Before I fold up the laptop for the night, I thought I’d share with you a few thoughts about Steve Benjamin’s State of the City speech last night — only about 24 hours late.
To begin with, you can read the whole speech here. Well, the whole prepared speech, anyway. I know of one thing that’s not in it — the mayor’s ad-lib about working to get professional baseball back to Columbia. But you can watch the video for the speech as delivered. (Or at least, I hope you can — I’ve had trouble viewing it. If this persists, I’ll check with the mayor’s office tomorrow.)
Beyond that, I share my Twitter feed from during the speech. All Tweets are mine, except when otherwise indicated:
- Did I just hear Mayor Benjamin right? 263 security cameras installed since he entered office? I had no idea…
- Mayor’s mention of the city’s ice skating rink is an applause line…
- Steve Benjamin @SteveBenjaminSC “We’ve added over $8 million dollars in public safety funding.” #SOTC2013
- Eva Moore @yesevamoore Just once I want to hear that the state of the union/city/state is anything but strong.
- Susanna King @superflippy @yesevamoore “The state of the city is discombobulated yet bodacious.”
- Steve Benjamin @SteveBenjaminSC “30 months later we’ve invested nearly $320 million in rebuilding our water, sewer and stormwater systems.” #SOTC2013
- Mayor Benjamin says he’s working on getting professional baseball…#SOTC2013
- Hey, Warren’s here! “@BoltonWarren: “The future holds great promise for this great city.” — Benjamin”
- Steve Benjamin @SteveBenjaminSC “If I had predicted accomplishing those goals in less than three years on Day One, there wouldn’t have been a Day Two.” #SOTC2013
- Good job with the Tweeting. Could you email me a copy of the speech?
- Eva Moore @yesevamoore Columbia’s civil rights history makes it into State of the City speech. And: “While cities like Selma, B’ham burned…Cola remained whole.”
- Mayor Benjamin: “Quality-of-life issues are essential to economic development.” Mentions 3 Rivers Greenway, Gamecock baseball…
- Former interim city manager Steve Gantt, who did a great job, just got key to the city… #SOTC2013
- Mayor Benjamin: “Many, if not most, of our city employees, are making less money than they deserve.” #SOTC2013
If you’d like something more coherent than my Twitter feed, go read John Monk’s news story.
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The speech was on Wednesday. Time flies, huh?
Not clear if Teresa Wilson is making less money than she deserves, though.
Loved Eva Moore’s Tweet about the unrelenting boosterism of these speeches. I think I did not miss much by skipping this year’s.
I know it was on Wednesday. I posted this on Thursday, which is why it says “last night.”
I only pulled it up Friday, last night!
Columbia’s Glory Days of Technology are history! NCR E&M-Columbia at 3325 Platt Springs Road, West Columbia, produced powerful microcomputers for businesses from the mid ’80s through the ’90’s. NCR Corporate in Dayton, OH, allowed atunomy to the plants
AT&T, the “Death Star”, decided that they wanted to become a computer company; so they launched a hostile takeover of NCR. NCR’s CEO, Chuck Exley, said during on of the many videos with the NCR plants said that AT&T should change their slogan from “Reach Out and Touch Someone” to “Reach Out and Grab Someone!”.
Apparently, Chuck got a “golden parachute”, but to corporate’s credit and the “poison pill”, I am reaping a minor benefit of that.
NCR not only designed and manufactured computers to ship out world wide from the plant in West Columbia, but also employed others to write software that managed the computers.
NCR also provided scholarships and personnel to USC’s College of Engineering.
Is there a technology draw in Columbia today? Based on my experience from the 80’s, the answer is No.