Received today on Solid Waste, Developer Favors, Dollar General, Library, and Alcohol: Agenda @ LCC 2012-12-10:
Veolia was acquired by Advanced Disposal, there is no conspiracy theory here or a change of vendor than was previously voted for. http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/article/20121120/NEWS01/121129990/advanced-disposal-closes-veolia-deal, Continue reading
Update 8 December 2012: Actually, Houston County does have enforceable encroachment zones around RAFB.
Houston County hasn’t had a enforceable encroachment zone around
Warner Robins Air Force Base (RAFB) and is now fixing the problem
after the fact by using state money to buy up houses near the base.
Houston County Commission Chairman Tommy Stalnaker labelled encroachment
his number one priority, in stark contrast to Lowndes County Commission
Chairman Ashley Paulk, who has put
two items on the agenda for Monday and Tuesday
related to a proposed rezoning next to Moody Air Force Base,
and already at a previous Work Session
invited the developer to speak
without letting anyone else speak.
Gene Rector wrote for WRWR “10 months ago”, Stalnaker ‘ecstatic’ over state action on Robins encroachment issue,
In a word, Houston County Commission Chairman Tommy Stalnaker was “ecstatic” last week when he learned state officials
will allocate $7.5 million to help resolve the encroachment issue affecting Robins Air Force Base.
State Rep. Larry O’Neal called and gave him a heads-up before Gov. Nathan Deal made the announcement on Friday.
“I felt like jumping up and down and screaming and hollering,” Stalnaker admitted. “But then I remembered we hadn’t done our part yet.”
Encroachment has dogged Robins for a number of years. Some 250 parcels — mostly private residences — spread over 1,600 acres in south Bibb and north Houston counties fall within the base’s noise or potential mishap zone.
That risk to homes in the designated region could restrict or limit current operations or force the Air Force to look elsewhere for future workload and mission growth.
Stalnaker has labeled resolving encroachment his number one priority.
Mike Stucka wrote for the Telegraph 31 May 2012, Interactive map: Robins AFB encroachment and property purchases,
Continue readingReceived yesterday, referring to TXT-2012-02, which is on the agenda for Monday morning’s Work Session and Tuesday evening’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission. -jsq
From: Richard RainesContinue reading
To: Gretchen Quarterman
Subject: RE: Text Amendment
Gretchen,Based on a conversation with the Chairman yesterday, it is my
understanding that this issue will be tabled until sometime next year (Chairman-elect Slaughter will decide when to put it back on the agenda) because we are working with MAFB on a compromise as they are well aware of our mandate to balance property rights with protecting against base encroachment.
Since I’ve been on the County Commission we have made it a priority to constantly evaluate the ULDC and all zoning districts. MAZ 1-3 is no exception and must be evaluated to make sure that it is balanced and consistent.
We have discovered
Updates 9 Dec 2012: Marked with *.
Will the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday evening
finish railroading through their non-solution to solid waste disposal,
without shouldering its legal responsibility to protect
the environment and the public health, safety, and well-being from solid waste,
and what’s this about a vendor change?
Will the Chairman once again invite a developer to speak in Monday morning’s
Work Session without letting anyone else speak?
Will the Commission change the zoning code and rezone inside and against
the Moody Exclusion Zone for that same developer they already
provided $130,000 in road construction labor to back in 2007?
Does Naylor need the area’s nineteenth Dollar General, and who’s behind it, anyway?
How come the Five Points library is still on the agenda even though SPLOST VII failed?
And what are they doing to the Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance this time?
Come Monday morning at 8:30 AM and Tuesday evening at 5:30 PM and see!
Better yet, also call or write your Commissioner before then.
6.b. Solid Waste Ordinance
Will the Commissioners finish
railroading through their
already-failing non-solution to solid waste disposal
in the last session of this Chairman?
The plan for which they held
zero public hearings while any of
the Commissioners who voted on it this October were on the Commission,
yet someone down there feels free to
anonymously ridicule concerns about that plan failing?
