Richmond County, GA | featured news

Augusta is preparing for Hurricane Matthew evacuees and thinks many city hotel and motel rooms already are full, City Administrator Janice Allen Jackson said.
“Right now many of our hotel rooms are full - we received an update from the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Mostly right now it’s people that are coming in from the South Carolina counties,” she said.
City officials also are readying area shelters in the event Chatham or other coastal counties begin busing people in, Jackson said.

The 23rd annual Border Bash will still be held Friday as scheduled.
According to a news release today from Adams-Gluestick Entertainment, the event is still on as Hurricane Matthew makes it way toward the East Coast.
Border Bash is held at Augusta Golf & Gardens, and gates open at 4 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the gate. Children 10 and under are free and all displaced hurricane evacuees will be provided free entry with ID showing city of residence.

A former vice provost at Augusta University was arrested today on a grand jury arrest warrant that accuses him of theft.
The Richmond County grand jury indicted Roman Mark Cibirka last week on two counts of theft. Cibirka resigned as vice provost in 2014.
According to the indictment, Cibirka is accused of taking $10,000 belonging to the university on June 6, 2012. Because the alleged theft was not uncovered until May 3, 2013, the statute of limitations doesn’t apply, according to the indictment.

An Aiken County sheriff’s deputy has been fired following an arrest Tuesday evening while off duty.
According to an Aiken County sheriff’s news release, Sgt. Joshua Mathis and another individual were arrested by Aiken Department of Public Safety officers around 11 p.m. following a physical altercation at Citizens Park in Aiken. Further details on the incident were not immediately available.
Mathis, 36, who has been with the sheriff’s office since June 2010, was terminated immediately following the arrest.

Several high school football games involving South Carolina and Georgia schools have rescheduled because of the threat of bad weather.
S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley declared a state of emergency Tuesday as Hurricane Matthew is projected to hit the state this weekend. Schools in Aiken and Barnwell counties are closed for the rest of the week.
Here is a list of football games. Makeup dates listed in parenthesis:

Holly Hill at Wardlaw (6:30 p.m. Thursday)
Greenbrier at Lakeside (7 p.m. Thursday)

Aiken County sheriff’s investigators are seeking a teenage mother and her infant daughter who have been reported missing from the Murphy Village area.
Josie Mulholland, 15, and her daughter, 11-month-old Saylor, are considered wards of the state. Sheriff’s investigators began a joint investigation with South Carolina Department of Social Services into the wellbeing of the mother and daughter on Sept. 9.
read more

Gov. Nikki Haley says the National Guard is already mobilized in South Carolina as Hurricane Matthew approaches the state.
She said Wednesday that the storm is slowing and that it will not be necessary to evacuate some 1 million people on Wednesday as she had considered on Tuesday. Instead, residents in Charleston and Beaufort are being ordered to leave Wednesday.
She said 315 buses from Greenville will be in North Charleston at noon to take people to other areas.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Powerful Hurricane Matthew was passing through the sparsely populated islands of the southern Bahamas early Wednesday after inflicting heavy damage on southwest Haiti. Forecasters said the storm was on track to roll directly over the Bahamian capital of Nassau before nearing the Florida coast.
read more

A longtime Board of Tax Assessors employee will receive a $125,000 payout and leave her job in a city settlement approved Tuesday.
Former Deputy Chief Appraiser Donna Murray had sued her boss, Chief Appraiser Alveno Ross, and the city alleging Ross demoted her to a residential real estate appraiser based on “hearsay” and without the due process afforded government employees.
read more

Augusta’s coliseum authority voted Tuesday to start contract negotiations with a Denver sports architecture firm to develop plans for a new city arena.
Sink Combs Dethlefs was a selection committee’s overall top scorer, a few points ahead of Atlanta-based Rosser International, after four firms interviewed with the panel, according to Ed Enoch, attorney for Augusta-Richmond County Coliseum Authority.
read more