Category Archives: Law

From 15 to 19 months late: Plant Vogtle nukes

Surprise! The already-billing but not-built new nukes at Plant Vogtle are going to be even later and cost even more. In December they were to be 15 months late; now it’s 19 months late, and the cost overrun expected is $740 million. History is repeating itself from the last time Southern Company and Georgia Power built nukes on the Savannah River. How about we pass HB 267 to stop Georgia Power from charging that cost overrun to customers?

Kristi Swartz wrote for the AJC yesterday, Vogtle nuclear project to take longer, cost more,

Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project will take about 19 months longer to complete than originally expected and cost about $740 million more than originally thought, the company said Thursday.

Joseph A. “Buzz” Miller, Executive Vice President – Nuclear Development Southern Nuclear Operating Company Georgia Power said its share of the estimated $14 billion project will rise to $6.85 billion, up from $6.11 billion, because of increased capital costs and additional financing costs. Customers, who have been paying the financing costs since 2011, now will pay them for a longer period of time.

And the amount Georgia Power customers have to pay for Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) keeps ratchetting up:

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Internet and Energy at the Bird Supper

Dear Bird Supper attendees,

Two things could greatly help south Georgia: better Internet access and solar power. You could help stop two telecommunications bills and help pass two energy bills for jobs and education in south Georgia.

Internet Access: help stop two telecommunications bills

The local Industrial Authority, Chamber of Commerce, Valdosta City Council, and Lowndes County Commission have recently realized that fast Internet access is essential to attract businesses, for their employees to work at home, for applicants to apply for jobs, for students to submit assignments, and for general quality of life.

  • HB 282 against muni broadband
    This bill would prohibit local governments from providing Internet access if any local census block has 1.5Mbps access. Localities may or may not want to do it themselves, but they shouldn't be prohibited from using this option now that it is obvious to everyone that the commercial incumbents are not doing the job. Legislators please vote this bill down.
  • HB 176 for higher cell towers with less local government oversight
    This really bad bill would let cell telephone companies build towers wherever they want to at any height, taking away local government power to regulate that. It could even let private companies exercise eminent domain. Legislators please vote this bill down.

Energy: help pass two energy bills

Solar power can be a distributed source of jobs in south Georgia. Antique laws and a subsidized nuclear boondoggle are hobbling solar power.
  • GA SB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act
    Senator Buddy Carter has introduced a Senate bill for the current session of the legislature, SB 51, "The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act of 2001". It attempts to fix Georgia's special solar financing problem, the antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act, which says you can only sell power you generate to your one and only pre-determined electric utility, at whatever rate that utility sets.
  • HB 267 Financing costs; construction of nuclear generating plant
    Stop Georgia Power from charging customers for cost overruns for Plant Vogtle, already 15 months behind schedule and a billion dollars overbudget for power that nobody has received, yet Georgia Power has already billed customers about $1.7 billion. Bipartisan cosponsors are Jeff Chapman (R—Brunswick) District 167 and Karla Drenner (D—Avondale Estates) District 85. This boondoggle on the Savannah River is what Georgia Power and Southern Company are doing instead of deploying solar inland and wind off the coast.

-jsq

Make sure people in my age group know who they’re voting for —Brett Huntley @ LCC 2013-02-26

Brett Huntley responded to the Commission's mysterious ruling against the public at the 26 Febuary 2013 Lowndes County Commission meeting, to close the only public access to the Alapaha River in Lowndes County. Neither County Manager Joe Pritchard nor County Engineer Mike Fletcher were paying any attention.

I would like to publicly say that I am shocked with the decision. I feel the decision was in favor of a sole person, and not in the interests of the community and the citizens. We tried to speak and explain our side of the story. And the county road has not ceased to be used. It's been being used in our county for over 100 years. I feel your guys just made a decision that will have an impact on our culture and heritage in the community that is not good. It's a bad decision, I feel.

I kind of feel hurt. I feel it's a personal thing for our community. That whole road abandonment idea stems from one sole person

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Really, really, shocking and surprising that this road would be closed as much public purpose that it serves —April Huntley @ LCC 2013-02-26

April Huntley responded in shock to the Commission’s mysterious ruling against the public at the 26 Febuary 2013 Lowndes County Commission meeting, to close the only public access to the Alapaha River in Lowndes County. The County Attorney and the County Manager appeared to be busy working on something else and paying no attention.

I don’t know there’s a whole lot more to say. Really, really, shocking and surprising that this road would be closed as much public purpose that it serves.

[long pause]

I’ve done so much research on it and it’s in the best interests of the public to have this access that’s been there for over 100 years.

The 2030 plan that the county has, this would cause less destruction

to that area; less change. There’s already a road there. It only needs parking, and signs, and rules and regulations that people can abide by. And the county, after the last time when it was denied, should have worked with the landowner to mediate things, to get a decent set in place where this could kept for hundreds more years for our county.

And I hope there will be a way to open it back up.

Here’s the video:

Really, really, shocking and surprising that this road would be closed as much public purpose that it serves —April Huntley
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 February 2013.

