Georgia Today: Democrats Raise Alarm; Rivian Plant Lawsuits; Pressure on Food Banks

 

Intro:

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, Democrats warn of disaster over the loss of health care tax credits, years of lawsuits over a planned Rivian electric vehicle factory east of Atlanta come to an end, and the government shutdown puts the squeeze on Georgia food banks.

Kyle Wade: So if we were to have to replace that somehow, that would far exceed the capacity we currently have to distribute food.

Peter Biello: Today is Wednesday, Oct. 8. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today.

 

Story 1:

Peter Biello: As Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate continue their standoff over how to reopen the federal government, one Georgia Republican is pressing Democrats to blink. GPB's Grant Blankenship explains.

Grant Blankenship: A few Democrats have been voting with Senate Republicans. Tuesday, Georgia Republican House member Austin Scott held a call with reporters aimed at cajoling Georgia Sens. John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

Austin Scott: At Robins Air Force Base, the largest industrial complex in the state of Georgia, there are 3,829 federal workers that are furloughed right now. There are just over 5,000 service members that if the government is not opened back up within the next week, will be going without a paycheck.

Grant Blankenship: Scott wouldn't say when the furloughs at Robins might cost more than extending the Affordable Care Act tax subsidies sought by Democrats. So far, Warnock and Ossoff have said they won't vote for a continuing resolution that doesn't address health care. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon.

 

Story 2:

Peter Biello: As Grant mentioned, Democrats are pushing for restoration of Affordable Care Act tax credits as a condition of ending the shutdown. Some Georgia Democrats are now highlighting how those ACA tax credits help thousands of Georgians pay for insurance plans. Valerie Holt, a retired insurance agent with Centene and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, joined a press call organized by the state Democratic Party. She says she's worried that premium increases could be disastrous.

Valerie Holt: A lot of people would be kicked off of their insurance; it would be canceled for non-payment because they wouldn't be able to afford a 40% increase. People are struggling.

Peter Biello: More than a million Georgians were enrolled in a plan through the Affordable Care Act this year, and according to rate filings from Georgia insurers, most plans will be going up as much as 40% without the tax credits applied.

 

Story 3:

Peter Biello: This is an off-year election, but that does not mean there is nothing at stake at the ballot box this November. Take, for instance, the elections for the state's Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities. Candidates are trying their best to energize voters, as GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.

Sarah Kallis: Incumbent Republican Fitz Johnson insists that Democrats' clean energy proposals will raise prices for consumers.

Fitz Johnson: We are — we are not going to let them California our Georgia.

Sarah Kallis: The Republican-controlled PSC has raised the cost of power six times in two years. The current rates were recently frozen for the next three years. Democratic challenger Peter Hubbard says his plans keep rates affordable, pushing back on his opponents' accusations.

Peter Hubbard: All he's done is vote to increase prices for consumers in this state.

Sarah Kallis: Another PSC commissioner, Tim Echols, is also facing a Democratic opponent, Alicia Johnson. Turnout for the two PSC races are expected to be low. Early voting begins Oct. 14. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kalis.

 

Story 4:

Peter Biello: Food banks across Georgia are serving record high numbers of families due to inflation. That demand is only likely to grow as the government shutdown continues to affect federal workers. GPB's Amanda Andrews has more.

Amanda Andrews: Leaders with the Atlanta Community Food Bank are preparing for lines to grow longer if the government shutdown continues. Federal workers are going on one week without pay and federal food benefits like SNAP and WIC are running out of funding. CEO Kyle Wade says there are over 700,000 people across North Georgia who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Kyle Wade: Those folks are receiving, just through SNAP, about one and a half to two billion dollars a year in total benefits. And so if we were to have to replace that somehow, that would far exceed the capacity we currently have to distribute food.

Amanda Andrews: The food bank is requesting community members send cash donations to help them secure more food. For GPB News, I'm Amanda Andrews.

 

Story 5:

Peter Biello: Years of lawsuits over a planned Rivian electric vehicle factory east of Atlanta are over. State officials have withdrawn their last request for project opponents to pay legal fees associated with their unsuccessful lawsuits challenging the plant. Rivian broke ground on the $5 billion facility last month. Attorney John Christie represents a group of citizens in those lawsuits.

