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Bryan County hoping to draw e-commerce
Development Authority
Ted O'Neil
Updated: Aug 2, 2016, 4:02 PM
Published: Aug 2, 2016, 4:03 PM

Bryan County residents will vote whether or not to approve a Freeport Exemption for e-commerce fulfillment centers on the Nov. 8 ballot after commissioners approved the measure at a special meeting Monday.

A vast majority of counties in Georgia — 142 out of 159 — have a Freeport Exemption in place and most of those are at 100 percent, including Bryan and all surrounding counties. Current exemptions to inventory tax apply to raw materials and goods in the process of manufacture, finished goods produced in Georgia within the last 12 months and finished goods stored in Georgia within the last 12 months and destined for shipment out of state.

Public Act 539, which took effect July 1, allows for a fourth category for e-commerce fulfillment centers (think Amazon) if they meet two criteria: a location used to pack, ship, store or process tangible personal property sold by electronic means and does not allow customers to purchase or receive goods on-site. Local inventory tax would not be charged on items held at such a center for 12 months or less if the measure is approved.

Anna Chafin, chief executive officer at the Development Authority of Bryan County, said having the exemption in place would be “another tool in our toolbox” that would help recruit industry and jobs to the area.

Amazon recently announced it would build an 800,000-square-foot distribution center in Jacksonville, creating 1,500 jobs.

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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