Cranes arrive in Savannah
The Port of Savannah received four new ship-to-shore cranes yesterday, bringing its total fleet to 25, the largest number at any single terminal in the United States.
“These new super-post Panamax cranes further enhance the cargo handling efficiency at the fourth-busiest container terminal in the nation,” said GPA Executive Director Curtis Foltz. “Combined with the largest single container terminal in North America and two Class I railroads on site, these cranes will make the customer experience even smoother.”
Designed by Konecranes of Finland and assembled in Nantong, China, these enormous cranes can reach across vessels 22 containers wide and lift cargo weighing up to 65 long tons to a height of 136 feet above the dock. Each crane weighs 1,388 tons and measures 433 feet wide and 185 feet tall.
“Like our other cranes, these machines will generate their own power for 18 minutes out of every hour of operation by capturing energy while lowering containers,” Foltz said.
Of the GPA’s current fleet of cranes, nine are post-Panamax (accommodating the largest vessels capable of transiting the Panama Canal) and 16 are super post-Panamax (for vessels too large to transit Panama). The cranes operate over a dock featuring 9,700 feet of contiguous berth space.
“Savannah leads the Southeast in containerized cargo,” said GPA Board Chairman Robert Jepson. “These improvements to our landside infrastructure will complement the planned harbor deepening to ensure Savannah’s premier status in moving U.S. exports to the global marketplace.”
The ship moving the equipment was lowered in the water three feet by taking on extra ballast in order to clear the Talmadge Bridge, which was closed to traffic for the movement.
I think there are four major pillars to Georgia’s economy:
- The Ports of Savannah and Brunswick
- The privately-owned freight railroad system
- Agriculture
- Education
- Reliable, inexpensive electricity availability
Under Governor Deal’s leadership, we’ve seen substantial progress on moving the harbor deepening project at Savannah forward. The state’s two Class I railroads are part of making the ports available for import and more importantly export of agricultural and other commodities and manufactured goods. Proximity to transportation infrastructure were cited in manufacturing decisions to locate in Georgia like the new Caterpillar plant near Athens.
Last year, Deal signed legislation repealing the sales tax on energy used in manufacturing, which was also an issue helping Georgia compete for new jobs. This year, we’ve seen the technical college system help attract jobs through specific job training programs tailored to employment needs, and Gov. Deal’s agenda this year included lowering the GPA requirement for the HOPE grant to technical colleges as part of ensuring Georgia’s supply of well-trained citizens for the manufacturing jobs that are a major part of recent job growth in the Peach state.
Governor Deal also announced that the state has received a federal grant of more than $700,000 for workforce development programs after the state exceeded targets for helping unemployed Georgians land employment.
Gov. Nathan Deal says the grants show “Georgia is on the right path to building a strong workforce.”
Deal Appointments
Some of the folks you may know who have received recent appointments by Governor Deal:
- Former Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson to the Georgia Tourism Foundation
- State Rep. Ron Stephens to the Georgia Tourism Foundation
- John White, retired Coca-Cola Executive to the Georgia Council for the Arts
- Stephanie Jones, finance director for Senator Johnny Isakson’s campaign to the Georgia Council for the Arts
- Senator Jeff Mullis, Rules Chair, to the Georgia Council for the Arts
- State Rep. Rahn Mayo to the Georgia Council for the Arts
- Paulding County Commission Chair David Austin to the Board of Commissioners of the Georgia Student Finance Commission
Taxes and Spending
Acworth city residents see no property tax increases, but a 3 percent increase in trash collection fees after the city council voted.
The Savannah-Chatham County Board of Education tentatively adopted a budget that will require a 1-mill increase in school board property taxes.
This could go under savings, but an Atlanta law firm will write off more than $30 million in legal fees charged to the DeKalb County School Board.
