Fulton County bail controversy, Papa John’s foreign investors, Senate targets corporate home buyers

Summary

Georgia Today Podcast Summary
Date: March 12, 2026
Host: Peter Biello, Georgia Public Broadcasting

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Episode Overview

This episode features a roundup of the day’s top stories in Georgia, with a special focus on criminal justice reform and housing policy. Core topics include:

• A Fulton County commissioner’s push for community bailouts at the county jail
• Legislation targeting corporate homebuyers in Georgia
• Papa John’s attracting new foreign investors
• Updates on Georgia’s medical cannabis program and notable state events

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Corporate Investors and Single-Family Homes

[00:22–01:15]

• The U.S. Senate passed legislation (part of the 21st Century Road to Housing Act) to block large companies from purchasing masses of single-family homes.
• Sen. Raphael Warnock, who negotiated the provision, warned that corporate ownership squeezes out individual homebuyers:
  • Quote:
    “Atlanta is ground zero for private equity's domination of the housing market with more than one in four single family rental homes owned by institutional investors. One in four, That's a real problem.” (Sen. Warnock, 00:56)
• The bill saw bipartisan Senate support but faces hurdles in House negotiations.

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2. The Fulton County Bail Controversy & Cash Bail Debate

[01:15–06:32]

Background

• Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory personally bailed three inmates out of the chronically overcrowded jail, encouraging residents to do the same.
• This action follows the passage of Senate Bill 63 (2024), which mandated cash bail for more nonviolent offenses and limited bail assistance by individuals and organizations.

Expert Commentary with Tara Watford (Bail Project)

• Georgia's Cash Bail Law:
  • Senate Bill 63 requires cash bail for 30 additional nonviolent crimes and restricts charitable bail assistance to three people per year.
  • The ACLU challenged the restriction, and a U.S. District Court judge issued an injunction citing likely constitutional violations, allowing organizations (and individuals) to again post more than three bails annually.
    • Quote:
      “This injunction allowed the Bail Project and other local bail funds to resume supporting individuals with bail assistance. Importantly, the injunction also means that if she wanted, Commissioner Ivory could post more than three bails within a year.” (Tara Watford, 02:26)
• Assessment of Commissioner Ivory’s Action:
  • Commended for highlighting the system’s failures and putting a ‘human face’ on the bail crisis.
    • Quote:
      “If those individuals can be safely released with $85, then their detention was never about public safety. It was really about their bank accounts.” (Tara Watford, 03:30)
  • Stressed need for policy change and data transparency, not just more efficient bailouts.
  • Noted federal findings that Fulton County’s jail conditions remain unconstitutional.
• Why Cash Bail Fails:
  • Creates a two-tier system based on wealth, not risk.
    • “It’s your access to money, not your risk to the community, that determines whether you go home or stay in jail.” (Tara Watford, 05:09)
  • Leads to job and housing loss, destabilizing communities.
• Bail Project Impact:
  • Over 1,800 Georgians aided; 87% court appearance rate; 43% of clients had all cases dismissed; saved taxpayers $6 million in jail costs.

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3. Medical Cannabis Program Expansion

[06:38–07:32]

• The Georgia House passed Senate Bill 220, renaming and expanding eligibility for the state’s medical cannabis program.
  • Allows additional medical conditions and new methods of administration (including inhalation), but bans public use.
    • Quote:
      “When people are hurting, they need relief.” (Rep. Alan Powell, 07:05)
• The bill returns to the Senate for final approval.

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4. Atlanta Botanical Garden’s 50th Anniversary

[07:32–08:36]

• The annual “Atlanta Blooms” spring event will showcase 200,000+ bulbs, with new “Tulips at Twilight” evenings.
• A major display, “Atlanta Super Blooms,” will cover the Great Lawn.

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5. Andrew Young Turns 94

[08:36–09:04]

• Civil rights legend and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young celebrated his birthday.
• Asked about his legacy, Young replied:
  • Quote (on family):
    “All of them think they are perfect and they all want to be perfect and that's enough for me.” (Andrew Young, 08:36)

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6. Papa John’s Foreign Investor Interest

[09:04–09:53]

• A Qatari investment firm has reportedly offered $1.5 billion to take Atlanta-based Papa John’s private amid sluggish sales.

