In 1977, a disaster would show the risks of heavy rainfall on an embankment dam, resulting in structural failure. The resulting floodwater would cause nearly $3 million worth of damage and cost 39 lives. What was strange was that the structure was not new, instead it was in its final arrangement for over 30 years, which really shows that nothing is solid forever. Dam disasters are always scary incidents, as seemingly unmovable imposing structures give the false sense of security for the vast water it holds back. This is why when a dam does fail, it does so spectacularly. The Kelly Barnes Dam had the double surprise of being a pretty well established structure, with varying designs being employed on the site ever since 1899, with failure occurring in 1977. Although the final iteration at the site was not as grand as say the Sayano Shoshenska, due to it being a relatively simple earthen dam. Today's subject I'm going to rate it here 6 on the Plain Difficult Disaster Scale, and here 4 on the Historical Legacy Scale, as it is a relatively unknown failure in comparison to say the Vaillant disaster. The city of Takoa, Georgia is a smallish municipality with a population today of around 8,000 people. For the purpose of this subject, we're going to start all the way back in time in the late 19th century. Takoa was destined to have a hydroelectric plant, and as such, this necessitated a reservoir. In 1899, a rock crib dam was built by E.P. Simpson. It was located on the headwaters of the Takoa Creek, 1.7 miles northwest of the center of Takoa, Stevens County, Georgia. The structure had a riveted steel penstock that extended from the dam to the powerhouse below, the waterfall to utilise the 280ft head difference for power generation. The power plant went into operation the same year and was capable of a 200kW output. In the 1930s, the Georgia Power Company purchased the local power distribution system, passing the title of the dam, lake and power station to the Takoa Falls Institute. The original dam height was increased in 1937, as power demands for more stable electricity increased. Between 1939 and 1940, the 38th high earthenfield dam called the Kelly Barnes dam was built on top of the original rock crib dam. Mr Kelly Barnes was the business manager for the Takoa Falls Institute, and that is how it got its name. Now I really need a dam named after me. The F dam incorporated most of the old crib into its downstream tow. The structure was concave, upstream, filling a narrow portion of gorge formed by the Takoa Creek. The impounded lake at normal pool elevation was approximately 40 acres, holding back around 17 million cubic feet of water. An additional steel pipe was built to work as a low level spillway for the dam. During the works, the power plant was also upgraded, and masonry structures were built around this and the original penstock with valves controlling flow. An additional earthen spillway was added and this took the normal overflow of water. Post-water dam was again heightened. Due to the works happening over the years, no real design was really put on paper, and this would prove difficult for investigators later on. The power plant was eventually shut down in 1957, leaving the dam and its lake for recreational use. After the dam was kind of left unattended, with no efficient inspections or routine of maintenance. As such, the main structure and its abutments became overgrown with bushes and trees. The foliage meant that the low level spitway and penstock was visibly obstructed. During the early 1970s, reports of continual seepage from the downstream slope of the dam near the point of the exit spillway pipe were made. At some point, a large embankment slide had occurred on the downstream face around 1973. Neglected and not inspected, the old earthen dam was arguably a disaster waiting to happen, and that leads us onto 1977. During the period between November 2nd and November 5th, around 3.2 inches of rainfall was experienced in the region. The water from the rain started to fill up the barn's reservoir, bulging its banks. The rain got heavier during the evening of November 5th. At around 11.30pm, volunteer workers went to the dam to inspect its condition from the rainfall, and in the winter darkness all seemed well. Just a few hours later, in the early hours of the 6th November 1977, at approximately 1.30am, the Kelly Barnes Dam's main structure failed in the heavy rain. The failure released the water it held up down the Takoa Creek on a collision course with the Takoa Falls Institute. One of the campus dorms would see the disaster's first victims as the tremendous power of the water swept through the area. In total, 200 feet of dam had failed, releasing, at its peak flow, 24,000 cubic feet per second, washing away 9 houses, 18 house trailers, two college buildings and multiple vehicles. In total, 39 would lose their lives during the event. Due to the time, many residents were in bed asleep, leaving little chance of reacting to the sudden flow of water. In addition to the human cost, 5 houses and 5 college buildings were damaged. Two bridges on Takoa Falls Drive and a culvert at County Farm Road were completely destroyed and Georgia's Route 77 which travelled through Takoa received considerable damage. The city itself saw some damage from the floodwater, creating a local emergency. The water supply to the city was also damaged, contaminating the drinking water for several days. A day after the disaster, an investigation was ordered by Governor Busby, appointing a task force on dam safety to look at the causes of the dam failure. The investigation was conducted by the US Geological Survey, was concluded fairly quickly by December 1977, without a definitive reason for the failure. Instead, several probable causes were settled upon. This wasn't so much the investigators thought, as I mentioned earlier, no proper plans or diagrams were made of the dam during its evolution, leaving eyewitness accounts, historical photos and newspaper clippings to try and help build up a picture on the construction techniques used. Some of the causes for failure were linked with poor maintenance due to the dam's embankments being heavily vegetated, with tree roots severely weakening the structure. This is likely as parts of the dam had slid from their original position in 1973, hinting that a similar situation could have unfolded in 1977. The slide in 1973 created tension cracks, which could have further weakened the structure during the period of rainfall allowing seepage. Furthermore, the long period of rain eroded away the downstream slope, leading to a localised overtopping of the dam, causing a chain reaction of more erosion and finally total structure failure. Another sighted cause was that of the low level inlet pipe failing, rupturing or becoming blocked, leading to seepage and weakening of the structure from within. Although the exact cause is unknown, one thing that is certain is that poor maintenance was of root cause, as proper inspection and remediation work would have highlighted failure and stress points that needed to be addressed. What is most likely is that probably all of the highlighted causes contributed to the failure, as the dam was weakened over a period of time. As a side note, what is strange is that this disaster is another one I've covered on this channel under the Carter administration. Regardless of the failure cause, it is yet another reason why maintenance is very important, be it your car or a dam. Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video. This video is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are created commons attribution share alike licensed. Plainly difficult videos are produced by me John in a sunny southeastern corner of London UK. Help the channel grow by liking, commenting and subscribing. Check out my Twitter for all sorts of photos and odds and sods, as well as hidden song future videos. I've got Patreon and YouTube membership as well, so if you fancy supporting the channel financially, you can bear. And all that's left to say is thank you for watching.


