← Georgia Today
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Welcome to the Georgia Today Podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, Georgia lawmakers reject a proposal to nearly eliminate property taxes for homeowners. Rules meant to protect endangered right whales are now also endangered. And a new bill seeks to make protesting without a permit a lot more expensive.
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It is something that parents should have taught people a long time ago. Don't block the streets, don't block any kind of roads because that way you don't stop a parent from getting to school or vice versa. You don't stop an ambulance. You don't stop a fire truck.
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Today is Wednesday, March 4th. I'm Peter Biello and this is Georgia Today. The Georgia House of Representatives rejected a proposal yesterday to nearly eliminate homeowner property taxes. The legislation required a constitutional amendment that would be put in front of voters and needed 2/3 majority from the House to pass. Republicans argued state property taxes are too high, while Democrats said renters would suffer if property taxes were nearly eliminated. Republican leaders asked for the bill to be reconsidered today. Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones says eliminating the state income tax remains a long term goal for Republican lawmakers. Speaking Last night on GPB's Lawmakers, Jones defended proposals to continue lowering the tax.
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We have lowered the state income tax every year. We'll do it again this year and, and we're planning on getting us to that point of zero. But we've always said we're going to be very responsible with it and that's why we have the annual budgetary process and our main constitutional obligation is to balance the budget.
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The state Senate is considering proposals that would either lower the rate to 3.9% or eliminate it for roughly 70% of taxpayers. Jones is running for governor and eliminating the state income tax as a cornerstone of his campaign. Reaction is rolling in after yesterday's unprecedented verdict in the Colin Gray trial. Gray was found guilty of murder for providing his son with a rifle used in the 2024 fatal shooting at Apalachee High School. GPB's Chase McGee has more.
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During the trial, prosecutors showed cell phone records from Colin's wife Marcy showing she made searches about safe gun storage laws on websites like Giffords and Everytown for gun safety. After the verdict, every town senior vice president for Law and Policy Nick Ciplina says safe storage legislation in Georgia could help prevent the next school shooting.
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One in particular that makes it quite clear what a parent's responsibility is when it comes to locking up their firearms in the home. When there's a child.
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Last year, Georgia House Representative Michelle Au sponsored a bill that would create criminal penalties should a child access an unsecured firearm and hurt someone with it. That bill is unlikely to pass. For GPB news, I'm Chase McGee.
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The Georgia Senate advanced a bill yesterday that would increase the penalties for obstructing a street during a protest. GPB's Sarah Kalis reports.
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Senate Bill 443 would make blocking a street or highway during an unpermitted protest a high aggravated misdemeanor and punishable by a $5,000 fine or up to one year in jail. Republican State Senator Cardin Summers, of course ordeal in central Georgia, sponsored the bill.
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It is something that parents should have taught people a long time ago. Don't block the streets, don't block any kind of roads because that way you don't stop a parent from getting to school or vice versa. You don't stop an ambulance. You don't stop a fire truck.
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Democrats raised concern that the bill would hinder the constitutional right to peacefully protest. SB443 passed 35 to 17 along party lines and now moves to the House for their approval. For GPV News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the State capitol.
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The former DeKalb County Sheriff who was convicted of murder in the plot to assassinate a political rival has died in prison. The Georgia Department of Corrections confirms Sidney Dorsey died of natural causes at Augusta State Medical Prison on Monday. Dorsey made national headlines when, after he lost a re election bid to Derwin Brown In2020, he conspired to have Brown fatally shot. He later was sentenced to life in prison. Sydney Dorsey was 86 years old. The national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced plans to roll back some protections for North Atlantic right whales. The agency today filed notice that it's seeking to change regulations that slow down ships to prevent them from colliding with the critically endangered whales. Marine scientist Nora Ives of the advocacy group oceana says about 380 North Atlantic right whales remain and and ship strikes are one of their leading causes of death.
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The science supports slowdowns as the most effective measure to protect these whales. You know, ultimately every study that has examined both vessel strike risk and vessel strike lethality has found that they are both reduced by lowering vessel speeds.
