Criminal Defense Attorney in Port Wentworth, GA.

Lineage Logistics recently marked the grand opening of its newest facility in Port Wentworth, Ga.

Savannah Fresh-Port Wentworth is strategically located near the Port of Savannah, the largest single-terminal container facility of its kind in North America and the third-busiest container gateway in the U.S., according to a news release.

The 220,000-square-foot facility offers cross-docking services for products to enter and exit the facility on the same day if needed, reducing storage time, creating cost efficiencies and ensuring consumers receive fresh produce faster, the release said. It also has 23 inbound and outbound lanes that can process more than 40 trucks daily, moving up to 1.4 million pounds of produce per day.

“Today, the demand for port-centric temperature-controlled storage has never been greater and our Fresh solution offerings at Lineage have never been more robust,” Jim Henderson, vice president of global sales and business development at Lineage, said in the release. “Savannah Fresh-Port Wentworth will allow us to expand our Fresh offering to new and existing customers and also provides the needed capacity to improve market conditions. The opening of this new facility is a critical step for Lineage as we continuously work to reimagine the world’s food supply chain. We are honored to further our long-standing partnership with Georgia Ports Authority and look forward to building our presence in the state of Georgia, an essential hub for trade and innovation.”

For the past two years, Lineage has worked closely with the Savannah Economic Development Authority, Georgia Ports Authority and the city of Port Wentworth to construct the Savannah Fresh-Port Wentworth facility in addition to its port-adjacent facility on Tremont Road in Savannah, the release said. The Savannah Fresh-Port Wentworth project resulted in a $78 million investment alone that created 65 new jobs, bringing Lineage’s total economic investment in Chatham County to over $100 million. To date, Lineage’s footprint in Georgia spans over 3 million square feet.

Savannah Fresh-Port Wentworth was designed to address the overwhelming influx in imports of fresh produce to ports in the mid-Atlantic that lack the space to keep up with the demand, the release said. With proximity to the Port of Savannah, the new facility will enable Lineage to deliver larger quantities of fresh produce more efficiently to serve customers across the Southeast.

“With increasing demand for fresh produce capacity in Savannah, this new, state-of-the-art facility is a welcome addition,” Griff Lynch, executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority, said in the release. “Lineage Logistics’ suite of services, such as cold-retreatment and onsite [Customers and Border Protection] inspections, will save time, help prevent loss and, ultimately, bring fresh food to market faster.”

Port Wentworth Council Member Jo Smith has resigned from her at-large post, according to a resignation letter submitted Tuesday. The resignation comes two days before a scheduled hearing regarding an ethics complaint against Smith brought by three other council members.

In the letter, Smith cited a "time-consuming business obligations and extensive travel schedule" for her decision.

In an interview with the Savannah Morning News, she stated that work had "become very busy and my business obligations have grown and so have my travel."

"I want someone who isn't consumed so much by work to serve the constituents," she said.

Smith said she works as a financial advisor and as a consultant for local governments.

More:Ethics complaint lodged against Port Wentworth at-large council member

Last October, Council Members Rufus Bright, Thomas Barbee and Mark Stephens lodged a complaint against Smith, stating that she had violated several city and state ethics codes since she was elected in November 2021.

The complaint alleged Smith had tried to influence the council into contracting with a family member’s grant acquisition company and misused her government-issued purchasing credit card. The members also claimed Smith does not reside in the City of Port Wentworth as is required for elected city officials.

Smith, at the time, deferred comments to her lawyer, Joey Turner of The Turner Firm, who stated that "the allegations are completely baseless and untrue."

The now former council member used stronger language, calling the ethics complaint "all baloney .. it was 100% baloney."

The first hearing regarding the ethics complaint was scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday at Port Wentworth City Hall. Smith's resignation renders the complaint moot and the matter has been dismissed, according to municipal court documents.

