Kalki Yalamanchili, who took over as Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney in January, had a clear message for Oconee County Democrats when he met with them last week.
The staffing problems he confronted when he assumed his job were worse than he had anticipated, he said.
“I, quite frankly, need your help,” he said.
He asked those present to lobby the Oconee County Commission at it moves though its budget deliberations to help him restore funding so he is able to hire Assistant District Attorneys.
Yalamanchili said his office lost 10 positions because his predecessor, Deborah Gonzalez, did not apply for continuation of its federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) grant and because federal American Rescue Plan Act funding ran out.
At present, he has 14 funded Assistant District Attorneys, and he said that number is inadequate, given the large backlog of cases.
Yalamanchili also told the Democrats that he has assigned an Assistant District Attorney to Oconee County full-time. No Assistant District Attorney had been assigned full time to the county when he took office, he said.
November Election
Yalamanchili received a warm reception from the 30 Democrats meeting in person at Oconee County Library in Wire Park in Watkinsville and the five joining on Zoom.
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He spoke and answered questions for 35 minutes.
Yalamanchili ran as an Independent in November, and the Oconee County Democratic Party endorsed Democratic incumbent Gonzalez in the Nov. 5 election.
(Oconee County Democratic Party Chair Harold Thompson said in an email on Feb. 25 that the Oconee County Democratic Party did not endorse Gonzalez.)
The Republican Party did not put up a candidate for the District Attorney race, and the Oconee County Republican Party threw its support behind Yalamanchili, both as he canvassed to get his name on the ballot as an Independent and in the fall campaign.
Gonzalez received 23.5 percent of the vote in Oconee County, compared to Democrat Party nominee for President Kamala Harris’s 31.6 percent.
Yalamanchili received 76.5 percent of the vote in Oconee County, considerably higher than the 67.5 percent that Republican President Donald Trump received.
In Clarke County, Gonzalez received 49.5 percent of the vote, while Harris received 68.6 percent of the vote.
Yalamanchili received 50.5 percent of the vote in Clarke County, while Trump received 30.4 percent.
Across the two counties, which are the Western Judicial Circuit, Yalamanchili received 59.4 percent of the vote, to 40.6 percent for Gonzalez.
In introducing Yalamanchili last week, Oconee County Democratic Party Chair Harold Thompson simply said Yalamanchili “was elected back in November. So he's here to kind of give us an update on the state of the office and the state of the district.”
Yalamanchili responded by saying “I've got some remarks on where we're at, some of the challenges that the office is facing in general, and then just how we're planning on addressing them, as well as how we're making progress in staffing.”
Current Staffing
Yalamanchili turned first to staffing, which had been a central issue in the fall campaign.
Gonzalez acknowledged she had problems filling positions in her office, but she largely blamed poor pay. Yalamanchili said he could hire good people with the compensation being offered.
“I do want to talk to you and be very frank about one of the biggest challenges that we're facing right now,” Yalamanchili said. “The office in the last calendar year did not reapply for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) grant, which is a major federal grant.”
Yalamanchili said this did come up in the November campaign, but “Now, just in complete candor, I don't think I realized at the time the extent of the impact that that has on the office.”
Yalamanchili said he lost eight positions because the VAWA funding expired.
In addition, two positions funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act were lost as well.
Yalamanchili said “we always knew” the ARPA funding was temporary, but “we're talking about a situation where the office lost 10 positions.”
Some of the individuals who had been funded by the VAWA grant had already been moved to the positions funded by the two counties, he said.
“So in the immediate aftermath,” he said. “it didn't cause this mass firing of people.”
As things now stand, Yalamanchili said, he has 14 Assistant District Attorneys, and “technically I'm fully staffed at the attorney position.”
(Yalamanchili updated his staffing number in an email exchange on Feb. 23 to indicate he has a staff of 35, not including himself, based on current funding, with 14 of those Assistant District Attorneys.)
What Yalamanchili Has Done
Yalamanchili said he is “talking to applicants who are interested (in the Assistant District Attorney position) and we're trying to figure out ways that as positions may open up, can we have enough support staff while also adding attorney positions.”
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“And so that's a challenge that we're facing right now,” he added.
Yalamanchili said he has had budget meetings with the Mayor Kelly Girtz of Athens-Clarke County and has submitted a tentative budget request to Oconee County.
“I'm going to probably amend that request given the new information that's kind of come to light over the past couple weeks about where the loss of the VAWA funding left us.”