-jsq

Videos: Commission voted against the people @ LCC 2013-02-26

Apparently one person with a lawyer can persuade the Lowndes County Commission that hundreds of people are just an unruly mass, not the public it’s supposed to represent. For whatever reason, not clear to the public, the Commission voted 3 to 1 with 1 absent to close the end of Old State Road to Hotchkiss Crossing, thus barring the only public access to the Alapaha River in Lowndes County. We shall see whether they will follow through with their hint that they might make a park on the Alapaha River at another location. Congratulations to Commissioner Demarcus Marshall for speaking up for due process and for voting for the public!

Public Works Director Robin English spoke about road conditions and Emergency Services Director Ashley Tye spoke about Local weather conditions,

Update noon 27 Feb 2013: Link to weather conditions, and to Citizens Wishing to Be Heard.

The Commission reappointed J. Glenn Gregory to the South Regional Joint Development Authority and appointed Commissioner Joyce Evans to the Southern Georgia Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council. They are applying for a grant for the county’s MIDS bus system and reapplying for a CDBG grant for Second Harvest.

Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and some notes, followed by a video playlist. See also the videos of Monday morning’s Work Session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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Video: two appointments, a public hearing, and two grants @ LCC 2013-02-25

Newsflash! “no new information” and “questions were resolved” about the proposed abandonment of Old State Road at Hotchkiss Landing on the Alapaha River, according to the Commission. They vote tonight at 5:30 PM.

Dr. Bill Grow talked for fifteen minutes about South Health District, and managed not to ask the county for money, although the Health Dept. clearly could use some. Ashley Tye reported on local weather conditions and the county’s Code Red emergency warning system, in which lack of Internet access by some county residents came up.

It’s J. Glenn Gregory again for the South Regional Joint Development Authority and Commissioner Joyce Evans for the Southern Georgia Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council. They are applying for a grant for the county’s MIDS bus system and reapplying for a CDBG grant for Second Harvest.

Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and some notes, followed by a video playlist.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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Agenda: two appointments, a public hearing, and two grants @ LCC 2013-02-25

The county’s website, down earlier today, is back up, so we can see there is a Work Session this morning, with voting at the Regular Session tomorrow evening at 5:30 PM. The proposed abandonment of Old State Road at Hotchkiss Landing on the Alapaha River, tabled two weeks ago, is on the agenda, although the Georgia Supreme Court makes me wonder why. One of the two appointments is to the South Regional Joint Development Authority which Andrea Schruijer mentioned at the most recent VLCIA board meeting. Another is to the Southern Georgia Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council. I’m guessing one person to each agency; the agenda doesn’t say how many nor who the candidates are. Here’s the agenda. -jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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County can’t “lawfully vacate a public street or highway for the benefit of a private individual” —Georgia Supreme Court

While I don’t know if the proposed closing of the end of Old State Road leading to Hotchkiss Landing at the Alapaha River is even on the agenda for this morning’s Work Session (Clarification: Monday 25 Feb 2013; they vote 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 Feb 2013), because the county’s website is down and I can’t retrieve an agenda, in case it is, it may be of interest to know that the Georgia Supreme Court appears to have explicitly forbidden what the county is proposing to do.

Georgia Supreme Court, GRIFFITH v. C & E BUILDERS, 231 Ga. 255 (1973), 200 S.E.2d 874:

Held:

1. “When a grantor sells lots of land, and in his deeds describes them as bounded by streets, not expressly mentioned in the deeds, but shown upon a plat therein referred to as laid out in a subdivision of the grantor’s land, he is estopped to deny the grantees’ right to use the streets delineated in such plat. Ford v. Harris [95 Ga. 97, 22 SE 144]; Schreck v. Blun, 131 Ga. 489 (62 SE 705); Wimpey v. Smart, 137 Ga. 325 (73 SE 586); Gibson v. Gross, 143 Ga. 104 (84 SE 373). By parity of reasoning those claiming under such conveyances are estopped from denying the existence of the streets so delineated upon the plat of the subdivision and given as boundaries of lots acquired by these and others from the grantor or those claiming under him. All persons claiming under such grantor are forever estopped to deny their existence. 19 CJ 928, § 127 (b).” Tietjen v. Meldrim, 169 Ga. 678, 697 (151 SE 349); Davis v. City of Valdosta,223 Ga. 523 (156 S.E.2d 345).

I am not a lawyer, but I wonder what a lawyer would say 1. above implies about the county doing nothing about a blocked public road?

But the Georgia Supreme Court didn’t stop there:

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Carbon tax soon in China

If China can tax CO2, so can the U.S.

Hou Qiang wrote for Xinhua 19 February 2013, China to introduce carbon tax: official

China will proactively introduce a set of new taxation policies designed to preserve the environment, including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

The government will collect the environmental protection tax instead of pollutant discharge fees, as well as levy a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, Jia Chen, head of the ministry’s tax policy division, wrote in an article published on the MOF’s website.

-jsq

Georgia Recreational Use Statute

Suppose you owned land next to a river. You might have concerns about liability for people getting out of canoes or kayaks onto your land. But you’re in luck! Georgia state law says you’re not liable for most things that could happen.

The Georgia Recreational Use Statute is in O.C.G.A. §51-3-20 through §51-3-26. Here are a few excerpts.

§51-3-20. Purpose of article

The purpose of this article is to encourage owners of land to make land and water areas available to the public for recreational purposes by limiting the owners’ liability toward persons entering thereon for recreational purposes.

Does that include boating?

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