Tag Archives: Gretchen Quarterman

I don’t want to say we don’t have broadband —Andrea Schruijer @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Unfortunately, Andrea Schruijer made clear that much of what
had just been said at the

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
hadn’t been heard.

It’s not that we’re saying we don’t have broadband.
We have connectivity; that’s not the issue.
We have great partners that help us with that.

Well, local “leaders” need to learn to say it:
“we don’t have broadband!”
Many of the people of Lowndes County and even more in the surrounding
counties

can’t afford Internet access at all, as Idelle Dear told the Lowndes County
Commission.
And the “great partners” Ms. Schruijer bragged about will never provide
it for us without a lot of prodding, because AT&T and Verizon
and Sprint and Comcast and Mediacom don’t think anything outside the
Atlanta beltway has enough population density to bother with,
and even in Atlanta all people get is U.S.-style low-speed low-reliability
Internet connectivity that would never even be on sale in Japan or France
or Korea or Finland or even Estonia.



Tom Call illustrated my point when he

talked about a residential project
where a provider installed cable and claimed they were providing voice, TV, and Internet access, but then didn’t actually have the capacity for Internet
when people started using it.

Continue reading →

Broadband “huge strategic initiative for our community” —Mary Gooding for VSU @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Mary Gooding spoke up for VSU at

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013,
saying that
VSU President McKinney was
in Athens (as was President Perrin of Wiregrass), but he and
VSU:

We too believe that this is a huge strategic initiative for our community.
And we were thrilled after the meeting that we attended that
the city, the county, both educational institutions, the Industrial
Authority, everyone there, the hospital for sure, all agreed
that this had to be a significant incentive.

Mary Gooding

added:

At Valdosta State it’s becoming one of our biggest road barriers to
online degrees, to online classes.
That’s again more bandwidth that’s needed to be able to deliver
degrees and classes online.

That’s all good, but where were the superintendents and school boards
of the two K-12 school systems?
Where were library

Continue reading →

Broadband top priority, education, jobs, quality of life —Angela Crance @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Angela Crance,

Special Assistant to the President of
Wiregrass Georgia Technical College,
told

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013:

I’m here for Wiregrass, and
we just want to thank you for bringing this up and making it a top priority
for the community [looking at

Lowndes County Commission Chairman Bill Slaughter]
and

the Industrial Authority….

 

 

It’s definitely a priority for us….
Only 14% of our citizens have a college degree
and we need 70% to have a college degree within ten years.
To be able to accomplish that we’d better have

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Broadband “one of the number one issues” —Bill Slaughter @ VLCIA 2013-02-19

 



Lowndes County Chairman

Bill Slaughter
told

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
that broadband is:
“one of the number one issues”.

…certainly one of the most important recruiting tools that we’re
going to have to figure out in this community how we can get it. To
be honest with you, it’s a wide open question. Do you have the
infrastructure? How much will the infrastructure that we currently
have support? We’re going to have to find a way to get with the
professional providers and find out just exactly what these
capabilities are in our community…. I see that as the big
question. We’ve got to figure out where to start with it.

I think it is probably in my opinion one of the number one issues
that this community is going to have to address from the standpoint
of where we go with economic development in the future for this
community not only for new economic development but for existing
businesses as well. As a business begins to grow,

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Companies need broadband, especially in rural areas of our county —Andrea Schruijer @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Andrea Schruijer’s

Executive Director’s Report to

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
had one theme: Internet broadband speed and access.

It’s a concern, especially in more rural parts of our county….

It’s up to us to make sure that we create an awareness of the
importance of having that technology in our community.

Why the sudden (just started late last year) emphasis on broadband?

We’ve worked with a few of our existing industries
that do not have the capacity.
Operations have had to change
or move to different locations that have better connectivity.

That’s a not-so-veiled reference to the the company that located
in Lake Park and discovered there was no broadband,
and to the two companies that moved their IT operations to Thomasville.

She emphasized again that

broadband throughout the county was important:

Continue reading →

Industrial Authority prospects need Internet broadband speed @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Internet access (as "telecommunications infrastructure")
came up in Project Manager Allan Ricketts' report to

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
as a requirement for

a Fortune 500 customer service operation
and
for a

National health care service provider,
both considering locating here,
also as
bandwidth,
as a requirement for
jobs.


