Category Archives: Elections

1.5MW solar field near Philadelphia

Far to the north of here, a botanical garden installed more than a megawatt of solar power a year ago. Maybe Georgia Power should ask them how it’s done.

PR of 16 June 2011, LONGWOOD GARDENS COMMISSIONS 10-ACRE SOLAR FIELD: Installation first step of goal to achieve 3 MW of solar energy by 2018

June 16, 2011, Kennett Square, PA — Longwood Gardens today commissioned a new, ground-mounted solar field spanning more than 10 acres at the horticultural showplace in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

One of the largest examples of clean emission-free energy in the region, the solar field produces 1.2 MW (megawatts) of power and will produce 1.5 MW when the final panels are installed in the coming weeks. The fixed-tilt, 1.5 MW solar installation will produce enough electricity to offset the usage of approximately 138 average Pennsylvania homes and reduce Longwood’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by 1,367 tons.

“We are always looking for ways to advance our sustainable practices,” said Paul Redman, Longwood Gardens Director. “It is integral to Longwood’s mission to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels.” We want to establish best practices and lead the way in showing communities how to live responsibly,” said Redman.

Imagine if Georgia Power and Southern Company acted responsibly and led the way in solar power!

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LAKE videoing George videoing Gretchen canvassing @ GretchenForLowndes.com 2012-08-25

Gretchen Quarterman canvassed on Summerlin Street in Valdosta Saturday:

The number one thing we need to do is to make the government accessible and transparent, so that the business of the people goes on in public.

Here’s a video playlist:

LAKE videoing George videoing Gretchen canvassing on Summerlin Street in Valdosta,
Canvassing, Lowndes County Commission (GretchenForLowndes.com),
Videos by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
and by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 25 August 2012.

Gretchen mentioned she’d been going to County Commission meetings for about four years now, and thought it was her turn to serve. George asked why she was canvassing on the west side of Valdosta, and she answered:

The thing that is important for people to know is that every single citizen in the county gets to vote, Whether you live in Valdosta, Hahira, Lake Park, Dasher, Remerton, or the unincorporated areas. Every single person who lives in Lowndes County who is a registered voter gets to vote.

You have until October 8th to register to vote for the November 6th election. You can register at the Board of Elections at 2808 North Oak Street, or there are people going around with forms you can fill in and mail in or they will hand carry down there.

Participatory media! Doing what traditional media could do, George Boston Rhynes interviewed Gretchen Quarterman as she canvassed on Summerlin Street in Valdosta Saturday. Doing what traditional media can’t do, I videoed George videoing Gretchen, and he later videoed me helping Gretchen canvass.

-jsq

LOST Lawsuits Ahead?

Looks like history may repeat itself like last decade, now that LOST negotiations between the cities and the county have failed. Except this time apparently the law has changed so they can’t sue each other directly. Gretchen on LOST Instead next it goes to Superior Court “baseball arbitration”. However, I bet that still involves lawyers at taxpayer expense, not to mention the Court’s time.

Greg Gullberg reported for WCTV yesterday, Tax Negotiations Hit Another Dead End In Lowndes County, and asked Gretchen down at the County Extension, who said,

It’s sort of sad because it is a waste, if you will, of taxpayer dollars. That the elected officials can’t get together and come to some agreement to say that they all understand how the money has to be divided up Yeah, it’s sad that more money has to go to lawyers insted of being spent on services.

I continue to think the local governments could spend their time together better trying to increase the size of the pie instead of squabbling over slices of it.

-jsq

Distributing information to citizens —George Boston Rhynes

Received yesterday on Valdosta LMIG resurfacing and transparency. -jsq

Thanks you so much for keeping us informed and it is still a disgrace that our elected officials cannot publish their meetings to all citizens. When will our Mayor; Council and County Commissioners start informing all the citizens and not just a select few of conservatives?

When will it all end? The time has come for change to take place in Valdosta for the good of all citizens and visitors. We need and should demand television, radio, internet and other means of distributing information to citizens.

How sad in 2012?

George included a video of his thoughts on elections hereabouts and elsewhere: Words from our YOUTHS….and where are you? Indeed George Rhynes is out there reporting the truth as he sees it, this time along with two VSU students.

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WSJ misunderstands why T-SPLOST was defeated

Inaccurate labelling is the reason T-SPLOST was defeated, along with Atlanta is not all of Georgia, but the Wall Street Journal doesn’t understand that.

Cameron McWhirter wrote for the Wall Street Journal 1 August 2012, Tea Party Ties Up Tax to Ease Atlanta Traffic

ATLANTA—Money and heavyweight endorsements don’t secure an election — especially when you propose higher taxes in a deeply conservative state with a robust tea-party movement.

A plan for a transportation sales tax was endorsed by Georgia’s Republican governor and the Democratic mayor of the state’s largest city. It was backed by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the area’s top businesses. It was pushed by top political consultants funded by more than $8 million in corporate and other donations.

Those against the plan were a loose coalition of tea-party activists, some environmentalists and a local branch of the NAACP. Their total raised? About $15,000.

But David slew Goliath.

That’s lazy reporting. Those “some environmentalists” included the Georgia Sierra Club, an organization which reportedly has more members than the state Democratic Party. And that’s just in Atlanta.

Opponents in our region included Democrat Ashley Paulk, who was on the T-SPLOST executive committee and is the current Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission, Democrat Gretchen Quarterman, who is the Chairman of the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP) and is running for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission, as well as Nolen Cox, Chairman of the Lowndes County Republican Party (LCRP), and Roy Taylor, LRCP First Vice Chair and well-known Tea Party activist, along with a wide range of other opponents.