According to Port Wentworth's city charter, a special election will be held to find Smith's replacement, as there is more than 24 months left in the unexpired term. Port Wentworth city council members serve four-year terms and elections are staggered.

Council Member Bright said he was not expecting Smith to resign and that her decision "leaves a lot of things unanswered.

"We just have to take it as is," said Bright.

On a recent visit to the Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina, a retired trucker and current trolley driver told Jeff Seraphine he remembered holing up in his truck for three days without medicine waiting out the flu until he had enough strength to get back on the road because he didn’t have an accessible place to get healthcare.

Accessible healthcare is a challenge all truck drivers face as they live their nomad lifestyles, making them one of the unhealthiest populations in the U.S. Nashville-based Interstate Health Systems (IHS) is on a quest to eradicate that issue.

“(There are) lots of issues but the primary problem facing that group is just lack of access,” said Seraphine, CEO of IHS. “You have a lot of people that, once they get behind the wheel of a large truck, just lose access to health care. They spend a lot of their days in their truck, and a lot of these people don't get paid unless they keep that truck on the road.”

IHS recently broke ground on a health clinic near the Port Fuel Center in Port Wentworth, Georgia, and the Operational Health Center in Cookeville, Tennessee, recently joined IHS. Both locations are strategically situated in areas frequented by commercial drivers.

Seraphine said the company, which launched in November last year with a goal to create a dynamic network of primary care, urgent care and telemedicine services along the nation’s interstate highway system to make healthcare more accessible to the transportation industry, plans to open 300 locations across the U.S. over the next six years. With its initial funding in place, IHS will begin opening 60 clinics over the next two years.

Seraphine said several groups have tried to create better access to healthcare for drivers but weren’t successful. He said the answer is location.

“Where do truck drivers spend a lot of time? Where do they get off the road and congregate. … It's usually 30 minutes or 45 minutes outside of the big cities … It's not easy to maneuver and find places inside the bigger city so they tend to congregate outside in those smaller cities,” he said.

But the success factor is not just in locating clinics in areas that receive heavy truck driver traffic, he said; it’s about finding locations that also have a medically underserved local population.

“In order to build things that can fundamentally change healthcare access for drivers, you really need to broaden the population that you serve and address the needs of multiple populations in those areas,” Seraphine added.

Each location will be situated nearby strategically selected truck stops and travel centers to allow drivers access to parking, which is a primary factor of accessibility. Seraphine said IHS chose not to locate inside truckstops because that would deter the public from accessing the clinic, which is key to IHS’s success. He said IHS will start with a regional focus first – within 500 miles of Nashville – and then build out nationwide.

IHS will initially offer a consumer facing website that shares locations and offers scheduling but plans to eventually offer an app that helps drivers plan for appointments based on their route.

Locations will initially offer primary and urgent care services for commercial drivers and the community, as well as specialized physicals required by the Department of Transportation for commercial truck drivers, drug screens and other pre-employment medical care and x-ray services. Seraphine said the goal is to eventually offer additional services like laboratory, pharmacy and in-cab sleep studies.

“Because of the driver population and lack of accessibility in the past, we realize that we're dealing with a group that their physical that they are getting either annually or every other year may be the only time some of them are seeing a doctor,” Seraphine said. “We want to make sure that with the care we're giving them we can provide continuity of follow up to that care if they have co-morbid conditions.”

Seraphine said IHS is very technology focused and plans to add in remote patient monitoring, eventually incorporating wearables, to help take care of some of those conditions.

IHS has partnered with cloud-based technology provider CareCloud to offer a single medical record across all IHS locations so drivers don’t have to fill out paperwork at each visit as if they’re a new patient. He said IHS also plans to partner with trucking companies to integrate with their platforms to create data sharing opportunities to enhance continuity of care and patient convenience as well as offer real-time telemedicine and a unified prescription service network.