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7. Vertical Aviation Trade Show in Atlanta

[09:53–10:09]

• Industry leaders showcased new electric aircraft and air taxis at VertiCon.
  • Quote:
    “The first is connecting airports to the surrounding area. The second is tourism, so island hopping, sightseeing, and the third use case is just flying where there are kind of obstacles on the ground.” (Michael Cervenka, Vertical Aerospace, 09:53)
• Local investments include new manufacturing (Archer Aviation) and partnerships with Delta Air Lines.

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8. Georgia Statehouse: Annual Kickball Rivalry

[10:09–10:55]

• Legislators faced off in a kickball match; the House beat the Senate 9–3.
  • Quote (House Speaker John Burns):
    “They had no mercy. ... we dominated them and very end we had a little mercy on them, but not much.” (10:40)

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9. High School Basketball Championships & Falcons Roster Moves

[11:24–end]

• Wilcox County Patriots girls win their second straight title.
  • Quote (Zariah Martin):
    “First time we won it, we didn't. We just played our heart all this time, like we knew what to expect ... It feels good.” (11:24)
• Atlanta Falcons release QB Kirk Cousins; Tua Tagovailoa and rookie Michael Penix Jr. expected to take over.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Atlanta is ground zero for private equity's domination of the housing market.” — Sen. Warnock (00:56)
• “If those individuals can be safely released with $85, then their detention was never about public safety. It was really about their bank accounts.” — Tara Watford (03:30)
• “When people are hurting, they need relief.” — Rep. Alan Powell (07:05)
• “All of them think they are perfect and they all want to be perfect and that's enough for me.” — Andrew Young (08:36)
• “The first is connecting airports ... the second is tourism ... the third ... is just flying where there are kind of obstacles on the ground.” — Michael Cervenka (09:53)
• “They had no mercy... we dominated them...” — House Speaker John Burns (10:40)
• “...we just played our heart all this time, like we knew what to expect coming up here ... It feels good.” — Zariah Martin (11:24)

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Segment Timestamps

• [00:22] Senate ban on corporate homebuyers, Warnock’s comments
• [01:15] Fulton County commissioner’s bail action & intro to Tara Watford interview
• [02:26] Explanation of Senate Bill 63 and legal challenge
• [03:30] Systemic critique of cash bail
• [05:09] Why cash bail fails public safety
• [06:01] Bail Project outcomes & stats
• [06:38] Medical cannabis program update
• [07:32] Atlanta Botanical Garden anniversary
• [08:36] Andrew Young’s birthday interview
• [09:04] Papa John’s investor interest
• [09:53] Vertical aviation trade show
• [10:09] Statehouse kickball game
• [11:24] High school basketball; Falcons news

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This episode highlights urgent debates on cash bail reform and housing policy, plus covers a range of developments from state health policy to Georgia’s civic and sports milestones. The perspectives of both officials and advocates bring human context to the news, with memorable voices captured throughout.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, a Fulton county commissioner bails three people out of jail and encourages you to do the same. Foreign investors consider buying Atlanta based pizza chain Papa John's. And the U.S. senate pushes to ban large corporations from scooping up single family homes.

[B]

Atlanta is ground zero for private equity's domination of the housing market.

[A]

Today is Thursday, March 12th. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today. The US Senate voted today to ban large corporations from mass buying single family homes. Georgia US Senator Raphael Warnock negotiated the provision in the 21st century road to Housing Act. He says private equity is squeezing homebuyers out of the market.

[B]

Atlanta is ground zero for private equity's domination of the housing market with more than one in four single family rental homes owned by institutional investors. One in four, That's a real problem.

[A]

Bill passed with large bipartisan support but still faces hurdles in House Senate negotiations. Former Valdosta State Representative Dexter Sharper pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges yesterday. The Democrat was charged as part of an investigation into pandemic related fraud. Prosecutors said Sharper illegally collected nearly $14,000 in unemployment benefits, even though he was earning income from at least two jobs at the time. Sharper was first elected in 2012 and resigned his seat in the State House on Monday. Last week, Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory asked Atlantan to help post bail for people being held at the chronically overcrowded Fulton county jail. She even filmed herself bailing out three people for just a couple hundred dollars. It's the latest effort to alleviate crowding at a facility taxed by a growing population of people being held because they cannot afford to post bail. For more on this, we turn to Tara Watford, chief data and program innovation officer at the Bail Project. Welcome to the program.