“And so, if you run into one of your county commissioners or you're talking to people, let them know that,” he said. “Because basically what I'm asking for is for the office to be put back in a position to where it was--staffing level wise--around this time last year.”
Yalamanchili said he really needs to move back to at least 18 Assistant District Attorney positions because of a large case backlog. He also said the District Office had 18 Assistant District Attorneys when he left that office to move into private practice in 2018.
“We're just now getting our arms all the way around the problem,” he said, “but from what you can tell, we're looking at a bigger case log backlog that existed coming out of COVID.”
“And we're trying to tackle that” with reduced staff, he said.
Other Comments
Yalamanchili said the workload in the District Attorney Office also has increased because of technological change.
Police officers and Sheriff’s Deputies are wearing body cameras, now, he said. “I think that that provides accountability. It also generally provides better evidence. There's a lot of positives to that.”
“The challenge to us resource wise is I went from having six hours of interviews to review to 35 hours of video footage,” he said. “You've got to, in the most serious cases, do a thorough review of all that.”
The backlog is cases also has increased the workload he said, because it is harder to find people as cases get old. “Witnesses move. Witnesses’s memories fade,” he said. “We’re spending more time finding people.”
“So those are the things that are challenging,” Yalamanchili said. “Let me talk to you about the things that are exciting.”
“And the number one thing that I'm excited about is the team that we're putting together,” he said.
He mentioned specifically Lisa Pappas, whom he has hired as his Chief Assistant District Attorney. Pappas, he said, worked previously in the Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney office and in the District Attorney office in Gwinnett County.
Oconee County ADA
“One of the other things that we're excited about,” Yalamanchili said, “is making sure that Oconee County is treated with the same level of focus that Clarke County is when it comes to the prosecution of crimes.”
“There basically wasn't a prosecutor assigned to Oconee County full time,” he said. “We've remedied that.”
In the email exchange on Feb. 23, Yalamanchili identified that person as Branden Pollett, who, he said, has more than eight years of experience as a prosecutor.
“And he's assigned to the Oconee County office full time because there is a substantial backlog of the cases in Oconee County as well, not just in Clarke County,” Yalamanchili said.
“So we're glad to be in a position staffing wise, where we can bring some focus back to Oconee,” he said.
Murder Of Laken Riley
In response to a question from the audience on the politicization, particularly at the state and national level, of the murder of Laken Riley while she was jogging on the University of Georgia campus on Feb. 22 of 2024, Yalamanchili said “I think Jose Ibarra, who was the person who murdered Lake Riley, is responsible for Laken Riley's death.”
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“I'm incredibly grateful to Sheila Ross from the state’s Prosecuting Attorney’s Council for the job she did in that case,” he said. He also thanked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, and the University of Georgia Police Department.
“I didn’t get into it during the campaign,” he said. “I'm not intending on getting into it now as far as statements about what anybody said from either political party about that case or anyone else.”
“The person responsible for that murder is in a prison cell because a very committed, well-trained, exceptionally talented prosecutor went in and did her job.”
“I'm incredibly grateful to her,” he said. “And my thoughts continue to be with the Riley family because this will be something that they'll spend their entire lives dealing with.”
Ibarra was found guilty last November and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Email Number
In an email exchange on Feb. 23, Yalamanchili said, at present, he has a funded staff of 35, not including himself. All the funded positions are filled.
These are: nine victim advocates, three administrative staff, two legal assistants, one community outreach director, six investigators, and 14 Assistant District Attorneys.
Following staff departures as he entered the office, he hired a new community outreach director, a new director of victim services, and a new office manager, he wrote.
Several positions were vacant when he took office, he said, and “out of the attorneys who were there when I took office, one is no longer with the office.”
“The remainder of the staff are from the previous administration or hires into open positions,” he said.
Yalamanchili said he has hired seven new Assistant District Attorneys since he took office in January, and one new investigator.
Yalamanchili said he has requested three additional Assistant District Attorneys and three additional investigators to date in Clarke County.
“I had a transition meeting with Ms. Gonzalez,” he said in response to a question from me. “It was cordial.”
Video
The video below is of the entire meeting of the Oconee County Democrats on Feb. 20.
Yalamanchili began his comments at 3:48 in the video.
The Oconee County Republican Party is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. on Monday (Feb. 24) at the Piedmont Oconee Health Campus Lobby Meeting Room, 1305 Jennings Mill Road. Jason Thompson, Georgia Republican National Committeeman is the featured speaker.
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