Disaster Relief Headed for Haiti Earthquake Victims

Press Release by Michael Bodine

WJCL-TV The Coastal Source/Fox 28 News is partnering with Horizon International Medical Mission, the City of Tybee, and Savannah Country Day School to get 15 doctors, nurses, and aides to Haiti by February 28th to March 7th.

The emergency trip will be led by Dr. Kennedy Okerre, head of HIMM. HIMM is headquartered in Savannah, and he maintains an office in Rincon. He is a former Memorial Health doctor. Tybee’s Julia Pearce joins the group as a nurse. Both Okerre and Julia appeared on WJCL-TV Fox, Coastal Source news telling viewers about their mission.

Space has been provided in the City Hall lobby for donations by citizens of emergency supplies such as blankets, medical wraps, canned food, clothes, syringes, old prescriptions, over the counter pharmacy items, and masks. All such items will be moved as needed to a secure location until the mission’s departure to Haiti.

WJCL has also set-up a truck in the front yard of the station for folks to contribute. Savannah Country Day is asking its students for help by bringing in goods and doing odd jobs for cash. Dr. Okerre is also asking for contributions for air fare and accommodations through the Red Cross.

Tybee’s Michael Sullivan can be reached at 921-2222 in the WJCL newsroom for updates on this mission, or visit http://www.thecoastalsource.com.

There are a number of other local avenues for making donations to help earthquake victims in Haiti including Saint Michael’s School 912-786-4507.  The Red Cross is a great destination for cash contributions – they accept donations right on their web site, www.redcross.org.  The City encourages donations to any and all these efforts! Please don’t delay in providing whatever help you can. The list of suggested disaster relief contribution items can be found on the City’s website at
http://www.cityoftybee.org.

The Planner: Travel Agent for the Public!

By Jonathan Lynn, Planning & Zoning Director, City of Tybee Island

There seems to be confusion many times about the process of city planning. I have to admit that when I first began my career in the planning field, I was as confused as anyone could possibly about the basic process of planning. It was one thing to read about the process and learn from a professor in college but being involved in the process on a daily basis made everything seem brand new. What I would like to share here is a guide to understanding the planning process through comparing to something that most of us do routinely: planning a trip. In this comparison, the planner takes the role of your travel agent.

When planning for a trip with your family or for yourself, the first thing that you must decide is coming up with a location, an ending point of some sort. The same goes with planning as you begin with an ending concept in mind for where you want to end up. Once you decide on where you want to go, that’s when the logistics of the trip come in to play such as how you get there, what you need to pack, how much is it going to cost, who is going to watch your pets, and what to do when you get there. I did leave out the most important question of all when planning a trip and that is will this trip be approved by your traveling companions, which may be friends, family, spouses, or children.

All of these questions in one fashion or another are involved with the planning process as well. Once you have the results in mind you will need to start the process for reaching the final goal and that can involve reviewing of project plans (trip itinerary), guiding applicants through the process of having their proverbial ducks in a row like drainage plans, parking calculations, permits, and licenses (travel means, lodging accommodations, and what to pack). Serving as your planner/travel agent, I provide aid through the process of planning your trip and getting the paperwork in order to ensure that you have every facet of your trip in line before presenting it to your travel companions, normally the decision makers. In the case of planning, the final decision makers, normally the City Council, will approve your trip as is, approve with a few adjustments to your itinerary/project, or encourage you to find another destination as where you decided to go would not be a place they would like to visit.

As a planner, or in this case a travel agent, it is our duty to work with the client to allow them to have appropriate measures in place to ensure that they are ready for their case to be heard before the elected officials. And just like any travel agent, if they are approved and take their trip, the planner is there with them during every step of their trip to ensure that they have the best possible experience that they can. I do hope that this comparison has helped with the general understanding of the planning profession and routinely takes place in this arena. If you have questions about any part of this article, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.

Jonathan

Planning & Zoning Director Jonathan Lynn may be reached at jlynn@cityoftybee.org

Concerned About Your Property Tax Bill?

If you’re unhappy with your Chatham County property tax bill for 2010, now’s the time to file an appeal! Decreasing property values have prompted some Tybee property owners to head downtown to the Board of Assessors office on Montgomery Street in Savannah to request a re-appraisal. These folks are reporting good results. It’s a simple process, and county staff members are very helpful. You may call them with specific questions. Inquiries should be directed to the Assessor’s Office at 912-652-7271. You may also e-mail them at boa@chathamcounty.org.

Specific questions regarding county taxes should be directed to the Tax Commissioner’s Office at 912-652-7100. Specific questions regarding county homestead exemptions should be directed to the Receiver of Returns Office at 912-447-4856.

Might save a few dollars, but you better hurry.
The deadline for filing such appeals this year is MARCH 1st, 2010.

