About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 28, 2020)
LOCAGSTATE The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Friday, August 28, 2020 3A Hall’s unemployment rate drops to 5.6% BY JEFF GILL jgill@gainesvilletimes.com Hall County’s unemployment picture continues to improve, with the rate inching closer to pre- COVID 19 numbers. The unemployment rate dipped in July to 5.6%, down from 5.7% in June, according to preliminary figures released Thursday, Aug. 27, by the Georgia Department of Labor. A year ago, the rate was 3.1 %, so Hall hasn’t completely rebounded. Still, current numbers are a far cry from the 10.7% in April, when busi nesses were shutting down due to the pandemic. “As the state continues to reopen, we are going to see wild fluctuations up and down of the unemployment rate across the state,” Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said Thursday. “The numbers that we really need to focus on are the most important ones, such as increases in work force and employment, which we are continuing to see in all (metro politan areas).” Gainesville ended July with 93,225 employed residents. That number increased by 1,494 over the month but is down by 5,716 when compared to the same time a year ago, the labor department said. Also, the number of unemploy ment claims went down by 24% in July. The department’s online job list ing service at employgeorgia.com showed about 1,638 active job post ings in Hall County for July. The state has about 136,000 job listings overall at that site, agency spokes woman Kersha Cartwright said to reporters in a press conference Thursday. “There are jobs for (people) to apply for. We’d like to see folks go and utilize this (online) tool,” she said. The Greater Hall Cham ber of Commerce also has an online resource for those seek ing work at ghcc.com/education/ workforce-development/area-jobs/. Tourism has been one of the hardest-hit employment sectors and one that plays a vital role in Hall County, especially with Lake Lanier drawing millions of visitors per year. “Employment is going up as hotels and attractions have been reopening and working toward normal business capacities,” Sta cey Dickson, Lake Lanier Conven tion & Visitors Bureau president, said Thursday. “We are not back to pre-pan demic employment since there’s not enough business to demand those levels yet. We are optimistic about the return of these jobs once corporate and group travel is able to begin again.” Dickson added: “It’s important to note that our market segment may see a drop in employment over the next few weeks. This is normal due to seasonal jobs that end as school goes back into session.” Commissioners deny apartments on Thompson Mill Road The Hall County Board of Com missioners unanimously voted Thursday, Aug. 27 to deny a pro posal for a 350-unit apartment complex off Thompson Mill Road in South Hall. The 31-acre lot near Spout Springs Road would have been rezoned from agricultural-res idential to planned residential development for the project, and the Hall County Planning Commission had previously rec ommended approval for the development. The development had been pro posed by Atlanta-based developer TPA Residential and Gainesville firm Rochester & Associates. Some speakers at Thursday’s meeting said they supported the apartment complex because they saw the need for more housing for younger professionals in the area, but the proposal drew con cerns from several area residents who said they were worried about overcrowding, traffic and prop erty values. “Single-family residential is nowhere near the impact as apart ment rentals are,” Joy Basham of Braselton said. “.. We cannot allow any more apartments on Thompson Mill. If this develop ment were to be approved, how do you stop the next? It opens up Thompson Mill to be apart ment row, and it will significantly impact the surrounding single family communities.” Brian Rochester of Rochester & Associates, the Gainesville firm that was the applicant for the proj ect, said Thursday the apartments would have been designed for mil- lennials and active adults in the growing area of South Hall. “These are really a resort com munity, is what we’re presenting,” Rochester said. “They’re a class A multi-family. This is the highest- end development.” Megan Reed Rendering courtesy Rochester & Associates Investigation: Fulton failed to process ballot applications BY KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press ATLANTA — After an investigation found that election officials in the Georgia’s most populous county failed to process some absentee ballot applications for the June primary, the state elec tion board on Thursday referred the matter to the state attorney general to determine whether laws were broken. After delaying the pri mary elections because of the coronavirus pandemic, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger encouraged Georgia voters to vote by absentee ballot and sent an absentee ballot application to every active voter. That led to an unprecedented flood of applications into county election offices. Election officials in Ful ton County, which includes most of Atlanta, have pre viously acknowledged the challenges that caused, say ing they were exacerbated by the virus outbreak and technical problems. Chris Harvey, elections director for the secretary of state’s office, told the board during a meeting held by teleconference that election officials around the state, including in Ful ton County, were “heroic” in their efforts to deal with issues caused by the virus outbreak. “They consistently tried to adapt to changing con ditions. I didn’t see any evidence of dereliction or indifference from them,” Harvey said of the Fulton County election officials. “I think they tried. Unfor tunately, I believe the pro cesses in Fulton County trying to deal with the absentee ballots was insuf ficient and ineffective.” Amanda Clark Palmer, a lawyer for Fulton County, disputed any conclusions that problems were not addressed or remedied quickly