{"id":4868,"date":"2013-07-24T08:09:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T12:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=4868"},"modified":"2013-07-24T08:13:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T12:13:13","slug":"community-assessment-group-and-internet-access-lcc-2013-07-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/community-assessment-group-and-internet-access-lcc-2013-07-22.html","title":{"rendered":"Community Assessment Group and Internet access @ LCC 2013-07-22"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nValdosta Mayor Gayle was standing next to the video ghetto\r\nafter the county’s rather rudimentary SPLOST VII presentation<\/a>\r\nMonday morning, so I asked him why I hadn’t seen anything about Internet\r\naccess either Valdosta’s or Lowndes County’s SPLOST lists?\r\nHe said that was because it was being handled by the Community Assessment Group (CAG).\r\nWhat’s that?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nMayor Gayle said CAG is a group of representatives from the county\r\nand all the local cities, the two school districts (Valdosta and Lowndes County),\r\nVSU, Wiregrass Tech, the Industrial Authority, the Chamber, and he may have\r\nsaid others.\r\nIt’s an attempt at better local cooperation, specifically about issues\r\nthat cross all the various local governmental and non-governmental groups.\r\nSo far they’ve had two meetings,\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n in which they identified three issues:\r\n

    \r\n
  1. \r\nMoody AFB\r\n
  2. \r\nBroadband\r\n
  3. \r\nSPLOST\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    \r\nMoody is of course the issue that has always united most of the community,\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\nas for example\r\n\r\nwhen the Chamber mobilized opposition to a subdivision near Moody’s front gate\r\nlast last year<\/a>,\r\nand\r\nwon<\/a>.\r\n(Briefly. That issue is back. More on that later.)\r\nYou can see Moody AFB in the sudden bump in 1960 in population of both\r\n\r\nLowndes County<\/a>\r\nand\r\n\r\nValdosta<\/a>,\r\nand Moody is still the area’s biggest employer.\r\nIf we ever want to have any chance\r\n\r\nto broaden our employment base beyond Moody<\/a>, \r\nwe need #2.\r\nThis paragraph is just me talking.\r\nNow back to the Mayor.\r\n

    \r\nThe Mayor said regarding broadband CAG had had at least one of the\r\nincumbent Internet providers speak, and CAG was probably going to \r\ngo to Stockbridge, Georgia, which was putting in Google fiber,\r\nto see how that works.\r\n

    \r\nHe said CAG meets again 19 August 2013.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nStockbridge actually isn’t doing Google Fiber, but it is doing\r\nsomething similar.\r\nBroadband Communities carried a BBC Wire of 23 May 2013,\r\n\r\nStockbridge, Ga. Approves $15 Million Fiber Network<\/a>,\r\n

    \r\n

    \r\nSTOCKBRIDGE, GA—The city of Stockbridge, Georgia has approved\r\nan agreement authorizing Community Broadband LLC to develop a $15\r\nmillion fiber optic network to provide advanced broadband services\r\nto governments, schools, and businesses in and around the\r\nStockbridge, Georgia community.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nThe new network to be developed and operated by Community Broadband\r\nwill place the Stockbridge community on a very short list of\r\ncommunities which are able to take advantage of the benefits\r\nprovided by unlimited broadband capacity made available through an\r\nall fiber optic network, in a project designed to meet the unique\r\nneeds of the Stockbridge community.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

    \r\nCommunity Broadband, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of\r\n\r\nCoastal Asset Management, LLC<\/a> of Savannah, Georgia, and is the most recent\r\nnew opportunity developed by Allen Davis who, along with affiliated\r\ncompanies, has developed and managed commercial and residential\r\nfiber optic projects in over 100 service areas.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

    \r\nLocal interest in doing something like Stockbridge could get the\r\nincumbents motivated to offer something better.\r\nAnd, who knows?\r\nMaybe the Stockbridge solution is part of what we need here.\r\nI don’t think it would solve the low-density rural access issue\r\ndirectly, but it could be a way to connect wireless access points.\r\n

    \r\nIt is still disappointing that SPLOST VII doesn’t have anything\r\nabout Internet access in it.\r\nThis seems to be due to the desire of local leaders not to spend\r\nany money on it.\r\nWhile I’m not a big fan of local governments actually trying\r\nto provide Internet access, not being willing to spend any money\r\non any part of it sends the wrong signal to the incumbents.\r\n

    \r\nBut at least this CAG exists and is looking into the issue.\r\n

    \r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valdosta Mayor Gayle was standing next to the video ghetto after the county’s rather rudimentary SPLOST VII presentation Monday morning, so I asked him why I hadn’t seen anything about Internet access either Valdosta’s or Lowndes County’s SPLOST lists? He said that was because it was being handled by the Community Assessment Group (CAG). What’s […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[601,14,2,602,19,132,603,1105,88,570,604,52,3,54,1106,178,332,134,501],"tags":[6693,506,6705,6704,8790,8704,6259,8701,8699,8791,8709,8741,259,548,8702,8792,8815,91,12,7,8734,8783,3175,1017,8793,8724,1157,6706,8700,6,8726,8816,8749,8765,8743,8774,90],"class_list":["post-4868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dasher","category-economy","category-government","category-hahira","category-history","category-internet-access-speed","category-lake-park","category-lcboe","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-military","category-remerton","category-splost","category-transparency","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vboe","category-vlcia","category-vlcoc","category-vsu","category-wiregrass-tech","tag-22-july-2013","tag-broadband","tag-cag","tag-community-assessment-group","tag-dasher","tag-economy","tag-fiber","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-hahira","tag-history","tag-internet-access-speed","tag-john-gayle","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-lake-park","tag-lcboe","tag-lcc","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-military","tag-moody","tag-population","tag-remerton","tag-splost","tag-splost-vii","tag-stockbridge","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-city-council","tag-vboe","tag-vlcia","tag-vlcoc","tag-vsu","tag-wiregrass-tech","tag-work-session"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1gw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4868"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4873,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868\/revisions\/4873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}