Comparing Priorities for 2025

Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025

Good morning! With a new session of the Georgia General Assembly getting underway, we look at the results of a reader survey of legislative priorities and the response of Coastal Georgia lawmakers. We then deliver a welcome assessment of the region’s economy and note some stories you may have missed. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com

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ANALYSIS: GOVERNING

Legislative priorities

As Coastal Georgia lawmakers converged in Atlanta for the start of the new, 40-day legislative session on Monday, the direction of the hurly-burly getting underway under the Gold Dome wasn’t yet clear.

Few bills have been formally introduced, and the single most powerful person driving the legislature’s agenda — Gov. Brian Kemp — hasn’t detailed his agenda or issued his proposed budget, except for declaring that tort reform and prison funding his top priorities.

But The Current’s readers have ranked their priorities, and some members of Coastal Georgia’s delegation to the capital, made up of 14 Republican and 4 Democratic lawmakers, have addressed theirs.

Between late November and early January, The Current attended five gatherings of lawmakers, business leaders, entrepreneurs, county and city officials, and ordinary citizens to discuss their hopes and expectations for the upcoming session. Here’s what they said, Craig Nelson reports.

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ANALYSIS: GEORGIA

Readers weigh in

Ask Coastal Georgians what lawmakers should prioritize during the new session of the Georgia General Assembly, their answers are clear: protecting the region’s environment and natural resources. Upgrading and building roads and bridges. School safety.

Ask them what lawmakers should drop to the bottom of their to-do list, their answers are equally clear: Legalizing gambling, tort reform and funding for the state prison system.

These are just some of the top takeaways of a survey of readers’ legislative priorities conducted by The Current, as the state’s 236 lawmakers prepare to convene in Atlanta on Monday for the legislature’s 158th session, The Current’s Craig Nelson reports.

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NEWS: BUSINESS

‘Remarkable’ recovery

When it comes to Coastal Georgia’s economic outlook, we’ve written before in this space that the region looks on course to fare well if all systems continue to click in 2025.

That assessment was underscored in Brunswick on Monday by economist Don Mathews, director of the Reg Murphy Center at the College of Coastal Georgia, who delivered a quick history lesson on the economic devastation to the region caused by the pandemic, followed by what he called a “remarkable” recovery, The Current’s Susan Catron writes.

Mathews was one of two forecasters at the Jekyll Island stop for the 42nd Georgia Economic Outlook, organized by the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

More than 250 people heard Mathews and UGA’s Jeffrey Humphries describe the steady health of Georgia’s economy as we enter a new year. In particular, Georgia’s lower southeast counties — Glynn, Charlton, Camden, McIntosh, Wayne and Brantley — have had “remarkable 2024” rebounds from the pandemic.

“To have the 2024 we had — that’s the mark of a strong, resilient economy,” Mathews said. “We’re really there.” He said the area now boasted an entrepreneurial economy, creating its own future.

Both economists cautioned that there are always risks to any forecast, including the continuing federal deficit and the possibility of a broad military conflict.

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NEWS: UPDATES

ICYMI

• “Costs, delays increase as unbuilt Chatham emergency ops center still without contractor” (The Current, Jan. 8, 2025) Last May, county commissioners and the county chairman — who was facing re-election — donned hard hats and shovels at a celebratory ground-breaking ceremony at the future site. Two weeks later, The Current reported that a contractor had not yet been hired to build the nearly 83,000-square-foot facility because the county’s first round of bidding fell through. As of Jan. 8, over seven months later, there is still no contractor for the project.
• “Settlement hastens Hyundai’s switch from Floridan aquifer water” (The Current, Jan. 7, 2025) “‘This Agreement demonstrates that environmental protection and smart growth are not mutually exclusive,’ Ogeechee Riverkeeper Executive Director and Riverkeeper Damon Mullis said in a prepared statement. ‘Indeed, this agreement is a critical first step in ensuring safe and secure water supplies for people, agriculture and industry.’”
• “Morehouse professor: Supporting HBCUs is vital to sustaining our democracy” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 9, 2025) An opinion piece to fuel discussions heading into legislative debates. “An HBCU education is both a democratic and a moral imperative. These institutions promote ways of being in the world that embrace difference as a virtue; the difference as virtue is foundational to any democracy.”

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