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NOAA says it's modernizing the regulations to adapt to new technologies, support American industry and reduce red tape. The ship speed regulations have been in place since 2008. The agency is taking public comments on its plans through June 2nd. The right whales spend their winters off the Southeast Atlantic coast, including Georgia, for their calving season. The Atlanta Track Club says it will match prize money for the three elite runners who were led off course during Sunday's U.S. half Marathon Championships. Race organizers say a police officer working the event was struck by a vehicle nearby and prompting the women's pace vehicle to follow a police motorcycle in the wrong direction. The Club says Jess McLean will receive first place prize money, while Emma Grace Hurley and Edna Courgett will split the combined total of second and third place prize money. A program in Columbus has begun work helping people transition from jail to life back in the community. The latest Operation New Hope unit at the West Central Georgia Regional Hospital helps people transition using apartment style pods and and customized therapy. Organizers say this reduces the number of people waiting in local jails for crimes related to mental illness. The first group of 10 patients began treatment last week. Program operators are working to fill the remaining 10 beds. Operation New Hope units are run by the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. Other such units are in operation in Savannah and Milledgeville. The Chattahoochee Riverkeeper is seeking volunteers for a river cleanup effort called Sweep the Hooch. The event typically brings more than 1500 volunteers together each year at dozens of parks and creeks throughout the Chattahoochee river watershed. Volunteers set out on foot, wade in streams or paddle canoes and kayaks to pick up trash. Participants can choose from more than 65 sites, beginning at the river's headwaters in North Georgia down to the Columbus area. Last year, volunteers removed more than 41 tons of trash. Volunteers can sign up@sweepthehooch.org hi, it's Terry
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Gross, host of Fresh Air. Hey, take a break from the 24 hour news cycle with us and listen to long form interviews with your favorite authors, actors, filmmakers, comedians and musicians. The people making the art that nourishes us and speaks to our times. So listen to the Fresh AIR podcast from NPR and whyy.
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Each week, Salvation south editor Chuck Reese joins GPB on the air for a commentary on our ever evolving Southern culture. Last week, Chuck delivered a lecture at Mercer University's center for Southern Studies in Macon. The next morning, he had breakfast at the H and H, a restaurant that's been feeding Maconites for nearly 70 years, a restaurant that has stories of its own to tell about the South. Here's Chuck.
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Mama Louise and Mama Hill have gone home, but their restaurant, the hh, lives on. Louise Hudson and her cousin Inez Hill opened the H and h restaurant on 4 Scythe street in downtown Macon, Georgia, in 195967 years later, it still opens every morning at 7am 8 on weekends to serve breakfast, then lunch. Now in my teenage years, a visit to the H and H was part of a rock and roll pilgrimage. A stop in Rose Hill Cemetery to hang out at the graves of Duane Allman and Barry Oakley, then lunch at the HH where Mama Louise and Mama Hill fed the Allman Brothers Band in their early lean years on credit or out of the goodness of their hearts. Now it's part of a Southern history pilgrimage. I was in Macon last week to deliver the annual Byington Lecture at Mercer University Spencer B. King Jr. Center for Southern Studies. The next morning, needing breakfast, we headed to the H H, Stacy and I both had a Butch Biscuit, the sausage or bacon, egg and cheese handful that's named after the late Butch Trucks, one of the band's two drummers. It was early, but inside the room was already awake. Coffee cups clinking, most of the tables full, smell of breakfast abiding like true love in the air. I kept thinking about how a place like this has watched the south misbehave and try to grow up. In 1959, when H& H opened its doors, Macon was still dug in on the wrong side of history. Yet here sat this black owned cafe, feeding whoever would walk through the door and mind their manners. Over the years, civil rights workers, lawyers, working class Maconites and hungry musicians have fed their souls and bellies here. During the Civil Rights movement, arguments about what the south should be raged at the courthouse and in churches. But the daily practice of a better south was quieter. Inside the H and H A plate set down in front of you, refill of your coffee cup server who would probably address you as Hun. The night before, I stood in a university hall talking about the stories we tell to repair this region. The next morning that story arrived on a biscuit. Institutions like Mercer's King center honor and repair the south in myriad ways through stories, research and digging, sometimes literally in the dirt of our region. But the HH does it by opening bright and early every day to prove that another south has been sitting here all along, waiting for us to sit down together and eat. Come see us anytime@salvationsouth.com if you'd like
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to hear more from Chuck, including some deeper dives into Southern topics with his Salvation South Deluxe podcast episodes, visit gpb.org salvation south and that is all the news that's fit for the podcast today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Updates are available anytime@gpp.org news and we're going to have the latest headlines again tomorrow afternoon, so make sure you subscribe. Subscribe to this podcast now. If you've got feedback on anything you've heard or perhaps you know of something in Georgia that we should know about, maybe do some reporting on, email us. The address is Georgia todaypb.org I'm Peter Biello. Thank you again for listening. We will see you tomorrow.