Do You Want Bridge or Tunnel?

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Good Morning! In the news today: Liberty County is one of three Coastal Georgia counties holding votes next week on extending a sales tax to fund school improvements; Glynn County’s police chief corrects a blunder; and nine things for your radar. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com.

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NEWS: ELECTIONS

Decision day for education sales tax

Next Tuesday will be the last day for voters in three, rapidly growing Coastal Georgia counties — Bryan, Chatham, and Liberty — to decide whether to extend for another five years a one-cent sales tax on all retail purchases to generate funds for school construction and improvements, and school equipment.

In Liberty, the school board hopes that renewal of the education special purpose local option sales tax, or ESPLOST, will produce some $112 million for a range of expenditures, from building and repairing local schools to buying school buses and band instruments.

As with the ESPLOST votes in Bryan and Chatham, Liberty’s is running into headwinds, with opponents of renewing it saying residents are already overburdened with taxes, writes Robin Kemp, The Current’s Liberty County reporter.  

Liberty’s school district operates 16 schools and learning programs, serving more than 10,800 students. It has an annual operating budget of $144.9 million, most of which — $96.2 million — comes from the state and a substantial amount — $17.6 million — that comes from the federal government.

The fate of continued federal funding — for Liberty and all Coastal Georgia counties — remains uncertain, amid indications that Trump administration plans to shutter the U.S. Department of Education, perhaps as early as this week.

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INVESTIGATIVE: PUBLIC SAFETY

A stunning claim, correction

At a recent community meeting in Brunswick to address a spike in violence targeting teens, the Glynn County Police Department chief made a stunning claim: Street gangs are responsible for 60% of violent crime in the county. 

The assertion by Chief Scott Ebner caused a wave of panic and concern, not only because gang-related violence is feared by communities across the state. And not only because it’s an issue ripe for exploitation by politicians.

The alarm set off by Ebner’s declaration was especially strong in Brunswick, the county seat, because since the start of the year there have been three teenage murder victims near predominantly Black neighborhoods in the city.

But a review by The Current’s Jabari Gibbs and Jake Shore shows that the statistic for violent crime that Ebner cited isn’t supported by the other law enforcement leaders in the county or by booking information from the county jail. 

And in a subsequent interview with The Current, the chief corrected his statement, Gibbs and Shore report.

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NEWS: UPDATES

9 things for your radar

• A different approach? On the agenda at the Georgia Department of Transportation’s open house in Savannah on Thursday is the ambitious (and massive) Savannah Bridge Project, which calls for rebuilding the span, also known as the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, or constructing a tunnel at the location. Opponents are urging a different approach. It’s the last public meeting before the state decides on the infrastructure investment.The open house is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Coastal Georgia Center at 305 Fahm St.
• Weigh in! Have an opinion about Georgia’s Medicaid work requirement program known as Georgia Pathways? The state has reopened public comment period about the controversial program two weeks after The Current published its investigation revealing the amount of money the state has spent and the state’s failure to meet its enrollment goals. You can send a comment to state officials here — or dial into a public meeting in Cordele on March 17.
• Bad words: Georgia’s Senate last week failed to advance a bill cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the state’s schools and universities, just one measure that didn’t survive Crossover Day. But anti-“wokeness” campaigns continue, from words that should be “limited or avoided” in federal agencies to a photo of the Enola Gay, the aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan.
• ‘Reckless action’: U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, calls the Trump administration’s closure of five of the state’s 34 Social Security offices, including one in Brunswick and another in Vidalia, a “reckless action” that “will make it harder for seniors, especially in rural GA, to enroll, solve payment issues, and report fraud.”
• Shuttering offices: On the DOGE real estate front, Coastal Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter introduces a resolution authorizing President Trump to sell the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco. Closer to home, DOGE has slated for closure the offices in Savannah of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the IRS, and the Employment Standards Administration.
• ‘Super helpful’: MANA Nutrition’s CEO Mark Moore says Carter and U.S. Rep. Austin Scott of Tifton were “super helpful” in restoring contracts from the U.S. Agency for International Development for the non-profit company’s fortified peanut paste for malnourished children. The firm has facilities in Pooler and Fitzgerald. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced yesterday he was officially canceling 83% of USAID’s programs and thanked DOGE for its help. Africa is set to be the biggest loser in the cuts.
• No word: Chatham County Board Chairman Chester Ellis and other county “leadership” met with Carter last week in Washington, the congressman’s weekly newsletter reports. No word on what they discussed.
• ‘Headed for recession?’ “Absolutely not” (Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick) “We’re going to take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and we’re going to become so rich, you’re not going to know where to spend the money.” (President Trump)

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Correction: In last week’s edition of “Soundings,” we stated that the state ethics commission fined state Sen. Derek Mallow (D-Savannah) $17,000 last year for violations of state campaign finance and personal disclosure laws. That was incorrect. State Rep. Carl Gilliard (D-Savannah), not Sen. Mallow, was fined that amount for violations of those laws. Mallow told The Current that the commission’s current investigation pertains to allegations he failed to file campaign contribution disclosure reports, not to misappropriated funds. We apologize for the error.

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