
Brad Lofton’s cell phone records August 2010 – January 2011

Dear Sir,Continue readingThe County Commission has recently passed a resolution that will prohibit discussion of issues the commissioners consider closed by citizens in the “citizens will be heard” section of the Commission meetings. While apparently reasonable on its face, the restriction is designed specifically to prevent any more discussion of the Biomass plant. Commissioners have been quoted in the paper as saying they just don’t want to hear anymore about it. A law designed to prevent a citizen from discussing a particular subject is prior restraint. I taught Constitutional law at VSU for 28 years and I think this resolution is unconstitutional for that reason. One cannot separate the intent from the prohibition.
I can also argue that the restriction itself is unreasonable because
This is the problem:
“What I believe the three most important things are, not only for our community, and our state, and our country, but for our country, thats jobs number 1, jobs number 2, and jobs.”
I shook Brad Lofton’s hand after that speech and told him I liked it, because I did: in general it was a positive speech about real accomplishments. I’ve also pointed out I had a few nits with that speech. This one is more than a nit. This one is basic philosophy and policy.
Now one would expect an executive director of an industrial authority to be all about jobs. And that would be OK, if Continue reading
Accumulating evidence indicates that an increase in particulate air pollution is associated with an increase in heart attacks and deaths. Research has begun in the relatively new field of environmental cardiology — a field that examines the relationship between air pollution and heart disease.This link owed to Laura Wiggins Norris and NO COAL PLANT IN BEN HILL COUNTY!
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Many “clean wood chips” burning biomass plants can easily turn to burning more contaminated fuels (which may be cheaper or even free), or get paid to take really dirty wastes like trash or tires. Public opposition to biomass facilities has driven siting that follows the “path of least resistance,” which often translates to states where environmental regulations are lax and companies are given huge tax incentives to build these kinds of incinerators, and investors count on the local residents being uninformed and apathetic. Environmental justice siting concerns often get buried in the excitement and notion of “green energy.”There’s more, including a writeup about the local proposed incinerator, starting:Zoning laws are often legal weapons deployed in facilitating energy apartheid.
Residents in Valdosta, Georgia are fighting to block a 40 megawatt biomass incinerator slated for construction on a 22-acre site in their community. The community is already overburdened with polluting industries and heavy truck traffic.Read it and see.
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Update 10 Feb 2011: JPEG images of each page are also available now.
Here they are, as PDFs generated from scans of paper copies.
These documents were obtained by an open records request by a citizen who then gave copies to LAKE.
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a project we’ve been working on
What could that project be?
Right at the beginning Lofton said:
Ben Copeland beat me slap sillyMaybe that’s a clue. What did Ben Copeland say about Brad Lofton?
Brad Lofton was going to talk after me, and he’d talk about biomass. [laughter]Continue reading
Lofton was introduced by LPCoC chairman Dan Bremer who said that Lofton and VLCIA brought a plant to Lake Park with 400 workers.
In his speech, Lofton lauded the LPCoC as a great incubator of local businesses.
It’s going to come from all of you.He talked about expanding local industries, especially PCA at length, asking David Carmon of PCA to stand up, saying PCA made a $230 million expansion in 2010, and noting “We had to compete for the PCA project.” Continue reading
I’m just an older, working man that lives in our fair city of Valdosta. I have children and grandchildren that live, work and go to school in Lowndes County. After looking at the information available, and doing some research in my limited spare time, I’ve come to the conclusion that this proposed biomass facility that the Industrial Authority is trying to push through is a really bad idea. The pollution that will continuously pour from the plant will create cancers, heart and respiratory disease, as well as seriously aggravating chronic conditions such as asthma. Children are especially at risk, and there are two schools within a mile of the plant site, not to mention all the homes.As a cancer survivor
Continue reading
“One of the things that keeps some of these rivers going is the treated effluent that goes into them.It’s at the end of this video:Now Brad Lofton wants to use some of that up in a biomass plant. We have a problem there.”
Matthew Richard brought up a similar point in his LTE in the VDT of yesterday: Continue reading