About The Baldwin bulletin. (Milledgeville, GA) ????-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 2017)
Page A4 The Baldwin Bulletin I www.BBnews.today Thursday, August 31,2017 Opinions All letters to the editor must be signed and include a phone number for verification purposes. Send letters to wil@BBnews.today by 1 p.m. Monday. Thank your local colleges Milledgeville and Baldwin County have been fortunate in recent years. While there have been jobs lost, and hard times have hit the area, much like elsewhere in Central Georgia, the River City had a leg to stand on: education. Baldwin County, as you know, is home to three colleges. It serves as the main campus for both Georgia College & State University, as well as Georgia Military College. It also hosts a satellite campus for Central Georgia Technical College. If you have already looked at the front page, you learned how much money Georgia College alone generates for the area. It’s over $250 million, and the amount continues to grow each year. This money brought to the community is not so much in the form of tuition and books. It’s the rent paid to landlords, the food bought at local restaurants. It’s the clothes bought at department stores, the accessories bought at Milledgeville Mall and the groceries bought throughout many of the county’s grocers. It’s also tax money that local students pay to the city, county and state every time they fill up their vehicles or make just about any purchase. There is also the property taxes professors pay to reside here, friends throughout the Southeast region looking to visit former classmates and so much more. Of course, if you were to add GMC and CGTC to the mix, you would see additional money the region gets. It was even the draw of the colleges here that earned Milledgeville a cyber security firm. New growth continues to come to Baldwin County, and that means a multitude of improvements. More people will get back to work. There will be more options here. In turn, that means less travels to Macon, Warner Robins or Dublin. It even means that people from other cities will continue to visit here to shop and work. We know there are several factors that play into an area’s economic development and progress over time. However, in many cases, there is one dominant force that does so. In Savannah, that would be tourism. In Columbus and Warner Robins, it would be their respected mili tary bases. In Helen, it was a complete reinvention to become an Alpine village. In Milledgeville, we do have the history and culture. However, we owe thanks to the institutions of higher learning that are allowing the community to stand strong and prepare itself for the next exciting chapter. Send your Letters to the Editor to wil@bbnews.today by Monday, 1 p.m. 3 Baldwin Bulletin Established 2000 President & Publisher A. Mark Smith Sr. Vice President, General Manager Matt Smith Vice President, Advertising Mark Smith Jr. Vice President Michael Smith Vice President Jo Ann Smith Associate Editor Wil Petty Putnam County Associate Editor Lynn Hobbs Reporter Alaina Minshew Reporter Carrie Moon Sports Reporter Brandon Bush Lakelife Editor Beverly Harvey Lakelife Associate Editor Hank Segars Display Advertising Manager Vicki Parker Advertising Representative Brandi Harrison Advertising Representative Michael Payne Advertising Representative Shannon Thompson Advertising Representative Anjie Brown Advertising Representative Tom Gorman Advertising Representative Daniel Harwell National Advertising Manager Amy Hood Legal Advertising/Circulation Becky Meyer Production and Technology Manager Josh Lurie Graphic Artist Lindsay Pilcher Graphic Artist Mark Brill Business Manager Cassandra Fowler One-Year Subscription Rates In Baldwin County $30 Other Georgia counties $36 Out of State $39 Advertising, news and information: 136 S. Wayne St. • Milledgeville, GA 31061 478-452-1777 Advertising email: vicki@bbnews.today News email: wil@bbnews.today The Baldwin Bulletin (USPS 830-400 is published every Thursday by Smith Communications Inc., 100 N. Jefferson Ave., Eatonton, GA 31024. All rights reserved. Reprints by permission of The Baldwin Bulletin and individual writers only. Send address changes to The Baldwin Bulletin, P.O. Box 4027, Eatonton, GA 31024 Periodicals Postage Paid at Milledgeville, GA, 31061 "Hey, I'd be failing my constituents if I changed positions," 'jsj dj, ,-v i ir £7/ Hi A Facebook snarkiness rant Facebook, more often than not, leaves me disappointed and filled with angst. In between cringe worthy comment sections, conspiracy theories that are almost always fake and hearing what millenials are killing this weekend, I almost regret even looking at social media. However, those are not the moments that make me want to scream, as much as just roll my eyes. The people who make me want to gouge my eye out (yes I’m already blind in one) are the people who want to snidely comment about how