And YES it is!

I told Muscogeee County School District Superintendent Dr. David Lewis after today’s Rotary Club of Columbus meeting, “You did it!” He smiled and said, “We did it.” 

He’s right, and I’m proud  of Columbus’ once again showing it supports its children and public education by approving the latest SPLOST.

And to those who voted “no,” I know that doesn’t mean you don’t support our children and their teachers. I hope you’ll accept that the majority has spoken. Now let’s pull together to make our school district as good as it can be.

 

Will W.C. Bradley Return Manufacturing to Columbus?

Marc Olivie’, CEO W.C. Bradley Company, and Matt Swift, COO W.C. Bradley Real Estate Division and Rotarian

“I don’t foresee it anytime soon,” W.C. Bradley Company CEO Marc Olivie’ told members of the Rotary Club of Columbus.

He went on to explain that Wal-Mart is planning to spend more than 50-billion-dollars on American manufactured goods and that it would continue to buy Char-Broil grills if manufacturing returns from China to America if the price remains the same.  A company sponsored survey of consumers asked if they would be willing to pay five dollars more for a grill if it were made in America. The answer was an unequivical “no.”

The question was raised during a question and answer session held after Olivie’ had spoken on the status of W.C. Bradley Company.   The company, which had a very good year,  is selling millions of grills, Zebco fishing reels, and Tiki outdoor torches. None is made in America.  Zebco operates out of Tulsa and Tiki Torches out of the Milwaukee area.

While those products are sold globally, the company’s real estate business focuses on the Columbus area. It has extensive holdings in downtown Columbus and Olivie’ says he finds the revitalization of downtown very exciting, that it is truly a plus for the area.

Matt Swift, fellow  Rotarian and President and COO of the W.C. Bradley Company Real Estate Division, said, “We would not have been able to attract this Belgian and his wife to Columbus if downtown and Columbus in general was not attractive to them.”  This day and age a city has to have the arts, quality educational facilities and other attractions to entice talent, and that attracting talent is the name of the game in business.

Olivie’ also pointed out how valuable Columbus State University  is to the Columbus area.  Cities with good universities attract management talent. CSU has already played a big role in revitalizing downtown with its transfer of its arts schools and is about to play an even larger one when it also moves its College of Education and Health Professions downtown.

W.C. Bradley Company owns 25 buildings, which occupy about a million square feet, in downtown.  Except for the condos sold at Eagle and Phenix Mill No. 3,  it rents its downtown buildings to occupants,  Swift said.

Columbus is the Place For A Super Night Out

 

You don’t have to go to Atlanta or New York for first-rate entertainment.  It’s right here in good old Columbus, GA, and it costs less, a lot less.  In fact, a lot of it is  absolutely free.  Also, you don’t have to fight gridlocked traffic.

Ed and Sidney Wilson, Jean McKee, Julie Bray, and me at Social.

Take Saturday night, for instance.  We had a really outstanding dinner at Social.  Of course, the good company played a large role in the enjoyable Social experience.  There were a lot of young people there, so they probably didn’t know that the building at 11th and Broadway was Lee’s Discount Drugs dating back to the 1940s.  I enjoy it much more as a restaurant and bar.

Bill Heard Theater is all decked out for the holidays.

After dinner we headed over to Bill Heard Theater at the River Center to see Cirque Dreams Holiday.  It was sensational nonstop Christmas holiday fun as the performers did what seemed physically impossible to do in an artistic way.  The set and costumes were dazzling.  The dancing comedian, who engaged audience members in his act, had the audience howling. It was really great fun.

There are a lot more good live shows coming to the River Center and the Springer in the coming months,  and there is live music for every taste with a great symphony orchestra,  a college school of music second to none that features weekly, sometimes nightly, concerts with most of them free to the public, and there is the Columbus Community Orchestra and the fine Fort Benning Manuever Center of  Excellence Band.  Both of then have free Christmas concerts this month.

So, don’t sit around a mope when you can get out of the house and enjoy it all Tis, indeed to season to be jolly.

Thanksgiving Thanks

A lot of miserable stuff is going on in the world right now (so what’s new?) , but, thankfully,  that’s probably not what’s on most Americans’ minds this week.  It’s Thanksgiving, which is probably second only in holiday popularity to Christmas,  or maybe tied with Halloween for second.  The popularity of Halloween is hard to figure , but then, it’s hard to figure a lot of the choices of the Booboisie.

