An opinion by Joene DePlancke:

Or maybe I should ask where haven’t you seen one?
The Times Courier may print all kinds of “interesting” articles on planting things, medical suggestions, heartburn, who’s getting married, and the poultry report, but what about the REAL news, what’s happening today! If it wasn’t for FetchYourNews.com we wouldn’t have known there was an important called meeting and we wouldn’t have known what happened in that meeting. They recorded the entire meeting.

One of the most important issues facing Gilmer County this very minute is the issue of whether or not you want an Unmanned Aircraft Operation (Drones) operating out of the GC Airport. I had called Ryan Rees on Tuesday last week (3/19) to make sure he was going to do an article and put it on the front page because it was critical that the public know about this proposal and that the BOC was going to have a special “called meeting” that week to vote on this.

Ryan said he was getting ready to work on an article. I asked him if he was going to inform the public that there would be a called meeting? He said that he hadn’t received any notice of a called meeting. Well, neither had I, but I reminded him that the BOC said before they ended the March 14th regular meeting that they would have to have a called meeting before Danny Hall left for China. I specifically told him during that phone call that the meeting was now going to be held on Friday, March 22nd, but the specific time hadn’t been announced. Mr. Rees and I were both at the BOC meeting where this was discussed. Yet the front page of the Times Courier last week displayed a publicity piece. All they wrote was exactly what the supporters and the provided literature said almost verbatim.

Did Ryan tell the community in his report that there was going to be a called meeting on Friday? Did he call the county clerk to verify there would be a meeting on Friday? Did he tell the citizens how to find out on Thursday what time the meeting would be on Friday? Did he even show up at the meeting in order to report to the citizens what was happening? No, no, no and NO.

Furthermore, what he actually wrote ended up just being a restatement of the information provided by Georgia Tech Research Institute (“GTRI”) and the Airport Advisory Board (“AAB”). I had asked Mr. Rees last Tuesday if he had done any research on any of the companies that were planning on conducting drone flights over Gilmer County. He said that he had not but that he was just getting started on the article. I told him I had, and that every one of the contractors involved in this project was a military contractor. And that I could not find one reference on any of the websites for these companies where they had any experience at all in air traffic control which is what we have been led to believe is the SOLE purpose of this project, testing to see how to integrate unmanned aircraft with manned aircraft.

Mr. Rees also reported to the citizens of Gilmer County in his front page article last Wednesday that “all three BOC members were in favor of the project at the work session on the 14th.” That is a flat out misstatement. I was there. I heard one of the commissioners, Randy Bell, repeatedly say he couldn’t support this until he had some of his questions answered. Bell also expressed dismay that GTRI did not make their presentation to the Board of Commissioners so that the Commissioners could ask them questions. Bell said that he specifically wanted GTRI or the Airport Advisory Board to explain why the 23 states that had enacted legislation restricting warrantless searches were eliminated from consideration for this drone project. GTRI insists there will be no surveillance, but then why are the 23 states limiting surveillance eliminated from consideration? Because no one could answer Mr. Bell’s questions he repeated that he could not support or consider this proposal until he got answers to his questions.

The commissioners then discussed the fact that they needed to have a called meeting the following week before Danny Hall left for China.

So is something amiss here? Here is the timeline and you decide if you, as taxpayers of this County were kept informed by the Times Courier or the BOC.

Mid February, 2013: GTRI presentation & packet of material to Jim Smith (county liaison), Paul Layman, Chairman of Airport Advisory Board, Jack Smith, Vice Chairman of the AAB, and possibly other members of the AAB. Yet NOTHING was presented to the BOC so that they could review it, ask questions AND put it on the agenda so the public would know about the meeting.

March 7, 2013: AAB’s regularly scheduled meeting.

March 14, 2013: AAB submitted unanimous recommendation letter to the Board of Commissioners. Times Courier in attendance.

March 20, 2013: Article in Times Courier describing wonderful opportunity to have drones flying over Gilmer County. No mention of any upcoming specially called BOC meeting for public comments and a vote.

March 21, 2013: 9:00 AM. BOC gives required 24-hr notice on door to conference room and notice on BOC website that there is a called meeting to vote on Drone proposal at 9:00 AM on March 22, 2013.

March 22, 2013: 9:00 AM. Specially called meeting with AAB, BOC and some citizens that learned of the meeting the night before. Times Courier did not attend. FetchYourNews was there and filmed the entire meeting. After much discussion and four citizens asking to speak in opposition, the BOC took a vote on a motion to write a letter of interest to GTRI. Sanford and Hall voted yes, Bell voted NO.

March 27, 2013: Times Courier printed another article about the potential drones coming to Ellijay. However, no one from the Times Courier had even bothered to show up to hear the public comments and report. Something as important as potentially signing a contract that will automatically become a 5-year FAA (That is FEDERAL Aviation Administration) contract on December 31, 2013, didn’t even warrant a reporter. Apparently the article was written from the tape of the meeting. But there are several columns of quotes and information from people and engineers at Georgia Tech who weren’t even at the meeting. There is a reference that a Mr. Heiges “said earlier” as if earlier in the meeting or before the meeting, then it goes on to quote multiple people saying, “he said” etc. There was no one at the meeting from GA Tech. Why would the Times Courier print all of that favorable sounding information? That isn’t reporting, that is selling. Why does the Times Courier want this project? Or who asked them to write this favorable report? Because that article doesn’t come close to reporting what took place at that meeting. The people that did actually attend and speak spoke very clearly and explicity against any such operation in Gilmer County and took particular exception to Danny Hall’s and J.C.’s comments that it was “inevitable.” It is only inevitable if they sign a contract with the devil.

What we should be doing, which I pointed out very clearly, but was not reported, was that we needed to be down at the Capitol presenting legislation like 23 OTHER STATES, prohibiting and severely restricting any use of drones in the State of Georgia.

And if all of this wasn’t enough, the Editor of the Times-Courier wrote an editorial about approving the drone project! Other than the Airport Advisory Board, Danny Hall and J.C. Sanford, I have not found one other person that is in favor of this. Did the Editor bother to talk to the citizens and see what the general sentiment is? Or are we citizens too uneducated to make a decision like this? I would like to know what makes the Editor of the newspaper qualified to make the statement “Approve the Drone Program”. Apparently he didn’t do any research either because all he reported was exactly what the contractor provided in his literature. He didn’t appear to do any independent research either.

And then, Mr. Millican goes on to say that most people object because we say it will infringe upon our 4th Amendment rights but that is apparently OK because “many of those rights are already being infringed upon.” Can you believe that? So because we have sat around the last 20 years and let the Federal Government take away more and more rights each week, it is OK to continue to give them up? Maybe to quote some movie, we have finally decided WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND WE AREN’T GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!

Joene DePlancke
Ellijay, Georgia