John Christie: Naturally, they are disappointed, but I think my folks are still concerned about the position of the state, the unsettled law on this issue.

Peter Biello: The state and project opponents argued in court over tax incentives, local zoning powers, and other issues.

 

 

Story 6:

Peter Biello: A Georgia pastor and seven associates were indicted last month in an alleged multi-million dollar fraud conspiracy that targeted military personnel in Southeast Georgia. U.S. Department of Justice officials charged the leaders of the House of Prayer Christian Churches of America, which also had churches in Augusta and in other states. The government alleges Pastor Rony Denis and others used their church to manipulate members into forced marriages, into properties that generated rental income for the defendants, and into veterans' administration benefits that were funneled into church-controlled accounts that paid for the defendants' credit card bills. That's according to the indictment. Prosecutors say the church's school, a seminary, earned church leaders $23 million in GI Bill payments. GPB's Orlando Montoya recently spoke with a former church member about her experiences in the church and asked a nonprofit watchdog how such a swindle could have happened. Orlando addressed the former church member, Abigail Bradeen, first.

Orlando Montoya: How did you get involved in the church and how did it affect your life?

Abigail Bradeen: I joined back in 2006. I was an active duty soldier at the time. I started in Fort Gordon in Augusta. After I graduated nursing school, I was transferred to Fort Stewart, which put me at Hinesville, which is the headquarters of House of Prayer. So I started at Augusta, I was on base living in the barracks, and they came to me in the barracks and invited me out to a dinner and Bible Q&A that was just for soldiers and veterans, really. And that's how I got started going. I was actually looking for a church at the time, so I went. It was a nice environment for soldiers because, I mean, everybody there were soldiers. We talked like soldiers talk. So it was really enticing. It grabbed me right away, and from there you get sucked in so fast because they always have events going every single day. So all of my free time outside of duty hours was actually at the church.

Orlando Montoya: And how did you realize that things were off?

Abigail Bradeen: You know, all of this fraud and everything that's on these indictments, I did not know, while I was there, that any of that was going on. Now my marriage happened while I was there. It was another guy, another member of the church. And they kind of pushed me towards this guy. And I didn't know that he's had such an extensive mental health history and a history of violence. So that was an abusive marriage, and that's what I was running away from. I left House of Prayer in 2009, and at the time I was separated from my husband, and I was living with Rony Denis's mother-in-law, which is actually just two houses down from Rony Denis. And he started having me meet with him directly, like private meetings at his house. And for me, that was the red flag because all of those conversations I had with him were usually really perverted and at one time he tried to push me to go back to my husband and I did not want to go back. So he used that to say that because I didn't want to go back my husband he accused me of living in homosexuality. That's the word they throw out there like a Salem witch hunt. So that's what he tried say about me, and I said, "You know what? Whatever you need to tell yourself, that's fine. That's fine, but I'm done." And that night, that night I left, and because I was staying with his mother-in-law who had door alarms on her door, it was a sneaky exit for me. It was like two o'clock in the morning. I had to sneak out of my bedroom window in my pajamas with everything that I could fit of my belongings into a pillowcase. And I ran to go meet a cab.

Orlando Montoya: How did you feel about the indictment and did the indictments sound like the church that you knew?

Abigail Bradeen: It did sound like it, after I left, even though I didn't know all that at the time. It was quite a few years before I found out what was really going on. I would say maybe 2016, 2017, I found the website, hopcc.com, and the people who started that site were my really close friends, John and Jennifer Rodriguez, and I heard their story about how they left and how their son almost got kidnapped. And that's what opened my eyes: In hearing their story, everything — everything made sense. Because what was going on, people were coming out and it was really serious. They were financially devastated and forced to file bankruptcy because not just the GI Bill fraud, but a lot of members had homes purchased in their names without their knowledge or their consent. They executed power of attorney documents that were forged to do this. So people came out of there financially devastated, having to file for bankruptcy, losing custody of their children.