Look at the difference between that Region 11 T-SPLOST vote map and this map of the Atlanta Metro T-SPLOST vote. Atlanta metro is clearly centered around Atlanta. Region 11 isn’t an economic region: the vote was split right down the middle between No on the east and west and Yes in between.

Region 11 throws together three population centers: Lowndes, Tift, and Ware Counties, with their largest cities Valdosta, Tifton, and Waycross. Lowndes and Tift are at least connected by I-75, and they and most of the ones around them voted against (Ben Hill, Turner, Berrien, Cook, Lanier, Echols, and Brooks). Ware County and all the counties east of it (Pierce, Brantley, and Charlton) voted against. In between there’s a complete barrier of counties that voted for T-SPLOST (Irwin, Coffee, Bacon, Atkinson, and Clinch). Those No counties completely separate the eastern Ware County group from the western Lowndes-Tift group.

The perception around here is that T-SPLOST was made up to affect metro Atlanta, and the rest of the regions were Continue reading →

PSC rubberstamps Vogtle costs; next day Fitch affirms Southern Company ratings

Need any more proof that Southern Company’s nuclear boondoggle only works with Georgia Power customer and taxpayer subsidy? PSC rubberstamps one day and Fitch affirms ratings the next day. Maybe we should elect Public Service Commissioners who will serve the public.

Georgia Power PR 21 August 2012, Georgia PSC approves Vogtle construction costs

The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) today in a 5-0 vote approved Georgia Power’s spending on Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4 for the period including July 1, 2011 through Dec. 31, 2011.

The next day, Fitch PR 23 August 2012, Fitch Affirms Ratings for Southern Company and Subsidiaries,

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Runoff still undecided, Republican Primary, Lowndes County Commission District 5, 21 August 2012

Hall and Page examining precinct results With all precincts reporting in the Republican Primary Runoff for Lowndes County Commission District 5 (West half of the county), the numbers are:

Jody T. Hall 48.06% 855
John P. Page 51.94% 924
Total votes 1,779

So how is the election not decided yet? Provisional ballots, which won’t be completely sorted out until Friday. Those are for people who may have been in the wrong district or there was some other irregularity that must be deciphered. It’s unlikely there are enough of those to swing this election, but it’s possible. I congratulated both candidates.

There is no Democratic candidate, so less than 2,000 people are deciding who will be the County Commissioner representing about 55,000 people.

More pictures below.

Go to your precinct. Trinity Presbyterian polling place

Greg Gullberg of WCTV interviewing TP official signs

Back at the Board of Elections.

Jody Hall truck John Page truck

Deb Cox is Lowndes County Supervisor of Elections.

Hall, Deb Cox, Page

Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 21 August 2012.

One of those last two people, as County Commission Chair, will have to organize the Commission including whoever wins this race. I got them to grin by saying “Ashley Paulk.”

-jsq

 

ALEC, private prisons, fossil fuels, and charter schools

It’s good to see someone trying a coordinated strategy for something good in multiple states, as Our Children’s Trust is doing for air as a public trust. We already knew going to multiple states at once works, because ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange, gets reactionary results that way.

How does ALEC do it? By

So once again, it’s refreshing to see somebody successfully try multiple states for something worthwhile!

The above ALEC projects are just some I’ve run across while researching local topics. It often seems as if every rock I turn over has the ALEC millipede scurrying around under it. Far more about ALEC is available through ALEC Exposed.

ALEC Exposed has a list of companies that have dumped ALEC recently. Georgia Power’s parent The Southern Company and UPS are still not on that list. You can help. Let them know you want them to dump ALEC!

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There are no private schools in Finland: the opposite of Atlanta-imposed charter schools

Privatizing isn’t the answer, rote tests are irrelevant, and competition doesn’t help win. Those are a few of the lessons Finland learned that made its schools world leaders in education. So why would we consider letting Atlanta force privatized charter schools on us?

Anu Partanen wrote for the Atlantic 29 December 2011, What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success

“Oh,” he mentioned at one point, “and there are no private schools in Finland.”

Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education’s Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland, said that offhand while talking at a private school in New York. Nobody seemed to pay much attention. Maybe we should.

He also noted Finland has no standardized tests until the equivalent of high school graduation, and they don’t have any particular system for accountability for teachers or administrators.

“Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.”

So why do teachers and administrators in Finland so successfully take that responsibility?

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New research shows Natural Gas far more dangerous for climate stability —Seth Gunning

Received yesterday on U.S. CO2 emissions lowest in 20 years: that's good and bad: natural gas is methane, after all. -jsq

Yet another comprehensive article. I might also add that one of the major down-falls (if not the most significant) of large-scale conversions to natural gas is the resources lifecycle methane emissions.

As your readers likely know, Methane is about twenty times as 'potent' a greenhouse gas as Carbon Dioxide. That is to say, it is far more efficient at trapping heat then Co2. So, less methane has a far greater impact on climate disruption then more Co2.

Natural Gas, from the point of combustion, releases about half the amount of Co2 released from burning coal, and about 30% of what's released in burning oil. To keep the benefits of reduced Co2 levels when switching from coal to natural gas, natural gas wells and transport lines must leak less then 2% of methane into the atmosphere. Recent research from Cornell is showing that Fracking wells are regularly releasing more then 4%, and often as much as 8% —far exceeding the 2% threshold— and thus making Natural Gas a far more dangerous resource for climate stability.

Tom Zeller Jr. wrote for the NYTimes 11 April 2011, Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Problems

-Seth Gunning

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