Boom What's up money geeks? Mr. V here. Welcome to another video guys. So into this video. We are going to talk about Persian square So if you guys remember last month, we did a video here on the channel where I actually told you guys That they were buying 10% of Universal music and I told you that I wasn't too excited about that move because that's not what I was anticipating I was looking for something bigger was looking for something better Like going after square or something like that. So I was a little bit disappointed with that move But fortunately my priors actually were answered because if you guys can see There's some news that just came out and this is exactly from this is a letter from the CEO Bill Eggman, but let me just go over here CMBC. So you guys can actually see so Bill Eggman Persian square Drops steel to buy 10% of the universal music, which to us. I think this is a win And so the whole idea now is that they're gonna go after more traditional Merger or more traditional acquisition, which that's what I was looking for in the first place So this is absolutely good news again for me. If you are an investor, I think this is better than There are universal music deal that they were talking about So that's what I wanted to cover into this video But before we get started guys if you're new to the channel We took about how to earn money how to save money how to invest and build wealth So that's something that interests you go ahead and hit that subscribe button and the notification bell So you don't miss out on new content. So guys when it comes again to this particular Spark, I mean like there was so many People looking up to this park hoping that this was gonna be some Generational merger, but it never really panned out the way it did so I'm happy that this thing fell through Maybe some people wanted this to go through but I'm personally I'm smiling because I didn't really think this was an excellent deal. So Now the deal has been scrapped and now again They're saying they're gonna go through a more traditional approach and you can see here The CEO said that the stock price actually dropped 18% since the transaction was announced on June 4th So that wasn't a good thing because normally when we announce a merger like that Some people get excited and you anticipate that the price of the stock would go up But the reverse was true the price of the stock instead took a beating. So Now they don't have a specific date as to when they're gonna go, but I think they have 18 months to get another You know merger go through so they have at least 18 months to get that that's over a year to decide And if there are their board of director decide or the shareholders decide to vote and increase that time to go after another Company to merge with then they can certainly do that. So again, if we can go here and look at where the stock was trading right now It's about 20 Dollars and 39 cents. So I mean it hasn't been Making any specific move. This is where it started when they initially announced this spark. It started about 20 dollars So this thing had if we just go here six months and gone up to about 30 something dollars and they're now selling back Loads of the year So hopefully they can find another company in my personal opinion I think the square would be an ideal candidate for this guy. They can go after a square. That would be The best thing that can possibly happen. But who knows we'll see what happens there So that's what I wanted to cover in this video again. Just a quick recap here guys Bill Eggman deal with a universal Music has been scrapped. So that deal is not going through Right now. They are looking to go Maybe find another company that's more traditional more in the space that they were looking for kind of like a fintech company Or maybe just a tech company to take public. So that's what we're gonna be seeing here So I'm gonna keep you guys posted if anything comes up with this particular You know spark again, this is a spark that a lot of people have been looking at and it has a lot of high hopes So or this was a disappointment that I think they are trying to rectify And find something that would make shareholders happy. So again, let me know in the comment section What you think about is were you excited about the merger with universal music or were you as disappointed? Like I was so let me get let me know in the comment section if you're new to the channel We took about how to earn money how to save money how to invest and build wealth So there's something that interests you go ahead and hit that subscribe button and the notification bell So you don't miss out on new content also guys if you're looking to get started with investing We both has their promotion where if you sign up and deposit a hundred dollars You get free stocks links in the description below and as always guys do your due diligence.


Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you my name is Adam Payne County administrator and co-host of this program though as you can see today my fearless leader the county board chairman Roger Distruty is not with me so I'm gonna try to muddle through this without him and today we're very very pleased to have one of our 19 department heads and really an outstanding employee working for Sheboygan County in this community Rebecca Pursek our court commissioner welcome Rebecca. Thank you. I know that we've had Rebecca and of course many of our department heads on the program from time to time and our our charge or goal is to share with you a little bit more of insight about their role responsibilities and the very important work that they do and Rebecca I think you've been with the county has it been close to 15 years now? It's been over 15 years. It's been over 15 years. 16 years with the county. Yeah I know we started about the same time well let's start a little bit about just yourself why don't you set the stage and tell our viewers a little bit about your background. Well I grew up here in Wisconsin and rural Manitowoc County and I've been an attorney for the past 20 years and for the past 11 years I've worked as the circuit court commissioner. I'm married to my husband Jay for 21 years and we have two children. Now circuit court commissioner what's the difference between a circuit court commissioner a municipal judge a circuit court judge how do you distinguish between those? Well circuit court commissioner and circuit court judges are all part of the circuit court system. A municipal judge handles ordinances and non-criminal citations. They enforce the ordinances from the municipality that they work for so they're very low level types cases traffic offenses that sort of thing. The circuit court system handles all sorts of cases criminal cases family cases mental health cases delinquency cases children in need of protection and services and my job differs from that of a circuit court judge in a couple respects I'm appointed by the judges in the county at the circuit court level to preside over certain types of cases so I do a lot of initial court appearances and all the same types of cases that the circuit court judges hear I do final hearings in certain divorces and injunction type cases domestic abuse injunctions and harassment injunctions and I'm appointed as I said before I'm not elected to the circuit court I'm appointed by the judges. So a circuit court judge is in an elected position is that a four-year term? It's a six-year term. It's a six-year term and they're really considered state employees are they not? Correct. And then you're appointed by and we have five circuit court judges here you're appointed by them and you are considered a county employee? Correct. What are the qualifications to be a a circuit court judge or a court commissioner that's appointed by the judges? Well the court commissioner the qualifications are defined by law and you have to have a law degree and have at least three years of legal experience to be considered for the position of court commissioner. And what about a municipal judge as you said earlier they don't handle the same types of cases do they have similar qualifications or not? No as a matter of fact state law doesn't require a municipal judge to even have a law degree. In our county I think that the Sheboygan city and Kohler municipal court has elected to hire someone who has a law degree the Plymouth municipal court also has someone with a law degree I think Sheboygan Falls does not so state law doesn't require it So there are some differences there right yeah So what's the primary role and responsibility of the the court commissioner's department? Well to put it simply it's to help with the administration of the court system. And you touched on that a little bit but give me a little better flavor for that what's all involved what's a typical day like in your office? Well it really depends on the day every day of the week I do criminal intake so people who've been arrested generally within the last 48 hours if they're still in custody I see them to go over with them their criminal complaint what the charges are what the possible penalties are I take their plea I set bond in their case I'm on call 24 hours a day to authorize search warrants and criminal investigations and then every other day of the week my duties are divided up between the other types of cases I handle so I'll do you know a couple divorces I'll do what's called a temporary order hearing in a divorce because there's a 120 day wait from the time you file for divorce till the early estate you can get divorced and in high conflict cases especially people will come into me and ask for a temporary order where I have to make decisions about the custody and placement of the children and who gets to stay in the home and how the finances are going to be divided on a temporary basis until that final divorce can be held on Wednesday afternoons I do traffic intake and so those are the kind of like the municipal citations citations written by state patrol and sheriff's department that are non- criminal I do those every Wednesday afternoon every morning at eight o'clock if there are any mental health commitment hearings I do those at Aurora Hospital on Tuesday afternoons I do juvenile pleas and juvenile intake and children in need of protection and services so it really it really depends on the day there is no typical day there is no typical day no the breadth of of the cases you're dealing with and really impacting people's lives and child custody and I know you've had some pretty high-profile cases that you've been involved with as well I just I give you so much credit it's got to be challenging work thank you I appreciate that especially cases that impact children I mean that's something that I am very aware of it's something I take very seriously and it does weigh on me because I don't want to do anything to hurt a child or hurt a family but it's an important part of my job and I do my very best in those types of cases and reeling it back just a little bit you started 16 years ago prior to working as court commissioner you worked in our child support department did you not yep I was the assistant corporation council so I did I prosecuted the mental commitments for the county and I also did child support enforcement so again a tremendous breadth of experience tell us a little bit about your staffing with all this work going on you must have a huge staff I have one assistant court commissioner and she handles almost all the small claims cases in the county and they're substantial so that's most of her job she also fills in for me if I'm not available for some reason and she does some research work for our circuit court judges on an as needed basis and then we have two part-time paralegal aides who cover our front office they do all their scheduling they prepare all our correspondence and they do a great job running the office they handle all the questions that come in by phone or people walking in it's a it's a very busy office as you might imagine I have walked by before and I've seen a number of people