Visit the county’s website at www.chathamcounty.org/assessor.html

PRESS RELEASE: New Wayfinding Signs to Debut on Tybee Island

NEW WAYFINDING SIGNS DEBUT ON TYBEE ISLAND
Press Release by Michael Bodine

Tybee Island, GA – (January 12, 2010) The City of Tybee Island is trying to make life easier for visitors, as well as residents, with the unveiling of a new series of wayfinding signage that will be going up in the next few months around the island. Every resident has a story about being asked by a visitor where the Tybee Lighthouse is while standing in its very shadow, or being stopped by someone in front of a Pay-and-Display meter asking where you go to pay for parking, or even “Which way is the ocean?”

To help make it easier to find some of the major landmarks, the Community Development Department has been working on getting effective signage designed, manufactured and installed since the creation of Tybee’s new Master Plan. With government budgets shrinking, thanks to the economy, original proposed high quotes put the project in jeopardy until Richard Adams, President of the Tybee Arts Association (TAA) found a creative “Tybee” solution.  Adams partnered with Shannon Marino of Tybee Island Customs, an auto and motorcycle customizer on Thunderbolt, to create a demonstration sign and a proposal to marry Tybee’s relationship with sea turtles and tourism to create a unique and eye-catching design. Each sign is a brightly colored loggerhead turtle with the words painted on its shell.

The prototype sign, pointing the way to the Tybee Lighthouse, from Van Horn near Meddin, was met with enthusiasm by the community and the City Council.  This enthusiasm quickly motivated TAA and Tybee Island Customs to get the project under way. There was some fine tuning of the design to make sure it conformed to local and state traffic safety requirements, such as changing the color of the sign posts, which resemble an anchor chain, from black to silver, and also modifying posts to break away. The first installation of these signs is scheduled to be at the corner of Tybrisa and The Strand, near the roundabout by the Walter J. Parker Pier and Pavilion this coming Friday, January 15th, at 2:00 PM.

A total of 22 turtles will help show the way on Tybee, with the project scheduled for completion before the 2010 tourist season begins. Just in time for the real sea turtles to start nesting on the Tybee beaches!

The Tybee Arts Association’s first major public art project was the Tybee Turtle Tour.  Several of the fiberglass turtles from that project are still on display around the island. Shannon Marino has been involved in several artistic endeavors in the Tybee Island area, one of which involved helping with the on-going maintenance and repairs of the fiberglass turtles, which use clear auto body finish to protect them from the environment. Thus, a successful collaboration was born.

To find our more about the City of Tybee Island, visit our web site at http://www.cityoftybee.org/

Tybee Island Announces Citizen Alert with Opt-in Program

Press Release by Michael Bodine

Tybee Island, GA – (December 29, 2009) Earlier this year, Tybee Island’s Emergency Management and Information Technology staff selected a dial-out notification system called Everbridge Aware. This system will be used to provide various levels of notification to residents and others interested in newsworthy events on Tybee, including non-emergency events like public hearings, urgent messages like road closes or utility repair outages, or full-blown violence or weather emergencies.

The City of Tybee has been increasing ways to keep citizens aware of events on the island. While newspaper advertising and public service announcements are the traditional way to communicate non-urgent events, avenues such as the world-wide web or local cable access television can provide more immediate and facile channels. Over this last summer, City staff added Twitter and Facebook for quick and less formal updates. The Everbridge Aware system caps off this effort with a full set of customizable notification options.

The basic notification system is pre-populated with landline phone numbers for residents and businesses provided by AT&T. Anyone included in this database will always get notification on their regular phone in the event of a major emergency, such as a hurricane evacuation order. Less urgent messages will not be automatically sent out to these telephone numbers.

The optional piece of this system allows users to select the kinds of events about which they wish to hear, and the method by which they wish to receive notification. The available notification types are: inclement weather, road closures, traffic delays, utility outages, public hearings, crime bulletins, and beach closings. The available methods include: home phone, business phone, cell phone, email, text message, or other telephone. For people with only a cell phone, or who use a digital, VOIP phone, must use the opt-in system to get notifications.

Anyone wanting to sign up for these notifications can do so by visiting the City’s web page, www.cityoftybee.org, and clicking on the “Citizen Alert – Notification Sign-up” button. The visitor will be taken to the Everbridge sign-up page where one can create a free login/password account, and then, using an easy-to-follow menu, proceed to select the types of notices and destination devices on which to receive them.

Users should be aware that they will need to acknowledge receipt of a message in order to stop the system from contacting them on every selected channel. For example, if you have asked for a phone call, an email, and a text message, you will be notified on one device after the other until you listen to the entire message and respond. On the phone, you would listen to the message and press a key to acknowledge you’ve heard the message. Once you press that key, the system will stop trying to reach you. If your phone is busy or you hang up without responding, the system will then send you an email, and finally send a text message to your phone. If you don’t answer your phone or otherwise check for messages, you can still miss an urgent notification!

CONTACT: Jimmy Brown, TEMA Coordinator, (912) 786-4573, Ext. 112