Author Archives: Shelly Berryhill
Favorite Things – Amazon Echo
Another of my favorite things is the Amazon Echo. Amazon Echo is a wireless speaker and voice command device from Amazon.com. The device responds to the name “Alexa”; this “wake word” can be changed by the user (to also “Amazon” or “Echo” at present.). The device is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic and other real time information. It can also control several smart devices.
I use Alexa everyday. “Alexa, tell me the news.” “Alexa, Tell me a joke about Hillary Clinton!”, “Alexa, add Milk to my shopping list.” “Alexa, turn on the back door lights”, “Alexa, turn up the heat.”, “Alexa, play me some Rod Stewart Music.”, “Alexa, what is the weather going to be tomorrow”, “Alexa, add fix outside light to my to-do list”, “Alexa, what is on my calendar for today”, “Alexa, read me from my Kindle Book”, “Alexa, When do the Ga Tech Yellow Jackets play next?”, “Alexa, wake me up in 30 minutes.” These are just a few of the commands that the Amazon Echo responds to. More are being added weekly.
Basically, Amazon put a Siri-like assistant into a tube that lives on your coffee table. After connecting it to Wi-Fi, it can answer simple questions like How tall is Barack Obama and Who are the members of Run the Jewels. Additionally, Echo is a voice-controlled speaker for listening to tunes and talk from Amazon Prime, TuneIn, and iHeartRadio, Spotify, or Pandora. If you prefer to listen to your personal music collection, you can beam it over Bluetooth.
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Favorite Things – WAZE
WAZE is one of my most-utilized, favorite apps on my Iphone. I use it all the time. It is a GPS mapping program, but so much more.
Get the best route, every day, with real–time help from other drivers.
Waze is the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app. Join other drivers in your area who share real-time traffic and road info, saving everyone time and gas money on their daily commute. If there is road construction ahead, WAZE will warn you. If there is a Policeman ahead, WAZE will warn you. If traffic is slowing down, WAZE will re-route you to compensate. So it is extremely productive, but it’s also fun.
The voice navigation can be customized with voices from Stephen Colbert, C3P0, Jay Leno, or others. The voice commands can be set for long detailed descriptions, to short TURN HERE descriptions.
Navigate to the cheapest station on your route, all powered by community-shared gas prices. By working together to report prices at the pump, Waze drivers can always save some gas money.
And you can even allow other WAZE users (like your friends or family) to see where you are and/or an ETA for meeting up with them.
I love this app. It has saved me from hitting potholes and possibly even saved me some speeding tickets. Try it out today!
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Rocket Book Wave
Paper Notebooks aren’t at risk of being completely replaced by laptops, tablets and computers just yet, but they could still stand to be a little smarter. In comes RocketBook Wave!
I take notes in this notebook, just like any other notebook. However, when done, I can open an app on my cell phone, take a picture of the page and the page will be instantly sent to either my email, another email, my dropbox, my evernote, my google drive, or other cloud service automatically. Or it can be sent to any combination of the above. It’s pretty awesome.
At the bottom of each of the Rocketbook’s pages is a set of seven icons, what the company calls magic buttons. Each button can be assigned to a location in the cloud, meaning that all your scribbles on that particular page will be sent directly to wherever you’d like them to go. Need those lecture notes compiled neatly in your university Evernote folder? Or perhaps that inspired series of illustrations sent to Dropbox? Then just mark the relevant magic button.
Best of all when my Rocketbook Wave Notebook is full, I don’t have to buy another: using heat-erasable Pilot Frixion pens to write, microwaving the notebook for a few minutes (and until its blue cover logo turns white) will erase all of its pages for a fresh start.
That’s right. When my notebook fills up, I just nuke it for a few minutes and it’s empty again. But since I saved everything to evernote and/or dropbox, my musings are safe forever!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rocketbook-wave-cloud-ready-microwavable-notebook
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Yeah, I really don’t like UGA….. But…..
