Al Browning of
WWALS
made a point yesterday that I haven’t heard mentioned
by local Chambers of Commerce or economic development agencies:
Suppose there’s a business looking to south Georgia, to move into an area.
They can go to the
Adopt-A-Stream website for that particular area,
and get an idea of where the best water is.
And they may choose… that Berrien County has terrible water;
I’m going to go to Cook County, or Lowndes!
That’s
Georgia Adopt-A-Stream,
which currently doesn’t show any water quality testing sites
for any of those counties, but that could change soon.
Maybe economic development organizations should help it change,
because that lack could be steering businesses elsewhere.
A prominent local economic development appointee asked me last year,
Why would you want absolutely clean ear or water?
Well, businesses considering moving here might want those things
because their employees do.
And their employees might want those things because they
don’t want to get sick.
And besides, who doesn’t like clean air and water?
It’s not just
VLCIA’s Community Assessment that argues for
a public transportation system in Valdosta-Lowndes County.
Getting people
to work without requiring cars is an even
bigger problem in larger metropolitan areas, but many of the
issues are the same here.
To truly get America back to work, we have to focus on more than
jobs, jobs, jobs. It is about integrating jobs, transportation,
housing and community services in ways that work equally well for
lower- and upper-income families.
Vibrant communities where residents can walk to shops, restaurants,
grocery stores and community services; and where public
transportation provides convenient connections between home and work
can be built. Planning community development with public
transportation as a central consideration — transit-oriented
development or TOD — can spur economic growth, sometimes
dramatically. But that approach has not been systematically applied
to communities of all income levels.
For these reasons, it is important for government, public transit
agencies, nonprofits, foundations and the private sector to come
together so that thriving communities for families of all economic
levels can be created.
The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority’s Regular Monthly Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, August 21, 2012, 5:30 PM at the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.
Last meeting, VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer told me the results of the focus groups would be presented this month. Maybe she meant at this meeting. On the VLCIA facebook page, there’s this paragraph from 14 August 2012:
We are excited to present our final Target Business Analysis to the community at the end of August. We took at 360 degree approach to targeting economic development activity concentrating on employment, workforce skill, investment, and innovation to identify clusters of economic activity and developing targeted strategies for economic development.
It links to this (unembeddable) video of Andrea Schruijer talking about cluster analysis. It’s good they’re branching out to new ways of doing PR. It would be even better if they also published agendas and minutes with content.
Conspiracy, assault with injury, coverup: another Georgia prison guard pled guilty, all in response to a strike by prisoners for decent pay. And remember, private prisons have fewer guards per prisoner and less training.
Federal prosecutors said Wednesday Darren Douglass-Griffin pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of inmates and falsification of records in a federal investigation.
Douglass-Griffin admitted he and other correctional officers at Macon State Prison in Oglethorpe assaulted and injured inmates in a series of incidents in 2010. He told prosecutors correctional officers beat three inmates in separate incidents to punish them. One inmate was beaten so badly he had to be taken from the prison in an ambulance.
Douglass-Griffin also said he and other officers tried to cover up the officers’ involvement by writing false reports and lying to investigators.
Anybody who has tried to do much of anything around here has run into this phrase:
There’s nothing you can do.
I was reminded of that when I read this, from the Economist 12 May 2012, Hope springs a trap,
This hopelessness manifests itself in many ways. One is a sort of pathological conservatism, where people forgo even feasible things with potentially large benefits for fear of losing the little they already possess.
The article expands on that idea:
Development economists have long surmised that some very poor people may remain trapped in poverty because even the largest investments they are able to make, whether eating a few more calories or working a bit harder on their minuscule businesses, are too small to make a big difference. So getting out of poverty seems to require a quantum leap—vastly more food, a modern machine, or an employee to mind the shop. As a result, they often forgo even the small incremental investments of which they are capable: a bit more fertiliser, some more schooling or a small amount of saving.
It may seem that the article is about the poorest of people, but that “pathological conservatism” could as easily apply to the hopelessness many people seem to have about ever getting solar panels on their own roofs, or to attracting enough business to our area to employ our high school and college graduates, or that businesses will ever come to the south side.
Yet the point of the article is that field studies
by MIT economist Esther Duflo show
Continue reading →
For PSC, vote for somebody who isn’t an incumbent (the incumbents are marked on the ballot). The election today is a primary, so you need to select a Democratic ballot (Steve Oppenheimer District 3 is not an incumbent) or a Republican ballot (Pam Davidson District 5 and Matt Reid District 3 are not incumbents).
