There are a good many new laws going into effect today in Georgia that were passed by the General Assembly earlier this year and signed by Governor Brian Kemp.
Here is the latest arrest report from the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office for Sunday, June 30, 2024:
Today is the deadline for applicants looking to fill the position of City Manager for the City of Summerville. Current City Manager Andrea Surratt is working a ninety-day notice. City officials say that their search for a new city manager should be complete around the time Surratt leaves her post.
Students are out for the summer, but it won’t be long until school starts back up again. The Chattooga County School System has announced the 2024 “Meet the Teacher” night for the upcoming school year. The events will take place at all Chattooga County Schools on Thursday, July 25 from 4 PM until 6 PM. The first day of school is Friday, July 26th.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency & Homeland Security Agency (GEMA/HS) is pleased to announce the award of a $19,493,349.00 Hazard Mitigation Grant Program project aimed at providing emergency backup power for critical facilities across the state. This funding will enable 43 local governments and 2 state agencies to enhance their preparedness and resilience to natural hazards.
Georgia’s two U.S. senators launched an inquiry Thursday aimed at strengthening tracking and data collection about deaths of inmates in federal, state, and local custody.
Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both Democrats, are asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to improve reporting practices under a law that requires the Justice Department to collect data from states and localities about the deaths of inmates in their custody to help identify potential violations of civil or human rights.
Ossoff, chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led a 10-month investigation in 2022 that found the Justice Department failed to count nearly 1,000 deaths of inmates in state or local custody in 2021, despite those deaths being publicly reported elsewhere.
“In prior outreach, we have urged the Department of Justice to investigate ongoing disturbing reports of deaths in custody in Georgia’s Clayton County and Fulton County jails,” the senators wrote in a letter to Garland.
“Tragically, deaths have continued. In just the first six months of 2024, at least six individuals have died in custody in Clayton County Jail. Another three have died in Fulton County Jail this year, following the deaths of 10 individuals in custody in Fulton County in 2023. These alarming numbers underscore the necessity of stronger reporting … to help identify the causes of these deaths and possible interventions to prevent future tragedies.”
Earlier this year, a report from National Public Radio (NPR) found some deaths classified as “natural” may trace back to factors such as inadequate medical treatment, neglect, or poor living conditions.
However, according to Justice Department documents, reporting forms do not call for information about medical treatment or other factors that could shed more light on the causes of “natural” deaths, making it harder to determine the scope of the problem.
In 2022, Congress passed bipartisan legislation Ossoff introduced requiring the Federal Bureau of Prisons to upgrade prison camera systems to provide secure storage, logging, preservation, and accessibility of recordings for future investigators pursuing allegations of misconduct, abuse, or other criminal activity in prisons.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill last month providing independent oversight of the prison agency.
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has issued a temporary restraining order from enforcing a certain section of a law that was signed by Governor Brian Kemp earlier this year and was set to go in place on July 1st.
Chattooga EMA /911 is looking to update and replace generators at the 911 center located on Farrar Drive in Summerville. According to EMA /911 officials, the current generators have been in use since the late 1990’s. In addition to the generators at the Chattooga EMA /911 station, the county is looking to replace the generators at the county’s communication tower located on Taylor’s Ridge.
The Summerville Fire Department recently took delivery on a new custom pumper truck. The $750,000 truck was built by Marion Body Works in Wisconsin. The truck features a 500 horsepower Cummins diesel engine and a side-mount aluminum pumper that is capable of 1500 gallons of water per minute. The truck is the largest the Summerville Fire Department has ever owned. The Summerville Fire Department has five full time firefighters and fifteen volunteer fire fighters that serve the city’s residents.
Two Calhoun City School employees, both females, have been indicted by a Gordon County Grand Jury for having sexual contact with students. The Calhoun Times reported that Railey Greeson and Brooklyn Shuler were both indicted last week on counts of first degree sexual contact by employee or agent. Officials say that the incidents happened between late October of 2021 and early January of 2022, but with different males students who were enrolled at the school at the time. The indictments say that the women “reasonably should have known” that they were carrying on a relationship with students. Both women have been released on bond from the Gordon County Jail and are awaiting trial on the charges.