Georgia Trend Daily – April 26, 2023
April 26, 2023 Georgia.gov
Gov. Kemp Signs Legislation Cutting Red Tape for Women-, Minority-, and Veteran-owned Businesses
Staff reports that Gov. Kemp, accompanied by First Lady Marty Kemp, Rep. Soo Hong, Sen. Mike Hodges, local and state leaders, and representatives from the state’s business community, signed House Bill 128 into law today at a ceremony in Augusta. HB 128 is a product of the Governor’s executive order issued on July 13, 2022, which directed the Department of Administrative Services (DOAS) to address challenges that small businesses’ experience in the state procurement process, with a particular focus on minority-owned, women-owned, and veteran-owned businesses.
April 26, 2023 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
Catching up With … Stuart Countess President and CEO
Karen Kirkpatrick reports that Stuart Countess has been in the auto industry for nearly 30 years, 15 of those at Kia Georgia in West Point. He was named president and CEO in late 2021.
April 26, 2023 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A thousand June layoffs set for Bed Bath & Beyond distribution center
Michael E. Kanell reports that Bed Bath & Beyond, a 52-year-old retail icon, filed plans Tuesday to lay off 1,000 workers in June as it closes its Pendergrass distribution center. The distribution center in Jackson County has been open since 2012.
April 26, 2023 GlobalAtlanta.com
Belgium’s Aluvision to Double Production Capacity in Gwinnett, Hire 30
Trevor Williams reports, a Belgian company that first opened in Georgia a decade ago is investing $1 million and hiring 30 new employees in Gwinnett County. Aluvision, which makes modular systems for exhibitions and trade-show displays, is set to nearly triple its production area by leasing new space next to its 1620 Satellite Boulevard location, which opened in 2016, three years after dipping a toe into the U.S. market with a sales office.
April 26, 2023 Marietta Daily Journal
$44M south Cobb trail along Chattahoochee sees groundbreaking
Hunter Riggall reports that officials have broken ground on the first part of what’s envisioned as a 100-mile greenway of trails along the Chattahoochee River. In south Cobb, a 2.7-mile stretch of trail from Veterans Memorial Highway to Mableton Parkway will serve as a pilot project for the Chattahoochee Riverlands, an ambitious plan to open up the riverfront to public access from Lake Lanier to Newnan.
April 26, 2023 Rome News-Tribune
Federal law sends grants to Floyd, nearby counties; nearly $52 million to improve roads, airports and Lake Allatoona
Diane Wagner reports that over $38 million in transportation grants for Floyd and the four surrounding counties have been announced from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — so far. Floyd County projects total over $3.5 million. Chattooga County’s in line for $161,912.
April 26, 2023 Savannah Morning News, Augusta Chronicle
Staying connected: Business, political ties to soil amendments seems to benefit spreaders
Abraham Kenmore and Marisa Mecke report, in Georgia, there are a few major companies that handle many soil amendments. Those companies are run by a small network of people often with strong business and sometimes political connections.
April 26, 2023 The Current
A Camden grand juror speaks on the spaceport investigation
Mary Landers reports, when a Camden County Grand Jury issued subpoenas in early March to county officials for information about Spaceport Camden, they received hundreds of thousands of documents in response. But the jurors had little time and even less guidance in analyzing them.
April 26, 2023 Fresh Take Georgia
Georgia aims to boost childhood literacy with new law signed by Gov. Kemp
Caleb Groves reports, Max Peterson was unable to read any of the signs at the Georgia Aquarium during his first-grade field trip there last month. “Everyone just kept telling me, ‘He’s a boy, he’s going to learn slower,’ but now he is in first grade and completely unable to read and write,” his mother, Jenna, said.
April 26, 2023 Georgia Recorder
Camden fights on to keep county’s spending on fizzled Georgia coast spaceport project from public
Stanley Dunlap reports, it wasn’t long after SpaceX’s Starship launch off the Texas Gulf Coast turned into a fiery spectacle that news of the April 20 explosion reverberated hundreds of miles away to a Georgia community whose leaders had once hoped to have their own launch pad for massive rockets. The chatter around Georgia’s Camden County was whether a similar debacle could have occurred near the Little Cumberland Island property where county officials had envisioned building a spaceport where rockets as tall as the 230-foot SpaceX Falcon 9 would be launched into the stratosphere.
April 26, 2023 The Center Square
Voting groups want injunction against Georgia’s ‘line relief’ provision
T.A. DeFeo reports, several voting groups filed an emergency preliminary injunction motion, hoping to lift Georgia’s voting law’s “line relief” provision. Critics want a federal judge to halt a provision of Senate Bill 202, the Election Integrity Act, that bars volunteers from handing out food and water to voters waiting in line to cast their ballots.
April 26, 2023 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Jolt: Top Trump lawyer never saw proof of Dominion fraud claims
Patricia Murphy, Greg Bluestein and Tia Mitchell report that one of the chief architects of pro-Donald Trump election conspiracy theories conceded in a recording that she never saw evidence of voting machine fraud in Georgia — and that’s why she didn’t target election equipment maker Dominion in a failed lawsuit challenging the state’s results.
