Zachary Hansen reports that a local government authority recently acquired the full 2,000-acre site where Rivian plans to build its $5 billion electric vehicle factory. The Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton Counties said Tuesday it paid nearly $90 million to buy the 44 parcels that will comprise the Rivian factory site.
Aug. 24, 2022 Marietta Daily Journal
Fragrance company to expand after receiving $27 million bond
Jake Busch reports that fragrance and flavor company Arylessence will add to its Marietta campus, the Cobb Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday. The announcement came shortly after the Marietta-based company received a $27 million bond issue from the Development Authority of Cobb County.
Aug. 24, 2022 Georgia Recorder
Fate of mine at Okefenokee Swamp’s edge could soon be cemented by Georgia EPD
Stanley Dunlap reports that the firm that wants to mine for heavy minerals near the Okefenokee Swamp scored a major victory Monday after a federal agency reversed its decision to take control of the review process away from Georgia’s environmental agency. A couple of months after the Twin Pines Minerals’ permitting process was redirected to get more input about the potential harm to historic burial grounds of the Muscogee Creek Nation tribe, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division will resume its review of the Alabama-based company’s application to mine a large swath of land on the edge of the national wildlife refuge.
Aug. 24, 2022 Dalton Daily News
First Bank of Dalton is now Builtwell Bank
Staff reports that First Bank of Dalton and First Bank of Calhoun have rebranded to Builtwell Bank effective Aug. 22 following the completion of a successful merger. “We are very excited to have this opportunity to take care of our customers and our communities at an even higher level,” said Builtwell Executive Mitch Sanford.
Aug. 24, 2022 Albany Herald
South Georgia Black Cattlemen group hosts roundtable with USDA
Staff reports that USDA’s Farm Service Agency State Executive Director Arthur Tripp recently visited with members of the South Georgia Black Cattlemen’s Association to discuss advancing agriculture in Georgia, FSA program eligibility, and disaster recovery assistance for cattle producers, including recent increases in Livestock Indemnity Program payment rates and eligibility for the Livestock Forage Disaster Program.
Aug. 24, 2022 Georgia Recorder
Georgia communities mobilize against expansion of foul-smelling wood-burning energy
Stanley Dunlap reports that a group of residents and environmentalists are fighting to prevent the world’s largest wood pellet plant from coming to a predominantly Black and Hispanic community in south Georgia. The Southern Environmental Law Center and Concerned Citizens of Cook County are asking a judge to revoke an air quality permit for the planned Adel plant on the grounds that the state Environmental Protection Division did not take into consideration the serious health risks that the pollution would pose to those living closest to it.
Aug. 24, 2022 Rome News-Tribune
Politics: Five local events over the next few weeks to draw top names on the state ballot.
John Druckenmiller reports that some of the biggest names on the November ballot are heading to Rome in the next few weeks. Spread across 18 days beginning Sunday and continuing through Sept. 14, top-of-the-ballot candidates are due in Rome/Floyd County, most at public assemblies.
Aug. 24, 2022 The Current
Abrams’ environmental focus: resilience, green jobs, lower energy costs
Mary Landers reports, in the middle of a campaign swing through Coastal Georgia, Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams stopped Saturday at Green Bridge Farm in fast-growing Effingham County. There, founder Michael Maddox showed off the vegetable gardens that help feed the 10 families that live in the 25-acre “agrihood,” where small houses and wooded lots are the norm.
Aug. 24, 2022 Capitol Beat News
State Supreme Court orders lower court to reconsider sincerity of parents’ vaccination objections
Rebecca Grapevine reports that a juvenile court must reevaluate the sincerity of parents’ objections to their children’s vaccinations, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. At issue is whether children in temporary state custody can be immunized with routine childhood vaccines over their parents’ religious objections – and how to decide if those objections are sincere or not.
Aug. 24, 2022 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Jolt: Georgia Republicans, attacked by Donald Trump, open to endorsing him anyway
Patricia Murphy, Greg Bluestein and Tia Mitchell report, when Donald Trump put Gov. Brian Kemp at the top of his revenge list in a failed bid to oust the governor in Georgia’s May primary, the first-term Republican resisted the urge to hit back. As November nears and a possible Trump comeback looms, Kemp and other GOP incumbents opposed by the former president are sticking to that familiar strategy.
