Here's
a video playlist
of the Candidate Forum last night organized by the 30 Club at Serenity Church.
Probably more commentary later; for now, in the interests of speed, just the raw videos.
Candidates Forum, 30 Club,
J.D. Rice, President
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 October 2012.
-jsq
Some of an animal shelter
story coming out in Chatham County sounds familiar.
Mary Landers wrote for SavannahNow 20 October 2012,
Savannah Chatham Animal Control Shelter cited for violating state rules:
Local professionals call shelter’s care “inhumane”
The county-funded Savannah Chatham Animal Control Shelter was found
to have repeatedly violated animal protection requirements in two
state inspections last month, and its practices are being criticized
as inhumane by four local animal professionals.
One professional criticized the shelter not only in writing,
but also by revoking the shelter’s permission to use her
veterinary license.
The Chatham County Commission says it’s dealt with the problem. We’ll see.
-jsq
An excellent article about the problems with Georgia Power’s
new nukes on the Savannah River gets at something you may not know:
they can charge you for them even if they’re cancelled!
Steve Willis wrote for the Georgia Sierran Oct./Nov./Dec. 2012 page 5,
Overruns, Uncertainty Plague Vogtle Expansion,
If Southern Company abandons this
project, the CWIP law not only allows
Southern Company to keep all of the
CWIP payments legally extorted from
customers, but allows them to keep
CWIP fees in place or even increase them
until all their costs and profits have been
fully recovered. Due to the run-away
cost overruns, the CWIP charge on your
monthly bill is already more than three
times what Southern Company confidently
claimed it would be at this time
when they presented their case to “your”
Georgia legislature in 2009.
And that
2009 legislature
rubberstamped CWIP so it appears on your Georgia Power bill as
Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery Rider.
Willis reminds us that the 2 nukes already at Plant Vogtle were projected
to be four nukes for $600 million and ended up being two for $9 billion.
Everyone has heard the saying “Fool me once, shame on you;
fool me twice, shame on me.” If the Vogtle expansion costs
balloon, as many analysts expect, it will cost
Back in February,
Georgia Power argued that a free market in solar power would cause
price increases.
Yet they already increased prices for natural gas and
for nuclear plants that won’t produce electricity for years, if ever,
and are already massively overbudget and behind schedule.
Why should we believe them about solar when it’s their archaic projects
they already
are deploying that already have increased customer prices?
In February,
Greg Roberts of Georgia Power argued,
Another reason is that the customers of Georgia Power, Georgia’s
EMC’s and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia are paying for the
poles and wires to transmit power, and the back-up generation to
cover the electricity needs when the sun isn’t shining. These costs
will have to be recovered from other customers not getting the
privileged deal from the developer, raising everyone else’s rates.While there are already numerous federal and state tax and other
incentives for solar development in Georgia, it is still much more
costly than the service provided by utilities. But what if
third-party solar developers could get other electric customers in
Georgia to foot the bill? That would be the result of this
legislation.It’s like asking Sally’s Café to pay the electric bill of Joe’s
Cafe across the street, thus allowing Joe to undercut Sally’s
prices.
Georgia Power well knows they could take a percentage of any power
transmitted through their lines, so that wires and poles and
backup generation argument is ludicrous.
And as far as subsidies, how about this one,
Georgia Power, Get the Facts, Investing in Georgia’s Energy Future:
David A. Staples
running for the Georgia Public Service Commission for District 5,
talked about the ethical conflicts of the incumbents who take
almost all of their campaign contributions from people associated
with the utilities they regulate.
Then he mentioned that the new nuclear reactors Georgia Power
is building for Southern Company at Plant Vogtle
have
another $3.5 billion in cost overruns coming.
This is after
the PSC incumbents just rubberstamped the Vogtle budget in August,
and on top of the
$900 million in cost overruns we already knew about.
That $900 million was already more than 6% of the originally-projected $14 billion
total cost.
If it’s now $3.5 + $0.9 = $4.4 billion, that’s more than 31% over
the original total.
