Healing, Connecting, Recycling and Having Fun

Each year, the ACCG, a nonprofit that serves county governments, names County Excellence Award winners, honoring government leaders who are implementing out-of-the-box solutions to the problems facing their constituents. In each of these six award-winning instances this year, those leaders have served their communities with a spirit of innovation, determination and creativity.

Filling an Urgent Need: Chattooga County Sole Commissioner Blake Elsberry, left, and Bud Owens, executive director of Atrium Health Floyd Emergency Medical Services, right. | Photo credit: Eric Sun

CHATTOOGA COUNTY

Emergency Relief

Expanding Healthcare: County Commissioner Blake Elsberry cuts the ribbon at the opening of Atrium Health Floyd’s stand-alone emergency department. | Photo credit: contributed

Rural healthcare is a topic that generates a lot of discussion in Georgia – most of it bad news, including hospitals closing and physician shortages. In Chattooga County, in Northwest Georgia, Sole Commissioner Blake Elsberry partnered with Atrium Health Floyd to deliver some good healthcare news with the opening in 2023 of the state’s first stand-alone emergency department (ED) built from the ground up.

The $18.4 million facility in Trion provides 24/7 emergency care along with access to a lab and imaging services to residents across the county and region. Since opening last October, the facility has exceeded expectations, averaging more than 50 patient visits per day.

The ED is filling an urgent need, Elsberry says. “The closest hospital to us is roughly 40 to 45 minutes away.”

With a background in healthcare and a wife who’s a nurse, Elsberry did his research before getting on board with a freestanding ED. He discovered that rural areas of North Carolina have freestanding emergency rooms and began to think that could be the answer for rural Georgia, too.

“I just started cold-calling hospital groups and saying, ‘Hey, look, this has never been done in Georgia before. I believe that could be a blueprint for how we could expand healthcare in rural Georgia.’”

Atrium Health Floyd, a health system with a 304-bed hospital in Rome, agreed with Elsberry about the viability of the project and put up the funds to support it.

“It’s not just a freestanding ER,” Elsberry says.

It is so much more, with a helipad, a lab, CT machine and mobile X-ray. It can be used for outpatient care, as well, meaning people will no longer have to travel 45 minutes to the closest hospital for a scheduled CT scan.

The facility has been a lifesaver already – literally.

“This could be part of the answer to expanding healthcare in rural Georgia,” Elsberry says, “especially when it comes to emergency healthcare, where time is of the essence.”

HENRY COUNTY

Addressing Mental Health

Crisis Intervention: Henry County Public Safety Director Mark Amerman, far left, and Mental Health Counselor Marla Patterson, third from right, with Henry County police officers known as the Peer Group, and their K-9 dogs. | Photo credit: Woodie Williams

In Henry County, a focus on healthcare – specifically, behavioral health – has come from an unlikely source: the Henry County Police Department. As more and more police calls involved someone with a mental health crisis, the department began to look for solutions that didn’t involve a trip to the hospital or jail.

Police officers called to a scene where someone is experiencing a mental health crisis are not prepared to evaluate people in that situation, and their options on how to handle such calls were limited. Most often those individuals would end up in jail, which healthcare professionals agree is not the best outcome for someone needing mental health treatment.

With the support of the Henry County government, Public Safety Director Mark Amerman, who was formerly chief of police, and his team developed a behavioral health program to help meet the needs of the public as well as police officers who may be experiencing depression, stress and anxiety of their own. These issues are common among first responders who witness domestic abuse, accidents, violence and death on a regular basis.

The program began with crisis intervention training for officers. Then the department hired Marla Patterson, a licensed professional counselor certified in first response, who could assist on mental health crisis calls. She can assess someone over the phone, via video or in person and help keep people in crisis from ending up in jail. The counselor also offers mental health services to police officers. Other behavioral health initiatives by the department include bringing in a therapy dog named Mac, who works not only with first responders and public safety officers but also in a local children’s home.

Would Amerman recommend a similar program to other counties in Georgia?

“Absolutely,” he says. Police departments are “almost hurting themselves, if they don’t start doing programs like this. One, it keeps your internal staff more mentally fit for the things that they have to deal with in the field. If you just want to look at from a financial point, you’re saving time and money, you’re dealing with people in crisis a lot quicker and better and getting them immediate help.”

