6 months into term, Augusta mayor talks to News 12

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Six months into his term, Mayor Garnett Johnson sits down with News 12 to discuss how things are going in Augusta.

In just his first six months in office, Mayor Garnett Johnson lead the city through finding a new EMS provider, a cyber attack, and crime hitting our young people.

But these aren’t the only issues he’s faced.

“At 6 months in it seems like almost 2 years in,” said Johnson.

It’s a bit of finishing the issues left by the Hardie Davis administration and taking things as they come in.

Johnson led the charge for a new ambulance provider, by giving a tie-breaking vote to go with Central EMS in a more than $2 million-a-year deal.

Then a month later, the city was hit by a cyber attack slowing city systems to a crawl.

An open records request shows that the week of the attack, the Augusta Fire Department’s response times doubled.

It created another obstacle for Johnson and the city.

“This incident did catch us by surprise, I’ll be honest with you.” He continued, “I know the investigative part will probably continue for some months to come, as I have been communicated that, this has been a very sophisticated process that requires some time.”

Crime is a more complex issue, more than half of this year’s deadly crimes across the CSRA happened in Richmond County.

The mayor defends downtown Augusta as a safe space, but earlier this month a deputy was shot by a homeless man on Ellis Street near Broad Street.

In May, a deadly mass shooting happened just blocks away on East Boundary.

The mayor attributes part of the problem to about half of the city’s 330 job vacancies at the sheriff’s office.

“I mean, you hear about it in the CSRA, it’s not just an Augusta problem,” he said. “It was driven around the unfortunate black-on-black violence; these young teenagers. Which happens to be a problem area, not only for Augusta-Richmond County but for this nation.”

Moving forward, he sees the city’s future by bringing up South Augusta economically.

Anticipating new projects like Aurubis, Denkai, and funding for a new micro transit for South Augusta.

But he admits, South Augusta was hit hard by recent flooding, “There needs to be more attention on South Richmond, I’ll admit that. I committed to having a campaign headquarters at the corner of Windsor Spring and Tobacco Road.”

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With flooding that took place over the past month, he says while some of the homes were covered, he reached out to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and they couldn’t reach the $19 million threshold set by FEMA to provide more assistance, and these families are on their own.

Optimistically, he hopes the introduction of the recent rightsizing plans for grass-cutting efforts come together and helps address the issue of stormwater and flooding.