Maybe we should vote in some PSC members and legislators who will stop this nonsense.
Here’s
the video:
Here are videos of last night’s
Political Forum.
The goal of this post is speed, so there’s no fancy format,
just
a video playlist
in which you can find candidates by video title or thumbnail picture.
We will probably come back later and use some of these videos in other posts.
Political Forum moderated by Chris Beckham of NewsTalk 105.9 WVGA
The Home Builders Association of South Georgia (HBA), Franklin Bailey President,
Videos by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 October 2012.
-jsq
Several recent local elections have been decided by less than 100 votes.
Your vote counts.
Here’s when and where you can vote.
According to
a Word file buried three levels deep in the Board of Elections website,
and also according to
GA Secretary of state Elections Division:
| Early Voting: |
 Monday through Friday, October 15-26, 2012, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. 2808 N Oak St., Valdosta |
|---|---|
| Saturday Voting: |
October 27, 2012, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. 2808 N Oak St., Valdosta |
| Extended Hours: |
 Monday through Friday, October 29 – November 2, 2012, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. 2808 N Oak St., Valdosta |
| Vote by Mail: | Get the form from the Board of Elections |
| Election Day: |
 Tuesday, November 6, 2012 Go to your assigned precinct Find your precinct through My Voter Page by the Georgia Secretary of State. |
For a sample ballot,
A record 2,861 total votes were cast
in Lowndes County by Tuesday 16 October 2012.
Greg Gullberg
reported for WCTV yesterday,
Early Voting In Lowndes County Sets New Record,
Georgia state officials say the pace for early voting
is slower this year than for previous presidential elections,
but as Eyewitness News reporter Greg Gullberg shows us,
you’d never know it in Lowndes County….
Jessica’s not alone.
In fact, she was joined by a wave of voters of all ages
here in the first week of early voting here in Georgia.
Now they’ve actually
already set an all-time record
here in Lowndes County
for the most votes in the
first two days of a presidential election, with almost three thousand.
Deb Cox, Supervisor,
Lowndes County Board of Elections, and Gregg Gullberg of WCTV:
Candidates Forum, 7-9PM today 18 October 2012, at the
Rainwater Conference Center,
1 Meeting Place, Valdosta, GA,
organized by the
Home Builders Association of South Georgia
and
NewsTalk105.9 WVGA,
moderated by Chris Beckham.
This thing is astonishingly poorly advertised,
unless you happen to follow one of the organizing organizations.
It’s not in the VDT calendar,
it’s not on
the conference center’s calendar,
and people keep asking when and where is it.
Now you know.
Here are
videos (from three different cameras) of all the candidate presentations
of the
2 October 2012 Meet the Candidates event at VSU.
Tonight, if I understand correctly from there being a moderator, they debate.
Presumably all the same candidates will be there:
If tiny Denmark, farther north than Edmonton, Alberta, has already deployed
200 MW of solar capacity, why can't Georgia Power do it?
We know why:
Southern Company's three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool
is too profitable for SO and Georgia Power.
Molly Cotter wrote for Inhabitant 15 October 2012,
Denmark Hits 200 Megawatt Solar Capacity Goal 8 Years Ahead of Schedule,
Lets face it — its rare we see a government goal reached on
time, let alone early. Not too long ago, the Danish Government
announced an ambitious goal to reach 200 megawatts of solar capacity
by 2020, and as of last week, they have already met it! The country
is currently installing an average of 36 megawatts of solar panels
each month. At this rate, their resulting capacity by 2020 will be
over five times the original goal. Denmark's power is currently
20% supplied by renewable sources, and the nation has set a goal of
sourcing 100% of its energy from renewable sources by 2050.
So Denmark has already deployed four times as much solar capacity
as GA PSC required of Georgia Power,
and almost as much solar capacity as Georgia Power has just asked GA PSC to approve.
While deploying more per month than Southern Company's largest solar farms anywhere.
Maybe it's time to
elect Georgia Public Service Commissioners to represent you.
-jsq