Two citizens
spoke up anyway,
even though
Citizens Wishing to Be Heard
was after the scheduled vote last time,
and
another on this blog,
all willing to state their names, unlike the anonymous pro-trash-railroad
ridiculer.
What was that
unspecified new information
that caused them to table it last time, anyway?
8.b. Exclusive Franchise Agreement for Residential Solid Waste Collection Services with Advanced Disposal Services of Central Alabama, Inc.
What happened to Veolia; Continue reading
According to the Lowndes County Commission’s minutes, the developer for whom the Commission now proposes to change the zoning code back in 2007 got $130,000 in road construction labor from the Commission.
In the 26 June 2007 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session Minutes:
County Engineer, Mike Fletcher, presented an item that was brought to the Commission during the previous work session regarding the
paving of Davidson Road. Further, Mr. Clint Joyner was in the process of building a previously approved development that was being affected by an unforeseen Department of Transportation requirement regarding a costly intersection improvement. Mr. Fletcher further stated that Mr. Joyner was required to pave a portion of Davidson Road; however, due to the intersection cost he was offering to purchase the materials for the funding of the entire road, if the county would provide the road construction labor at a cost of approximately $130,000.00. Commissioner Lee made a motion to approve the request, Vice Chairman Carter and Commissioner Roberts offered a second. Motion carried.
Somebody help me here, is not that the same Clint Joyner back in 2007
getting a $130,000 subsidy from the County Commission
who last month
got invited to talk to the Commission in a Work Session
with nobody else invited to speak?
The same one for whom
the same Commission is now proposing to change the zoning code?
For another development on the same Davidson Road?
A development
the Chamber and Moody and the Planning Commission
are all opposing, while the VDT channels Ashley Paulk in promoting it?
What is it about this Clint Joyner or Joyner Realty or Davidson Road that the County Commission should favor him or them so? It can’t be the individual Commissioners: not a one of them is the same now from 2007. What is the same then and now?
Maybe we should find out before the Commission grants any more favors.
-jsq
In most states, financing solar energy is largely a matter of learning all the local ropes. In Georgia, there’s a bigger problem.
Michael Mendelsohn wrote for RMI 5 December 2012, How Do We Lower Solar Installation Costs and Open the Market to Securitized Portfolios: Standardize and Harmonize,
Soft costs can be pretty tough. The cost of solar installations can be generally separated into “hard” costs — representing primary components such as modules, racking, inverters — and soft costs including legal, permitting, and financing. While the former group — particularly modules — have dropped dramatically over the last several years, the latter have not. According to a recent NREL analysis, these costs represent roughly 30% of both residential and utility installations (slightly less for commercial-host systems). See Figure 1.
In fact, soft costs are so critical to the overall success of solar adoption, their reduction is a primary focus of the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative to make solar energy cost-competitive. In order to reduce the cost of financing, NREL recently completed and continues to work on various efforts to tap public capital markets and enable other vehicles that securitize project portfolios.
We’ll come back to tapping public capital markets and the like, because that’s the key to what Georgia Solar Utilities (GaSU) is trying to do. But there’s a special problem in Georgia, buried in the next paragraph:
Continue reading
Apparently it’s the Chamber and Moody and the Planning Commission
and the TRC all against Ashley Paulk
on the Moody rezoning-and-zoning-code case, with the VDT sidling towards Paulk.
The VDT claimed Lowndes County Chairman stated something that’s
not true according to the agenda and LAKE’s videos of the
recent Planning Commission meeting.
And the VDT buried opposition by the Chamber of Commerce’s relevant committee
at the end of its article.
Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT today, County disagrees with proposed zoning amendment, Paulk: Military intervention could prevent development near base, and the caption of the picture on the right says:
The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission proposed a text amendment to the Unified Land Development Code in November that would reduce lot density restrictions from 2.5 acres to one acre, allowing landowners within the Moody Activity Zoning (MAZ) district “more flexibility” to parcel off their land holdings, Paulk said.
