Sunday Solutions — Jan. 14, 2024
Good morning! Today we look at numbers: when small numbers mean a lot and larger numbers send signals or show priorities. Others offer a mirror of ourselves as individuals, groups and society. And when it comes to change, numbers can make a difference as a Saturday effort in Brunswick shows us. Let’s work the problems.
Fire protection
The Hinesville fire chief’s report recently yielded a nugget about fire hydrants – the fire department’s annual flow test found 17 of 1,700 fire hydrants were inoperable. While 17 doesn’t sound like many, they happen to be ones that provide fire protection to 1,286 school students, residents of a condo community, and 200 low-income housing units, among others. Another hurdle: The hydrants are on private property and are not under the authority of the fire department. But one “private” entity happens to be a public entity, too – the Liberty County Public School System. Other non-working private hydrants were next to condo and mobile home communities, inaccessible to fire personnel to fix. The Current’s Liberty County reporter Robin Kemp worked for weeks to find out how those hydrants would be fixed and what the processes to maintain them has been. The Hinesville City Council has worked to update ordinances to address the problem. Her story, linked here, yields a look inside the frustration for the fire chief to get the hydrants fixed and access to them to keep citizens safe.
Legislature, governor: Spending time
The Georgia General Assembly opened Monday, and Governor Brian Kemp gave his State of the State address and his budget recommendations on Thursday. If budgets — household or statewide — set our priorities, we’ll get a look at those as the coming week brings wrangling over the budgets in legislative committees. Kemp has released his updated $37.5 billion budget addendum for the next year and the $36.1 billion 2025 budget. With billions in surplus, Kemp has requested $2 billion in new spending for a variety of topics, including pay raises for state employees and public school teachers, school safety and mental health spending – plus expedited tax cuts for almost all. If he was pushing hard for those topics in his speech, he gave a hard shove for school vouchers. Last year’s vouchers bill failed to make it out of the legislature as rural lawmakers refused to approve it since school choices are more limited in those areas. Here are stories from Georgia Recorder and Capitol Beat to update you on the session so far.
Your priorities
We asked you for your priorities last week for your elected state representatives and senators in the legislature. You could rank the priorities already set by some legislators and municipalities and add your own. We’ve had hundreds of responses and comments. We’re still parsing it all, and we’ll use the results to guide our thought processes on coverage throughout the session. You can look for more Tuesday in Soundings from political writer Craig Nelson. Here’s a quick summary from results so far:
- Overwhelming support: workforce housing, mental health care, standards for rental property, raises for teachers.
- Mixed priorities: Prosecution oversight, elimination of runoff voting, new funding for state corrections facilities, striter guidelines on tax credits for new businesses.
- Low priority: Firearms training for teachers, school vouchers, legalized gambling.
As for the comments and additional priorities, readers left us a shrimp-boat load of thoughtful, direct notes that transcend sound bites and political rhetoric from all sides and show the depth of concerns about every day life. Here are some samples — we’ll soon post a full document of the responses (edited for clarity) from our newsletter, Instagram, Facebook and text-messaging respondents.
- “Maternal healthcare initiatives: grants for childbirth instruction training, grants for labor and postpartum doula training, grants for lactation training. Make training more accessible for non-healthcare workers. Early childhood and elementary-level reading instruction.”
- “I’m a healthcare provider and my Medicare patients have to pay $400-500 in January for their inhalers or other medications which they can’t afford before their insurance will kick in — it’s just like the previous issue with insulin. … If not for(family) my mother absolutely could not afford that. I’m sure there are thousands of Medicare patients who can’t get life-saving medications or have to choose between food or medication.”
- “Cap the amount juries are allowed to give in verdicts, to keep insurance cost down and help keep small hospitals open.”
Competition gets tough
Last week’s quiz was competitive with a record 5 perfect scores — looks like we’ll have to work on making it harder!
Leaderboard 1/7/24:
First Place (10/10): Audrey, JenBax, Karen G., Savannah Agenda, gator
Second Place (8/10): Peaches
Third Place (6/10): SG Mark, EMF33, Jack, Sandy B., vickig
Want your chance to be featured in next week’s leaderboard? Leave your first name or nickname so we can keep track of your score. And, we’re now tracking your scores week over week.
Here’s the link to this week’s quiz.
A holiday for service
If some national holidays are for remembrance or celebration, Monday’s Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday is for both of those and one more thing: service, to honor the spirit of the late civil rights leader. In an effort organized by A Better Glynn, Brunswick citizens got a head start on that on Saturday with a community work day to help fix up public housing units and renovate an overgrown church basketball court. What will your service be on Monday?
Your second cup: Data snapshot
The Pew Charitable Trusts collects great data sets for all types of issues across the country. It’s credible work and we use it for reference for stories and ideas for them. Pew’s data crew pulled together the 2023 work they consider noteworthy to give us a snapshot of the year’s research. Topics range from affirmative action to leaving tips for service. One data set shows that 53% of Americans believe they’ve been visited by a dead family member in a dream. The quick charts refer to full data sets for you if you need go deeper. It’s an interesting look at where we all are and what may affect our lives. Here’s the link to it all.
Enjoy.
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Private fire hydrants pose public danger in Hinesville
Nine hydrants, including devices that service Lyman Hall Elementary and Taylors Creek Elementary, are the responsibility of the organizations that own the property on which they are located – the Liberty County School System.
Kemp pushes vouchers, more security for schools
The governor, a potential candidate for the U.S. Senate after his term expires in 2026, also devoted a good part of Thursday’s address to paint a picture of government in Georgia as different from its dysfunctional federal counterpart.
Right whale calf injured by vessel strike
The first of nine endangered right whale calves born so far this season appears to have been injured by a boat propeller.
Will this be the year Georgia Republicans soften decade-long refusal of full Medicaid Expansion?
Republican leaders have steadfastly rejected full Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act for more than a decade, so the recent chatter represents a potential shift on the issue here. But there is no concrete proposal and any movement this year is far from certain.
Sports betting bill gains early passage in state Senate committee
The state would retain 20% of the gross revenue from most sports bets and 25% from “high-profit” bets including live bets placed during games. The money would go toward various state programs to be spelled out in a separate constitutional amendment.
Burns says more changes likely for Georgia election laws
New rules could shift investigations of voter complaints of election fraud from the secretary of state’s office to the State Election Board.
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