[C]

Hi. Thanks, Peter. Thanks for having me.

[A]

I'm wondering if first you could explain the Georgia law that aims to keep cash bail in place. The cash bail system in place. That's Senate Bill 63.

[C]

Sure. So in 2024, Georgia enacted the Senate Bill 63, and it mandates a couple of things. First, it mandates cash bail for 30 additional nonviolent crimes. And it also restricts charitable bail organizations, churches and even individuals like you and me from providing bail assistance to more than three members of the community within a year. There has been some pushback on this legislation, though. The ACLU of Georgia brought forward a suit on behalf of Bard Business foundation related to particularly related to the restrictions of posting bail. A US District Court issued an injunction finding a likelihood that the law violates the first and Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. constitution. This injunction allowed the Bell Project and other local bail funds to resume supporting individuals with bail assistance. Importantly, the induction also means that if she wanted, Commissioner Ivory could post more than three bails within a year.

[A]

Right now, overall, what do you make of Commissioner Ivory's attempt to help in this way?

[C]

Couple of things is one, we commend Commissioner Ivery for recognizing the human toll of the crisis. Her actions prove that individuals are safe to be home. But we don't need a more efficient way to crowdsource bail. We actually need policy changes that stop jailing people for being poor and extremely important. We need data transparency that shows us exactly who is being left behind. The ACLU of Georgia released a report this past year that really shows that the jail conditions in Fulton county are not changing. In 2024, the U.S. department of justice found that the conditions in the jail were unconstitutional. Within that backdrop, it is a powerful statement that a sitting commissioner personally bails people out, but it also highlights the failures of the system. And if those individuals can be safely released with $85, then their detention was never about public safety. It was really about their bank account accounts.

[A]

What, in your view, would ultimately eliminate the problem before it gets to this point?

[C]

I think it's a little bit of like let's talk about the cash bail system overall in Georgia for some understanding there. And I think one is just the policy of cash bail is an abject failure in Georgia and for three real reasons that I can talk us through for a minute. One, it fails public safety. It it undermines community stability and it creates a system of inefficiencies.

[A]

Can I ask about safety first? Because safety is what politicians argue about when they say cash bail is necessary, that it keeps people safe. How does cash bail, as you say, fail public safety?

[C]

So first of all, Georgia's cash bail system is fundamentally flawed because it's based on wealth, not on public safety. So within a cash bail system, the court sets a price tag on a person's freedom before their trial. If you have the money, you walk free immediately, regardless of your risk. If you don't, you stay in jail even though you haven't been convicted of a crime. So basically, cash bail creates a two tier justice system. It's your access to money, not your risk to the community, that determines whether you go home or stay in jail, which then has serious impacts on community stability. When people are held in jail for even a few days they risk losing their jobs, their homes and custody of their children.

[A]

Has the Bail Project been bailing out people in the Fulton county jail, and if so, what have you learned from that process?

[C]

We have the Bell Project has supported over 800 people from Fulton county and across Georgia. The Bell Project has provided Bell assistance and pretrial to support more than 1,800 Georgians. Bell Project clients appear at 87% of their court appearances 43% of our clients have had all of their cases dismissed. And our work has saved Georgia taxpayers more than 6 million in jail costs.

[A]

Well, Tara Watford, chief data and program innovation officer at the Bail Project, thank you so much for speaking with me.

[C]

Thank you so much, Peter. It's a pleasure.

[A]

The Georgia House approved a bill today making changes to the state's medical cannabis program. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.

[D]

Senate Bill 220 renames the state's low THC oil to the medical cannabis program, allows inhalation as a way to administer the oil and bans using medical THC in public. It also adds more medical conditions that make people eligible to purchase medical cannabis. Representative Alan Powell supports SB220.

[B]

This is about helping people. If you have someone who has cancer that has als, folks get a life about this stuff. When people are hurting, they need relief.

