It was good seeing so many faces on the Zoom call on Friday. Gordon reminded everyone that Harriet Meyerhoff was kind to designate RCSE as a place for donations to be made in Eric's honor. If you have not done so and would like to donate, please make a check payable to RCSE and send to POBox 60822, Savannah, GA 31420. All money collected will be donated to The Rotary Foundation. Once all business items were discussed, Laura Lane introduced our speaker for the day - Alderman Nick Palumbo.
Nick serves on the City Council as a representative for District 4. He has been called a "Savannah man for all seasons." Nick's background includes working as a Federal Law Enforcement, Foreign Services, Police Officer, High School teacher and a small business owner. His presentation was titled "Resilient Savannah." He believes that there is an opportunity in every situation. Recently, many decisions made concerning our city have been data driven. The city is now open again and while it was closed, it allowed for infrastructure repair to be done on numerous projects which otherwise would have been hard to do during the spring. He said there are three points that will keep the city on track and make Savannah better in the end. 1. Communicate - the city's website is a one-stop shop for all information regarding COVID-19. 2. Mitigate Adversity and 3. Thrive so the city can emerge stronger than ever. Recently, the city has allowed restaurants to apply for outdoor permits in order to help business survive and to allow proper social distancing. The economy will not be up and running unless consumer confidence is high.
The pathway to the future for Savannah is looking good. There is $250 million in public construction funding underway, there are only five vacancies in the Savannah Police Department, and the city has committed to helping add 2500 jobs in West Savannah with an average yearly salary of $37,000. The city council has continued during this to hold budget workshops to discuss how Savannah will deal with the loss of revenue in sales tax due to COVID-19. In conclusion, Nick said we need to hold our elected officials accountable. The next City Council meeting is on June 11 at 10:00 AM and you can always reach Nick at npalumbo@savannahga.gov.