  • Fortune 500 customer service operation

    Needs secure telecommunications infrastructure; site visit 5 March. (And
    once again Col. Ricketts believes a company that says we're the primary
    option, without any sign of any due diligence to find out whether that's true.)

    Later,

    Tom Call asked
    how many jobs that company might bring, and Col. Ricketts elaborated
    on 100 jobs or more, with some detail on timeframe for bringing them on.

    Then

    Chairman Roy Copeland asked for elaboration
    on the telecommunications infrastructure issue.
    Col. Ricketts' answer was support for the training facility was what
    was needed, including bandwidth and security.


  • National health care service provider

    Needs telecommunications infrastructure.

Continued in the

next post.

Here's

a video playlist:

-jsq

Videos: Tabled Hotchkiss Landing Road Closing but Trash Co. Apology @ LCC 2013-02-12



Tabled! The applicant requested and the Commission unanimously voted
to table

the proposed closing of Old State Road to Hotchkiss Crossing
on the Alapaha River
until their next meeting, which is in two weeks, Tuesday 26 February 2013.

A waste company executive suddenly rescheduled so he could come back
and apologize to the public.
All this and 3 rezonings and 3 contracts at the Lowndes County Commission
Regular Session Tuesday 12 February 2013, plus people haven’t forgotten
about animal shelter issues.

Here’s

the agenda,
with links to the videos, and a few notes.
See also the videos of the

Work Session of the previous morning.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Repeat trash talk, plus map @ LCC 2013-02-12



Dave Shepler, regional manager of Advanced Disposal,
suddenly decided he didn’t have to be in Biloxi after all,
and reappeared at

Tuesday evening’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session
for a more public (and more polished) version of

what he said at the previous morning’s Work Session.


Trash day map
There was a bit of new information, which included
that his company had delivered a map of on which day to expect
waste collection pickup, which is now

on the Lowndes County website
and he said it was published as an advertisement in the VDT.

Here’s

the video:

He also got into a TV news station’s website report.
Eames Yates wrote for WCTV yesterday,

Company Apologies for Problems with Trash Collection.

Thanks to Commissioners Demarcus Marshall and John Page for getting some public
explanation out of this company granted by the Commission before those two
Commissioners were elected.

-jsq

Video of Tabling of Abandonment of Old State Road to Hotchkiss Crossing at the Alapaha River @ LCC 2013-02-12

First the Chairman talked about how many people could speak and
for how long in the public hearing; then
at

Tuesday evening's Regular Session
the Commission tabled it
for two weeks, so closing the only public access to the Alapaha River
in Lowndes County will be up for a vote again Tuesday 26 February 2013.




6.a. Public Hearing: Abandonment of a portion of Old State Road (CR 16)

You can see in the video that the room was packed, which is very unusual.
The great majority were there to oppose closing the road.
As Chairman Bill Slaughter
remarked, about nine people signed up for Citizens Wishing
to Be Heard to speak about this item; as he noted, anyone can speak
in a public hearing without signing up.
To my knowledge, only one person was there to speak for closing the road,
and that was the applicant who had just agreed to ask for it to be tabled.
The Chairman said:

Continue reading →

Tabled for two weeks: proposed Old State Road to Alapaha River @ LCC 2013-02-12

The good news: they didn’t close the road to Hotchkiss Crossing
at the Alapaha River.

Lowndes County Water Resource Protection Districts Ordinance (WRPDO) Overlay Map
They tabled it until their next meeting, which is in two weeks,
26 February 2013. Video will follow tomorrow, in which you will
see the room was packed, mostly with people opposed to the road closing,
some from as far away as Tifton.
All concerned now have two weeks to absorb all the new information
and work out a solution.

Below is what I sent to the Lowndes County Commission at
Commissioner Joyce Evans’ request before the meeting tonight,
followed by a bit more information.

Subject: River Corridor Protection Plan

Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:49:50 -0500

Dear Commissioners and County Planner,

When I was talking to Joyce Evans just now, I mentioned the
100 foot natural vegetative buffer state law requires
local governments to establish next to perennial rivers.
Here is a summary of the state law, the definition it contains,
the GA EPD rules, and some notes on the relevant parts of
the Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan.

Continue reading →