As a graduate of Georgia Tech, it is instilled in me not to like UGA. From the liberal academics to the overrated football team, I just don’t like them. But even this Yellow Jacket will have to admit it when something good comes from that school. Hawkinsville / Pulaski County is one of only a few ARCHWAY PARTNERSHIP COMMUNITIES within the state of Georgia. The Archway Partnership is a program of the University System that aspires to help communities solve problems, reach goals, and do transformative work by allocating the resources of the University System and partnering to help the communities utilize their own resources as well. The program is a win-win for all involved. The Communities get resources that would otherwise not be feasible from either a logistical or a financial limitation. The University gets to provide students with real-life opportunities to better education and train them. The students get to do important work to show to future potential employers.
We have been involved in the Archway Partnership for over 5 years now and the benefits are real and noticeable. In the area of Leadership, Archway has led an adult leadership program that has now trained over 200 residents and got them involved in all aspects of our community. The adult leadership program has been such a success, that they are now self-sustaining with their own 501-C3 organization. In addition to training, each year’s group does a community project that does GOOD within our town. From providing protective armor to our Sheriff’s department, to providing defibrillators to community venues, to providing rural water pumping equipment to our fire department, to providing trash cans to our downtown and much more. The leadership initiative also includes a youth leadership component that is providing insight to community concerns as well as getting feedback from this demographic as we seek to improve our community.
In the area of Economic Development, Archway has helped with many RFP (Request for Proposals) that different companies or the state of Georgia sends out to highlight what our community has to offer to potential businesses or industries.
Also under the heading of Development, Archway has been instrumental in helping revitalize our downtown. From Beautification efforts (through developing a Master Gardner’s program) to helping develop a Downtown Merchant’s Association, Archway has led the efforts.
Archway is a vital partner (with our Family Connections Program) in bringing the TEEN MAZE to our schools every other year. TEEN MAZE provides a gaming environment where students are presented with real life situations that often complicate their expected path to graduation. Over 200 volunteers (from our community of slightly over 10,000 people) help make this event a rousing success.
Archway helped grow a local at-risk teenager program – Life League. Life League is now in multiple counties and strives to teach at-risk students real life situational events such as How to perform in an interview, How to tie a tie, why work-ethics and being on time are important. While using basketball to attract the young people, real education is being conducted.
Archway has brought the resources of the Pharmacy School of UGA to help our local Hospital research problem areas such as why people are not taking their medicines as prescribed. They have helped our hospital with IRS requirements to keep / prove their non-profit status.
Archway has helped with the city / county relationships by being an unbiased middle man. They provide a safe non partial environment to iron out differences in tax equity and service delivery areas. So much so, that now Hawkinsville and Pulaski county have served as models for other communities on city-county relations.
They have helped us rebrand ourselves and helped design a new website to promote the new brand.
Archway has helped with Design Charets, signage design and placement, and more from the college of Environmental design.
Archway has even helped area businesses such as Hardy Farms look at ways to promote Agri-Tourism. They are helping Lamar Pecans develop a Pecan Cracking machine.
I could go on and on.
The reason I am writing this post is that I am currently attending the annual Archway summit at UGA. The Summit allows us to interact with other Archway Communities so that we can see their best practices and understand what has worked for other communities. It also allows us to see “behind the curtain” to the staff and students behind the Archway Partnership. I sometimes just think that our own Michelle Elliott (our local Archway Professional) is the magical OZ that gets it all done. The summit allows me to see the people backing up Michelle to pull off these extraordinary efforts.
The picture below is the UGA Men’s choir entertaining us at the summit. Except for the UGA fight song, they were pretty good. So, while I still don’t like UGA, I’ll have to admit, the Archway Partnership is a great program. Even UGA gets it right occasionally.
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2016 & the City of Hawkinsville
I am looking forward to 2016 being a great year for the city of Hawkinsville. A Whole lot of items are on our agenda to accomplish this year. I’d like to take this opportunity to let you know some things to expect this year.
Accounting: We hope to drastically improve our accounting software. This improvement should result in the City Commissioners getting much better information to utilize in making financial decisions for the city. The improvements should also allow us to begin allowing ACH Drafts for payment of utility bills. As well as online payments and Credit Card payments.