they don’t care about whatever the current trend is. Let people like things. I’ve never watched a “Game of Thrones” episode either. However, I don’t think that’s something everyone needs to see on my wall. I didn’t watch Floyd Mayweather fight Connor McGregor, but I also had no desire to call the people Wil Petty Associate Editor who spent their money on the fight sheep. I don’t care much Disney or superhero movies, but I don’t post about that either. If I posted a new status every time a new one was released, that would be 95 percent of my feed. Not to brag, but I consider myself a Facebook veteran. I was a member when baby boomers were still sending emails and all the users were alive for Myspace and Xanga. Back then it was a simpler time. People were posting photos of their food, asking if anyone wanted to hang out and weren’t judging those admitting their relation ships were complicated. The only snowflakes you would hear about were the ones that caused schools to close in Georgia. People had original thoughts, not ones shared hundreds of thousands of times. You could even post about your love of football without making somebody angry. Times have changed, though. I’ve often thought about taking down my account, but it isn’t feasible. After all, there have been plenty of positives social media has brought me through the years. For one, I am able to stay in contact with the friends I grew up with in Oklahoma and those I got to work with in North Carolina. I am able to easily contact family 90 miles away or the new friend a few blocks down. Next, in my field a social media account is all but required. You have to use it to know when news breaks, to get something out to the public or for the same public to contact you. Finally, it can keep you organized, when you’re not using it to procrastinate. Want to know where you were supposed to meet up? Check your messenger. Then again, people made it without those issues 10, 20 years ago. There were rather interesting items such as the Yellow Pages, payphones and face-to-face conversation. However, times have changed and we all use that device designed to make a call as one to laugh at cat videos. Maybe I should just get over the people concerned about a fandom of HBO shows, but want to flood a feed with Farmville requests. We all knew those people in real life anyway. Come to think about it, I remember not freaking out about an eclipse that occurs every several years. Maybe I’m not that different. The fleecing of college students You may have missed this. The article in the AJC last April that screamed the headline: “College costs in Georgia up 77 percent since 2006.” A story we have become accustomed to hearing each year. The perpetual rise in tuition costs and the vast accumulation of debt by students and their families goes on with minimal outrage. Like dutiful sheep headed for their annual shearing, everyone seems to take this in stride, especially those doing the shearing. Baaaa. Time reported last year that the average cost for a year of study at a four-year Hank Segars Lakelife Associate Editor college ran about $9,410 for a public in-state institution and $32,410 for a private school. This doesn’t include room, board or books that can be equally outrageous. Many institutions, in their quest to be considered elite, charge their sheep even more. State legislators and university administrators offer a litany of erudite reasons for the never- ending rise in tuitions and this recent explanation comes from the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute: “Over the last 10 years, decreased levels of state appropriations and changes to the HOPE scholarship have shifted a larger portion of the cost of public higher education to USG [University System of Georgia] students in the form of increased tuition. Students’ cost of attendance has further increased as a result of institution-level policy decisions to expand requirements to live on campus and purchase meal plans and to increase mandatory fees to fund such items as new facilities and expanded athletics programs. From fiscal year 2006 to 2015, USG students’ average cost of attendance increased 77% from $8,361 to $14,791 per year.” Really? When did voters agree that our elected representatives should decrease the amount of SEI SEGARS » AX State and Federal Elected Officials Gov. Nathan Deal (R) 203 State Capitol Atlanta. GA 30334 (404) 656-1776 Web/e-mail: gagovernor.org Sen. David Perdue (R) B40D Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-3521 Rep. Jody Hice (R) 1516 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4101 Fax: (202) 226-0776 Sen. Burt Jones (R) 407 East Second St., Jackson, GA 30233 Phone: (770) 775-4880 Fax: (770) 234-6752 Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 (202) 224-3643 Rep. Rick Williams (R) Room 607, Coverdell Legislative Office Building, Atlanta, GA 30334 404-656-0887 Rick.williams@house.ga.gov