The Planning Commission’s own agenda says TEX-2012-02 was proposed by “Lowndes County Board of Commissioners”. And the Planning Commission voted to recommend against approving that text amendment to the ULDC. According to Planning Commissioner John Page, that vote was following the recommendation of the Technical Review Committee (TRC), which consists of staff of Lowndes County and the City of Valdosta. Page is also an incoming Lowndes County Commissioner, to take office next month. So either Paulk said something he as the Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission should know not to be true, or the VDT wrote erroneously.
The VDT also seemed to indicate that Paulk was speaking for Continue reading
A developer didn’t get his way at the Lowndes County Commission last month, so now the county is proposing to change the zoning code for him! To change zoning right next to Moody Air Force Base, the largest employer in this area. A change opposed by Moody because of flight safety and safety of property, and “the longterm viability of Moody Air Force Base.” A change that would set a precedent for further sprawl, as Moody indicated indirectly when the related rezoning first came before the Planning Commission. Apparently a developer can get whatever he wants around here, no matter how much it threatens the livelihoods or well-being of the rest of the citizens. Does that seem right to you? To their credit, the Planning Commission at its 26 November 2012 meeting unanimously voted against this TEX-2012-02 just as they did the rezoning case REZ-2012-17 last month. Both will be decided by the Lowndes County Commission at its 11 December 2012 meeting.
4. TEX-2012-02
County Planner Jason Davenport introduced this item.
Ultimately at the end of the day this text amendment is a request to change the minimum lot sizes allowed and the minimum residential densities allowed in a MAZ-3 zoning district. We have those changes highlighted on the screen but they have also been highlighted in the packet…. At the end of the day that is what has happened.
Well, yes, at the end of that day. At the end of many future days this zoning code amendment if approved will be used as a precedent for more sprawl right next to Moody Air Force Base, which is by far the biggest employer in this area. The packet he referred to is not available to the public. The changes he mentioned are not on his Unified Land Development Code (ULDC) web page. A view of them as seen from the back of the room is shown on the right here. Can you read them?
The
ULDC map linked on that page
includes the Moody Area insert map shown here on the right.
Davenport added that he had received one open records request and a response from Moody. Plus state law requires 30 days for Moody to respond and it had been 31 days. Then he walked through some history using pages in Commissioners’ packets that we the taxpayers, voters, and residents of Lowndes County can’t see.
Davenport specifically tied this text amendment to a tabled zoning case:
Continue readingA major source of the water for the sea level rise already affecting Savannah and Jacksonville is melting Arctic Ocean sea ice. WMO Press Release No. 966: 2012: Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt, Multiple Extremes and High Temperatures,
“Naturally occurring climate variability due to phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña impact on temperatures and precipitation on a seasonal to annual scale. But they do not alter the underlying long-term trend of rising temperatures due to climate change as a result of human activities,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
“The extent of Arctic sea ice reached a new record low. The alarming rate of its melt this year highlighted the far-reaching changes taking place on Earth’s oceans and biosphere. Climate change is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records,” added Mr Jarraud.
15 September 1982 vs 16 September 2012
The Arctic reached its lowest annual sea ice extent since the start of satellite records on 16 September at 3.41 million square kilometers. This was 18% less than the previous record low of 18 September, 2007. The 2012 minimum extent was 49 percent or nearly 3.3 million square kilometers (nearly the size of India) below the 1979—2000 average minimum. Some 11.83 million square kilometers of Arctic ice melted between March and September 2012.
WMO noted other effects of climate change outside the arctic, including:
Continue readingDisposal of solid waste (trash/garbage) is a matter of community public health and safety and providing such service is the responsibilty of the local governing bodies. How should trash health and safety responsibly be implemented?
We cannot be left in a situation where residents are either “forced
to buy” service from a provider, or have no option but to burn
their trash. The government can levy a tax, but they cannot say that
residents are forbidden to buy a service from an independent provider.
Such a ruling is
“protect the health safety, and well-being of its citizens and to protect and enhance the quality of its environment” ,
Residents in the unincorporated areas of the county who want curb side collection, for the most part, already purchase it. Those of us using the collection centers do so because it is our preference.
The county should (in my opinion) create a special tax district for waste disposal (it already makes special lighting districts) and tax the residents for the maintenance of the collection centers.
-gretchen