Downtown: We hope to focus many of efforts this year on improving downtown. From revamping the Classic Main Street Program to energizing the Downtown Development Authority to concentrate on bringing business to our community. Efforts will include improving parking, clean up efforts, and offering incentives to locate in our community.
Fireworks: Last year the state legislature passed laws allowing fireworks to be used and sold in the state of Georgia. However, the law did not allow local governments to set up restrictions such as the locations of these sales, the locations of the use, and the times of the use. This year the state legislature is revisiting this issue and we are hoping that they will add code that will allow local governments to have more say in these issues.
City Hall: We hope to begin design and possibly even construction of a new city hall in Hawkinsville. Our current one is too small and is falling down around us. We have purchased the former Blount Warehouse on Broad Street and plan on building a new City Hall at that location.
SPLOST: We will begin planning the next SPLOST. SPLOST money goes toward capital projects that we could never find funding for by any other means. Road improvements, Water and Sewer improvements, Recreation Department Improvements, etc.
Audit Changes: We hope to be able to do more of our audit work in-house thus saving a small fortune that we spend with outside accounting firms. D.M. Vickers & Associates will be working with us to streamline and improve our accounting methods to accomplish this goal.
Economic Development: Working with our Chamber, United Pulaski, and the local Industrial Development Boards, we are striving hard to better the economic situation in our community. We want to attract new industry as well as work with existing industry and businesses to compel them to expand.
City / County Cooperation: We plan to continue to look for ways that our city and county can work together. Cooperation should either bring about increased savings or increased inefficiencies or an increased level of customer service.
Public/Private Developments: We are working with the new owners of the Old Taylor Regional Hospital. Helping them to apply for state funded Tax Credits in order to fund the renovation of this building.
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Conflicts of Interest….
“When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.”
― Ron Paul
Recently, several articles about conflicts of interest, have been hitting the political pundit’s websites;
http://www.peachpundit.com/2015/11/08/georgia-legislators-struggle-with-term-conflict-of-interest/
is a very interesting article about conflicts, the appearance of conflicts, and the problems that they cause at the state level. I have no idea if any of the legislators mentioned in this article truly have some ethical conflicts with their businesses doing business with the state or not, but they should each either QUIT doing business with the state or QUIT their legislative positions or post their own article describing why THEIR situation is not a conflict. While we all should be innocent until proven guilty, politicians have a bad enough rap without doing ANYTHING to damage their (or the entire group’s) reputation.
Any politician needs to be extremely careful about even the appearance of a conflict of interest. I was maintaining the city’s website and charging them around $1,000/year. They were my client, before I got into politics. But once I became a city councilman, I stopped charging the city for maintaining their site. I probably COULD have kept charging – as long as we bid out the contract and as long as I recused myself from any discussions or votes, but I thought it best to just not charge the city. So for almost a dozen years, I did the city website for free – saving the city and citizens thousands of dollars.
Later on, as a conflict arose between a local business owner and the city of Hawkinsville (on a very unrelated matter), a particular businesses owner ACCUSED me of having a conflict of interest. She thought I was getting paid to do the city’s website. She had not bothered to ask anyone. That particular business owner posted on Facebook (July 25, 2014) (with a picture of me), “How in the h*** you is the one doing the website for hawkinsville and you on the commission broad the one of the to decide which person get the job if you are on the broad are have friends are family on the broad you should not get the job it wood not be fair to the people the one how broad on it and did not get it because they do not have friends on the broad or family” (all grammar and spellings were as posted, not mine)
This particular business owner even posted this to 11Alive Newsroom’s Facebook page! She had not bothered to CHECK to see if there was a conflict of interest, she just assumed. But as politicians, we need to go the extra mile removing even the appearance of a conflict. (After I sold my website company, the city and county are now getting the Regional Commission out of Macon to maintain their websites.)
I challenge all of my colleagues to go the extra mile and remove any and all appearances of conflicts. Let’s put our constituents first and our private businesses second.
