EDITORIAL: No need to drone on about drones

Every community wants to be known as being on the cutting edge of something, leading the way in medicine, technology or one of its many sectors. So it's no wonder why the thought of making Macon the regional hub of unmanned flight would be attractive in certain circles, particularly if being that hub brought other benefits, such as jobs. While we don't know, that is one way the conversation may have begun about drones between Olaeris and Macon-Bibb County. How the conversation morphed into a $5.7 million project is another conversation.

These drones produced by Olaeris are not a kiddie toy but highly sophisticated aircraft according to the Olaeris website, but there are several questions company officials would need to answer before the county would hand over $96,000 a month for five years. The first question that can be asked without outside personnel in the room: Could that kind of money be better spent on personnel? As effective as drones are for surveillance, they can't make arrests. Deputies still have to be dispatched to the scene. In the case of emergencies, rescue personnel still have to pull people to safety. You can hire and equip a number of deputies and emergency personnel if you've got an extra $1.1 million annually lying around.

Olaeris also has to do a better sales job, not only with the commission but the community. Taxpayers look at the cost and think commissioners have lost their ever-loving minds to even consider such a proposal. And, as we enter an election cycle there is little to no appetite by commissioners to bite off anything that would raise public ire.

Mayor Robert Reichert said of the proposal that "(Olaeris) would have to design and build the drones and would have to deploy it in our area, demonstrate it worked and would be capable of what they said it would do before we had any obligation to buy it." That says to us that for all the animation, the drones do not yet exist.

Nice idea, sure. Cutting edge, if it works, no doubt. Maybe Olaeris should come back when they have a working model. There's a difference between cutting edge and a fool and his money. Besides, drones have been around for a while now; we can afford to let someone else fund the research and development.

This story was originally published November 28, 2015 at 9:12 PM with the headline "EDITORIAL: No need to drone on about drones ."