waiting or coming and going and I know you I have a bailiff there from time to time and set the stage a little bit with you're appointed by the judges you're doing very similar if not the same types of work that they do what's that relationship then how does it fit in with the circuit courts you mean as far as what I do my relationship with the judges yes well a lot of what I do I think is the initial stages of the case as I said earlier and so in a high in a in a case that's for example in a family case if it's a high conflict case and I know the family is going to need a guardian and light them I'll consult with the circuit court judge generally on appointing a guardian and light and that the judge and I both feel would be appropriate given the the circumstances in the family's case so I do work closely with the circuit court judges what would be an example of a difference what's the difference between your role versus a circuit court judge I think the probably the primary difference is that I handle more of the initial aspects of the case and then the case gets passed on to the circuit court judge because from my point of view as county administrator when I see the work that you do and the heavy case load and the diversity of cases that you're doing in our in our circuit court judges it seems very similar you know from an outsider looking in right it is similar and I don't want to be disrespectful to the circuit court judges by saying what I do is the same but it's similar in in that many of the cases that I see initially you know end up in front of the judges eventually so a lot of times we're both involved in the exact same cases so for example in what what would be an example that our viewers could appreciate where someone would go to see you versus see a circuit court judge what would be an example of a difference for a temporary order hearing as I mentioned earlier so I do a lot of those in high conflict divorce cases they would see me if they if their case is still contested at the time of the final divorce hearing and they need a trial that would be done in front of the circuit court judge if it's not if they have an agreement by the time of their final hearing then I would do the divorce as well okay very good nice overview so about how many cases do you handle a year again that really depends on the type of case so the ordinances for example Wednesday afternoons I I mentioned earlier that I do traffic and ordinance intake that only takes me about a half an hour a week but they're generally you know five thousand or more cases that come through on a year on an annual basis but because they're very simple types of cases they they process very quickly um criminal cases the criminal intake I do again there are you know thousands of misdemeanors and and felonies combined every year that come through as far as family cases you know those take a lot longer if if I have a contested custody hearing I usually take an hour and a half to do those which may not even be long enough when the stakes are so high when there are children involved but that's about as much time as I can spend on on a contested custody hearing so those hearings take much longer um and I'll probably do about a you know roughly about 175 of those a year or so yeah a lot a lot of diversity a lot of different types of cases some more complicated than others which ones do you find most rewarding I think the family cases are the ones that are most rewarding because people are coming in in well in fact most of the people I see are people who are in crisis and in one way or another but particularly the family cases um the people are coming in and and their world is really upside down and in the temporary order hearing I know I keep mentioning that but that's probably the most impactful part of my job and and therefore the most rewarding because it's very early in the process and people's lives are really tipped upside down and I'm able to give them a court order a framework when they walk out of court to say okay here's here's how it's going to look going forward so even if um things aren't happy for them at least they have a a path to move forward in earlier you mentioned that you also marry people and I that's true I get a kick out of it from time to time when we've got the cars all decorated out in front of the courthouse there you see people come and go and our do you marry most the people actually in the courthouse itself or how does that work yeah almost all the marriages I perform are rate in the courthouse and we reserve Friday afternoons for those weddings and that's a great way to end the week happy way to end the week very nice and and approximately how many you say every friday is that every friday every friday you have folks looking to get married every friday so I think on average we do about 130 weddings a year in the court commissioner's office very good when you when you think about your time as as court commissioner and how long has it been exactly 11 years a little over 11 years 11 the 16 years in that office what have been some of the trends or organizational changes you know what are some of the differences you've known it from 11 years ago to today oh gosh that's a tough question I mean obviously as a department head in addition to my courtroom responsibilities I have to prepare a budget and that's been tough the last five six seven years as you know as county administrator and I have to really commend you and the county board because you've made the budget the budget process much easier for us as department heads you've set goals for us you've been firm with us but you've also assisted us in and meeting our budget targets and that's probably one of the most challenging parts actually is is being able to operate within those budget targets and I appreciate the feedback as you know we've got a good team with the county board and department heads and and department heads such as yourself need to be willing to be creative and think of means of gaining efficiencies to work within those rigid caps that we have in place whether they're self-imposed goals or goals from the state that were required to implement you've done some creative things to keep your costs in check please touch on that well I mentioned that I have two part-time paralegal aides and that was done as a cost-saving measure I used to have one full-time person in that position and when she retired we converted it to two part-time positions and that has saved a lot of money on on benefits and the the folks that are working for you right now my sense is you've really got some good staff I do they're outstanding and I couldn't do it without them that's for sure so 11 years in the job and certainly you've seen some challenges with the budget process any other trends have you noticed that there's been more types of certain types of cases or crime or are the divorce cases getting more complicated and anything else that comes to mind well I think one of the trends that's definitely been noticeable in the last 11 years is that when I started there was still I think an expectation or a preference that when a couple was getting divorced the wife would end up with primary placement of