In the Loop
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EMS Oversight Committee Stops Meeting Rather Than Meet in Public
ACC Attorney Judd Drake.
The EMS Oversight Committee has held closed door meetings in violation of the Georgia Open Meetings Act since its inception. That’s based on Athens-Clarke County Attorney Judd Drake’s legal opinion, which he delivered to the committee in December.
After hearing Drake’s opinion, the EMS Oversight Committee stopped meeting altogether, even virtually, rather than allow visitors to attend their meetings.
This means throughout the coronavirus crisis, National EMS, the for-profit EMS provider in Athens, has had no formal oversight of its performance whatsoever.
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Oconee Sheriff Candidates Agree on Roundabouts
Oconee County sheriff candidates James Hale and Jimmy Williamson said they didn’t want to get involved in a dispute between the School Board and the Board of Commissioners and would continue to provide deputies to direct traffic at school entrances if elected and asked to do so.
At the same time, they said that having deputies in the roadway is dangerous and that they are in favor of road infrastructure changes, including roundabouts, that remove the deputies from the school entrances.
Both said they would be obligated to their deputies to help protect them by getting them out of the roadways when possible.
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Health District Seeks PPE Donations
Elise Stafford (right) of PruittHealth-Athens Heritage receives donated supplies from Elisabeth Wilson (left), District E healthcare coalition facilitator
The Northeast Public Health District is now accepting donations of personal protective equipment to distribute to area health-care providers and long-term care facilities.
Needed items include N-95 respirators, surgical masks, cloth face coverings, eye protection (face shields/goggles/glasses), gowns, gloves (latex free), disinfectant wipes, shoe covers and hand sanitizer.
Contact Elisabeth Wilson at 706-286-4684 or [email protected] with questions or to donate supplies.
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UGA Faculty and Staff Facing Furloughs
University of Georgia faculty, staff and administrators will be furloughed over the coming year under a plan to deal with a looming state budget shortfall.
The Board of Regents approved the plan proposed by University System Chancellor Steve Wrigley in a called meeting conducted via conference call this morning.
The system's lowest-paid employees are exempt, but most employees will have to take four or eight furlough days, depending on their salary. Higher-paid employees will take 16 unpaid days off. The highest—Wrigley and college and university presidents—will take 26 days, the equivalent of a 10% salary cut.
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COVID-19 Cases Spike in Northeast Georgia
The Northeast Health District of the Georgia Department of Public Health reported 51 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 at noon on Wednesday, the largest increase ever recorded in the district by a daily status report in a 24-hour-period.
Every county but one in the 10-county Northeast Health District reported an increase in cases, with Barrow County reporting 24 new cases.
Oconee County reported two new cases and no deaths in the Daily Status Report, but the separate Long Term Care Facility COVID-19 Report issued by the Department of Public Health listed a recent death at High Shoals Health and Rehabilitation nursing facility in North High Shoals.
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Biodegradable Plastic Manufacture RWDC Will Employ 200 People in Athens
RWDC's polyhydroxyalkanoates, made of used cooking oil, can replace plastics in goods like straws.
A company that manufactures a biodegradable alternative to plastic is expanding and will hire 200 employees, state and local officials announced Tuesday.
RWDC, founded in 2015 at a University of Georgia innovation lab and now based in Singapore, will expand into a 400,000 square-foot facility in Athena Industrial Park off Voyles Road.
Job listings indicate the positions will pay between $38,000–$90,000 a year.
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Kemp Delays Athens DA Race Until 2022
Gov. Brian Kemp.
By failing to appoint a replacement for former district attorney Ken Mauldin by last Sunday, Gov. Brian Kemp pushed the scheduled election of a new DA back to 2022.
Under a 2018 state law, if Kemp fills a vacancy within six months of an election, the elections is automatically postponed for two years. That deadline passed on May 3.
The election had already been delayed once. Mauldin resigned in February, which triggered a special election, meaning the two candidates—Brian Patterson and Deborah Gonzalez—would have faced off in November, rather than in the Democratic primary.
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Kemp Will Lift Stay-at-Home Order, but Don't Think We're in the Clear
Photo Credit: Savannah Cole/file
Gov. Brian Kemp has lifted the statewide shelter-in-place order effective Friday, even as hundreds of new COVID-19 cases are being reported daily, and Mayor Kelly Girtz and medical professionals warned that Georgia is not out of the woods yet.
The shelter-in-place order restricting travel except for essential business has been in place since Apr. 3. Last week, Kemp allowed certain businesses—including nail and hair salons, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys—to reopen, and restaurants could reopen their dining rooms starting Monday, although many have chosen not to do so. Today, he extended safety guidelines for reopened businesses, such as requirements that employees wear protective gear and limit capacity, through May 13. He also ordered the elderly and “medically fragile” people to stay at home through June 12.
“What we’ve done has worked,” Kemp told the AJC. “It’s given us time to build our hospital infrastructure capacity, get ventilators and ramp up testing. That’s what really drove our decision.”
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