The City of Opelika has moved the recycling drop-off center at Miles Thomas Field over to the Denson Drive Recreation Center (now called the Denson Drive Community Center), located at 1102 Denson Drive.  A trailer with multiple compartments will be used to collect items, instead of the “igloos” used at the Miles Thomas fields.  The same materials will be collected:  glass, cardboard, newspaper, steel cans, aluminum cans and plastic containers.

The City of Opelika requests that plastic bags not be placed in the plastic containers bins.  Unfortunately, plastic bags are not the type of “recyclable plastic” the city can send off with the other plastic products.  They can, however, be returned to Kroger, Winn Dixie or Wal-Mart shopping centers, which all have plastic bag “drop off” areas.

For more information on recycling call KEEP OPELIKA BEAUTIFUL offices at (334) 749-4970.

Below are the numbers posting from each Ward into todays vote for what the city calls “Cable Competition” and others have called the Smart Grid. Note:  The vote remains “unofficial” until ratified by the Opelika City Council.                               
 
Ward 1 - 211 Yes/54 No
Ward 2 - 236 Yes/86 No
Ward 3 - 368 Yes/333 No
Ward 4 - 443 Yes/228 No
Ward 5 - 492 Yes/368 No
Absentee  – 14 Yes/7 No

Numbers represent: 62% voters voted YES and 18% registered voters went to the polls. (Thanks to WANI for the results posted here.)

Tuesday Night is the final Summer Swing in Monkey Park.  It brings and end to summer (if not summer weather) and the beginning of a new school year, which began on Tuesday.  Route 66 is back to close out the year, again this year.

And the Farmer’s Market will continue for a few more weeks. Today at 2PM.

There’s been much debate about todays vote for what the city calls “Cable Competition” and others have called the Smart Grid.  The Smart Grid isn’t a bad thing, it can give the consumer many more choices in spending and saving money.  From the power management features, which help the consumer best use the power service, to the added benefit of Higher Speed Internet,  TV and phone service.  I’ll be voting yes today and encourage other Opelika residents to do the same.

As representatives of the business community, the Opelika Chamber of Commerce endorses the telecommunications proposal by the City, allowing it to provide additional services for the citizens of Opelika. This should have a positive impact on recruiting businesses, supporting existing businesses, and improving job opportunities in Opelika. We ask that you vote “yes” on the ballot, August 10th.

Board of Directors: Janie Corlee, Chair, Vetrina Grubbs, Temple Anderson, Chair-Elect, Corinne Hodges, Brian Henderson, Vice Chair, Shey Knight, Jimmy Wright, Treasurer, Ira Silberman, Bob Meadows, Past Chair, Bill Trant, Tim Gore, John Wild, Laura Grill and Other Committee Members & Staff: Eric Canada, Barbara Patton, David Jones, Vivian Anthony, Mark Neighbors, Dinah Motley, Roben Nutter, Jill Robinson, Jerry Rolinson and Bill Samford.

The City of Opelika will have two table top demonstration areas set up inside city hall for interested citizens to view all day long on Tuesday, August 3rd.

The first demonstration focuses on the cable TV offering.  It will be doing a demo of Microsoft Media room’s IPTV Middleware platform.  This can be described as a “truly unique cable TV offering,” showing the community the advanced technology Opelika could deliver in the cable TV platform if allowed to deploy the cable service.  It would be an advanced product offering that the citizens of Opelika could never expect to get from any of the existing providers. 

The second demonstration will show bandwidth utilization.  This demo will show consumers typical use of video and data products and how the use of them consume bandwidth capacity in the home.  It will highlight the huge pipe Opelika could have available to its customers to deliver truly unique and technically advanced products to our community.  For example, if someone is trying to download a movie from Netflix on one PC or blue-ray player while someone else in the home is trying to surf the internet, the person surfing the internet sees the slowdown from the impact of downloading the movie.  This demonstration will show how this will not happen with the proposed system. 

There will also be a video that highlights another community that has benefitted tremendously from the building of a very similar system Opelika is now considering.

Opelika City Hall is located at 204 South 7th Street in downtown Opelika.  If you enter the building from the 7th street location, simply go through the front doors; you will see the displays in the front hall area.  If you enter city hall through the Avenue A entrance, go past the Utilities customer service area, Revenue Department area and Purchasing area and go through the double doors.  You will be right at the display tables.

From Iain Stewarts Facebook page this morning… Apparently a deer jumped through the plate glass window at Catawampus Art Gallery last night. No sign of it, but it took out the entire window. I sure hope the big guy is ok.