the children and that's definitely changed as time has gone on I think it's much more common now for me to see shared placement situations or to order shared placement situations so that's one trend that's definitely I've noticed a definite change in one thing that I noticed when I first started which hasn't changed is the number of domestic violence cases we see I was surprised doing criminal intake every day that every day we have people charged with domestic violence cases every day I can't think of a day ever where we haven't had at least one case and usually more than one and in a smaller community like this that was a surprise to me but it's something that's certainly prevalent and just in the last few years alone the amount of violent crime in sheboygan has really increased and heroin use of course is heroin use right when I started it was mostly crack or cocaine and then we had a meth epidemic for a short time and heroin kind of came about as a convergence of two things I think when the economy got worse small amounts of heroin are are pretty affordable on the street the problem is it's very addictive and very quickly it it balloons up into a very expensive habit and prescription pain killer use was a lot more widespread and not as tightly regulated and once it became regulated people who'd been addicted to painkillers turned to heroin so it's it's it's a huge problem not just here but but everywhere in the country and it's very uh it's a very addictive drug of the drugs uh that are available on the street I think it's definitely the most dangerous I'm not sure people are aware of how many overdose deaths we've had in sheboygan county or near deaths it's a it's a big problem yeah it is a big problem and I'm glad our our sheriff's department and the city police department I know they've been stepping up to try to be more vigilant and raising awareness to it yeah it shakes your world up when you hear about just how bad it is how addictive it is and how it just ruins lives right right and I think law enforcement's been doing a tremendous job battling the the problem every year's part of the annual budget development process of course I meet with all the department heads including you to go over the proposed budget and we talk about the programs and services and and one of the programs you've talked about in the past is remember the children and I know this is an area you talked earlier and I can see the passion from you about how much you care about families and children what is the remember the children program well state law allows counties to require any parent going through a separation whether it's a marriage situation where people are getting divorced or a paternity case or where the parents have never been married to require parents getting a separation to to take a class about the effects of the separation on the family and that's really the only under the statute that's really the only thing that's required is to educate parents about the effect in sheboygan county the class remember the children is the class that that we do and that was started by former commissioner Burke who's now circuit court judge Burke and he developed the class with the help of dr susan hind and patty brinkman who both have a counseling background and they relied on their counseling background to come up with a class that not only talks about the effects of divorce on children but how to minimize those effects how to communicate effectively with each other even though you're you're separating i think people tend not to realize you're going to continue to parent together for the rest of your lives and you need tools to be able to communicate effectively and they're also trained in child development and the types of schedules that might be appropriate for a child given their age and development and they provide education about that as well and they really give people the tools they need to to survive a divorce and and to thrive after divorce so as part of the the process of going through the divorce is it a requirement that each spouse takes this program it is yes it is and how extensive is it the program yeah it's a single three hour class they cover a lot in three hours okay and you say there's counselors there that help teach and go through this and i imagine are there to provide suggestions and support right they do and in fact the two people who are responsible for developing the class have continued to teach it they are very committed to it themselves and so they have taught it ever since it was developed 20 years ago that's fantastic my my parents were divorced when i was in high school and i'm the oldest of three siblings so i i think to my brother and my sister who's nine years younger and i think any any of us who have been in a family where our parents have been divorced or we know folks are divorced it just really changes dynamics fortunately my parents were able to maintain a cordial relationship and i'd almost say they're friends today you know you don't see that very often but every christmas every holiday you know it just changes dynamics and i think when you're in the battle of going through a divorce it's probably easy not to be thinking about how profound of an impact that's going to have on your children especially young children i i was closer to high school age but i i think about my brother and sister to this day and of course as i said every holiday is different so i i appreciate that that's a program and and something that we offer to try to support people yeah every little bit helps yep well as you reflect on this we only have a few minutes remaining but as you reflect on your your tenure as court commissioner and all of the cases you've been a part of and all the people you've helped to me it takes a unique person to have not only the skills that you mentioned earlier that are that are helpful but just the demeanor i don't know if everyone is suited to deal with those types of challenges day in and day out embarrassing me i grew up in the midwest all this praise is too much well tell me about that a little bit i mean you have to you have to keep your emotions in check it's true you have to listen to all sides i how do you do that i mean what what are some of the characteristics of a good judge how do you do it um well i'll back up and tell you something my my son got in a little trouble earlier in the week because he forgot to turn in a homework assignment and he was very upset with himself about it and then he said why don't you yell at me all my friends parents yell at me why are you so nice to me and you know i reflected on that because i i was not raised with a family who went to have yelled at me i i got yelled at uh and i realized that's that's my job and it carries over to my my home life in that respect because um you know i think everybody's human everybody makes mistakes certainly families in crisis families going through divorce they don't need someone to yell at them they need someone to listen to them and and to help them through their crisis and so i think that um that anyone in that sort of position does need to be patient they do need to listen to what people are saying um and and those are