Morning, y’all! The word of the day is “oubliette.” It’s a French word for a type of dungeon. However, I recently heard someone use it to refer to the document file where they keep nice turns of phrase that don’t make it into the final drafts of writing projects. Don’t kill your darlings, throw them in the oubliette!
Let’s get to it.
JAIL FOR SALE
The City of Atlanta and Fulton County’s Board of Commissioners have been trading negotiations over the sale of the Atlanta City Detention Center, and things have started to get ugly.
The city owns the ACDC, and Fulton County is leasing about 700 beds in the facility as it tends to the troubled Fulton County Jail. (That’s the one also referred to as The Rice Street jail; the one once condemned by the U.S. Department of Justice for inhumane conditions.)
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wants to sell the ACDC to the county, but he’s driven a hard bargain.
Dickens wants the money, the county wants the space
- Dickens initially offered the jail for $80 million. But, as part of the deal, he also wanted support for his controversial Tax Allocation District (TAD) extension plan and a $200 million contribution toward a new city hospital.
- The mayor rescinded the offer two weeks ago when a majority of the county commission opted out of Dickens’ TAD extensions.
- Now, the county is offering $56.5 million for the jail, a significant price cut they say better reflects the facility’s value.
- Fulton County says it has been trying to buy the ACDC from the city for 17 years to relieve overcrowding.
- In the meantime, the county agreed on a $1.3 billion plan to build a new facility, then refurbish the Rice Street facility, moving detainees from one site to another as construction progresses.
🔎 READ MORE: Dickens had strong words for commissioners’ decisions
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MIGRANT WORKERS GET MULTIMILLION $ SETTLEMENT
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Migrant workers who say they were promised skilled jobs at Georgia factories and then forced to do underpaid manual labor have won a multimillion-dollar settlement.
- A Georgia federal court approved the $11.5 million settlement, which ends a class-action lawsuit filed in 2022.
- More than 600 workers could receive financial compensation.
- In 2022, a group of Mexican college graduates told the AJC they had been recruited for engineering jobs through the Trade NAFTA, or TN, visa program. That program is supposed to fill high-skilled jobs in the U.S. with Mexican and Canadian professionals. Instead, they ended up on assembly lines for low pay, and often stayed under threat of deportation.
- The settlement will be paid by Hyundai Mobis, Kia and local staffing and recruitment agencies that helped find and bring the immigrant workers to Georgia on temporary visas. In the settlement agreement, the companies denied any wrongdoing.
🔎 READ MORE: The settlement sends a message, immigrants’ attorney says
GEORGIANS ARE STRUGGLING WITH THEIR STUDENT LOANS
Georgians have almost $11 billion in defaulted student loans.
- That’s the fifth-highest default amount in the country.
- About 23% of Georgia’s student loan borrowers, or 396,000 people, are in default.
- This is a nationwide concern, and experts say they worry another round of defaults is coming.
- That’s due in part to the elimination of the SAVE plan, the most affordable loan payment option that enrolled more than 7 million borrowers. Rising costs of living and confusion over student loan statuses could make things even worse.
🔎 READ MORE: The cost of higher education is breeding mistrust. How colleges are addressing the issue
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🤝 President Donald Trump is trying to play peacemaker between Rick Jackson and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, personally stepping in to broker a truce after one of the nastiest Republican primaries for governor in Georgia history. The AJC Politics team has some exclusive info.
💰 Abortion rights advocates are investing in Georgia’s Democratic candidates as part of a national strategy. Expect much of the Georgia messaging to focus on the anti-abortion law Gov. Brian Kemp signed in 2019.
⚡ Companies tied to data centers are gobbling up warehouse space across the state, softening the blow of the warehouse industry slump that began after the pandemic.
NEW SAPELO ISLAND ZONING LAW SPARKS CONCERN
Credit: Justin Taylor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Justin Taylor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Residents on Georgia’s Sapelo Island fought hard to affect a new zoning ordinance that limits home construction on the fragile, historically significant barrier island. But, they worry that the way the ordinance is worded could invite abuse.
- The new ordinance limits homes to a single story with 1,550 square feet under a low-pitch roof.
- But because Sapelo is on the ocean and at risk of storm surge flooding, the ordinance allows for residences to be built off the ground, to a maximum height of 32 feet.
- This is common beachside architecture — car and storage on the bottom, house up top. However, the whole reason advocates wanted tighter zoning ordinances was to prevent vacation homes and short-term rentals from popping up everywhere.
- They say, under the current ordinance, a builder could easily enclose the lower level after inspections, making the dwelling bigger.
- It may seem like paranoia, but residents who have fought with local leaders and seen several iterations of the ordinance seem to think the specifics leave room for bad faith interpretation.
🔎 READ MORE: How people on Sapelo Island live now
NEWS BITES
Ultrarare Nintendo Mario ‘Duck Hunt’ game cartridges discovered
Big win for the “never throw away your stuff, it might be worth something” crowd.
Opinion: The age of AI companionship is here. We are not ready for it
I was glued to every word of this piece by a scholar of experimental psychology and instructional technology.
High school football player in Arkansas practices with a venomous snake in his helmet
No, he didn’t know it was in there. This would break me and remold me into a villain.
ON THIS DATE
Aug. 12, 1932
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
Meteors fly and one fan is shot for burglar. Tragedy, humor and scientific interest rubbed shoulders as Atlanta turned out Thursday night to view the astral spectacle which sent 261 stars streaking across the heavens. One man, Lance Stephenson, was mistaken for a burglar and was critically wounded as he returned to his home at 2 a.m. Friday after watching the Perseid meteors. Hundreds of laymen, actuated solely by idle curiosity, received little more than a crick in the neck for their pains. Only a few watched long enough and with sufficient patience to be rewarded with a full view of the brilliant spectacle.
Yes, a guy was shot, but more importantly there were meteors! Priorities, people.
ONE MORE THING
Sometimes I run out of things to say, OK?
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Until next time.
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