No paintings were injured, but I’m guessing the deer was more than a little freaked out. I can’t imagine what would make it do that. Freaky man freaky. Only in Opelika. (Photo Credit Iain Stewart)

Some in town are not on board the plan for a replacement to Charter Cable. Eric Peatman sent along his comments today…

Jerry,  I think some of the confusion is generated by the fact that the Mayor wants to put the city on the hook for $30+ million dollars in debt while providing extremely sketchy details on 1) what subscription rate is necessary to be met to service the debt 2) what services will be provided (referendum says just cable, mayor sometimes says cable and internet, sometimes cable, internet and phone); 3) what will be the charges for these services; 4) If Knology is coming in to compete with Charter anyways, why do we want to risk this kind of money; 5) what if that anticipated subscription rate is not met–higher utilities, city taxes, or both–see Provo Utah, Davidson NC, Memphis TN, Burlington VT, Bristol, VA, etc. You wouldn’t commit your business to this kind of debt in such a slipshod manner, why would we let our city do it? Don’t forget, we as the owners of OLP and citizens of Opelika are ultimately responsible for this debt! And Jerry, let’s not just parrot the mayor here. Charter already has competition. It’s called satellite TV (hundreds of channels, now including local stations).

I’m not sure what all the confusion is about regarding the plan Opelika has for a competive system to Charter Cable.  It’s a vote of whether you would like the service from Charter or a system provided by the City of Opelika.  Sure, it would use the Smart Grid to deliver service, but a Smart Grid can also make your home more efficient. Is the city going to use it to cut off your power, well folks, they can do that now.  It’s a smiple vote, want the city to compete with Charter and maybe Knowledgy in the future, vote yes. Here’s some comments from the Mayor.

The referendum Opelika citizens will have the opportunity to vote on August 10th is about cable competition for Charter Communications.  Here is the exact wording that will be on the ballot: “Shall the City of Opelika, Alabama, be authorized to acquire, establish, purchase, construct, maintain, lease and operate a cable television system for the purpose of furnishing cable service to subscribers?”  That will be the only question on the ballot.  Every Opelika mayor the past 20 years has heard numerous complaints about Charter; mostly about their high price and poor service.  In markets where Charter has competition their prices are much lower.  We’ll offer, if our citizens approve, much more at less cost and we’ll offer access to every home and citizen in the corporate limits of Opelika.  There are a number of areas in Opelika today that have no access to cable TV.  We’ll also have local customer service….no more calling an 800 number and having to wait 20 minutes to speak to a real person.  Our proposed system will use fiber optics which means we will offer more HD TV channels and true high speed internet.  If you need 25, 50 or even 100 Mbps upload and download, we can provide that.  If you want just the regular up and down speed for internet, it will still be faster than Charter.
 
There has been a deliberate attempt by our opponents to create confusion regarding the smart grid aspect of our project.  We began installing an automated meter reading system back in 2002 when the Opelika City Council approved the purchase of that system and the majority of our customers have those meters at their home today.  The mission of Opelika Light & Power is to deliver reliable electrical service to our customers at the lowest possible price.  Fiber will allow us to improve our existing smart grid which means we’ll know instantly when power outages occur, rather than relying on customers to report them.  The faster we know there is an outage, the faster we can get it fixed, which means customer inconveniences or loss of production is reduced.  We’ll be able to react automatically to some types of power outages, re-routing power and reducing outage restoration time to seconds for many customers rather than minutes or hours.  We will be able to offer customers options to choose to pay lower electric rates when it is less expensive to generate power and higher rates when it is more expensive to generate power.  With near real-time data available through smart meters, customers will be able to make choices about when to use electricity and better manage their electric use and budgets without sacrificing comfort and convenience.  But this will be your choice and the City will not make that decision for you. 

A “yes” vote on August 10th is a game changer for future economic development projects, too.  Many high tech companies will not consider a community that doesn’t have fiber optics available.  The citizens of our community own Opelika Light & Power and our citizens will also own the cable company.  A “yes” vote on August 10th means, finally, competition for Charter Communications! ~ Mayor Gary Fuller

City Council Chamber will be packed Tuesday Night for discussion.  Councilman Smith wanted to move to a larger venue, after the announced meeting, which would be against procedures, after announcing a meeting at City Hall.  Get their early for the 7PM meeting, as the Fire Marshall will stritly enforce the allowable number of folks in the room, just like they do for bars and restuants in the area.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 29th it’s the  Auburn University Summer Concert Band – 70 Pieces Conducted by Dr. Rick Good. A Variety of Band Music, Marches, Overtures, and Show-tunes will be featured. Join the fun in Monkey Park. Music starts at 7PM, with food and fun starting around 6PM!