Georgia editorial roundup

Recent editorials from Georgia newspapers:

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Sept. 28

The Augusta Chronicle on area mayors emphasizing unity in maximizing growth:

Cities have limits. Counties have lines. States have borders.

Communities have none of those.

Of course, having all those various political demarcations allows us the greatest amount of self-governance and freedom. It gives us more pockets of hopefully responsive government. It makes us sovereign. That’s a good thing.

But to create the kinds of communities we want to live in, we’ve got to think outside the lines.

That’s the beauty of attitudes expressed by three area mayors at a forum on growth sponsored by the CSRA chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International.

“I don’t know that growth recognizes a boundary. Growth will occur where there’s opportunity,” offered North Augusta Mayor Bob Pettit, whose views were shared by Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis and Aiken Mayor Rick Osbon.

“The success of one of our municipalities certainly affects in a positive way the others,” Osbon agreed.

Augusta’s Davis also made a magnificent point when he noted not just the coming growth, but the changing nature of it: Other than a certain golf tournament each year, the Augusta area already is justly known for being a hub in medicine, manufacturing and the military - but with the explosion of cyber security at Fort Gordon and in the private sector, we’ll be known as perhaps the nation’s center for the burgeoning industry.

“Instead of having a smokestack and 100,000 square feet of space, all you really need is a smart device,” Davis told the forum. “I think that’s the kind of economy we want to create and grow.”

The Army Cyber Command Headquarters at Fort Gordon, and the resulting $60 million Hull McKnight Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center now being built on the Savannah River downtown, means the entire region will be growing and changing.

Indeed, the community-based Alliance for Fort Gordon’s recent creation of what it calls the “Fort Gordon Cyber District” - the area that growth in the cyber industry is likely to benefit the most - includes Richmond, Columbia, Burke, McDuffie and Lincoln counties in Georgia, and Aiken and Edgefield counties in South Carolina.

As the man said, when opportunity knocks, it doesn’t much care about boundaries. And in this instance, neither should we.

Fact is, no one political jurisdiction can contain what’s coming - the dozens of companies and thousands of both public- and private-sector cyber warriors.

The Alliance, which aims to coordinate and maximize the growth in cyber, is creating a “a vision for the area that is complete with plans to address education, workforce development, innovation, entrepreneurship and marketing centered around the development of the local cyber community,” according to Executive Director Tom Clark, a veteran of Fort Gordon.

Our biggest challenge, it seems - other than taking intergovernmental cooperation to unprecedented levels here - may simply be getting a handle on all the opportunity and nurturing it.

As the mayors hinted at, maybe the only way to get our arms around the coming growth is to hold hands.

Online: https://chronicle.augusta.com/

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Sept. 25

Savannah Morning News on the resignation of a federal prosecutor:

James D. Durham, who resigned as the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, should be saluted for his long and successful career in law enforcement.

Mr. Durham served as a fearless advocate for people for more than 15 years here. He and his staff have prosecuted everything from white-collar crooks and dirty cops to crooked pastors and violent gang members.

He started as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Office’s Criminal Division in 2002 then worked his way up to be the Office’s criminal chief in 2007. He became first assistant U.S. attorney in 2010 and was named acting U.S. attorney in March this year when then-U.S. Attorney Edward Tarver resigned in a response to a directive from U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions that all Obama-era appointees resign immediately.

It’s customary for U.S. attorneys, who are appointed by the president, to leave their posts once a new president is in office. Fortunately, work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office here didn’t skip a beat after the accomplished Mr. Tarver stepped down, as Mr. Durham was uniquely qualified and experienced to fill in for his former boss on an interim basis. Mr. Durham headed prosecution of some the most high-profile cases in this district, including the 2014 conviction of former Savannah-Chatham Police Chief Willie Lovett on charges of commercial gambling and conspiring with an admitted gambler and others to obstruct enforcement of criminal laws over a 13-year period.

Earlier this year, he headed the prosecution of Chadwick Reese, former CEO at the Chatham Area Transit, on fraud charges. Prior to that, he headed the prosecution of Martin J. “Marty” Bradley III and his father, Martin J. Bradley Jr. in a multi-million Bio-Med Medicaid rip-off scheme. Indeed, Mr. Durham was a fierce protector of the public’s pocketbook. And he didn’t discriminate when it came to alleged wrongdoing. His office went after hospitals and physicians that it believed were milking the system, dangerous doctors who ran pill mills and ordinary citizens accused bilking the food stamp program.

One of his most effective and appreciated efforts was his long-standing support of local programs aimed at getting violent criminals and criminal gang members off Savannah’s streets.

Mr. Durham worked closely with local police and Chatham County District Attorney Meg Heap to maximize the effectiveness of laws against convicted felons who carry guns. The punishment for such crimes is stiffer in the federal court system, and Mr. Durham’s support for this program was critical to any success it had. Indeed, a six-month-long effort that resulted in the arrests of 22 people earlier this year was credited for cleaning up violence and crime in the Cann Park neighborhood. Mr. Durham rightly said at that time that the success of the operation was an example of “what can be done when we all work together.”

Let’s hope that his successor, R. Brian Tanner, has a similar law-and-order and cooperative mind-set.

Mr. Tanner was appointed as interim U.S. attorney. He has a solid background as the Office’s appellate chief since 2010 and as an assistant U.S. attorney in the criminal division from 2006 to 2010.

Mr. Tanner rightly said of Mr. Durham, “His leadership has made this office stronger and the people of the Southern District of Georgia safer.”

Online: https://savannahnow.com/

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Oct. 1

The Valdosta Daily Times on public records:

Georgia law says, “The General Assembly finds and declares that the strong public policy of this state is in favor of open government.”

The state’s Sunshine Law rightly says, “open government is essential to a free, open and democratic society.”

We could not agree more.

It does not matter, however, if local officials agree or disagree with the fundamental principles of open government because it’s the law.

County commissioners, members of city council, members of the board of education and everyone who sits on local government committees, commissions, boards and authorities must realize all the government business they do is the people’s business.

The public has the right to know all of its own business.

The documents held in the halls of government belong to the public, not to public officials.

The public has a vested interest in government transparency. Being able to attend public meetings, hearing all deliberations of the public’s business is critical to being able to hold government accountable.

Access to public records, including financial records, is just as critical.

Open government laws do not exist to protect and assist the media. Sunshine Laws exist to protect the public.

A government of, by and for the people must always be out in front of the people.

While there are narrow exceptions to open meetings and open records laws, those exceptions should never become the rule or the standard.

All exceptions should be interpreted as narrowly as possible.

Lawmakers have said unequivocally that when there is a question about whether a record is a public record or if a meeting should be an open public meeting, there should always be a strong presumption for openness.

So, if local officials are ever in doubt regarding whether something can be discussed in executive session, they should opt for open rather than closed.

If they doubt whether or not a requested record should be made available to someone who requests it, they should grant rather than deny the request.

If they are going to err in one direction or the other, it is always best to err on the side of openness.

If elected officials were to discuss something in good faith in an open public meeting that could have been discussed behind closed doors, they would not have violated any state law by doing so.

If a records custodian, in good faith, provides a record that could have been exempted under the public records law and did not disclose personal private information, anything to do with national security or proprietary trade secrets, they will not be held legally accountable for having done so.

Concealing the public’s business is not only a violation of the law, it is a violation of the public trust.

It is a shame that state laws are even needed to tell local government officials they have to do what they should just do naturally, viz. keep the public’s business public.

Online: https://www.valdostadailytimes.com/