probably two of the most important qualities yeah well said and what about you personally what's your personal passion for this type of work what is it about this line of work that interests you so and that you want to continue it i'd like to try and help people i you know i i hope that i do it's it's you know i'm in a unique position because i try to foster agreement wherever i can but where there is an agreement i have to make a decision and that means sometimes people walk out of the courtroom as winners and sometimes they walk out as losers one of the most rewarding things for me is people who've stopped me after the fact people who've recognized me as i'm shopping in the grocery store something like that and and say to me look you know i didn't uh i didn't agree with your decision when you made it but but afterwards it worked out for the best and and i you know that's certainly what i i try to do for people very good so as you think big picture about the the court system as a whole and and you look to the future what do you think are some of the the greatest challenges we face as a community and as a state with our court system well certainly one of the greatest challenges has always been figuring out how to stem the tide of of um reoffending behavior in criminal cases and uh broken homes and family cases so there tends to be a lot of you know if you grow up in a home where there's a lot of crime or a lot of violence certainly not everybody but a lot of those kids become offenders themselves and there's always questions about the best way to handle that and stop that because certainly you know the goal should be prevention rather than punishment after the fact and uh as the court system from the court system's perspective oftentimes we're coming in at the end of the case and we're dealing with in the criminal scenario anyway more with punishment um that's changing a little bit uh you know there for example judge Sakevich was responsible for developing our veterans court right which is a diversion court that we're using for people who are veterans who are um accused of crimes to try and keep them out of the criminal system um and and rehabilitate them and work with families for a positive result for everybody and um judge Burke is actually working now on the development of a a drug and alcohol court similar situation so people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol trying to get involved in treating that addiction to prevent future problems because there's all sorts of crime that arises out of addiction either because people aren't in the right mind when they're um high on drugs or alcohol or because to support their habit they're committing crimes like burglaries and robberies and thefts yeah yeah always room for improvement if anyone has a question or heard something that they'd like to have more information on or want to learn more about the roles and responsibilities of your office what do they contact how to how do people get more information well county has a website so there's some information on shabuigan county dot com the website each department has a link uh that has information about that department and contact information as well and then you have an assistant that works for you that i imagine fields calls and assists as well and that's on the website for contact information yes yeah very good well thank you so much for joining us today and i hope that in the last 30 minutes or so you got a snapshot and appreciation what i've been so fortunate to work with for the last 16 years i started in january of 1999 when did you start july of 98 live 98 she's just beat me a little bit but i've had the pleasure of working with rebecca for over 15 nearly 16 years now and she is what you see very professional very thoughtful and very effective and we've been so fortunate to have you be one of our department heads as well as court commissioner for the last 11 years thank you rebecca thank you next month we're going to have another person who is a department head and then a very important role when it comes to law enforcement and holding people accountable and problem solving and that's our sheriff sheriff toad preby toad has been our sheriff now for one full term and just was reelected i think without any competition i find him to be a breath of fresh air he's very positive outgoing making good things happen not only in his department but in the community and we'll be able to learn more about the roles and responsibilities of the sheriff's department so until then thank you for joining us have a wonderful christmas and new year and we'll see you in a month or so


Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Jerome Archulim and joining me today is London-based Ross Smith, associate of Vipo Digital. And Ross, welcome to JSA TV. Thanks so much for talking to me. You are basically the next generation. You've been in the industry for a very brief period of time, but a lot has happened since you joined. Let us be that way as well. It's not just jumping into something new, but you've witnessed tremendous change in our space in the last year. Before we get into that, tell us about you and your journey. Where'd you come from and how you got into the industry? Yeah, of course. I'm personally, thank you for having me, Joe. It's great to be joining you. So yeah, initially, so I'm from near Belfast in Northern Ireland. Not many people even know Northern Ireland exists. So to move over to London, it was quite a big step. So a bit in the back story, if I ended up here. My girlfriend had got a job in London after she had graduated university. So I didn't have much say in the matter. It was up to me to find a job and move over whenever she was moving. So I was looking around, not really finding anything that was that interesting to me. My background is electrical and electronic engineering. And I worked in software, firmware development for a tech company in Belfast. So to me, I was like, I don't really know if I want to sit and code for the rest of my life. I don't know if that's where I see myself. So yeah, I saw the ad for Veeba come up. It seemed a bit more social, a bit more access to different avenues and expanding my skillset. So I threw my hat in the ring. And yeah, a couple of months later, I had moved to London and I was headfirst in the data center industry. Well, and I guess it's gone positively. It's been a good experience. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I wouldn't stop here if it wasn't, that's for sure. Well, it's good to know. Well, good point. It's good to know that the new industry is still coming into it by chance. Because I guess I'll probably say 99.9999% of the people have just landed in the sector. The people they didn't even know existed beforehand. Yeah, absolutely. I've never really heard of people working in the data center industry before. I also knew what they were through my degree. But yeah, it was a shock that when I ended up here myself. Yeah, I had no idea what it was when I started. I can tell you that. I think even then, the sum of the cloud was, I thought it was an actual cloud. That's what people did. But I mean, like I said in the introduction as well, you've witnessed tremendous change. You've noticed it's been a short space of time. The change has been tremendous in the months that you've worked in the sector. What's been the biggest shock or surprise to you coming into it with a fresh perspective? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think for me, just the unprecedented growth that has been seen in the industry, whenever I first joined, it was post, just literally post pandemic of COVID. So thank you. But you joined last month? What year? Right, September. So I think whenever I was in Northern Ireland, we were still in lockdowns over that summer. September 2020. Yeah, 2020. OK, oh yeah, right bang on in the middle. Or was it 2021 actually? I think it was 21. Yeah, about a year ago, yeah. About a year ago, so. So much has happened. It looks like it's been two years. I know, literally feels like two years. But yeah, just the unprecedented growth that we've seen in the industry, even since I joined, because obviously there are still lingering of COVID about. So it was kind of expected that, you know, the industry is still going forward. But then there was talk of, you know, is this a bubble? When is it going to burst? You know, what are your opinions on this? We kept getting asked. And it was really hard to tell at that stage. And, you know, now we're seeing, you know, I don't think there's been any slew down at all in the growth of the industry at all. So yeah, I think that was probably the biggest shock. It's like, wow, this industry is just untouchable right now in terms of growth compared to literally everything else. Yeah, and luckily the bubble never came to be, at least not yet. So it doesn't, you probably know it better than I do. And I don't think there will be that much of a bubble, maybe a slowdown slightly in the next few months, but not so much of a bubble. Talk to you, but I want to talk about the market with you. But before we get there, I think it's fascinating to learn more about your day today, what you do on a day-to-day basis. Talk us through your day, because you were from home, but you also come to London, you're based on, you go out in London, so you have a lot of meetings. So tell us, walk us through your normal day. So yeah, I'll tell you a bit about VivaDigital, who VivaDigital are, and what I do in my day-to-day work. So we're a DC consultancy and advisory firm. So we help our operators and investors to navigate the data center industry. So most of our services are centered around data center strategy and transformation, investment advisory, power consultancy, which is a big one at the minute, and then project management and much, much more with our skill set that we have. So I myself work as part of the technical team. So in my day-to-day, depending on what projects that we're currently working on, I could be doing technical due diligence, PAR studies, connectivity studies. But the one great thing about VivaDigital and this industry as a whole is like, you're never pigeonholed in what you do. So I've also had the pleasure of leading a few projects, so which have nothing to do with technical stuff. So looking at business cases and more commercial sort of work. So being a technical advisor and other things like that. So yeah, my day can be pretty varied between the different roles which I find myself in. And yeah, we're mostly a work-from-home business, although we're looking at getting an office currently. So that's exciting with the growth that we're seeing within the company as well. So I think I was the sixth or seventh person to join VivaDigital. And we're not growing, we're fired to new, younger people than me even. So it's... You're starting to feel old. Yeah, I'm starting to feel pretty old. I think what you said is literally one of the greatest things about these sectors is there's so much happening. You don't have to, I mean, of course you have to focus on what you're doing, which is very important, but you can spread out into other areas and really diversify your role, your job, which makes it all more exciting because every day kind of is different. There's always something new happening. And it's great to hear about the company expansion. I think there's also a mirror of what's happening in the market. There's just so much demand, so much humbleness for more information, for more data, and due to the urgency. And I mean, we know a lot of deals that are going under the table at the moment. So I'm sure you guys are very, very busy. Picking up on all that that you do, so what would you say that's something which is really exciting right now about the market? What's your near-term kind of predictions of where things are going? So at VEPA, we're seeing a lot of traffic in the power consultancy line of work. As you know, there's quite a lot of power constraints, especially in Europe at the minute with the conflict that's been going on. So what that is creating is an inflation in terms of the cost of energy right now. So the access to the capacities which were once available in those 100 MVI plus regions are starting to come a bit more scarce. And you're probably seeing a lot from the hyperscalers in terms of their operational expenditure is just crazy. And I think it was Microsoft were quoting that their $800 million over on their energy costs, which is just ridiculous. So it'll be interesting to see how companies and governments react to the current power market and energy market in general to see how we combat this issue. Maybe near-term we could see a bit of slow in growth, especially from the larger operators like the MetaGoogle, Amazon's, AWS's of the world. But then, yes, so looking beyond that, I think we'll continue to see the growth that we have been seeing in the EU markets, the flat D sort of markets. And then, yeah, what we've also been seeing is a lot more interest in tier two markets. So you're Switzerland, Italy, Nordics, and I think Spain is the best example. The amount of hyperscale activity in Spain and operators trying to get into the Spanish market, especially Madrid, Barcelona, with their abundance of power and connectivity and land as well, big one. I think we'll continue to see that. So I think Spain could become a bit more of a powerhouse in Europe compared to maybe, you know, the Amsterdam's and Paris sort of regions. And then, yeah, of course, we couldn't talk about growth without talking about the Nordics and their ability to maintain their, you know, cheap to see the more energy. And yeah, I'm not going to ESG in this conversation because I feel like I was talking too much currently. I mean, if you feel free to talk about ESG, it's almost a whole new conversation that we can have around that. Spain, it is interesting indeed if they managed to sort out the power as well in the next five years. But I think what you said is kind of in line with what we are seeing and expecting over the next few months, a bit of a slowdown. And it's maybe a more of a readjustment of how things are done and how they're funded as opposed to the bubble bursting as we were talking at the beginning. If you have to choose one market, what's your favorite market they've been working with? Good question. I would find it hard not to say the London market purely because it's, you know... Okay, well, if you can't vote for your own country. Yeah. I think it's just, I like the feeling of, you know, seeing the impact that my work has on the market.  