About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2019)
THE ^ISLANDER Published by Permar Publications www.theislanderonline.com ssislander@bellsouth.net March 18, 2019 Established in 1972 Vol 47 Issue 11 March Madness Clean Up Evie Wilson (left to right), Emma Krauss and Genae Wilson helped clean up trash in Saturday’s ‘March Madness Clean-Up’ sponsored by Keep Golden Isles Beautiful (KGIB) and the Georgia Pacific’s Brunswick Cellulose plant. Shown here under the south end of the Sidney Lanier Bridge, a group of 18 volunteers, seven of whom were kids, cleaned up trash in the surrounding marsh. 17 bags of trash and one used car tire were collected and disposed of properly. Genae Wilson was the site leader for the day. Photo provided by KGIB SPLOST, LMIG and road projects update By Matthew J. Permar Oyster mariculture bill passes senate committee By Pamela Permar Shierling At the Georgia Senate Nat ural Resources and Environ ment Committee meeting last week (Tues., Mar. 12) Rep. Jeff Jones (R-167) was given one minute to speak about House Bill 501. Jones removed his name from all legislation he was sponsoring including an oys ter mariculture bill (HB 450) which he has been working on since June 2018. The oyster mariculture bill, renamed HB 501, was presented by Rep. Jessee Petrea (Dist. 166) at the Senate Committee meet ing last week. Jones told the committee he could not express his op position to HB 501 in just one minute. He discussed his back ground and how he became involved in the bill. “Prior to my involvement, our regulato ry agencies had been dinking around with this issue for 15 years and had not moved the ball forward,” he said. “This bill does not have the support of the producers, of the people that this legislation is intended to help,” Jones continued. “If this legislation is not supported by the oyster men, the distributors, the produc ers, the restaurateurs, why are we even considering passage?” He continued saying that the legislation would even work against those it is de signed to help and asked that the bill not be passed out of committee. Jones said he could offer five specific areas where there are problems in the bill. Committee member Sen. Frank Ginn (R-47) asked Turn to Page 6 Oyster farming A recent lunch conversa tion with a friend led to a dis cussion of Glynn County road projects - where they are in the process and how they are funded. So I went to the source, Glynn County Public Works Director Dave Austin. There are two primary sources of funding for road repaving and intersection im provements in Glynn County. One is Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) 2016. The other is the Local Maintenance Im provement Grant (LMIG) from the state. SPLOST 2016 is the sixth such tax referendum to be approved by Glynn residents since the first one was ap proved in the mid-1980s for the construction of the Glynn County Detention Center. Note: That particular de tention center was built un der a federal court order and after a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the inmates saying the existing jail was unfit. That jail was renovated and now houses county offices. It was named in honor of former County Commissioner Harold Pg^0 SPLOST 2016 was ap proved in November 2016, with collections beginning on April 1, 2017. Collection will continue through September 30, 2020, or until the tax rais es a total of $71,595,000. The first time this particu lar SPLOST referendum was on the ballot, it was called SPLOST 6 and it was rejected by the voters. In order to regain the public trust, the next time the Glynn County Board of Commissioners (BOC) put a SPLOST list together they kept it primarily to infrastruc ture projects - roads, intersec tion improvements, drainage, sidewalks, bridges and dirt road paving, which makes up about 92% of the total funds. The only non-infrastruc ture related projects are the Veteran’s Memorial which is in the design phase and a new Animal Control facility for which Commissioner Bob Coleman (At Large #2) advo cated strongly. About $10.6 million of SPLOST 2016 was earmarked for “road resurfacing and shoulder widening.” The coun ty expects to repave about 50 miles of road with the money. Road reconstruction and Turn to Page 9 Road projects City hears development possibilities By Pamela Permar Shierling At the Brunswick City Commission planning meet ings last Tuesday (March 12), commissioners heard develop ment possibilities from Mark Podlin, president of Podlin In ternational Realty, Ltd. Podlin told the group that the city is not much differ ent since he graduated from Glynn Academy in 1971. “There’s a reason Bruns wick is not developed,” Podlin said. “And that’s because you are only talking to one tenant at a time.” “Brunswick is the perfect new California,” he continued. “People wanted to live in Cali fornia because of the climate and ambiance. Well, you have all that in Brunswick. There Turn to Page 3 City development Zoning Appeals denies Plumbroke Rd. variance By Pamela Permar Shierling During their meeting last week (Thur., March 14) the Glynn County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) denied a vari ance application for nine lots in the Peterson’s subdivision on Plumbroke Rd. on St. Si mons Island. Plumbroke Rd. is off the north side Demere Rd. in the Jewtown area west of the Waf fle House restaurant. The lots were platted in 1940 and are lots of record. The lots were previously zoned Medium Residential (MR), and they were down- zoned to R-9 in 2015 by the property owners, which in cludes Patrick Duncan who was listed as the applicant. In 2016, the County Board Turn to Page 2 Appeals Board County-Wide News - Read County-Wide Page 2 - Board of Elections Page 10 - Pew Jewish Food Festival Friends of Hofwyl event Page 11 - Talking Sports with Dave Jordan Relay for Life Survivors Dinner 0 94922 29970 3
