Tag Archives: Cobb County

TSPLOST — There are ways to get more road ‘bang’ for buck

MJDOnline editorialized today, The TSPLOST — There are ways to get more road ‘bang’ for buck. Most of it is about Cobb County, but some of it may sound familiar:

THOSE PUSHING the TSPLOST have bungled the job despite their gargantuan $8 million war chest. They have muddled their message (is it congestion relief or a jobs program?) and even managed to fumble the project list. Cobb voters don't know whether they're voting for a rail line or a bus line. And even though the proposal now specifies the latter, the overwhelming suspicion is that if the TSPLOST passes they'll be stuck paying and paying and paying for the former instead.

Better to vote down this TSPLOST and hope and pray that it also fails region-wide, than possibly come back in two years with an improved project list that can get the public's buy-in. As it is, the bulk of the Cobb projects on the current list would likely be on a future local Cobb road SPLOST list if there were no such thing as a regional TSPLOST. Which begs another question: Why should Cobb abdicate control over its road program to the Atlanta Regional Commission or a regional roundtable in the first place? Who knows better than Cobb residents what our transportation needs are?

What do you think? Does GDOT in Atlanta know better than we do what we need around here?

-jsq

Pam Davidson is running for Georgia Public Service Commission

Pam Davidson is running for GA PSC District 5, challenging incumbent Stan Wise in the Republican Primary. In this video she spoke to the Cobb County Republican Party, first emphasizing that she wouldn’t take money from regulated companies, and then she spoke about those new Southern Company nukes:

The largest economic development project in the southeast is the two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. Now you may say, “I’m a Cobb EMC customer.” Well, when Georgia Power, as the largest regulated utility in the state builds a new facility, often that serves as a merchant facility, or Georgia Power will sell it to the EMCs. So indirectly the Commission votes on EMC issues.

According to Oglethorpe Power the statewide consortium of EMCs of which Cobb EMC is the largest,

Oglethorpe Power is a 30 percent owner of Plant Vogtle’s existing Units 1 and 2 and will own 30 percent of the two new units as well.

Back to Pam Davidson:

But you want to be very very careful about those nuclear plants. And we have problems, ladies and gentlemen. We have problems with nuclear reactors 1 and 2. And all those problems are really cost problems. I am in favor of nuclear energy. I think it’s a great source of energy. However, nuclear energy cannot survive a rennaissance if it’s so expensive.

Here’s the video:

When I spoke to her recently, Pam Davidson said:

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Insurgents win majority on Cobb EMC board

According to the Cobb EMC board election results, even without two runoffs, four new members were elected yesterday, so added to the 4 new members elected in November, that’s 8 out of 10 members opposed to coal plants, opposed to corruption, and for transparency.

Kim Isaza wrote for MDJOnline today, Four new Cobb EMC directors elected,

Four more seats on the Cobb EMC board of directors are now in new hands, and two more will be settled in unprecedented runoff elections on April 21.

The winners are: Rudy Underwood, who was unopposed in Area 2; Kelly Bodner in Area 3; Bryan Boyd in Area 8; and Eric Broadwell in Area 9.

One runoff will be for Area 4, where Jim Hudson won 681 votes (42 percent) and David McClellan won 601 votes (37 percent). There were eight candidates competing in Area 4.

The other runoff will be for Area 5, where Tripper Sharp — one of the plaintiffs to the 2007 lawsuit against the EMC — got 775 votes (46 percent), and Charles A. Sevier got 502 votes (30 percent). Nine candidates were vying for that seat.

To quote from Rudy Underwood’s platform:

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Cobb EMC loses special election by huge margin

Cobb EMC lost a court-ordered special election yesterday by 2561 to 1113, according to Take Back Cobb EMC’s facebook page. That was the vote against mail-in voting, because the insurgents believe mail-in voting helps incumbent directors win re-election. It’s Cobb EMC’s incumbent directors who want to build a coal plant in Ben Hill County, about 70 miles north of here.

MJDOnline explained the issues 14 September 2011, Don McKee: Decision day comes Saturday for Cobb EMC members

There are two questions in the form of proposed bylaw amendments to be decided by members Saturday: (1) whether to allow mail-in voting for directors, and (2) whether to prohibit payment of retirement benefits to directors.

Reform groups Cobb EMC Owners Association, Take Back Cobb EMC and Cobb EMC Watch strongly oppose allowing mail-in voting until new directors are elected. They argue that mail-in voting would give an overwhelming advantage to incumbent directors with unlimited EMC member funds at their disposal in campaigning for re-election versus the very limited funds available to challengers.

“The historical evidence of mail-in voting shows that it favors the incumbents over challengers,” Cobb EMC Watch says. “It gives the corporation tremendous leverage to manipulate and influence the voting process. The corporation can use its much greater financial resources to back its slate of candidates.”

One would guess the second item on the ballot passed: Continue reading →