ATLANTA – Satilla Rural Electric Membership Corp. will partner with Kansas City-based Conexon Connect to offer high-speed broadband service to nine counties in southeastern Georgia.
The $150 million project will serve more than 57,000 rural homes and businesses in Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Brantley, Coffee, Jeff Davis, Pierce, Ware and Wayne counties.
The project is expected to be completed within four to five years, with service available to some customers during the first quarter of next year.
“The promise of high-speed internet is a game changer for the homes and businesses in our service area,” said Romeo Reyes, president and CEO of Satilla REMC. “Our members have waited patiently for access to broadband, now considered an essential service in today’s digital world.
“It’s vital that rural Georgia remain competitive and offer the same online choices to its residents – whether it’s working and learning from home, running a home-based business, visiting a doctor online, or shopping for goods and services.”
The lack of high-speed internet connectivity in rural Georgia, long a concern among the region’s political and business leaders, has had an even greater impact during the coronavirus pandemic. With schools closing their doors to avoid spreading the virus, students in homes without internet have been forced to go to great lengths to keep up with their lessons.
While a couple of Georgia EMCs have been providing broadband service for years, the business began to take off in earnest after the General Assembly passed legislation two years ago authorizing EMCs to attach broadband technology to utility poles.
Lawmakers followed that up last year with a bill giving the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) the task of deciding how much EMCs could charge telecom providers for pole attachments. The commission approved an offer by the EMCs to provide steep discounts to providers willing to offer broadband to unserved rural communities.
“EMCs have taken a leadership role and offered tangible solutions to provide high-speed internet to unserved areas,” said Commissioner Jason Shaw, who represents South Georgia on the PSC. “This partnership is the latest example of how EMCs are stepping up to serve rural Georgia and further improve the quality of life for their members.”
Conexon Connect has been an active player in extending broadband service to rural communities across Georgia. The company announced two projects last month that will expand broadband connectivity to EMC customers in Middle Georgia and 10 counties in eastern Georgia stretching from Laurens County to Washington County.
The company unveiled an even larger project last February to serve 80,000 utility customers in 18 rural counties.
Satilla REMC’s fiber-optic network will offer customers access to symmetrical Gigabit internet service – among the fastest and most robust in the nation. It also will provide reliable, clear phone service and improved power outage response times, better load balancing, and more efficient electricity delivery.
Georgia Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey (right) receives the COVID-19 vaccine as Gov. Brian Kemp (left) watches on Dec. 17, 2020. (Kemp Twitter photo)
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp signed an executive order Tuesday prohibiting state agencies, state service providers, and state properties from requiring COVID-19 vaccine passports.
The order also forbids vaccine passports as a condition for entering Georgia and prohibits state agencies from treating unvaccinated employees differently from those who have received vaccinations.
“While I continue to urge all Georgians to get vaccinated so we continue our momentum in putting the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview, vaccination is a personal decision between each citizen and a medical professional – not state government,” Kemp said in a prepared statement.
“This order also clearly states that data held by the Georgia Department of Public Health and their immunization system will not be used by any public or private entity for a vaccine passport program.”
Other Republican-led states have taken similar steps to ban state agencies from requiring vaccine passports, while some have gone further by banning private businesses from requiring such documentation.
But some countries have moved to require travelers to show proof they’ve been vaccinated against the virus or proof of a recent negative COVID-19 test as a condition for entry.
In California, venues can allow more people to enter if they prove they have received vaccinations.
The Ceylon tract (Photo Credit: Open Space Institute)
ATLANTA – The Georgia Board of Natural Resources voted Tuesday to acquire 11,662 acres of undeveloped coastal habitat in southeastern Georgia slated to become part of a state wildlife management area.
The site represents about three-quarters of the so-called Ceylon tract in Camden County. The state already has purchased the remaining 4,320 acres from The Conservation Fund and the Open Space Institute.
The Ceylon tract, the largest undeveloped tract of coastal Georgia, is located along the south bank of the Satilla River. The diverse landscape of salt marshes, tidal creeks and longleaf pine forests is home to threatened and endangered species including the gopher tortoise and indigo snake.
The site is close enough to the Interstate 95 corridor that it likely would be developed without the state and the conservation groups stepping in.
“This property is zoned to be able to take over 20,000 single-family homes, high density,” said Andrew Schock, Georgia state director for the Conservation Fund. “Three million square feet of commercial space and up to two deep-water marinas all were possible on this site.”
The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) got a lot of help coming up with the $17.5 million purchase price for the acquisitions approved Tuesday. The Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Fund, a tax on the sale of sporting goods approved by Georgia voters in 2018, put up $4.6 million, Steve Friedman, the DNR’s chief of real estate, told board members Tuesday.
Other contributions came from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Atlanta-based Woodruff Foundation, the Bobolink Foundation and the Knobloch Family Foundation, Friedman said.
The U.S. Navy donated $5 million for a conservation easement, Friedman said. Leaving the Ceylon tract undeveloped helps preserve the area as a buffer to the adjacent Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base.
ATLANTA – Republicans are starting to step into the vacuum left when GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan announced last week he would not seek a second term.
Georgia Senate Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, entered the race for lieutenant governor Tuesday. Miller, a car dealer, was elected to the Senate in 2010 and chosen president pro tempore by his legislative colleagues in 2018.
“As a state senator, I’ve worked with visionary conservative leaders to make our state the No. 1 state for business and a safe haven for the conservative, traditional values that made our state and nation great,” Miller said.
“I’m running for lieutenant governor to defend our conservative accomplishments, to enrich Georgians with jobs-friendly policies, to defend our constitutional rights, and to protect and promote the sanctity of life and opportunity.”
Miller noted in declaring his candidacy that he stepped up to preside over the Senate back in March during the floor debate that led to the passage of a controversial Republican-backed election bill Democrats criticized as voter suppression. Republican backers defended the measure as a way to restore trust in Georgia’s electoral process.
Duncan, who normally presides as Senate president, stepped away from the rostrum during the debate, signaling his opposition to a provision doing away with no-excuse absentee voting that was later removed from the bill.
Duncan said last week he’s leaving statewide office at the end of next year to focus on creating a political organization called “GOP 2.0” aimed at “healing and rebuilding” the national Republican Party amid the fallout from former President Donald Trump’s continued claims of voter fraud in the 2020 elections.
Several Democrats have emerged to run for the second-highest position in state government, including state Reps. Erick Allen of Smyrna and Derrick Jackson of Tyrone.
The only other Republican candidate for lieutenant governor thus far is GOP activist Jeanne Seaver of Savannah.
ATLANTA – Georgia Power Co. and the utility’s nonprofit foundation announced a $75 million, five-year commitment Monday to advancing racial equity and social justice.
The money will support initiatives focused on equity in education, criminal justice and economic empowerment.
“At Georgia Power, we’re standing with our communities as, together, we tackle systemic equity issues across our state,” Georgia Power President Chris Womack said.
“This financial investment and our commitment to mentoring, while just part of our overall equity efforts, are so incredibly critical because they’re one way we can make a real impact in distressed and disadvantaged communities.”
The education component of the Atlanta-based utility’s plan includes scholarships for underrepresented groups and investment in Georgia’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
The criminal justice piece will focus among other things on reducing racial profiling by police, creating prearrest diversion options and supporting programs that help incarcerated individuals transition back into society.
Economic empowerment efforts will take the form of grants and investments in Black-owned businesses and business owners.
Georgia Power also will work to build a team of 250 employees across the state each year who will act as mentors.
The utility’s $75 million commitment is part of a combined $200 million in community investments Georgia Power parent Southern Co. is pledging during the next five years.