I think that just kind of makes me feel don't want to sound self-centered, but it makes me feel special when I can say, look at what I've done. This is nice. And they look at you. Yeah, it's a building. Yeah. It's not my building either. Yeah, like most people do. But one other thing about the London market as well, I love is the fact that despite the constraints on land and power availability in a lot of areas, there's just continued growth and interest in this region. I think London is expected to see like the greatest supply, new supply added, and the greatest demand seen in 2022 versus all other floppy markets. It's quite cool to see. Yeah, it's a very interesting point that you raise actually because we have talked about power struggles in the UK and especially London in this case, the land problem as well. And even just population is not really wanting data centers, but then we still see huge projects being announced in and out of the M25, so it's loud especially. You have these 600 megawatt projects coming to light in the last few weeks as well. It is very interesting. It's still the second or the third largest data center market in the world. And it's a global capital. It's an alpha city. So it's going to be very hard for it to come down as some doom and gloom predicts sometimes. But I was going to ask you, how can people reach out to you and find out more about VEPA? If I mean if anyone needs to do a deligency, how did they get that? Yeah, so obviously connect with me on LinkedIn, Ross Smith, Smith with a Y, which always catches people out. And then yeah, just to plug VEPA digital. So on LinkedIn, VEPA digital with a space in between and our website is VEPAdigital.com. OK, and Ross, if you had to describe your first month in the sector, what word would you use? In one word, sorry. Hectic. I think that's a very good word. There's me or what's happening. Ross Smith, associate of VEPA digital. Thank you so much for talking to me and thank you to our viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA Podcast. And don't forget to check our social channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking.


We're here at Wicked 2012 in Dubai in the UAE and I'm very pleased to be joined by Paul Bouda who is independent telecommunications analyst for Boudicom. Paul, thank you very much indeed for being with us today. Thank you for inviting me, Max. We're now well and truly into the conference. What in your opinion are presenting themselves as the core issues here? I think what we've seen is that there's quite a conciliatory approach towards the whole issue and people are understanding and splitting the issues that have to do with this conference and other issues that are around as well. So that's really good to see. So now we can concentrate on the real issues. And one of the biggest issues of course is that we need to connect the whole world towards telecommunications internet broadband. So the key issue is how are we going to do that? And that is a real problematic issue because on one side the old way of doing telecommunications is just start adding fees on top of things and then that generates a fund or whatever people can do with that. That's no longer the world that we are living in. Telecommunications has become an infrastructure element and on top of that are the services. So how are we going to manage that? What are the sort of charging mechanisms in that sort of a situation of how you're going to create the funds, the investments to make this happen for the whole world? So are the charging mechanisms the key to the success of work? Yeah, the charging mechanisms as such are the key but not in the old way. The old way, as I mentioned, is just using it as a sort of a text. The reality nowadays is that the benefits of telecommunications are on top of the network. It are the social and economic benefits, health care, education, the digital economy, business, new jobs, the green economy, all of that is part of it. That's what countries should concentrate on. So if you have the best possible infrastructure then you actually start attracting these services. You obviously also started attracting investments but you should shift the policies and the regulations from infrastructure to services and policies directed towards the social and economic benefits of the telecommunications infrastructure. So it looks like one of the core issues is the structure of the industry. That's absolutely the core issue because the core issue of the structure of the industry is that it's a vertically integrated business. On one side it's infrastructure and services. And what you need to do is have business models that are separate. They're separate business models for the infrastructure and investment models and separate models for the services, the retail sort of elements to it. If you actually start looking at the infrastructure model as national infrastructure and you agree that the benefits are social and economic, then you actually start looking at this needs to be a combined effort of the government and the industry in how to create the best possible infrastructure. This is of national interest. It is not a telecommunications infrastructure. It has to be treated as a utility. Once you start doing that, you start attracting investments. You see that already happening in Europe where the construction companies call them like that in the telecommunications are attracting investments that are enabling fiber to the home networks, broadband networks to be established all over the world. So the key issue is for government starting to understand that this is not about taxing the infrastructure but building new business opportunities on top of the infrastructure. And finally, I'd like to ask you, how can Wicked bridge the gap between the connected and the unconnected, do you think? I think if you look at the ITRs, the International Telecommunications Regulations, they have served us very well. You know, that's why we have the infrastructure that we have it now. So I don't think changing them massively is going to help. Fine-tuning them, yes. And then actually start looking at how can the ITRs help the other countries that are not yet connected or people that are not yet connected. It's not just developing world. It is within companies, regional areas, etc. How can you actually start creating accessibility and interoperability towards the rest of the world? Help the rest of the world understanding the social and economic benefits. The United Nations Broadband Commission is doing things like that. That are the sort of things how we can assist the other part of the world that's not yet connected to create the right environment for investments to help. So I think the ITRs, SDR, are a good starting point. They don't need to be changed and they can be used to create that broader environment that we all need to get the whole connected world. Paul Witte, thank you very much indeed for being with us today. My pleasure, Max.