[D]

The bill passed and now moves back to the Senate to approve the House changes. The Legislature first created the medical Cannabis program in 2015. For GPB news, I'm Sarah Kalis at the State Capitol.

[A]

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is marking its 50th anniversary with an extra colorful spring display. The garden says it has doubled the number of bulbs planted for its annual Atlanta Blooms celebration. More than 200,000 tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and crocuses are expected to bloom across the grounds in March and April. The anniversary display, dubbed Atlanta Super Blooms, will feature nearly 140,000 bulbs covering the Great Lawn in front of the Fuqua Conservatory Garden. Officials say the large scale planting is designed to create an immersive field of flowers. The Botanical garden also is introducing a new evening called Tulips at Twilight on select Thursdays this spring. Georgia icon Andrew Young turns 94 today. The Civil rights leader, former Atlanta mayor and former U.S. ambassador to the United nations remains one of the last living figures from the inner Circle of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. GPB's Pamela Kirkland recently interviewed Young about the passing of his friend, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and and asked Young what he thought his legacy would be.

[E]

I don't think in those terms. I'm very proud of my family and my friends. I've been blessed with with four children and I got nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren and I don't know that any of them is perfect. All of them think they are perfect and they all want to be perfect and that's enough for me.

[A]

Happy birthday to Andrew Young. Papa John's is facing renewed buyout interest as the publicly traded Atlanta based pizza giant struggles with sales. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that a Qatari based investment firm is behind the latest effort to take the company private. The offer is reportedly $1.5 billion. The world's largest trade show for vertical aviation wrapped up today in Atlanta. Vertical aviation includes helicopters and electric vehicles that soon could function as air taxis taking passengers to major airports like Hartsfield Jackson, Atlanta International. Michael Cervenka of UK based Vertical Aerospace was at the conference called verticon, showing off his company's vehicle designed for short trips.

[F]

Three main use cases we see in passenger carrying the first is connecting airports to the surrounding Catrant area. The second is tourism, so island hopping, sightseeing and the third use case is just flying where there are kind of obstacles on the ground.

[A]

California based Archer Aviation recently built an electric aircraft manufacturing plant in Covington, east of Atlanta, and Atlanta based Delta Air Lines recently partnered with the Dutch company Meeve Aerospace to advance the electric aircraft industry. Lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol traded suits and ties for cleats this week in the annual legislative kickball game. The friendly matchup pits members of the Georgia House against the Georgia Senate. House Speaker John Burns says it's the second year in a row the House has claimed the bragging rights.

[B]

These members acted just like they do when Senate sends legislation over here. They had no mercy. And so it was from the very beginning we dominated them and very end we had a little mercy on them, but not much.

[A]

This year, the House beat the Senate nine to three. The Georgia high school basketball championships are underway in Macon. The tournament runs through Saturday and GPB is bringing you all the action live. In today's 1A Division 2 girls championship, the Wilcox County Patriots top the Washington Wilkes Tigers. It was the second meeting of those two teams in two years for Wilcox senior Zariah Martin. It also was the second straight championship for her team.

[G]

First time we won it, we didn't. We just played our heart all this time, like we knew what to expect coming up here and just to win

[E]

and play our game.

[G]

It feels good, martin says.

[A]

Next for her is deciding where to play basketball in college games will go into this Evening on GPB TV and gpb.org the PBS NewsHour will air live at 6 tonight on GPB's All Arts Channel. And live Lawmakers will stream [e-mail] for more basketball details, go to gpb.org sports or check out the full TV listings at gpb.org television and in the NFL, the Atlanta Falcons have officially released quarterback Kirk Cousins, ending his tenure with the team. Cousins was cut yesterday. Atlanta signed the veteran quarterback to a four year deal worth up to $180 million two years ago, but the move never panned out. The Falcons are now moving forward with former Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tungo Vailoa and Rookie Michael Pennix Jr. That's it for this edition of Georgia Today. Thank you for tuning in. Come on back tomorrow. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast so we pop up automatically in your feed. And don't forget to check out gpb.org news for the latest headlines and any updates to the story you heard on the podcast today. If you've got feedback, send it our way by email. The address is Georgia todaypb.org I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We will see you tomorrow.