Judges still unhappy as Augusta-area court split advances
January 20, 2021 GMT
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) Judges are still unhappy about a plan to split a Georgia judicial circuit to give a suburban county its own court system and district attorney.
Columbia County officials, backed by their Republican lawmakers, want their county to have a separate three-judge circuit, leaving what has been the three-county Augusta circuit which includes Richmond and Burke counties.
Columbia County says the move would save money, but some have objected to a split which began moving forward weeks after voters elected the circuit’s first-ever Black district attorney.
Augusta commissioners, resigned that the Republican-dominated General Assembly would create a new circuit for Columbia, voted to support the move, under the condition that the remaining two-county Augusta circuit would have five judges.
Augusta could get a lot of discussion in the Georgia General Assembly when it convenes, with a bill splitting the judicial circuit reported to be imminent and a discussion of changing the Consolidation Act – and commissioner pay raises – on the horizon.
Also forthcoming is redistricting Augusta Commission and school board, state House and Senate and congressional seats based on the 2020 census, officials said at a joint meeting Thursday of the commission and members of the Augusta legislative delegation.
But when the discussions happen depends on whether the session is delayed because of COVID-19, said Rep. Wayne Howard, D-Augusta, the delegation chairman.
An amateur documentary on the Marlborough Zoological Park shows feeding time with the lions and tigers.
How does the song go, “They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round, they all laughed when Edison recorded sound .” Well, they all laughed when Marlborough built a zoo.
But no-one was laughing that July weekend in 1983 when the rain wouldn’t let up and the flood waters kept rising. The fences of the zoo were being washed away and the small town of Renwick realised there would soon be nothing between them, the lions, the tigers and a very horny ostrich that mated “anything with two legs”.
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