What are your thoughts?
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Throughout Georgia, City Finances are improving…..
Throughout Georgia, City Finances Continue to Improve, but New Report Shows Recovery from Great Recession is Incremental
A new report from the National League of Cities (NLC) reveals that municipal finances have stabilized in the wake of the Great Recession, but the recession’s effects are still evident in city budgets across the nation. The 30th annual City Fiscal Conditions report found that fiscal impacts of the 2007 recession are much more substantial when compared to similar downturns in 1990 and 2001. However, modest improvements in city fiscal conditions, including an expansion in general fund revenues, led 82 percent of city finance officers to report their cities are better able to meet their financial needs.
With 30 years of historical data, the report surveys city finance officers on their cities’ abilities to meet fiscal needs, factors impacting budgets, tax receipts, and revenue and spending trends and provides a context for how current fiscal conditions compare with previous recession and recovery periods.
Highlights from the Report
General Fund Revenues and Expenditures
Trends in general fund revenues tend to reflect the changing economic and fiscal environment of their cities. General fund expenditures increased 1.5 percent in 2014, with continued growth anticipated into 2015. This was driven largely by investments in employee wages, public safety, and capital projects and infrastructure.
Tax Receipts
Trends in tax receipts provide an understanding of the impacts of the broader economy on city revenues.
- Property tax revenues: Severely impacted by the recession, property taxes registered their first post-recession gains in 2013, and experienced moderate growth in 2014 (2.4 percent) with 1.2 percent growth expected to continue into 2015.
- Sales tax revenues: Sales taxes respond more quickly to economic conditions than property taxes, and showed their first signs of post-recession growth in 2011. Sales tax receipts have grown every year since, but the pace of growth has slowed, with 2.3 percent growth expected in 2015.
- Income tax revenues: Income taxes have been the most volatile tax source during the recovery period, but only about 10 percent of cities have access to income tax. Income tax revenue growth reached a post-recession high in 2012, and is expected to grow by 3.6 percent in 2015. *Hawkinsville has no income tax revenues…..
Budget Impact Factors
A number of factors combine to impact the ability of cities to meet their financial needs. The most impactful factors on city budgets were the value of the local tax base (70 percent), health of the local economy (63 percent) and gas and oil prices (24 percent). Infrastructure needs (48 percent), pension costs (38 percent) and health benefit costs (36 percent) were the most negative impacts on city budgets.
“City budgets have been put to the test, and are proving resilient even with limited fiscal tools and revenue raising capacity,” said National League of Cities Research Director Christiana McFarland, the report’s author. “Looking to the future, cities will continue to face of major budget stressors like infrastructure, pensions and healthcare, and will need to make tradeoffs to maintain a fiscal balance.”
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My TOP Goals for 2016 for the City of Hawkinsville
Continue the downtown beautification efforts.- Refund our dilapidated housing efforts. (We previously identified 106 structures that are dilapidated, blighted, and past the point of repair and are unlivable. Due to previous efforts, 42 of these structures have been torn down – most without any tax dollars. We need to continue this push, but a budget item must be funded for the few cases where the CITY has to tear down the structure (subsequently putting a lien on the property to recoup those dollars)).
- Prepare a balanced budget that does NOT raise our citizen’s millage rate. (We have managed to keep our millage rate at the same rate for over 20 years).
- Continue to improve and market our Hawkinsville Harness Training Facility.
- In conjunction with DDA, I would like to see the city purchase a vacant downtown building, fix it up, and rent it to a new business (even at a reduced rate), with the understanding that after one year, the business would either purchase or begin paying market rent. If purchased, we would use those funds to do another, and then another, and then…..
- Continue to work to improve the River Market and the River Walk.
- Continue to work with our partners at the Arts Council to better promote and utilize our Historic Opera House.
- BRING IN INDUSTRY in our industrial park.
- BRING IN ANOTHER GROCERY STORE.
- Continue to help grow our existing businesses.
- Continue to help lead with GMA (Georgia Municipal Association) in helping forge state and federal legislation as it deals with cities. (and stopping the influx of unfunded mandates).
