The Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) comes in the bottom 10 nationwide. That’s for overall average wages.
It doesn’t look quite as bad for specific classes of jobs (creative, service, and working class), but that’s mostly because there are almost no MSAs in the lowest pay tier. However, for service jobs, Valdosta is not as good as Tallahassee, and makes it into the bottom 10: Continue reading
The UGA Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development has
quantified the economic effects of eating local food in Georgia,
in this report:
The Local Food Impact: What if Georgians Ate Georgia Produce?
Prepared by: Sharon P. Kane, Kent Wolfe, Marcia Jones, and John McKissick Center Report: CR-10-03 May 2010
If Georgians produced all of the fruits and vegetables that they consumed, it could provide a way to close this utilization gap (the difference between state-wide production and consumption) of over $780 million per year. Even if this level can’t be achieved, simply closing the gap in one commoditylettuce, for examplecould mean an additional $83.6 million of direct revenue to local producers.
What is the lettuce gap? The Cordele Dispatch explains it: Continue reading
This is part 2 about the July 8th
town Hall meeting about the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta.
First let’s hear George Rhynes explain that it’s never too late to reregulate our minds:
Here I’ve selected videos of local County Commission candidates: Continue reading
Juarez, Mexico, is farther down the road of emphasizing law and order
over education and jobs, as Melissa del Bosque reports in the Texas Observer abo
ut
Mexico’s Lost Generations:
When Juarez’s (soon to be outgoing) Mayor Jose Reyes-Ferriz visited Austin last April something he said stuck with me.Mexican president Calderon, previously consumed by the drug war, finally noticed and did something:He told the audience that a failure to invest in schools and other public infrastructure had led to the lawlessness in his city. Instead of schools and daycare centers, city leadership only invested in maquila parks and roads. Children were left on the streets to fend for themselves as their parents worked in the maquila factories for meager wages.
“More than 5,000 residents have received job-training grants or temporary work sprucing up parks and sidewalks and planting trees. Officials added thousands of families to a government insurance program and handed out 6,000 scholarships in a city where few students were receiving such help.”Todos somos Juarez (We Are All Juarez).“It’s not enough to analyze it only in terms of public safety. You have serious gaps in the social and economic [areas] that have to be closed,” said Antonio Vivanco, a Calderon advisor overseeing the development effort.
-jsq
On July 8th there was a
town Hall meeting about the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta.
Pastor Angela Manning of New Life Ministries sums up why she called this Town Hall meeting:
Speakers included: Continue reading
The VDT writes about Foxborough two days in a row:
Several dozen residents of the Foxborough subdivision came to the Lowndes County Commission meeting Tuesday to again express their dismay at the possibility of having a McDonald’s fast food restaurant located by the neighborhood’s entrance.Candelario (I believe that’s the actual spelling of his name) provided a list of suggestions to the Commission, which Chairman Paulk addressed, including: Continue readingResident Pete Candelaria said he has been living in Foxborough for six years and was speaking on behalf of the residents.
It looks like the strategy I recommended
to the Foxborough opponents to McDonalds worked:
go to the County Commission work session and you may get in the newspaper.
Kay Harris writes in the VDT about
Issues with development,
Neighborhood upset about commercial encroachment:
According to Vince Schneider, the spokesman for the residents, the majority of the neighborhood is opposed to the possibility of a McDonald’s restaurant openin g there. The property is currently listed with Lowndes County as owned by First State Bank, but the county engineer, Mike Fletcher, confirmed Monday at the Lo wndes County Board of Commissioners work session that he has received a plat fo r the proposed development.Many of the residents only found out aboout the proposed McDonalds from a cryptic mention by Kay Harris in the VDT a few weeks ago. Naturally, the VDT ends the current story on a note of finality: Continue readingSchneider appeared before commissioners at the work session to request they rec onsider the commercial zoning in the area.
I like snakes, but next to many houses with small children may not be the best place. At least it’s not concrete, but some trees would be good, and at least fewer weeeds right next to peoples’ back yards.
There are more pictures in the flickr set. Here’s a video walk-in:
Continue reading
Vince Schneider of Foxborough Avenue sums up the sense of
a well-attended meeting (7PM Thursday July 8 2010)
at which residents said they don’t want a McDonalds at the entrance to the Foxborough neighborhood. Vince will be speaking at the County Commission meeting Tuesday at 5:30 PM July 13, and also at the work session Monday at 8:30AM July 12.
See you there.
-jsq
I spent a few hours walking around Foxborough Ave. and Amberley Trail
this afternoon, just south of North Valdosta Road.
Did you know there’s a McDonalds proposed for Foxborough Ave.,
with a second entrance off of Old US 41?
I didn’t until this afternoon.
The only mention of this project I can find in the VDT is this cryptic note by Kay Harris in her June 27, 2010 Business This Week:
The McDonalds project on N. Valdosta Road next to the Foxborough entrance should be finalized soon….
Neighbors immediately to the south of the project say that:
This property has not yet closed. Projected closing is the first week of August. Corporate McDonalds says construction will begin in October.They also tell me this will be a 24 hour a day 7 day a week fast food restaurant. Numerous residents mentioned safety concerns about the added traffic on the Foxborough Ave. entrance to the subdivision, and about pulling people off of I-75 into their neighborhood.
They’re holding a neighborhood meeting about it tomorrow (Thursday 8 July): Continue reading