Thanksgiving is really an interesting phenomenon.  People will fly a thousand miles or more to eat Thanksgiving dinner (Southern for lunch) with family members.  Sometimes, families follow the original Pilgrim’s tradition of  inviting guests. At the alleged first Thanksgiving feast, the Pilgrims invited 90 Native Americans, who had saved them by giving them enough food to survive their first year at Plymouth.  Big mistake by the Indians.  The same big mistake they made when they let Columbus come ashore in 1492.  (Interesting that we have named our city after a murderous enslaver of other human beings.)

But, I digress.

It’s the time for thanks.

Thanks to Kristin and Chris for providing me with a great-grandson right before Thanksgiving.

 Thanks to all my family for their love and support and to my friends for being my friends.

Thanks to all who work to make Columbus a place of beauty and grace,  and a place of wonderful live music and theater. Thanks to all who work to provide a public school system and university to give our youngsters a fighting chance to enjoy fulfilling lives;  and thanks to those who provide world-class museums that preserve and honor our past; and thanks to spiritual,  civic, and governmental organizations who strive to end hunger, homelessness and poverty; and thanks to all military service men and women for their service to our country.

Oh, and thanks to you for reading this.

 

 

Most of the Stores May be Gone, but the Christmas Parade Still Draws Big Crowds in Downtown Columbus

It’s Monday, the day I  promised to  try to post something new, and I  haven’t posted anything yet. So, here goes.

I suppose I could say something about Christmas parades since Columbus,  Georgia had one Saturday.  I’ve been in a lot of them over the years, and I’ve watched a few.  I started being in them when I was in the Bob Barr Jordan High  School band back in the forties. Then, as a news anchor at different times for WRBL and WTVM, I rode in convertibles with female co-anchors, and we tossed candy into the crowds, and waved a lot, not necessarily because we wanted to, but because the stations wanted us to. Sometimes some wise guys would pick up the candy and throw it back at us. Guess I can’t blame them. They didn’t ask for  candy to be tossed to them. Eventually, we stopped tossing the candy and just waved.

It is really interesting the way thousands of folks converge on downtown Columbus and Phenix City for the parades just like they did when people did their Christmas shopping downtown.  Most of the retail stores closed or  moved to shopping centers.  One of the prominent ones that didn’t is Chancellors. Perhaps it benefited from the parade. I hope so. I like Chancellors  and still shop there. They may be considered a little pricey, but you  get good stuff, and they make sure it fits. My late mother use to buy all of my father’s suits, shoes, and top coats there, saying you pay a little more, but it looks good and it lasts and lasts.   Wonder if wives still buy most of their husband’s wearing apparel. They must, because I still see a lot of women in men’s clothing departments.

As for the parade itself, it was really long and had huge gaps between sections and lacked a main ingredient for parades, a lot of  big high school bands. If it had not been for Central  High of Phenix City, there would not have been a big high school band in  the parade.  I ran into Ledger-Enquirer editor and reporter Chuck Williams at the end of the parade, and he told me that the Muscogee County high school bands were absent because the parade fell on the day the bands audition for the state honors band.  He said he knew that because his daughter is in the Columbus High School Blue Devil Band.  And later the paper explained one of those gaps by reporting that a young girl walking by a float fell under the float and an ambulance had to be called to take her to the emergency room.

All in all, though, I would say the parade was a big success. Folks appeared to  be having a good time and were in good spirits.  People obviously still do love a parade.

As the old saying goes, sorry this is so long, but I didn’t  have time to write a short post today.

Environmentalist Ken Henson is Named Dan Reed Award WInner

Dan Reed Service Above Self winner Ken Henson

He goes into his law office every morning at 8:30 and leaves every afternoon at 6:30 just as he did when he was practicing law full-time, but he isn’t practicing full-time any more. He uses the time mainly to help others, to improve the quality of life in his community.  Some of his service includes free legal work for his favorite causes.

He is a strong environmentalist. He is a big supporter of Trees Columbus and the Coalition for Sound Growth, two organizations that work tirelessly to keep Columbus green and beautiful.

He has a generous heart.

He’s “Mr Habitat,” having helped form the organization in Columbus and continuing to work building houses for the needy over the years.

“Even though he is a lawyer, he is still a good guy.”

