Tag Archives: Economy

Budget Meetings with less than 24 hours notice @ LCC Budget 2016-06-01

Does 9:28 AM to 8:30 AM the next day sound like 24 hours notice to you? And as usual there’s no draft budget posted. Also no agenda.

From: listserv@civicplus.com
Date: 31 May 2016 09:28:22 -0500
Subject: New Event Budget Meetings For cp-stcity2.civicplus.com

A new Event now appears on our site. Please click on the link below to go directly to the new posting.
http://www.lowndescounty.com/Calendar.aspx?EID=160

The actual event posting says “There will be no votes taken at these meetings.” Which probably gets them off the hook for the Georgia Open Meetings Law, but still doesn’t indicate they want the taxpayers to see what they’re doing.

Budget Meetings Continue reading →

Nature Nates and GEDA @ VLCIA 2016-05-17

On tonight’s Development Authority agenda, I’m guessing GEDA is Georgia Economic Development Association. Nature Nate, you may recall, is the first occupant of Miller Business Park. I continue to suggest the Development Authority put solar panels on much of that unused business park land and turn the business parks into profit centers instead of continual money sinks to service all those bonds that funded them.

Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority
Tuesday, May 17, 2016 5:30 p.m.
Development Authority Conference Room/103 Roosevelt Drive
Monthly Meeting Agenda Continue reading →

Solar price drops setting invisible price limit for ever-dirtier fossil fuel extraction

A fairly insightful piece on the how oil price rises drive more fossil fuel production, currently fueled by debt because wages of most workers have been falling, still misses two big points: solar prices continually plumetting now undercut all fossil fuel prices, and dirtier fossil fuel extraction and its massive colonial invasion of pipelines are meeting resistance everywhere, including at the regulatory-captured puppet agencies like FERC.

“Tyler Durden”, ZeroHedge, 13 May 2016, Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog, The Real Oil Limits Story – What Other Researchers Missed, Continue reading →

18-wheeler on Hambrick Road, and No Trucks Over 10 Wheels sign

This is what Gretchen meant when she told the Lowndes County Commission trucks too big use Hambrick Road as a short cut, when GA 122 is 0.4 miles farther up Cat Creek Road.

You can see who owns this particular truck, but it’s far from the only one. And in case you had any doubt where this is, Continue reading →

Mutual aid, Variance, Remerton Mills Quitclaim @ RCC 2016-04-04

Only the smoke stack remains, yet Remerton Mills still took up most of the Remerton City Council agenda when Gretchen videoed there this month. The Humane Society wants to house dogs temporarily and house an adoption site for cats. This also requires a variance. Yes, apparently Remerton has more room for animals than Valdosta.

Here are links to the LAKE videos of each item, from the agenda. Also notice Remerton has Citizens to Be Heard first, like both Lowndes County and Valdosta used to have only a few years ago. Continue reading →

Halliburton says fossil fuels unsustainable, lays off a third worldwide, including management

You know things are bad for fossil fuels when the biggest profiteer of them all takes an axe to itself. The fewer fossil fuel boondoggles (including more pipeline projects going belly-up), the faster investment will keep moving to renewable sun, wind, and water power, for profits, and we get clean air and water and less global warming.

“Tyler Durden”, Zerohedge, 22 April 2016, Halliburton Fires One Third Of Global Staff: “What We Are Experiencing Today Is Unsustainable”,

In a brutally frank and painfully honest first quarter operational update, Halliburton president Jeff Miller poured freezing cold water all over the “oil is stabilizing, and everything is going to be awesome” narrative. After explaining that the firm has laid off one-third of its global employees, and pointing to the collapse in sequential revenues across every business unit, Miller exclaimed: “What we are experiencing today is far beyond headwinds; it is
unsustainable.”

Due to the deadline of its merger agreement with Baker Hughes Halliburtion has delayed its earnings conference call until May 3rd and so gave an operational update. The healdlines were horrific:

Project Max and many others 6PM this evening @ VLCIA 2016-04-19

Is the mysterious Project Max a glass container plant as everyone seems to think? An agenda suddenly appeared It’s on the agenda that suddenly appeared on the Development Authority’s website this afternoon after Gretchen called to ask where it was. She will be there with the LAKE video camera.

Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority
Tuesday, April 19, 2016 5:30 p.m.
Development Authority Conference Room/103 Roosevelt Drive
Monthly Meeting Agenda Continue reading →

Wind and Solar are winning by 2 to 1 over gas and coal

Guess what’s really inevitable, pipeline companies? Solar and wind power.

Utility scare tactics that no coal means pipelines are so much hot air. Scare tactics that no pipelines would mean LNG trains are burnt up by solar power. Stop pipelnes or fracking and stop the other and LNG export along with it. And we’re winning!

Tom Randall, Bloomberg, 6 April 2016, Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels: Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1. Continue reading →

Videos: Project Max and more at Development Authority @ VLCIA 2016-02-16

They said almost nothing last month about Project Max, so we don’t know for sure if for example it is really a glass container company. They meet again tonight. Actually, that one is cancelled; they meet next April 19th.

At the end, Gretchen spoke about:

  1. Ham and Eggs Show 2016-02-17
  2. the WWALS Withlacoochee and Little River Workshop at VSU 2016-02-27
  3. the South Georgia Growing Local food conference went well, and led to a planning session led by Charlie Barnes about local food planning 2016-03-31.

Dr. Noll of WACE said he was there to “harrass” Continue reading →

Help fix land revaluation: come to Farm Bureau –Board of Equalization

Come to the Farm Bureau in two weeks to hear Tax Assessor staff present their updates and provide your input Contents for changes to the rural land revaluation, this time taking into account rivers, aquifer recharge zones, and uniformity. Maybe the Tax Assessors actually don’t want more flooding in Valdosta; both the City of Valdosta and GA-EDP have already shown interest in attending about that point.

At an appeal on my property valuation, the Board of Equalization stopped short of actually ordering the Tax Assessors to redo last year’s rural land revaluation, because staff volunteered Continue reading →