So, if you want solar and wind energy for jobs, energy independence, and profit in the state of Georgia, instead of Georgia Power’s bet-the-farm nuclear risk at Plant Vogtle and Southern Company’s natural gas fracking, that’s who I would vote for.
If, like me, you didn’t already vote early, today is the final day to vote in this primary, and you and I’ll be going down to the precinct polling place to cast a ballot. Today’s the day!
Solar PV prices have dropped so much they’re competitive with coal, natural gas, and nuclear. The only thing that stops Georgia from leading the country and the world in solar energy is our legislature and Public Service Commission kow-towing to the electric companies instead of serving the public. How about we elect Georgia legislators and PSC members who will change that?
It is time to let the south Georgia sun break through the clouds of power utility disinformation and regulatory capture. It is time for us to elect Georgia legislators and Georgia Public Service Commissioners who will let the sun shine on us in Georgia!
Global investment in renewable energy reached a record of $257 billion last year, with solar attracting more than half the total spending, according to a U.N. report released Monday.
Investment in solar energy surged to $147 billion in 2011, a year-on-year increase of 52 percent thanks to strong demand for rooftop photovoltaic installations in Germany, Italy, China and Britain.
Large-scale solar thermal installations in Spain and the United States also contributed to growth during a fiercely competitive year for the solar industry. Several large American and German manufacturers fell victim to price pressure from Chinese rivals that helped to halve the cost of photovoltaic modules in 2011.
Lower solar PV module price should mean more people can afford to install solar electricity, which should mean more jobs for people to install it. How much lower? According to the report:
While the Industrial Authority has been busily spiffing up its various Industrial Parks, everyone may have forgotten they have some competition west of town. Back in December 2010 Attorney Jack Langdale convinced the Commission in case REZ-2010-15 to rezone about 542 acres from R-1 to I-S, M-2, M-1, and P-D, which they did with fifteen conditions, which you can see in their minutes from 14 December 2010. As I recall it, one of the most convincing arguments was that the Langdales' own Kinderlou Subdivision is next door, so they wouldn't be doing anything to damage that, thus other neighbors could rest assured. Anyway, the next step was before the Commission at their Work Session this morning, for a vote tomorrow evening at their 5:30 PM Regular Session.
County Engineer Mike Fletcher presented agenda item 5.c., about Cameron Lane.
In December of 2010 the Board of Commissioners approved a rezoning case for the industrial park located off of highway 84, state route 38 west, near Wetherington Lane. The developers are beginning their master plan for the industrial park and will be utilitizng Cameron Lane as an entrance off of State Route 38 into the park. The developers are requesting to demolish Cameron Lane and rebuild a boulevard type entrance to serve the industrial park.
Attached are plats in front of you that show the existing and the proposed layout. The developer will be responsible for the acquisition of the the additional right of way that is required, as well as all engineering and construction costs for Cameron Lane. The new infrastructure will be built to county standards amd then will be brought back before the Commissioners for executive acceptance of infrastructure.
Commisioner Raines wanted to know if the county needed to deed the road over to the developer while all this was being done. Fletcher assured him the contractor would be responsible for everything.
5.c. Cameron Lane widening for industrial park on US 84 W @ LCC 2012-07-23 Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC), Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 July 2012.
At the Monday morning Work Session, County Manager Joe Pritchard reiterated that there would be a Public Hearing on Millage 5PM 24 July 2012. He added that the millage is “less than calculated rollback”, Two weeks before, at the previous Work Sessioni and Regular Session, he already said staff did not anticipate any increases in millage.
This time he added these details:
Millage
Recipient
7.31
Lowndes County
1.00
Industrial Authority (VLCIA)
1.25
Parks and Recreation (VLPRA)
9.56
Total
Commissioner Richard Raines wanted to know whether the school board was only the unincorporated area. He got two answers: “yes”, and “it’s not the city of Valdosta.” Those are not the same answer, since people from some of the cities, such as Hahira, Lake Park, and I think Dasher, go to county schools and are taxed for that. I don’t know about Remerton. Valdosta has its own school system and its own school tax. All the school taxes are separate (and greater than) the county taxes in the table above.
Announcement of Millage Hearing 5PM 24 July 2012 Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC), Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 July 2012.
Al Browning of
WWALS
made a point yesterday that I haven’t heard mentioned
by local Chambers of Commerce or economic development agencies:
