Earth Week at the University at Buffalo, featuring the Solar Strand,
3,200 solar panels generating 750 kilowatts
about 1,000 miles north of Valdosta State University.
Rutgers U. in New Jersey has 8 solar megawatts
coming from a parking lot.
If there, why not here? -jsq
Some thoughts on the
Kay Harris resignation letter.
Certainly a SPLOST is better than a MOST.
-gretchen
Received today: PDF, with transcription appended below. -jsq
Continue readingMarch 15, 2013
Joe Pritchard
County Manager
Lowndes County
327 N. Ashley St.
Valdosta, GA 31601
Dear Mr. Pritchard:
It is with great regret that I find the need to step down from the Lowndes County
and South Georgia Regional Library Board of Trustees. I fear that I am no longer
capable of holding this position in light of the county’s recent actions.
As you are aware,
Internet speed and access (appearing as Broadband)
played a starring role at the 19 February 2013 meeting of the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
with a surprise cameo by Lowndes County Commission Chairman
Bill Slaughter (appearing as himself)
and a bravura performance by Angela Crance of Wiregrass Tech,
with a strong supporting role by VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland,
and Mary Gooding standing in for VSU.
Internet access (as "telecommunications infrastructure")
came up in Project Manager Allan Ricketts' report as a requirement for
a Fortune 500 customer service operation
and
for a
National health care service provider,
both considering locating here,
also as
bandwidth,
as a requirement for
jobs.
That was the main theme of
Executive Director Andrea Schruijer's report,
especially in rural parts of our county,
especially for a home-based call center.
Even Rotary Clubs
need broadband.
VLCIA is also helping find potential sites for several utility-scale photovoltaic solar installations.
The Industrial Authority Board was down to three members, barely a quorum: Mary Gooding, Chairman Roy Copeland, and Tom Call. Whereabouts of Norman Bennett and Jerry Jennett were undetermined. I can't complain; I was in bed with a sinus infection.
Here's the agenda (such as it is), with links to the videos and some notes, often in separate posts.
Continue reading
Mary Gooding spoke up for VSU at
the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013,
saying that
VSU President McKinney was
in Athens (as was President Perrin of Wiregrass), but he and
VSU:
We too believe that this is a huge strategic initiative for our community. And we were thrilled after the meeting that we attended that the city, the county, both educational institutions, the Industrial Authority, everyone there, the hospital for sure, all agreed that this had to be a significant incentive.
Mary Gooding added:
At Valdosta State it’s becoming one of our biggest road barriers to online degrees, to online classes. That’s again more bandwidth that’s needed to be able to deliver degrees and classes online.
That’s all good, but where were the superintendents and school boards of the two K-12 school systems? Where were library Continue reading
Angela Crance,
Special Assistant to the President of
Wiregrass Georgia Technical College,
told
the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013:
I’m here for Wiregrass, and we just want to thank you for bringing this up and making it a top priority for the community [looking at Lowndes County Commission Chairman Bill Slaughter] and the Industrial Authority….
Continue readingIt’s definitely a priority for us…. Only 14% of our citizens have a college degree and we need 70% to have a college degree within ten years. To be able to accomplish that we’d better have
Director Lisa Biagiotti
spent two years travelling around the South
interviewing people about AIDS to make a film,
deepsouth.
She found rural AIDS is a bigger and faster-growing problem
than AIDS in center cities,
yet most health and prevention funding goes to urban areas.
The root cause seemed clear to her: poverty.
Here’s some deeper dirt (literally) on rural poverty in the U.S.,
and one thing we know can help with that: distributed solar power,
for jobs, for reduced electrical bills, and for energy independence.
What politician wouldn’t want jobs for their constituents?
The director said the screening at VSU at the end of November drew more people than the day before in Little Rock. There were clearly more than 150 in the audience in Valdosta. It’s a topic very relevant to here, as Dean Poling wrote in the VDT 26 November 2012,
Organizers note that Georgia is ranked sixth highest nationally for its cumulative number of AIDS cases reported through December 2009. More than 40,000 known HIV/AIDS cases were reported in Georgia as of 2010.
The South Health District’s 10 counties, which include Lowndes and
surrounding counties, report 950 confirmed cases of HIV/AIDS, while many more are likely infected and risk becoming sick because they are not being treated. More specifically, there are about 460 reported cases in Lowndes County.
In reporting these numbers, HIV is the virus (HIV disease) and AIDS is the medical diagnosis made by a doctor of the symptoms, according to South Health District.
It’s a great movie and I highly recommend it. Director Biagiotti spent a substantial amount of her own money and two years to make this film, yet there are aspects she could only note in passing, such as incarceration. She can’t be expected to have researched every aspect; maybe somebody else can step up and help follow more threads.
The movie starts with some maps about poverty and AIDS in the South. It did not, however, look outside the South for poverty. Here are better poverty maps, from the CDC:
Idelle Dear noted we’re up to 12 library furlough days,
and reported a flaw in that picture to
the 8 January 2013 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.
I looked across the street and there are millions of dollars being spent on the construction of the hospital, construction of the VSU Health Sciences building. And yet what is happening, because this is a mandatory furlough for all employees, is that people who are employed by the South Georgia Regional Library, most of whom are minimum wage, work part time, rely on the income: they are going to lose out….
We’d heard about these state-mandated furlough closings at a library board meeting. Idelle Dear spelled out some of the consequences, and made some telling comparisons.
Something is wrong with this picture, and I realize there are different kinds of money, but something is wrong with this picture if we can spend millions and millions of dollars on construction of these buildings and yet shut down the library and the employees who are in low income are going to be affected.
She said she wasn’t sure most people even knew about all this. And she heard somebody had said most people have Internet at home, but
Continue reading
In response to a very downbeat
diatribe by Bill McKibben in Rolling Stone on the occasion
of the U.N.’s Rio+20 conference being some sound and less fury accomplishing
not much about stopping climate change,
[Bill McKibben, Rolling Stone, 19 July 2012, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – and that make clear who the real enemy is”]
Harvard student Chloe Maxmin
followed up McKibben’s problem statement with a plan for what to do:
divest from fossil fuel companies. [“In Honor of Kalamazoo: An Open Letter to Bill McKibben,” NextGenJournal, 25 July 2012, no longer online, referred to in a post the same day by Chloe Maxmin on First Here, Then Everywhere.]
Maxmin didn’t just wish, either,
she joined up with McKibben’s 350.org and helped organize
Harvard students to do something about it:
persuade Harvard to divest its shares of fossil fuel companies.
Students at the University of Georgia, or at Valdosta State University,
for that matter, could do the same.
Alli Welton wrote for 350.org 18 November 2012, 72% of Harvard Students Vote to Divest from Fossil Fuels,
Last Friday night, the Harvard College Undergraduate Council announced that the student body had voted 72% in favor of Harvard University divesting its $30.7 billion endowment from fossil fuels.
Members of the Harvard chapter of Students for a Just and Stable Future have been campaigning since September to divest Harvard’s endowment from the top 200 publicly-traded fossil fuel corporations that own the majority of the world’s oil, coal, and gas reserves.
Harvard actually already has divested its shares of one fossil fuel company due to public pressure. Continue reading
Congratulations to Valdosta’s new state rep for District 177
Dexter Sharper who won by 67% to 33% over opponent Glenn Gregory,
who fought a spirited and clean campaign.
I look forward to Representative Sharper
meeting with the governor
and working for our community without compromise under the gold dome in Atlanta.
I’ll come back to the other statehouse races in a separate post. Ditto the other statewide races. Meanwhile, congratulations to some local winners below.
Congratulations new Lowndes County Commissioner for District 4
Demarcus Marshall, winning 64.91% to 35.09%
after spirited debate and much agreement
with opponent John Gates.
I look forward to Commissioner Marshall
grappling with education, jobs, tourism, and personnel
down at the county palace.
Congratulations on re-election, Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine!
Challenger J.D. Yeager fought a good fight, but the voters said
63.53% to 36.47% they did not
want to go back to the previous administration.
I look forward to Sheriff Prine continuing to protect the safety of
all the citizens of Lowndes County, including those in the cities.
Congratulations Solicitor General Justin Cabral on retaining your post
51.56% to 48.44%!
Very honorable mention to challenger Jason Cain,
who canvassed himself pretty close to winning.
Congratulations Joyce Evans Continue reading