He is the perfect example of someone who gives back to his community.

That’s what we learned from friends and fellow Columbus attorneys about Columbus Attorney Kenneth Henson today when he was given this year’s Rotary Club of Columbus Dan Reed Award for Service Above Self.  “Service Above Self” is the Rotary motto.

Since his environmental attitude and mine are in perfect harmony, and since I just like him anyway, he certainly has my congratulations.

Mary Reed, Rotary Club of Columbus secretary, widow of former secretary Dan Reed, for whom the Dan Reed Award for Service Above Self is named, pinning this year's honoree Ken Henson. Photo by Jim Cawthorne of Camera1.

Columbus Needs a New Slogan

WHAT DO YOU THINK IT SHOULD BE?

Ask one hundred people on the street to tell you the Columbus, Georgia slogan and one might be able to tell you. The slogan, for which a public relations firm was paid tens of thousands of dollars in 2004, is “Columbus, Georgia, what progress has preserved.”

I asked a Columbus Council member – who shall go nameless because I asked the question in a private social setting – and the councilor knew the answer, but when I asked what it means, the answer was, “I don’t know.”  

 Well,  I am not sure what it means. But a friend of mine has an idea. He said it means that “if you have what you had, you had what you have.” Well, that clears it up, right.

Let’s face it, it is stated in such broad, non-specific terms, it could mean different things to different people. Not exactly desirable for a slogan to attract desirable people to our fair city.

For a new one, I came up with, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but that didn’t seem to get any traction.

Seriously, though, how about “Home of Fort Benning”? Seems I can remember whan that was used a lot.  Maybe we could change that to “Proud home of Fort Benning.”

As someone asked in the Ledger-Enquirer Sound Off column, what happened to the “Fountain City” moniker? I remember when that went into effect, and former Ledger-Enquirer writer and editor Claison Kyle, who was on the committee that came up with it, said that even though it wasn’t exactly a fountain  city at the time, it was something Columbus could shoot for, and a lot of folks took him seriously, as fountains started (pun alert) springing up all over town, including even some service stations. Nothing wrong with “Fountain City,” except that it’s Rome, Italy, not Columbus, Geoirgia.

Maybe you have some good ideas for a new slogan. Feel fee to share them with us.

You Don’t Need to Go Anywhere Else to Get Great Live Entertainment, but You Might Need to in Order to Afford It

Bill Bullock, Executive Director, River Center

No, you don’t have to go to Atlanta or New York to get first-rate live entertainment anymore. With the River Center, the Springer, the Schwob School of Music and Drama Departments at Columbus State University in full swing, you can get it right here and right now.  And a lot of people are doing just that.  Those who can afford it. And a lot can’t because Columbus is a low-pay, high- unemployment and poverty-rate town.

Bill Bullock,  Executive director of the River Center told Columbus Rotarians that during its just-completed season , the  River Center attracted 99,000 patrons. “Over, 5,000 performers, technicians, ushers, and other participants attended the needs of those patrons. About 3 million dollars was spent in the process.”

Since its opening in 2002, almost a million patrons were entertained, with 50 thousand participants at a cost of over 37 million dollars.

People who  go to plays and concerts and other cultural events also spend money eating out, staying in hotels and doing other things. Bullock says a survey of the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley taken in 2009 shows that annually “local arts and culture groups generate 51 million dollars of revenue and almost 5 million dollars in taxes; spend 21 million dollars directly and leverage another 30 million dollars of expenditures in local businesses; and employ 1500 workers.”

Just look at some of the nationally successful performers and plays and musicals that have graced the stages of the River Center over the past 9 years:

Bill Cosby, Anne Murray, Loretta Lyn, Frankie Valli, Wynton Marsalis, Mannheim Steamroller, BB King, Travis Trit, Lilly Tomlin, The Smothers Brothers, Yo Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, The Russian National Ballet, The Music Man, Camelot, Cats, 42nd Street, Annie, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Rent, Miss Saigon, Chicago, Stomp, David Copperfield, and a live NPR broadcast of A Prarie Home Companion, to  mention a few.

Then, of course, there are those great local performances by the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Schwob School of Music concerts featuring the world-class Schwob School of Music Philharmonic Orchestra, Wind Ensemble,  and other groups and individual performers including faculty who have performed with some of the world’s most prestigious music groups.  And the plays and musicals at the Springer compare favorably with the best regional theaters in the country.