- Improve our airport.
- Resurface more streets within our city.
- Modernize our software system to allow for direct drafts and debit cards.
- Increased usage of Social Media by both myself and the city as a whole.
- Begin working on our next SPLOST planning to include more recreation on this side of the river. (new post coming soon on this)
- Begin working on our next SPLOST planning to include the new City Hall.
- Continue to look for grant opportunities to help us with our aging infrastructure.
- Continue to work with the county on doing a better job of tax equity between the City and County and the continued consolidation of services.
- Expand and maintain our city cemetery.
- Expand our Natural Gas Capacity.
This is not a complete list NOR is it in priority order.
What do YOU think we should add to this list? I would love to hear YOUR concerns….
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Surprise me!
I love being surprised. As I was leaving my lunch today, a young lady spoke to me about the previous post that I did concerning pot holes. She was giving her approval to the fact that I was trying to be responsive to the needs, while at the same time, kinda chiding me for “you were really asking for it.” I sat down at her table to finish the conversation and finish my banana pudding dessert.
The discussion continued on local politics. This particular 20 something young lady actually watches all of our commission meetings on ComSouth Channel 100. She also watches all of the school board meetings on ComSouth Channel 10. She not only watched them, but she really pays attention to them. I spent the next 30 minutes answering questions about downtown, about the city’s pension fund, Tax Equity, about taxes, about the debt on our Spec Building, and about Industrial Development. She was very informed about her community and asked excellent questions.
The discussion then turned to national politics, and in particular the presidential race. She knew the candidates and their positions. She had an opinion and could rationally share it while leaving an opening that she could be wrong. Most people either don’t have an opinion or will defend their ill informed decision regardless of the facts.
I was surprised because this is really not the norm. The majority of people are really pretty uninformed and/or apathetic to local government. And to find a 20ish young lady with that much knowledge and interest was really refreshing. I wish more people would get involved. We have so many opportunities to serve in this town. From the Chamber, to the Arts Council, to Relay for Life, to Rotary, Pulaski Tomorrow, and yes, even to local politics. There are many ways to get involved. Getting involved gives you a louder voice. And when it comes to how groups, organizations or city commissions, are spending local monies or investing time in community projects, a loud voice helps.
Thanks for surprising me. I love being surprised!
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Georgia Truckers File Suit in Attempt to Limit Use of Local Sales Taxes on Fuel
A class-action lawsuit filed recently by the Georgia Motor Trucking Association and several trucking companies challenges House Bill 170, Georgia’s recent transportation funding legislation. The truckers contend sales taxes imposed by local governments (a.k.a., the City of Hawkinsville and every other city) on motor fuel can only be expended for “providing and maintaining an adequate system of public roads and bridges” and “road and construction maintenance.” The lawsuit cites a provision of the Georgia Constitution that limits the expenditure of state sales taxes on motor fuels to those purposes.
The suit seeks to have local sales taxes collected on motor fuel sales placed in an escrow account pending resolution of the lawsuit, jeopardizing over $500 million in local sales taxes used to fund essential city, county and school needs. Cities in Georgia have a lobbying group, The Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) and GMA believes the proposed diversion of local sales tax receipts is unlikely. However, Hawkinsville and other Cities should be aware of the possibility that the proceeds of taxes on the sale of motor fuels could be withheld. This would be very harmful to our city.
GMA disagrees with the claims in the lawsuit because it ignores the fact that local sales tax revenues:
- are not imposed by the State;
- are not eligible for appropriation by the State;
- are specifically authorized by the Georgia Constitution for the provision of local government services or for educational purposes;
- are dedicated by Georgia statutes for specific local purposes other than transportation; and
- in some instances may be contractually dedicated to fund local projects.
Tom Gehl, GMA’s Director of Governmental Relations, notes that the truckers made a similar argument during the debate on HB 170 during the 2015 legislative session, which lawmakers rejected. It is my hope that the courts will throw out this lawsuit because it has no standing. LOCAL vs. STATE.
Shelly Berryhill 