Greene County Democrat

Tag: Co-Publisher of the Greene County Democrat

  • Rep. Curtis Travis holds community meeting in Eutaw to discuss upcoming gaming legislation

    Curtis Travis conducts meeting at Eutaw City Hall

    By: John Zippert, Co-Publisher

    On December 13, 2023, State Representative Curtis Travis held a community meeting at the Eutaw City Hall to discuss upcoming legislation impacting gaming in Greene County and seeking the input of Greene County residents on the legislation.

    Representative Travis explained that he has not yet seen the proposed legislation but knows that something is in the works. “Other legislators and state officials have told me there are hundreds of illegal gambling places in the state and the state is losing revenues from these unsanctioned gambling establishments, said Travis.

    Travis says he anticipates a bill which “will include a statewide lottery, designation of a number of state sanctioned full casinos, some consideration of sports betting and some provisions for places like Greene County, which have Constitutional Amendments regulating bingo gaming.”

    Travis continued, “All gaming will be under a statewide regulatory body to make sure the revenues come to the State of Alabama. It is not clear what will happen to places like Greene County that have a Constitutional Amendment governing gaming, like C. A. 743 for Greene County, which contains a mechanism for distributing revenues.”

    Representative Travis asked the fifty people present at the meeting, for their opinions on the legislation and their bottom-line requirements for the legislation.

    Brenda Burke, speaking in her role as Administrator for the Greene County Commission said, “In the past few years, the Commission has used funds from bingo to provide matching funds for $18 million dollars in road and bridge improvement projects. We need to have continued funding from
    gaming to support new projects.”

    Dr. Marcia Pugh, Administrator of the Greene County Health System, said, “We have received $60,000 a month in support for our hospital and nursing home payrolls, from electronic bingo. We are counting on this level of support for the health system from whatever gaming legislation is passed.

    John Zippert, co-Publisher of the Greene County Democrat said, “I am concerned about two things, first, that we know exactly how much money is flowing through the gambling establishments in Greene County ; and two, that Greene County agencies, including municipalities, the school system and hospital, as well as non-profit charities, are held harmless and receive at least as much annually as they receive from bingo – which currently is $600,000 a month or $7.2 million a year.”

    A person working with Greenetrack, said “If the new legislation gives us a full-service casino in Greene County, then we will get as much or more revenues from the one casino as we did from five bingo halls.

    Some participants at the meeting expressed concerns that since May 2023, their municipality or organization had not received any distribution of funds from the Sheriff. He has said he is using these funds to cover the legal costs of defending bingo in Greene County, against the State of Alabama, which is trying to close gaming because it claims the bingo machines are ’llegal gambling machines’.

    Representative Travis said the meeting was not to discuss current problems but to deal with the impending legislation. He said he was willing to come back and hold another meeting to discuss the current status of gaming.

    School system Superintendent Corey Jones said the school system was receiving funds from bingo until recently, which were used to benefit the educational advancement of students.” We hope we will receive an earmarked portion of whatever gaming resources come to Greene County, since the original intention of the gaming legislation was to help public education in Greene County.

    The general consensus of the meeting was that Greene County be treated as a special case, in the upcoming legislation, since we have gaming under Constitutional Amendment 743; and that agencies currently receiving funds be able to continue receiving funds commensurate with gaming in the community.

  • Stillman College holds forum on broadband

     

    Scan the QR code  above to  participate in a ten minute survey on broadband access in you community.

    On Thursday, June 29, 2023, Stillman College held a meeting on broadband coverage for the campus, west Tuscaloosa area and adjoining counties including Greene, Hale, Pickens, and others. The purpose of the meeting was to gauge the interest of the community in broadband access and the need for digital skills training to make the extension of broadband to more areas accessible and affordable.

    Dr. Cynthia Warrick, Stillman President, welcomed the audience to Stinson Auditorium on the campus and announced that Stillman was one of five HBCU’s in Alabama to receive a grant to perfect broadband availability on the immediate campus and surrounding areas. Stillman has received $2.7 million from the government for this purpose. She introduced members of Stillman’s staff who will be working on this imitative.

    The five HBCU’s are all located in high poverty urban and rural areas. The colleges beyond Stillman are Tuskegee, Selma University, Miles, and Lawson State Community College.

    The State of Alabama is scheduled to receive $1.4 Billion dollars from the Infrastructure Act and the Inflation Reduction Act toward providing broadband services to those who do not have services now, with an emphasis on poor and neglected communities, as required by the statutes.

    The meeting was turned over to Dr. Mark Brown, with the Student Freedom Initiative, an organization affiliated with Robert F. Smith, the venture capitalist who paid the student loan de3bt of all 2021 graduates of Morehouse College. Brown explained that his organization was providing technical assistance to the HBCU’s, li8ke Stillman College, who are part of this initiative.

    Brown introduced Maureen Neighbors, who is the Chief of the Alabama Digital Expansion Division, part of ADECA that is developing plans for the statewide support of broadband. Neighbors has been to every county in Alabama, including Greene County in February, to explain the broadband initiative. Neighbors said many communities in Alabama that have broadband have 25/3 or 25 megabits per second down and 3 megabits up. This will not be adequate for the future. Her program has a goal of 100/20 to assist residential users.

    Neighbors said ADECA was still taking a survey to determine the areas of the state with the greatest need and the greatest gaps in Internet services. There is a QR code, which is in this story. if you photograph the QR Code with your cell phone, the ten-minute survey, will come up, on your phone, and you can answer the questions. If lots of people in the Black Belt answer the survey, it may help in placing additional emphasis on serving these underserved areas.

    Neighbors says that this means primarily fiber optic connections for each Alabama community to reach the final users. She said the state has received around $2 billion dollars for a job that may take as much as
    $6 billion to complete. The private telecommunications companies will be matching the government funds with $2 billion of private monies. This still leaves a gap, which will mean some communities may not get broadband in this first phase of grants.

    The state plans deals with the middle mile and the last mile, while the companies will deal with the major national infrastructure for high-speed internet. Neighbors said she was working on a state plan including a ‘digital equity plan” to reach neglected areas like the Alabama Black Belt.

    Some representatives of the Hale and Greene County Boards of Education were present at the meeting and expressed concern that rural people in their areas, especially the parents of student had very limited Internet services and needed this help as soon as possible.

    John Zippert, Co-Publisher of the Greene County Democrat said, “Based on history, Greene County and the counties in the Black Belt have been left out of economic development initiatives like broadband and he did not trust ADECA to respond in an equitable manner to the most rural and neglected areas.” Zippert asked Stillman College to consider providing the Black Belt counties with an independent way to monitor and analyze what the ADECA plan for broadband.

    For more information contact: RaSheda Workman at Stillman college at rworkman@stillman.edu.