I am Looking for some Guidance on setting up alerts

I am not getting alerts to my email which is a google apps account

Current config
// Set up a default alerter (email to a single address)
$config['alerts']['alerter']['default']['descr']   = "Default Email Alert";
$config['alerts']['alerter']['default']['type']    = "email";
$config['alerts']['alerter']['default']['contact'] = "jd@remote.com";
$config['alerts']['alerter']['default']['enable']  = TRUE;

$config['alerts']['email']['default'] = "jd@remote.com<mailto:jd@remote.com>";
$config['email_from'] = "Observium <alerts@local.com<mailto:alerts@local.com>>";
$config['email_backend'] = "smtp";
$config['email_backend'] = "sendmail";
$config['email_smtp_host'] = 'localhost';
$config['email_smtp_port'] = 25;
$config['alerts']['email']['enable'] = TRUE;
$config['alerts']['port']['ifdown'] = TRUE;
// Port Bandwith
$config['alerts']['port_util_alert'] = TRUE;
$config['alerts']['port_util_perc'] = 85;
--
JD