The Columbia County Chamber Government Affairs committee met on Thursday, August 11 for their monthly meeting. During the meeting, representatives from around the community gave updates. This month's meeting updates were given by Chairman David Dekle of the Columbia County Board of Education and Dr. Tom Clark of the CSRA Alliance for Fort Gordon. The guest speaker for the meeting was The Columbia County District Attorney, Bobby Christine.

District Attorney Bobby Christine spoke on accomplishments of the court since he was sworn into office on July 23, 2021.

• The office is closing more cases than opening after inheriting over 3,000 pending cases.
• The Columbia County Judicial Circuit no longer has any open cases that are older than 1,000 days.
• As of Friday, August 12, they will have responded to 812 calendars in a year.
• A challenge they face is gang members from Columbia, SC & Atlanta, GA coming into our County, targeting juveniles to recruit and committing crimes. The most common example of that is the car break ins in Columbia County neighborhoods.
• Another challenge they are facing is the growing community, which will require more space. They currently have 21 employees, only five that are County paid, the others are State paid. 

At the end of the meeting, the committee voted to oppose the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which the House gave final approval for on Friday, August 12.