About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2019)
THE ^ISLANDER Published by Permar Publications www.theislanderonline.com ssislander@bellsouth.net April 29, 2019 Established in 1972 Vol 47 Issue 17 Murphy's Town Hall update By Matthew J. Permar Glynn County’s District 2 Commissioner Dr. Peter Mur phy held his quarterly town hall meeting two weeks ago, Wednesday, April 17, at Sea Palms Resort and updated is land residents on a number of ongoing county issues. Changing the format just a bit, Murphy took time at the end of the meeting to show a short video about St. Simons Island created by two retired film makers in conjunction with the St. Simons Land Trust. The focus of the video was the need to control develop ment on St. Simons in order to preserve what makes the island a special, unique place. Murphy kicked off the meeting with an update on Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) 2016 projects. He noted that the Demere Rd., Frederica Road and East Beach Causeway resurfacing projects have been completed along with the sidewalks on Ocean Blvd. and South Har rington Lane. Phase One of the Village Drainage project is underway, although the project has had it’s challenges, as any major project can be in an old area like the pier village. Along with getting started late, the county has had some issues with the supplier get ting them correct materials and having to use old, inac curate design plans that don’t show everything that actually in the ground. Murphy said they found a large pipe that no one knew was there, that was not con nected to anything. Murphy said, “We’re about a month behind, but we have weekly meetings with the merchants and everything should be done in about eight more working days.” Turn to Page 5 Town Hall Arbor Day in Brunswick Top photo: The City of Brunswick added two more live oak trees to its downtown waterfront at 4:00 last Friday afternoon during a tree planting ceremony and an Arbor Day Celebration at Mary Ross Park. The live oaks were a gift to the City from Keep Golden Isles Beautiful. Bonyetta Kitts, Chair of the Brunswick Tree Board, welcomed everyone including children from the Boys and Girls Club, and Mayor Cornell Harvey read a proclamation declaring April 26 Arbor Day in the City. Earlier in the day, the group planted another live oak in one of downtown’s pocket parks on Newcastle St. Taking part in the planting were from left to right: Gerald Butler, Public Works Street Supervisor; Johnny Cason, City Commissioner; Rick Charnock, Assit. Public Works Director; Julie Martin, City Commissioner; Mayor Harvey; Bonyetta Kitts; Joanna Lee, Tree Board; Miriam Lancaster, Golden Isles Fund for Trees; and City Manager Jim Drumm. Bottom photo: Ms. Lancaster quizzes Boys and Girls Club members on the benefits of trees. Islander Staff Photos - Pemar BOE considering $139 million budget At Wednesday’s (April 24) Glynn County Board of Edu cation Finance meeting the board was presented with a look at the school system’s $139,000 million FY 2020 op erating expense budget. The proposed 2020 budget assumes a 2.5% tax digest By Pamela Permar Shierling increase and the same millage rate as last year of 16.157. Expenses are $3.3 million over revenues which would re duce the fund balance to $19.4 million. Twenty positions have been added to the proposed budget and six and a half positions have been eliminated or com bined with another position. The 20 new positions ($1.5 million including salary and benefits) include: • one teacher for the Golden Turn to Page 12 BOE budget Gross set to purchase former school bus yard from URA • URA approves another $4,000 for MRP By Matthew J. Permar Brunswick’s Urban Re development Agency (URA) started their regular meeting last week (Thursday, April 25) with a 30 minute closed session to discuss the future of the former Glynn County school system bus yard near Martin Luther King Blvd. and OSt. The city acquired the for mer bus yard in a land swap with the Board of Education several years ago. When the URA reconvened in open session they unani mously approved a resolution of support and a ‘real prop erty purchase agreement’ Turn to Page 11 URA Ga. DOAS hosts 3rd annual procurement conference By Pamela Permar Shierling Former Glynn County Judge Alex Atwood was pleased to be home last week but his visit was all business. Atwood, now Commissioner of Georgia’s Department of Ad ministrative Services (DOAS), opened the 2019 (3rd annual) Georgia Procurement Confer ence, hosted by the DOAS, last week on Jekyll Island. The conference had more than 800 procurement profes sionals in attendance along with over 300 vendors. Atwood’s focus is to help small business by enhancing his department’s procure ment policies which will pro mote and increase supplier Turn to Page 4 DOAS County-Wide News - Read County-Wide Page 2 - Center for Sustainable Coast send letter of intent to sue to Sea Island Page 3 - Turnipseed inducted into GA Tech Engineering Hall of Fame Page 4 - Ceremony to honor Vietnam Vets Page 8 - Village Inn receives GIFT award Page 13 - Talking Sports with Dave Jordan Page 16 -Back Talk 0 94922 29970 3