Orlando Montoya: Abigail, thank you for sharing your story. We're also joined by Will Hubbard, vice president for veterans and military policy at the nonprofit Veterans Education Success. Will, does what happened to Abigail and others involved with the House of Prayer Christian Churches of America point out the need for any federal policy changes?

Will Hubbard: Thanks for having us, Orlando, and thank you for highlighting this story. And also thank you to Abigail for being so brave to share your story. I know it's hard and it brings up a lot of memories, but it's important to get that message out there. It is important to highlight the fact that policy changes are needed. The big question we need to think about at this point is why was this allowed to happen in the first place? Why were GI Bill benefits going to a school that was obviously a scam and arguably a cult, by the description of its own members? That's the question we all need to look at. And the reality is right now GI Bill benefits are not as well overseen as they should be and the standards are not as strong as we believe they could be. And so that's something that we're fighting very hard to make sure changes in Congress so that stories like this don't happen again.

Orlando Montoya: The allegation is that they were using the VA benefits and funneling them to the church so that they would benefit the church leaders. How would they do that in a way that would not be seen by the law enforcement and all the authorities involved?

Will Hubbard: The current system relies on a lot of trust to begin with, but also enforcement mechanisms that are frankly, not as strong as they should be in some states, and in certain cases, hardly exist at all. And so just having minimum standards to make sure that any schools that get into the system to begin with are offering a quality education that veterans can use their hard-earned benefits at. At present, we are working hard with Congress to make sure that these veterans do get their GI Bill benefits back. They were essentially stolen from them by this church, and it's something that we would like to see, at minimum, to make them whole.

Orlando Montoya: That was Will Hubbard, vice president for veterans and military policy at the nonprofit Veterans Education Success. And earlier we heard from Abigail Bradeen, a former member of the House of Prayer Christian Churches of America. Thank you both.

Abigail Bradeen: Thank you.

Peter Biello: Rony Denis And other church leaders have pleaded not guilty. Their attorney declined to comment further when reached for comment yesterday. The Department of Veterans Affairs told GPB the agency, quote, "takes seriously" its commitment to protecting all VA benefits from fraudulent activities. An agency spokesperson says House of Prayer has not been approved for GI Bill benefits since 2022 due to failure to meet program requirements.

 

Story 7:

Peter Biello: Savannah's Metropolitan Planning Commission has moved the city closer to a ban on new hotels in certain neighborhoods. Nancy Maia of the Victorian Neighborhood Association applauded the vote yesterday.

Nancy Maia: The reason why people come to Savannah is because they love being in a community where we have these really, really special neighborhoods. And if we continue to just let tourism take over, that is going to go away.

Peter Biello: The ban would apply to three neighborhoods just south of downtown and still needs final approval by City Council to go into effect.

 

Story 8:

Peter Biello: And very much away from those neighborhoods, the Savannah Convention Center broke ground today on a new 444-room hotel. Local officials have long sought a new convention hotel to maximize the center's state-funded expansion. Signia by Hilton on the Savannah River waterfront is expected to open in 2028.

Story 9:

Peter Biello: And the Atlanta Falcons are expanding their support for girls in sports with a major donation of 16,000 sports bras to schools and community organizations across 38 Georgia counties. The effort is part of the team's FLY:FWD initiative in partnership with the nonprofit Operation Warm aimed at helping girls feel confident and supported while participating in athletics. Falcons cheerleaders and mascot Freddie Falcon helped launch the program yesterday with the Warren Boys and Girls Club in Southeast Atlanta. This builds on previous initiatives that have helped grow girls' flag football to more than 270 Georgia high schools and 7,000 players statewide. Team leaders say the goal is to eliminate barriers to participation and empower girls to pursue sports at every level.

 

Peter Biello: It has been great to be back with you on Georgia Today. Thank you to my colleagues at GPB who have been doing this necessary work while I've been gone on parental leave. May you all have coworkers as talented and awesome as I do. These stories live and evolve on our website, so definitely check gpb.org/news for any updates. And this podcast will be back tomorrow, so make sure you subscribe to it. And if you've got feedback, we'd love to hear from you by email. The address is georgiatoday at gpd.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

 

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