DeKalb has been battling its former construction manager Heery International Inc. since 2007. The district has been seeking more than $100 million over allegations of billing fraud and mismanagement, but so far taxpayers have been the ones paying. Legal fees and court expenses have cost $18 million, while the district’s law firm, King & Spalding, has piled up another $30 million in unbilled lawyers’ time that would come out of any settlement or judgment.
Signaling his firm’s willingness to strike a new deal that wipes the billing slate clean, Robert Khayat Jr., a lawyer with King & Spalding, emerged from a private meeting with the school board on Monday to say publicly that his firm would write off the $30 million, while also assuming all other costs associated with the case.
“King & Spalding will see the case through to the end without any additional expense to the school system,” Khayat said. He said the firm still believes the case can be won but that politics might have forced a premature, and unfavorable, end. DeKalb, he said, “should not have to walk away from a meritorious case because of financial pressure.”
That pressure has amounted to nearly $100,000 a month, according to interim Superintendent Michael Thurmond.
Gwinnett County Chair Charlotte Nash is proposing to devote 75 percent of county SPLOST funds to transportation projects if the penny sales tax is extended again this year.
The remaining 25 to 30 percent of the funding would be divided among public safety, recreation, senior services and library replacement projects, she said of the up to $498 million that could be collected under a three-year program or $889 million that could come in a five-year cycle.
The Columbia County Commission adopted a 2014 budget without tax hikes that is also expected to produce a $1 million surplus. The County tax assessor’s office expects fewer appeals of property tax valuations this year.
Macon City Council approved a $19.89 million police budget, the largest of any department in the city. The Human Resources Committee of the Task Force working on consolidation of Macon and Bibb County governments approved a pension plans that caps retirement payments at 45% of the average earnings over the three years preceding retirement.
Expect an outcry over this, but Muscogee County Schools will determine layoffs based on merit instead of seniority.
A state law passed in 2012 prohibits school boards from using length of service as the primary or sole factor in determining who is laid off. Instead, the law says, school boards must consider the teacher’s performance as the primary factor, “one measure of which may be student achievement.”
So the layoffs will come from the following positions, [spokesperson Kathy] Tessin said: elementary education (K-5); middle school English/language arts, social studies, science and math; high school English, social studies and study skills; and CTAE/connections. A teacher’s position will be based on the job held during the majority of the 2012-13 school year, she said.
The first criterion will be teachers who received an “ineffective” grade on their annual evaluation. The second criterion will be repeated performance concerns, as evidenced by two out of the past three years being “needs improvement” or “unsatisfactory” on an annual evaluation. The third criterion will be based on whether teachers are qualified for the needed positions. The final criterion will be seniority in MCSD.
Campaigns and Elections
After suffering a tough loss in the 2012 presidential election, the RNC in March said the Republican Party must close the digital divide between the GOP and Democrats if it wanted to win the upcoming midterm elections and 2016 presidential race.
As part of that effort, the RNC said it wanted to hire a chief technology and digital officer by May 1 who would be responsible for recruiting a team of savvy data scientists, tech and digital advocates who would build a new data and digital operation for the upcoming contests.
Former Congressman Allen West, who addressed the Georgia Republican State Convention last month, converted his campaign committee into a PAC, called Deep Strike PAC.
The President of the Republican State Leadership Committee said that the “good old boy network” is a structural impediment to the GOP recruiting more female candidates.
“It’s not hard to recruit women to run; they are running,” [RSLC President Chris] Jankowski said Monday. “I think sometimes our party does not value them as much.”
Jankowski cited the boys’ club that often determines who gets support in local races.
“It’s safe to say that there are institutional barriers. We’ve met with candidates who felt like they weren’t part of the old boy network,” he said. “It can be a bit of a male-dominated club at that level, and it’s important that they feel welcome and they’re given the resources.”
The RSLC has been pushing in recent years to recruit and elect more minority and female candidates, particularly through its Future Majority Project — the brainchild of former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie.