At one time Columbus may have been a sleepy Southern cotton mill and Army town with little to offer in the way of first-class live entertainment, but it is certainly not that any more.  It’s definitely still an Army town, one that’s proud of it, but, with one exception, is no longer a cotton mill town.  Virtually all of those jobs were shipped overseas where pay is even lower than in Columbus.

The city is on the Interstate now – kept off for decades by the politically powerful locals afraid of higher wages and retail competition in Atlanta  – and it has a growing and respected public University,  and just about all of the first-rate live entertainment that most of us can afford.  Admittedly, there is a problem in the number of people who can afford it, because the city is notorious for low pay; poverty is a critical problem, and unemployment is higher than the national average, but just below the state average.

Bottom line, yes we do have need for improvement when it comes to the city’s declining middle class and the poor, but when it comes to entertainment, we can compete with just  about any metropolitan area.

Has the Time Come to End the Columbus Property Tax Freeze?

PETE ROBINSON SAYS IT HAS.

Attorney, lobbyist, and former Columbus state legislator Pete Robinson ran the end-the-property-tax- freeze  flag up the political flagpole again. Now, we’ll get to see how many Columbus citizens salute it this time.  Twice before freeze-enders got shot down in referendums, and the freeze was upheld in a state supreme court ruling.

Times are different now, Robinson told Columbus Rotarians today. A lot of people who work and use Columbus public services don’t own property in Columbus any more.  Columbus basically depends on property taxes to pay for government services, and since counties that don’t have tax freezes, such as Harris in Georgia, and Russell is Alabama, are more attractive to people who buy new homes, the tax digest in Columbus simply isn’t going to be enough to finance the Columbus-Muscogee County government.

In order to tax those people who live in other counties, but work in Columbus and use Columbus infrastructure, there has to be a change. One is is to depend more on sales taxes – he called it “consumption” taxes – and another is to institute a Columbus income tax. And ending the freeze will also encoruage more people to buy homes in Columbus.

Sales taxes, the most regressive because lower-income people pay a higher percentage of their income than upper-income people, are already high enough in my book.  I’d lean more toward an income tax. Also, I have never thought the property tax freeze was a good idea.  When a new homeowner moves in and has to pay $2,000 in property taxes and his  or her neighbor, who has been living for 20 years in the house next door that is of the same value, pays $100, you know something is wrong.

I asked Robinson if he really thought there was a chance in hell the tax freeze would end. “It has to!” he said emphatically.

I’m sure our new mayor Teresa Tomlinson will be very interested in seeing how Columbus citizens react to Robinson’s position.

Chattahoochee Valley Libraries Honors Five “Volunteers of the Year”

By Jim Shehy, Volunteer Coordinator,
Chattahoochee Valley Libraries

Columbus, GA – (CVL news release) The Chattahoochee Valley Libraries have always appreciated their volunteers.  Men and women of all ages give their time and talent to the Library system in order to contribute to their community and assist in making the public Library a vital community resource.  For the past several years one very deserving and very dedicated volunteer is honored with the title “Volunteer of the Year.” 
 
On Monday, June 14, the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries will commemorate their previous five adult Volunteer of the Year honorees by installing tree dedication plaques in their honor.  Past recipients Paul Argue (2005), Carolyn Smoot (2006), Charles Batastini (2007), Frank and Donna Doyle (2008), and last year’s 2009 recipient Art Halouska will each be recognized with a commemorative inscription and tree dedicated to them along the Columbus Public Library Campus.
 
“Volunteers give so much to the Library System,” notes Jim Shehy, Volunteer Coordinator.  “They are extremely important men and woman; you can always count on our volunteers to have a smile and lend a hand whenever needed.  I don’t know what we would do without them!”
 
 All Library volunteers are recognized during National Volunteer Week each spring and the 2010 Volunteer of the Year honoree will be announced at the Libraries’ annual volunteer recognition luncheon held each fall.  Stop by the Columbus Public Library and see just one of the ways Chattahoochee Valley Libraries show their support and appreciation to their volunteers.
 
If you wish to become a volunteer or for additional information about the volunteer program at the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries, please contact Jim Shehy at the Columbus Public Library (706) 243-2674.
 

Columbus Public Library, Columbus, Georgia