MONROE COUNTY

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Inclusivity Advocate: Former Monroe County Recreation Department Director and current Monroe Champions Chair Keith Edge. | Photo credit: Matt Odom

For many kids, playing ball is a part of childhood. Even if they aren’t destined for the big leagues, kids learn teamwork, get exercise and have fun. But for some kids and adults with intellectual, developmental or physical disabilities, playing ball isn’t a part of their lives. Now, that’s all changing in Monroe County with an inclusive ball field – Field of Dreams that opened in 2017 – and the new Monroe Champions baseball league for student athletes with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

In Action: A young player throws a baseball at Monroe County’s Field of Dreams. | Photo credit: contributed

The league started last fall with 24 players on two teams – Bulldogs Black and Bulldogs Gold – named not for that school in Athens but for the mascot of Mary Persons High School in Forsyth. On opening day in October, the Mary Persons softball and baseball teams assisted the Monroe Champions players, acting as cheerleaders and helping them line up, run the bases or with whatever they needed.

Former Monroe County Recreation Department Director and current Monroe Champions Chair Keith Edge advocated for the league for years before it got up to bat last year. In fact, he says when he was hired as recreation director in 2013, the expansion of sports to people previously excluded was one of his goals.

“When I became the recreation director, I saw that there was a need,” Edge says. “We had the traditional programs; they were geared toward the same kids. But there was not an opportunity … for all citizens, there were just no programs. So that was part of my goal when I was interviewed.”

His dream began to take form in 2016, when Leadership Monroe raised funds for an all-abilities playground, the first of its kind in Monroe County. In 2017, Leadership Monroe spearheaded the conversion of a ball field into the field of dreams. Using Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) funds, a grant from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and a county match, the all-inclusive project was completed last year.

The spring 2024 season is gearing up with more than 30 players, including five adults, divided into four teams. Edge hopes this will be just the beginning, with more sports and more people added to the roster each season.

“It makes me feel young when I’m with the young kids and watching them enjoy sports,” Edge says. “For some of these kids in the fall, that was their first time ever being a part of the team.”

UNION COUNTY

Glass Half Full

Fostering Sustainability: Pam Hawkins, Union County purchasing agent; County Manager Larry Garrett; Matt White, director of county transfer and recycling; and Sole County Commissioner Lamar Paris, at the glass recycling center. | Photo credit: Woodie Williams

At a time when it is becoming harder, if not impossible, in many places to recycle glass, Union County, in the North Georgia mountains, has taken on the task – and is successfully recycling and reusing what once ended up in the local landfill at a cost to the county and its residents.

“Here’s my take on glass: If it goes into the landfill, it’s never destroyed,” Larry Garrett, Union County manager, says. “Anything we can keep from going into the landfill has to be a bonus for the future.”

When the private company that managed the Union County Transfer Station and Recycling Center notified the county in 2021 that it was pulling out, the county found itself suddenly in the garbage business. Rather than just taking over the existing tasks, county leaders were able to use SPLOST funds to revolutionize the recycling of glass and foster a more sustainable community.

At the transfer station in August 2023, the county began using a glass pulverizer that turns glass into sand or a pea-gravel-like substance. Both are safe to touch – the sharp edges are ground away – and can be used in a variety of applications including roadbeds, sand boxes, golf courses, walking trails or landscaping – really, anywhere sand or gravel can be used, except buildings.

“In six months, we’ve recycled over 70 tons,” Garrett says. That’s in addition to the usual county recycling of aluminum and steel cans, some plastics, cardboard and paper.

As a bonus, Garrett says the equipment will pay for itself in just four years, now that they don’t have the cost of
disposing of glass. The county is also exploring selling the sand and pea gravel as well as partnering with neighboring communities to recycle their glass.

“We found a way to take something that does not go away once you put it in the ground,” Garrett says. “We found a way to keep it out of the ground, and people can use it. That’s always a great thing.”

UPSON COUNTY

Getting More Fiber

In Action: A young player throws a baseball at Monroe County’s Field of Dreams. | Photo credit: Woodie Williams

Broadband deserts are an impediment for residents and businesses alike, keeping them from accessing goods and services needed to function in the 21st century. These problems were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when telehealth, telework, online education and the delivery of essential items including groceries and prescriptions became vital as the world shut down.

