Tifton on the tour

Tifton put its best foot forward Friday to welcome the Georgia Heart and Soul Bus Tour, serenading the visitors with music from the Blues Devils from the balconies at City Hall and serving them breakfast in the courtyard.

Sponsored by the Georgia Cities Foundation, the bus tour took about 50 business leaders, philanthropists, state and federal officials, developers and economic development experts to visit Georgia cities with attractive, successful downtowns.

In addition to Tifton, this year’s tour included Cordele, Senoia, Griffin, Americus, Albany, Moultrie, Thomasville and Valdosta. (I had to look Senoia’s location up; it’s south of Atlanta between Newnan and Griffin and has a population of 1,738.)

The other towns in this area also went to great lengths to welcome the bus tourists. In Thomasville, according to our sister paper the Times-Enterprise, residents literally rolled out a red carpet flanked by cheerleaders and dancers and then treated the visitors to jazz music and a display of local art before taking them to see two recently completed projects.

Moultrie held a welcoming ceremony at the courthouse square, then served refreshments at one of the buildings on the tour, the Colquitt Towers. The tourists drank lemonade in Americus and were honored at a reception at The Loft in Valdosta.

The next time you travel to another town, look at its downtown. We in Tifton are lucky to have a vital, active downtown without a lot of empty stores, and the reason we do is that a lot of people have worked hard to make it that way, both presently and in the past. Tifton’s inclusion on the tour is a validation of all that they have done.

I was surprised Thursday afternoon to hear that Tifton-Tift County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Brad Day had resigned to become a private economic development consultant. We wish him well with his future plans and also wish the Chamber a successful search for his replacement.

Carpenter Road: The news Thursday that the City of Tifton has withdrawn future financial support from the plans to five-lane Carpenter Road was, honestly, pretty alarming. First, it suggests that the city is really suffering financially, an idea that is supported by other news this week about plans to raise water rates and offer employees early retirement. And then there’s the concern that future funding from the Georgia Department of Transportation may be jeopardized if the county and development authority can’t fund the city’s share and don’t match the DOT money committed to this project.

This work is needed, as anyone who has driven to Wal-Mart by way of Second Street/King Road can attest, and has been needed for the last 10 years. I hope that the local governments and the development authority can work together to find a solution to this problem.

Is your business moving, building or opening for the first time? Call me at 382-4321, ext. 1903.

Changing times

The time changed this morning, and although I’m writing this column in advance I’m sure I’ll have waked up sleepy and unhappy.

I hate Daylight Saving Time and I’ve never seen the benefit of it. It seems as if the government takes away an hour of citizens’ sleep every year and keeps it for months.

Some people say it benefits the farmers, but how? If you work in the fields all day, what difference does it make whether you start later and work later? It’s still the same amount of time regardless of what time the clock says it is.

Same thing with the supposed energy savings. You can turn the lights on in the morning if it’s dark then, or you can turn them on earlier in the evening if that’s when it’s dark. What is the difference?

And then I saw Friday on the CBS Evening News a story that said the number of serious heart attacks goes up 6 to 10 percent on the first three days after the time changes in the spring. That seems like a pretty clear indicator of the strain some people feel when they lose sleep and get that weird jet-lagged feeling.

Also, the same story said that economists say sleep-deprived traders make costly mistakes on Wall Street the following Monday. The cost was once estimated at $31 million.

But to be fair, the story also said that once people have adjusted to the change they are likely to be better drivers in daylight and have fewer fatal accidents.

Either way, I don’t suppose I have any choice in whether the time changes and I’m going to try to have a better attitude about it this year.

And don’t forget, change the batteries in your smoke alarms if you haven’t already.

Data Center: Several months ago, I reported in this column that Tift Regional Medical Center was planning to build a data center on Madison Avenue near the Oncology Center. Now those plans have come to fruition with the announcement this week that TRMC will break ground this spring on a $9.3 million building. When completed the data center will add another 10 jobs to the hospital’s information technology staff, and a local company, Jones Construction, will build the center.

The center, which TRMC’s assistant vice president and chief information officer Guy McAllister said will be “the most premier facility of its kind south of Atlanta,” is needed in response to federal mandates concerning health systems security. Construction is expected to take about 12 months, with another two months required for “commissioning” the new facility.

Unemployment rate: Tift County’s unemployment climbed by 1.8 percent points in January and now stands at 13.0 percent. This is the highest I can ever remember the unemployment rate being, and we can only hope that the recovery being seen in other parts of the country will come our way soon.

Surrounding counties are also feeling the pinch: Turner County is up from 12.9 to 14.4; Worth County, up from 11.0 to 12.9; Berrien County, up from 13.7 to 14.1; Irwin County, up from 14.5 to 16.8; and Cook County, up from 13.7 to 14.5.

Is your business moving or opening for the first time? Call me at 382-4321, ext. 1903.