Category Archives: Planning

Birmingham U.K. municipal solar didn’t wait for larger governments

Banks and power companies can fund municipal solar projects; cities and counties don’t have to wait for state or federal governments to provide them grants. Or at least Birmingham, U.K. has done it for public housing. And Quitman, Georgia did it last year, too.

According to Larry Elliott in the Guardian, 3 October 2010, 10,000 Birmingham council homes to get solar panels: City agrees £100m scheme, partly funded by banks and energy suppliers, to meet target for cutting carbon emissions

Plans to fit power generating solar panels to council-owned properties in Birmingham will be pushed forward this week after the council agreed a “green new deal” scheme covering 10,000 homes.

In the biggest proposal for retrofitting houses through an energy efficiency upgrade yet seen in the UK, the council agreed a £100m proposal last week designed to create jobs and meet the city’s ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions.

The plan – Birmingham Energy Savers – will be jointly funded by Birmingham council and investment from energy suppliers and commercial banks, and follows two successful pilot schemes conducted in Europe’s biggest local authority.

Energy efficiency and solar power to create jobs!

We have local proof of concept right next door Continue reading →

Valdosta budget hearing: no citizens spoke

Valdosta city officials advertised a budget hearing and no citizens spoke.

David Rodock wrote today in the VDT, Valdosta’s 2012 budget reviewed by citizens and public officials

City officials and staff gathered Wednesday night to discuss and review the fiscal year 2012 budget. Public participation was advertised, but no citizens presented any concern at the meeting. This is the first budget hearing, with the final adoption of the budget taking place at the upcoming regular City Council meeting on June 23 at 5:30 p.m.
No citizens. I don’t live in Valdosta, so I didn’t go. Apparently no Valdosta residents who have any economic concerns went, either.

That’s too bad, because among the items discussed was this:

  • Energy and fuel prices are a threat, since the private sector controls the costs. Public Works, the Valdosta Fire Department and the Valdosta Police Department use significant amounts of fuel.
And I bet the city spends significant funds air conditioning its buildings. Costs that could be offset by investment in solar panels for those same buildings. Solar panels that would limit ongoing electrical expenditures, and would also be a visible sign to residents and potential investors that Valdosta means renewable and sustainable energy business.
According to Hanson, for every dollar spent by residents, $1.17 is spent by non-residents.
And many of those non-residents would see those solar panels, which would spread the green reputation of Valdosta back to whereever they came from.

If Valdosta wants to be forward-looking, Continue reading →

“I’m obviously here on one issue.” —Karen Noll @ VLCIA 14 June 2011

Karen Noll asked the VLCIA board to put a no-biomass clause in any purchase agreement regarding the proposed biomass site.

She began with these words:

I’m Karen Noll. I hope some of you already have seen my writing and have read my letters to you in the past. I’m obviously here on one issue. I hope that in the future I can be talking to you about other issues. But right now I’m talking to you about biomass. And we celebrated that it was dead and it was gone and now it’s not. Because we really don’t know … what the plan is.
By “we” I’m guessing she meant WACE. Some of us who are not members of WACE warned that it ain’t over until it’s over, and it only took a week to discover that VLCIA already knew Sterling Planet wanted to buy the proposed biomass site.

Karen Noll made a pitch based partly on saving taxpayer money. In addressing health concerns, she handed the board a letter from local doctor Craig Bishop. She handed the board a petition with “at least 700 signatures” and she said for each signature there was probably at least one more that didn’t sign. Some of what she said appeared to be drawn from a letter that is appended in this post after the video.

Here’s Part 1 of 2: Continue reading →

Transparency and leadership for the local good —John S. Quarterman @ VLCIA 14 June 2011

Noting that I was there on behalf of the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), which takes these videos and puts them on the web, I recommended to the Industrial Authority board that they put their agendas on the web, since they give those away at the door and they don’t contain any of the details that they’re concerned about revealing to competitors.

Recalling that I had previously had the audacity to read their own charter to them, or at least the parts about the general good and welfare of the community, I reminded them that some areas that had successfully attracted industry, such as Raleigh, NC, Austin, TX, and Portland, OR had said what kinds of industry they wanted. Expanding on the example of Austin, TX, I noted that they emphasized clean industry, music, and arts, and that helped attract the kinds of knowledge-based workers that our local Chamber of Commerce wants for knowledge-based jobs.

Then I noted that I had complimented Mayor Fretti Continue reading →

VLCIA land accounting

Chairman Jerry Jennett is asking for an accounting of the land VLCIA has bought using their $3 million a year in dedicated 1 mil property tax and $15 million in bonds that Lowndes County guaranteed for them. And it seems that much of it is in lots too small to be useful.

While the VLCIA board was approving minutes for their 17 May 2011 regular meeting, Chairman Jennett said this:

On the last page, where we’re talking about the industrial park acreage, this is real good the way you’ve presented this, it shows Azalea West 17 acres Lake Park 10, Hahira 10, [?] 165, Miller 220, West Side 155.

