ATLANTA WITHHELD FED HIV PREVENTION FUNDING (CITY DROPS TO #61)

ATLANTA WITHHELD FEDERAL HIV PREVENTION FUNDING:

STATE OF GEORGIA TAKES OVER ATL HEALTH DEPT.

ATLANTA DROPS TO NO. 61 ON "BEST PLACES TO LIVE".

Sources: AJC, CDC, WABE, WSB-TV,  Youtube

**** Fulton County health department to be run by the state

The top leadership of Fulton County’s health department will be absorbed into the state’s department by next summer, following the passage of a bill that removes the option for counties to have their own boards of health.

The bill, HB 885, is intended to increase cooperation between Fulton and the state following a series of health-related missteps. Two years ago, there was a tuberculosis outbreak in the county, and last year, the county revealed it had not been spending all the grant money it had received to combat HIV. Fulton’s HIV rate is among the worst in the country.

The bill passed the Senate Thursday by a 35-15 vote. Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, said the point was to move the county department closer to the state. A handful of high-ranking workers will become state employees, though the rest will remain with the county.

Later, the updated version was approved by the House, 161-0.

The bill goes to the governor’s desk to be signed.

In objecting to the bill, Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, said the change was “another in a long line of anti-Fulton County legislation.”

He said the problems Fulton was having were related to personnel issues, and that the department’s leadership had changed. Kathleen E. Toomey, a former country director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, started with the department this month.

“This kind of structural change is not needed,” Fort said. “I don’t know what the ulterior is, but I think this is the wrong way to go.”

ATLANTA AIRPORT POLITICS (PRIVATIZE TSA)

ATLANTA AIRPORT POLITICS (PRIVATIZE TSA):

Sources: AJC, Youtube

**** Is there REVERSE DISCRIMINATION being practiced by BLACK citizens against WHITE citizens who live in and visit Atlanta?

Is it time for Atlanta to elect a WHITE Mayor?

Was a packed Flight scheduled to depart Wednesday night Feb 24, from the Atlanta Airport to HOUSTON, repeatedly delayed and finally cancelled due to Partisan 2016 Politics?

Was a Thursday morning re-book Flight from Atlanta to HOUSTON repeatedly delayed in ORLANDO also due to Partisan 2016 Politics? 

Is it time to Privatize TSA at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport?

**** Airport security lines getting worse, Hartsfield-Jackson officials consider privatizing security

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport officials are frustrated with understaffing at security checkpoints, and are “dreading the outcome of summer 2016,” according to a letter to the Transportation Security Administration.

Wait times during peak periods often exceed 35 minutes. Hartsfield-Jackson general manager Miguel Southwell wrote to the TSA that wait times were as long as 52 minutes last Friday morning, for example.

And, with big increases in passenger traffic, “things appear to be only getting worse, he wrote. “We fear an even busier summer this year.

In the Feb. 12 letter, Southwell wrote to TSA administrator Peter Neffenger that the airport is “giving serious consideration” to privatizing the security screening at the world’s busiest airport. Commercial airports like Hartsfield-Jackson can privatize screening by applying for the TSA’s Screening Partnership Program.

“We have been conducting exhaustive research” with other airports that have privatized screening, “weighing the pros and cons,” Southwell wrote. Airports that use privatized screening include San Francisco International, Orlando Sanford and Sarasota-Bradenton.

Southwell wrote that unless there is a “dramatic shift” in staffing or new technology in the next 60 days, the airport will take steps to launch privatized screening at the airport.

TSA in a written statement responded that it is evaluating Southwell’s letter.

Hartsfield-Jackson “remains a focus airport” for Neffenger, according to the TSA. “We recognize that the issues raised in the letter are a concern, not just in Atlanta.”

“While we are working on better solutions, we believe the public will support our vital mission of ensuring safe air transportation,” TSA said in its written statement.

According to TSA, screeners in Atlanta are screening about 15 percent more passengers a day than last year, or 8,000 extra passengers a day. Yet TSA says its staffing in its current budget allocated by Congress caps screener staffing at the same level as the previous year — the lowest level in five years.

When long security lines were causing concerns at Hartsfield-Jackson last year, Neffenger said lines could get longer, not shorter, amid a TSA initiative to close gaps in security screening.

“I believe that the traveling public is willing to accept that there may be a slightly longer wait to ensure that they’re secure getting on the plane,” Neffenger said last year.