“We don't want that to be a barrier … so as we scale, the company will also work really hard to bring healthcare technology solutions that are relevant to this group of people – things that deal with conditions that are very common among truck drivers," Seraphine said. "We want to be a place to introduce that technology and make it available to them instead of them being the last people that those things are available to.”

PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. (WSAV) — The Ghost Pirates have big plans for Port Wentworth. On Tuesday, the team announced they’re building a 90,000-square-foot training facility in hopes to drum up business in the city.

“We desperately needed some infusion of retail and restaurants,” said Steve Davis, Port Wentworth City Manager. “And I think this is going to be the catalyst that takes us to the next level.”

With a price tag of $25 million, the facility will house two ice rinks, a sports bar and grill and a team shop. Davis said the center is being built inside the 150-acre recreation park the city broke ground on recently.

Bryan Sklover, the team’s Director of Community Relations and Game Presentation said the new facility is being built with the community in mind. He echoes the city manager’s hopes it energizes the area. And introduces a cold-weather sport to Coastal Georgia children.

“It’s just ideal for us to bring our youth tournament and other things as well to the area, which is a huge economic impact for hotels and restaurants and, you know, being only 20 minutes from downtown Savannah proper, it’s just going to drive a new kind of energy to the city,” Sklover said.

The investment is a joint venture between the team and the city but the team will foot most of the costs. The city provided the land and will cover the utilities. After completion of the building, the city will give the Ghost Pirates a $1 million grant and a loan for a portion of the facility

Ghost Pirates CEO, Andy Kaufmann said being a go-to spot for the community is another reason the team is excited to open its doors. Kaufmann also hopes this new facility can be a pipeline to grow the future ghost pirates right here.

“It gives us the ability to develop fans from the youth and develop hockey players from the age of four on up,” Kaufmann said. “Who knows, maybe in 18 years we will see someone who started skating at four years skate up with the ghost pirates. Our favorite thing about it is the engagement with the community 365 days a year. Instead of just 36 home games, we get to hang out and do special things together throughout the year.”

The Ghost Pirates plan to have the facility ready to go by the summer of 2025 just in time to escape the summer heat.

PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. —

A Port Wentworth city councilwoman has resigned from her seat.

In her resignation letter, Jo Smith noted that she will be moving away from Port Wentworth due to "time-consuming business obligations and extensive travel schedule."

The letter of resignation comes a few months after city council members submitted an ethics complaint against her.

The complaint, filed by councilmembers Rufus Bright, Thomas Barbee and Mark Stephens, was submitted on Oct. 27.

The complaint claims Smith tried to secure a contract with her sister's grant acquisition company. The complaint alleges the contract would have paid Smith's sister's company 15% of all grants and other funding sources, "likely millions of dollars a year."

In the complaint, councilmembers claim Smith's sister donated to her campaign and that Smith now works for her sister's company.

Councilmembers did note in the complaint that Smith did not participate in the formal discussion of voting on the matter but claimed Smith had multiple conversations with city staff and others advocating for her sister's contract. They said after the contract was rejected, Smith became "hostile towards city officials and staff."

The complaint also alleges that Smith abused her government-issued credit card for personal gain.

Finally, the complaint claims Smith does not live in the city of Port Wentworth.

The ethics complaint states, "Although she qualified for the 2021 election and was elected, Ms. Smith does not maintain residency, nor her home here in the city. A homestead exemption is a tax break for your primary residence. Ms. Smith's primary residence is in Cobb County, as Ms. Smith has taken the homestead exemption on her Cobb County residence for at least three years."

Smith told WJCL 22 News her lawyer called the ethics complaint "as toothless as George Washington." She said agrees with that 100%.

We asked Smith if the ethics complaint has anything to do with her resignation. She said, "Not at all. I had been mulling this over for some time. Meeting and balancing all of one's obligations is always difficult. The recent city conflict only solidified my timeline. I hope whoever runs has the ability to give 100% of their time to our lovely city."

Below Video: Port Wentworth residents upset as council talk splitting up the city