Creative Loafing writer Max Blau says that the cluster known as the Democratic Party of Georgia is actually facing great opportunities rather than yet another election year of ignominious defeats.
But the DPG — and the millions of Georgians pining for a progressive to hold at least one statewide elected office — shouldn’t lose hope. How its members rebound in the coming weeks will define the party’s future, particularly as its movers and shakers gear up for key U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races in 2014. Despite the party’s bleak outlook, demographic changes and under-the-radar efforts to build a political machine actually allow the party a chance to start anew and regain the kind of political momentum it’s been missing for years.
But if done right, such an effort could call to arms large swaths of disengaged voters and possibly turn Georgia’s political tide. And maybe, just maybe, it can turn Georgia blue.
The phrase I’ve heard used for such wishful and optimistic thinking is “polishing a turd.”
Irene Berens will seek reelection to the Marietta School Board this year.
In Canton, Sandy McGrew will run for the city council seat (Ward I) currently held by Bob Rush and John Rust announced he will run for Ward III currently held by John Beresford. Qualifying for candidates will be held August 26-30 and the qualifying fee is $63.
Helen Blocker-Adams is running for Mayor of Augusta, which she narrowly missed winning in 2005.
Perry Mayor Jimmy Faircloth is running for reelection in November.
Calling Common Cause Georgia and Tea Party activists
Having established yourselves on the issue of ethics reform, here’s a very real problem: sitting Augusta Commissioners exempted “courtesy tickets” to sporting events or other entertainment from their own gift ban. What this has led to is one Commissioner spending four Falcons games in the private sky box of a county vendor whose lucrative contract is currently up for renewal.
The Augusta Chronicle reported Heery’s numerous gifts and contributions to commissioners as the commission prepared Tuesday to renew the firm’s contract for two more years. Heery and its subconsultants – Gallop and Associates and Dukes, Edwards and Dukes – have received about $9.5 million in fees in the past decade, based on hourly billing rates that in some cases exceed $200 an hour.
“There’s a difference between a gift and courtesy tickets,” [Commissioner] Mason said, referring to the city ethics ordinance’s exception of “courtesy tickets or free admission extended to an elected official for an event as a courtesy or for ceremonial purposes” from commissioner reporting requirements.
For Mason, that meant four Heery-sponsored invitations to the firm’s skybox at the Georgia Dome during the Falcons’ 2010 season.
“There’s nothing illegal, period, in reference to that,” Mason said.
I have long said that I believe there’s much greater potential for corruption and actual corruption at the local level than under the Gold Dome. If you’re serious about ethics, and want to serve all of Georgia instead of just Atlanta, what part of this is not crying out for your attention? It even brings in the issue of a Falcons stadium.
Ends & Pieces & Liquor
Our prayers and best wishes are with Gwinnett County Commissioner John Heard, who is recovering from open heart surgery.
Legal moonshine distillers who are now able to allow tourists limited on-site sampling are now asking to change state law to allow them to sell their wares on-site as well.
Several north Georgia legislators in town for the Georgia Mountain Region Commission’s monthly meeting last Thursday were poised with a question when they toured the Dawsonville Moonshine Distillery.
“What do we need to do to be able to sell bottles of our legal moonshine to tourists visiting the distillery?” said Dwight Bearden.
Dressed in his overalls and signature bucket hat, Bearden, the backwoods distiller responsible for making the first batches of legal moonshine in Dawsonville at the local distillery, said the ability to sell bottles of the spirits would be a big boon for the local business.
“We’re just edging by the way it is now,” he told Sen. Jack Murphy, R-Cumming, and Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega. “Being able to sell it here would for sure be a big help.”
Current law took effect last year to allow visitors to sample up to a half ounce of spirits per person, per day when touring a distillery.
However, those who want to take a bottle of the liquor home with them must make the purchase away from the distillery at a retail package store.
“We’ve got to do something to help them out,” Murphy said. “We’ll talk about this over the summer to see if we can come up with some type of conclusion.”
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