Georgia Trend Daily – March 17, 2023
March 17, 2023 Capitol Beat News
State retirement fund managers confident of little impact from bank failures
Rebecca Grapevine reports that Georgia’s Teachers Retirement System (TRS) lost about $33 million when two large banks – Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank – failed earlier this month. TRS lost $18 million from the SVB failure and $13 million from the Signature Bank failure, TRS Executive Director Buster Evans said Thursday.
March 17, 2023 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
How health plans can improve the maternal well-being of black women in Georgia
Dr. Seema Csukas reports that the statistics for maternal health for Black women in Georgia are shocking. Pregnant and postpartum Black women and their babies are at increased risk for poor health outcomes up to and including death.
March 17, 2023 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Metro Atlanta economy makes stronger-than-usual entrance into the year
Michael E. Kanell reports, don’t be fooled by the minus sign — metro Atlanta’s economy jumped off to a much better start to the year than it usually does. Yes, the region lost jobs during January as retail and logistics companies let go of workers hired for the holidays and many other companies held back from hiring as they planned out their yearly budgets with an eye on interest rates.
March 17, 2023 WSB Radio
Lionsgate investing $160 million to open major production studio in metro Atlanta
Staff reports, one of the biggest movie studios in the world is coming to metro Atlanta. Lionsgate will be the lead tenant at a new film and TV complex in Douglas County. It’ll be in the “Great Point Studios” located off I-20 at Fairburn Road in Douglasville.
March 17, 2023 GlobalAtlanta.com
Six Northern Ireland Tech Firms Set to Visit Atlanta on Trade Mission
Trevor Williams reports that six tech companies from Northern Ireland are eyeing partnership opportunities in Atlanta during a trade mission March 27-29. The delegation led by the Invest Northern Ireland agency is part of a two-city visit to North America; the group heads to Toronto after the three-day stop in the Georgia capital.
March 17, 2023 Rome News-Tribune
CRBI procures funding to begin comprehensive PFAS chemical testing in Coosa River basin
John Bailey reports that the Coosa River Basin Initiative has procured funding to conduct a comprehensive multi-year study to determine the extent of PFAS contamination in the waterways of Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama. While it’s known at this point that many of the waterways in Northwest Georgia are contaminated by PFAS and similar chemicals from upstream manufacturers, what isn’t known is the actual extent.
March 17, 2023 Gwinnett Daily Post
Norcross awards $65,000 in grants to six local small businesses
Staff reports that the City of Norcross recently announced that it has awarded $65,000 in American Rescue Plan Act Small Business Grants to six local small businesses. Three years after the COVID-19 global pandemic began, aftershocks are still being felt by many small business owners, Norcross officials said.
March 17, 2023 The Brunswick News
Hog Hammock’s Geechee residents push to keep cultural representation on authority board
Michael Hall reports that a bill in the Georgia General Assembly to change the makeup of the Sapelo Island Heritage Authority that passed the House of Representatives March 2 without any input from the island’s Gullah-Geechee residents was tweaked this week before passing out of a Senate committee. But the language change only satisfied one of the requests made by descendants of enslaved African Americans who live in the island’s Hog Hammock community and puts the onus on the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources to create a policy to fulfill the other requests.
March 17, 2023 Georgia Recorder
Firearm safety bill gets rare hearing in GOP-controlled Georgia Legislature
Ross Williams reports that a Georgia House subcommittee heard testimony on a bill aimed at punishing gun owners who negligently allow firearms to fall into the hands of unsupervised children. The bill, authored by Johns Creek Democratic Rep. Michelle Au, is not moving forward this year, but Au said getting the Republican-led Georgia House Public Safety & Homeland Security 2-A Subcommittee to hear it was a win in itself.
March 17, 2023 WABE
Georgia House passes partial ban on transgender health care for minors
Sam Gringlas reports that the Georgia House and Senate have voted to ban most medical treatments that help transgender kids affirm their gender identity. The bill approved by the House on Thursday would prohibit providing hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgery to minors.
March 17, 2023 Capitol Beat News
State Senate committee expands bill banning lengthy housing moratoriums
Rebecca Grapevine reports that a state Senate committee Thursday widened the scope of a bill that would prohibit local governments from imposing moratoriums on the building of housing for longer than 180 days. As passed by the state House earlier this month, the bill only barred such local government moratoriums on single-family housing.
March 17, 2023 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sports betting revived in Georgia Senate after prior defeats
Mark Niesse and Greg Bluestein report, an effort to legalize sports betting in Georgia made a comeback Thursday after two votes on similar bills previously failed in the state Senate. Senators revived sports betting by adding it to a separate bill about soap box derby races, then quickly passed it in the Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee on an 8-1 vote.