Let me ask you that in future you do one more thing. That you tell me how many 100 acre sites you have, how many 50 acre sites you have, and how many 25 acre sites you have,

[Col. Ricketts made some response.]

Then I’m going to assume that everything else is ones, fives, and tens. And my point would be that we track those, and that when someone comes with a project that and they need 200 acres, we can’t do it. But I think there might be room for at least one and maybe two 100s. I think that’s important when we think about people….

It’s good Chairman Jennett is having Col. Ricketts keep track of all this land VLCIA has acquired. He started on this project at Brad Lofton’s last board meeting, when he asked Lofton about lot sizes. I look forward to the results.

Incidentally, while that list Chairman Jennett read does add up Continue reading →

U.S. Senate finds drug war failed

When it’s so obvious even the U.S. Senate can find it, after the rest of the world points it out, maybe there’s something to it.

Eyder Peralta wrote for NPR yesterday, Report: U.S. Drug War Spending Is Unjustifiable

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said that after a year-long investigation by a Senate subcommittee, “it’s becoming increasingly clear that our efforts to rein in the narcotics trade in Latin America, especially as it relates to the government’s use of contractors, have largely failed.”

The report comes a week after a high-powered commission of former world leaders came to the conclusion that the global war on drugs had “failed.” Mark wrote about that report, last week.

That would be Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy that recommended start legalizing drugs with marijuana?

And what happens to what little there is of a business plan for private prisons when the U.S. and Georgia wise up and legalize marijuana and other drugs?

We don’t need another bad business boondoggle in Lowndes County. Spend that tax money on education instead.

-jsq

The Council of Hamlets meets tonight in Valdosta!

The Valdosta City Council regular meeting is tonight. You remember them, the council that may or may not be able to say whether or not they can or cannot speak during, at the end of, or after their council meetings. Tonight they appoint people to boards that decide who can put up how big a sign, and that spend millions in your tax money.

I want to see if Mayor Fretti will keep to his word to expand the Wiregrass Solar plant.

Also, maybe now this city council can do what Gretna, Florida, did: put out a proclamation saying there will be no biomass plant. Or they could sit on their hands some more and wait until some Sonny finds a way to do it anyway.

They have lots of other stuff on their agenda for tonight, including an appointment to the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA), and an appointment to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks & Recreation Authority.

ZBOA decides on variances to Valdosta’s LDR and Lowndes County’s ULDC, including sign variances, much to the annoyance of some local entitled rich people and of McDonald’s.

Parks & Rec receives 1.5 mil of tax money, about $4.5 million dollars a year, more than the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). Parks and Rec board members get to spend that tax money that you pay.

AGENDA
REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL
5:30 PM Thursday, June 9, 2011
COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL
Continue reading →

Private Prisons don’t save much money —NYTimes

Richard A. Oppel Jr. wrote on the front page of the New York Times, 19 May 2011, Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings
The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
That’s right, they leave we the taxpayers to pay more in public prisons to house the most expensive prisoners:
The research, by the Arizona Department of Corrections, also reveals a murky aspect of private prisons that helps them appear less expensive: They often house only relatively healthy inmates.

“It’s cherry-picking,” said State Representative Chad Campbell, leader of the House Democrats. “They leave the most expensive prisoners with taxpayers and take the easy prisoners.”

And yet private prisons still cost more.

Could it have something to do with their executive salaries?

Anyway, we don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County. Spend that tax money on education instead.

-jsq

Find better way to fight crime —Rev. Chuck Arnold

Another Sunday, another preacher against private prisons. Unlike some, this one is not famous; Rev. Chuck Arnold is pastor of Valley of the Flowers United Church of Christ in Vandenberg Village, CA. He wrote in the Lompoc Record 20 May 2011
Going to a RAND Corporation study, in 1994 higher education received 12 percent of the state budget, corrections 9 percent, other services 9 percent (which included controlling environmental pollution, management of parks, fighting of brush fires, regulating insurance and other industries). By 2002 higher education took the biggest hit, along with “ other services,” both of which were virtually eliminated from the state budget. Corrections on the other hand went from 9 percent to 18 percent of the budget.
Which means that California, like so many other states, including Georgia, spends more on prisons than on education.

And not just public prisons anymore: Continue reading →

Drug war fail: devastating consequences —Global Commission on Drug Policy

Stop locking up drug users who harm no others, legalize drugs starting with marijuana, switch to health and treatment, stop harrassing farmers, abandon zero tolerance and invest instead in youth activities, focus on reducing harm, and do it now, so says a commission of business moguls, former heads of state, financial professionals, writers, and activists.

Writes Douglas Stanglin today in USA TODAY,

“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” says the Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy in its opening statement. “Fifty years after the initiation of the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the U.S. government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.”
According to whom?
The 19-member commission, a private venture chaired by ex-Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, includes George Schultz, President Reagan’s Secretary of State; Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group; former U.N. Secretary General Koffi Anna; George Papandreou, prime minister of Greece; Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Javier Solana,former EU foreign minister.
Here’s their full report.

What do they recommend? Continue reading →