Leaders in Upson County, in West Central Georgia, recognized how the lack of high-speed internet was affecting citizens and businesses and partnered with Highline Internet to bring connectivity to more than 2,000 dwellings in Thomaston, Yatesville and The Rock. The project area includes 98% of the addresses identified as a priority due to no or extremely slow and unreliable internet service.

Increasing Connectivity: Dillon Watson, Highline operations manager, and Jason Campbell, project manager, oversaw efforts to bring broadband to thousands of Upson County residents. | Photo credit: Matt Odom

“It started as a conversation about connectivity being available in the business sector,” says Jason Tinsley, Upson County manager. “A couple of our industrial park tenants were looking for increased levels of service and some redundancy. We only had one provider in the park at one time. About that same time, we fell into the pandemic with the rest of the world, and that really exposed our weaknesses when it came to connectivity. We found very quickly that it wasn’t just the business sector of our community that was struggling. It was everyone in our community that was outside the city limits of Thomaston.”

The federal American Rescue Plan dollars, combined with an initiative of Gov. Brian Kemp’s to fund broadband projects, enabled Upson County to identify a partner in Highline and apply for a grant. The county had a specific aim that made finding a provider especially difficult.

“We had talked to a couple of other providers here, but they weren’t willing to take on the size and the scope of project that that Highline was,” Tinsley says. “They were looking at expanding out from the city, and what we wanted is to go to the unserved and underserved pockets of the population with those dollars and work back toward Thomaston. We wanted to get service out to people who had virtually nothing. That’s what [Highline’s] expertise was. And that’s why we chose them as our partner.”

WHITFIELD COUNTY

Curbing Addiction

Improving Lives: Whitfield County Administrator Robert Sivick, at Conasauga Community Addiction Recovery Center. | Photo credit: Eric Sun

Substance abuse and addiction can destroy lives, families, businesses and communities, particularly in regions where help is expensive or hard to find. Often people with addiction end up in jail, further deteriorating their lives and the lives of loved ones. In 2022, in Whitfield County, in Northwest Georgia, leaders used funds distributed by the state from the National Opioid Litigation fund to develop a path for people who need help battling addiction.

“We don’t do a very good job in the United States of addressing substance abuse,” says Robert Sivick, county administrator. “Most people don’t have the insurance that will provide that, or they don’t have the personal wealth to be able to get that sort of treatment.”

In Whitfield County, they can now turn to the Conasauga Community Addiction Recovery Center (CCARC).

“This was something that we set up, not just using the class-action settlement funds, but using existing assets that we have here in Whitfield County,” Sivick says. “We have accountability courts. We have a court for mental health issues. We have a court for domestic violence issues. We have a drug court. So we had people who manage those sorts of programs. We took the money, we hired counselors, we had existing office space that we could use, we didn’t have to pay rent or utilities or anything like that. And we had the accountability courts oversee that function.”

These aren’t criminal courts, he says. They are instead trying to keep people out of the criminal justice system. “What we’re trying to do is to catch people before they lose their job, before they get divorced, lose their family, or before they lose their liberty because they’ve been involved in some illegal activity.”

The CCARC is a fully funded day program – visits are free – for people battling addiction to drugs or alcohol. People are referred by physicians, clergy and divorce courts. They can also self-refer.

“This a large manufacturing area,” Sivick says. “If we have somebody who has a substance abuse problem and they get help through our program, and they’re able to keep their job at Shaw or Mohawk or Engineered Floors or Qcells or any of our large manufacturers, certainly that benefits that individual because they have continued income, and [it] benefits the family because they continue to support the family. It benefits the employer because we have a severe labor shortage and it benefits the local government, because eventually … when someone’s in substance abuse or they lose their job, they fall into perhaps activity that brings them into the criminal justice system, which is extremely expensive.”

And that’s how the program was sold to the community, he says. “This is a very fiscally conservative community. The way we sold it to our governing body and to the public is, ‘Look, if you’re worried about dollars and cents, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to take care of these problems on the front end than to lock somebody up for $50,000 a year.’ Because if we keep people working, we keep families intact, we keep people out of jail or we keep people off of any sort of public assistance, or from having to use social services, which are also expensive, it makes for a better society.