enough. “The fact of the matter is that many of the prob lems that this pandemic caused for Fulton County with absentee voting were addressed,” she told the board. “Fulton County successfully processed the vast majority of the absentee applications they received.” There is enough evi dence to show Fulton County received absentee ballot applications by mail and email “that were not processed and entered into the system as received or to be processed,” Frances Watson, an investigator with the secretary of state’s office told the board. The investigation stemmed from 254 com plaints the secretary of state’s office received from Fulton County resi dents who said they never received requested absen tee ballots, Watson said, adding that many more may have been affected but did not file a complaint. At least 107 of those people told the secretary of state’s office they did not end up voting at all, she said. Fulton County accounted for at least 75% to 80% of the complaints about absen tee ballots, Watson said. The county accounts for about 11 % of the state’s vot ers, according to state data. Clark Palmer said the matter needs to be consid ered against the backdrop of what was happening at the time, with the pan demic necessitating drastic changes even as guidance CARRIERS ■ Continued from 1A said the plan could provide Hall schools with a good estimate of how many asymptomatic carriers are in school buildings, so long as enough students and employees participate. “It will be the most effective if we get a large number of participants,” he said. “So if we only have a small sample size, it’s not going to tell us a lot about how widespread the virus could be among staff and students. If we can get a larger amount of participants to come through, it could give us a rate of asymptomatic patients or students, so that would be something the system could use as a guide.” Norris said NGHS chose to help with the plan because the health system wanted to support the community and the local school districts. He said that while this testing is just a small piece of the bigger picture of fighting the spread of COVID-19, any extra data is always helpful. “If I were a parent, it would make me see that the school is taking this seriously and that they understand the more information they have the better for their staff and their students,” Norris said. Results of the weekly testing will be posted in the school district’s COVID-19 absences report, which is updated on a daily basis. The Gainesville City School District is also going to be issuing reports on COVID-19 cases in its schools. Lewis said the asymptomatic testing pro gram, along with the other data the Hall County School District is providing daily, is all part of a plan to make students, parents SCOn ROGERS I The Times LPN Amanda McDaniel, of Northeast Georgia Physicians Group Urgent Care Gainesville, prepares to use a COVID-19 test Thursday, Aug. 27, at Cherokee Bluff High School. and teachers as confident as possible that in-person instruction in Hall County schools remains safe. “We want to be as transparent and as pro active as possible,” he said. “And in order to do that, we feel like getting this data, getting folks on board, getting them to see what we’re trying to accomplish through the testing, I think that gives them a level of confidence that we’re willing to do what’s necessary to hold school in a safe way. ” SHOOTING ■ Continued from 1A While checking for other people in the home, deputies found two marijuana grow rooms in the basement, Booth said. The Gainesville/Hall County Multi- Agency Narcotics Squad obtained a search warrant for the home and later seized 38 marijuana plants in “various stages of growth,” containers of THC oil and psilocy bin mushrooms, Booth said. Turner is charged with aggravated assault, aggravated battery, manufactur ing marijuana, possession of THC oil with intent to distribute and possession of psilo cybin mushrooms. He was arrested on the drug charges Wednesday and booked into the Hall County Jail, where he is being held without bond. The case is still under investigation. from health officials was limited and constantly changing. Fulton County received about 144,000 absentee bal lot applications, she said. The county’s email system became overloaded, and there were also problems printing ballot applications sent by email so they could be processed, she said. On top of that, COVID-19 infections among the staff that processes absentee bal lots caused the office to be closed for a couple of days for sanitization, and work ers took another two days off for bereavement after one of their coworkers died from the disease, county elections director Rick Bar ron told the board. Staffers struggled to dig out from the backlog caused by those problems, Barron said. County election officials have identified improve ments to keep the problems from happening again, Clark Palmer said. Punitive action of any kind, includ ing referral to the attorney general’s office, would be inappropriate in this case, she said. Election board members said they recognize the challenges Fulton County election officials faced and applauded their efforts. But, in the end, it appears people did not receive their ballots and that isn’t accept able and must not happen again, they said. “There is just no margin for error anymore,” board member David Worley said before voting along with the other members present to refer the case to the attor ney general’s office. Following its own legal review, the attorney gener al’s office can try the case before an administrative law judge for an opinion or work out a negotiated con sent order, spokeswoman Katie Byrd said. Sponsored by Northeast Georgia Health System HEALTHY AGING VIRTUAL EXPO Starting SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 UUednesdays 10 a.m. - I I a.m. HEALTHY AGING ZOOM FORUM Sign up today at gainesvilletimes.com/healthyaging and learn how to keep that inner child glowing! She Sjmes Megan Lewis gainesvilletimes.com 770-535-6371
