Rockdale County to name teen center after Grady Jarrett
A teen center at Johnson Park in Rockdale County will be named the Grady Jarrett Resource Opportunity Center, honoring local graduate and Atlanta Falcons defensive lineman Grady Jarrett.
County officials plan to host a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new center, located at 1781 Ebenezer Rd SW in Conyers, on Aug. 31 at 5 p.m.
At approximately 700-square-feet, the center is expected to have state-of-the -art technolgy and e-sports equipment.
The center will also serve as a place to help teens register for college, apply for employment and host e-sports tournaments and leagues.
Jarrett was a star at Rockdale County High School before attending Clemson University from 2011-2014. He was selected by the Atlanta Falcons in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft.
– Staff Reports
Henry County Schools starts bridge teachers program
If in-person learning is interrupted due to COVID-19, Henry County students now have bridge teachers to help keep them on track.
Bridge teachers focus solely on virtual instruction of core content, such as English, math, science and history. Bridge teachers are available for every grade level.
“Student learning remains our core business in Henry County Schools, and we know that the best place for any child to learn is in one of our classrooms,” Superintendent Mary Elizabeth Davis told a local newspaper. “There was a good bit of disruption in schools last year, but we have learned so many lessons on how to respond, and we were even able to keep schools open 75% of the year.”
– Staff Reports
Kemp fights virus surge with guardsmen
With COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations still on the rise in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp deployed the Georgia National Guard Tuesday to hospitals across the state.
Kemp announced that 105 members of the Guard with medical training will head to 10 hospitals.
“These guardsmen will assist our frontline health-care workers as they provide quality medical care during the current increase in cases and hospitalizations,” the governor said.
“This Georgia National Guard mission is in addition to the 2,800 state-supported staff and 450 new beds brought online I announced last week, at a total state investment of $625 million through December of this year.”
The Guard personnel will be assigned to the following hospitals:
• Southeast Georgia Health System in Brunswick
• Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville
• Wellstar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta
• Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge
• Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany
• Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah
• Navicent Health Hospital in Macon
• Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta
• Piedmont Fayette Hospital in Fayetteville
• Houston Medical Center in Warner Robins
The Georgia National Guard is working with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and the state Department of Community Health to carry out the mission.
The number of confirmed cases of the virus in Georgia passed 1 million last week and stood at 1,036,304 as of Monday afternoon, according to the state Department of Public Health. COVID-19 has hospitalized 70,777 Georgians and is responsible for 22,263 confirmed or probable deaths.
– Capitol Beat News
State Supreme Court hears challenge of tax on strip clubs
Georgia’s 1% tax on strip clubs to raise funds to combat child sex trafficking unfairly punishes businesses with no connection to the sexual exploitation of children, a lawyer for the clubs said Wednesday. But a lawyer for the state told the Georgia Supreme Court studies have shown strip clubs are frequented by child sex traffickers to lure customers, and taxing them is less harmful to those businesses than banning them altogether.
The General Assembly passed the Safe Harbor Act in 2015 to create a source of tax revenue to support rehabilitative care and other social services for sexually exploited children. The following year, Georgia voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum adding the act to the state Constitution.
The Georgia Association of Club Executives (GACE) challenged the law in a lawsuit filed in 2017. Last year, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell declared it unconstitutional because a section of the law that applied the tax to businesses that charge customers to view “persons exhibiting or modeling lingerie” was vague and could resort in arbitrary enforcement. On Wednesday, Alexander Volokh, a lawyer representing GACE, argued the tax unfairly targets strip clubs to raise money to combat criminal activity for which they are not responsible.
“They’re being blamed and penalized for a problem they’re not involved in and don’t contribute to,” he said.
But Georgia Deputy Solicitor General Ross Bergethon said members of the General Assembly, in passing the law, relied on studies showing that both adult and child prostitution often occur inside strip clubs.
Courts have routinely upheld the right of governments to ban clubs that combine nude dancing with the sale of alcohol from their jurisdictions, Bergethon said.
“There’s no reason to treat this minimal tax on the same combination any differently,” he said.
Volokh cited U.S. Supreme Court rulings that nude dancing is a constitutionally protected form of expression under the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech. But Chief Justice David Nahmias told Volokh the case doesn’t just involve nude dancing because the clubs are engaged in a combination of nude dancing and the commercial sale of alcohol.
The court is expected to rule on the case later this year.
– Capitol Beat News
