First Slice 8/20/14: Atlanta officials threaten to shut off water for businesses with unpaid bills
Plant Vogtle funding approved, GDOT interchange unveiled, and more
- Joeff Davis/CL File
- Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless
Atlanta watershed officials are doubling down on efforts to get delinquent businesses to pay their water bills. If they don’t settle their bills, the city is threatening to shut off their water. The highest unpaid bill belongs to the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, which owes more than $400,000, according to the city. “There’s some question about that amount, but I do not question we owe a large amount,” Executive Director Anita Beaty told CBS Atlanta. “The city has participated with some of the business community, who we are in litigation with now, to block all our funding.”
Georgia’s public service commission has approved nearly $400 million in extra funding to help pay for Plant Vogtle’s recent cost overruns.
The Georgia Aquarium today is continuing its legal fight to bring 18 beluga whales from Russia into the United States.
The Georgia Department of Transportation has unveiled potential changes to the Ga. 400 and I-285 interchange. The project could start sometime in 2016.
Don’t worry, watchdog-minded Georgia residents, the state’s ethics commission is “back on track,” its executive director says. (Yes, that’s the same leader who had been pressured by the governor in a threatening memo.)
A member of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has reportedly beheaded American freelance photojournalist James Wright Foley, who was captured in Syria in November 2012, and has threatened to execute a second reporter. ISIS wants President Barack Obama to stop airstrikes in Iraq.