A new Georgia National Guard unit moved one step closer to a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan on Monday morning after attending a send-off ceremony at Ft. Gordon.
The 58-person Agribusiness Development Team is now headed to Camp Atterbury, Ind., where it will receive additional training before departing for Afghanistan in late May. It is the first of three such teams from Georgia that will be deploying to Afghanistan during the next three years.
The soldiers will be training Afghan farmers how to better irrigate their farms, take care of their crops and raise cattle. During their deployment, the soldiers will be working closely with Afghan government officials as well as some U.S. agencies, including the U.S. Agriculture Department.
“We are excited,” Col. Bill Williams(cq), the unit's commander, said in a phone interview Monday as he road on a bus with his soldiers to Indiana. “The morale is good. The team is ready to go.”
JEREMY REDMON
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The Atlanta Regional Roundtable, responsible for creating a list of transportation projects that a voter-approved one-cent sales tax could build, have created a survey to gauge interest in roads and transit projects.
Residents can have a say in what roads, bridges and transit lines get funded by going to http://www.atlantaregionalroundtable.com/index.html. In the right-hand, beige column, click on "Complete this brief survey." The final list of projects is supposed to be finished by October.
The Transportation Investment Act split Georgia into 12 districts. Voters in each will vote in the 2012 primary election whether to impose a regional one-cent sales tax to pay for its projects. The Atlanta region has ten counties from Cherokee to Fayette counties north to south, and Douglas to Gwinnett counties from west to east.
CHRISTOPHER QUINN
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Residents interested in mass transit proposals for eastern I-20 can learn and comment at public meetings next month. MARTA is holding the meetings on May 3, 4 and 5 in Atlanta, Lithonia and Decatur. All meetings are from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., with an open house the first hour and a presentation and question and answer session in the second hour. The meeting Tuesday May 3 is at Trees Atlanta, 225 Chester Ave., Atlanta.
The I-20 transit line is one of several proposed for a 2012 referendum, but the hearings are not part of the referendum process. ARIEL HART
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Actual Factual Georgia
Saddle up and find out all about the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville. B4
Doing Good
Riders took to their indoor cycles for a six-hour trip for the Ovarian Cycle, an event to raise money for research for early detection of ovarian cancer. B%
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