Tag Archives: Economy

Report of the Historic Courthouse Committee @ LCC 2015-03-09

No education, all law enforcement: Sheriff’s Office or Public defender’s office. 300x413 Cover letter, in Report of the Historic Courthouse Committee, by H. Arthur McLane, 12 January 2015 Either would save the county money in the long run and preserve the courthouse through use of its services (heat, light, air conditioning). Plus some points on renovating the courthouse building and grounds. Judge McLane referred to this report in his talk at the Commission Work Session 9 March 2105, in which he said it would not be possible for VSU to use the courthouse without “some pretty dramatic and we think negative” changes to the building.

In his cover letter, Judge McLane said he was not sending the actual report to the Commissioners, yet clearly they were reading it in the Work Session, because they asked questions from it. And now you, the public can see the report. LAKE did not get it from the Commission, which so far as we know has not published it. The cover letter and the report are below in full. Continue reading →

Solar growth like compound interest has turned Al Gore into an optimist

Not even Al Gore saw that the continually decreasing price of solar power was causing exponential deployment growth that will win within a decade. But now he does. Since solar is going to win, building destructive and hazardous petroleum pipelines for short-term profit for a few executives and investors would be short-sighted at best. Let’s stop those pipelines, LNG export, and fracking, and plug in to sun, wind, and water power for a clean and prosperous future.

Experts predicted in 2000 that wind generated power worldwide would reach 30 gigawatts; by 2010, it was 200 gigawatts, and by last year it reached nearly 370, or more than 12 times higher. Installations of solar power would add one new gigawatt per year by 2010, predictions in 2002 stated. It turned out to be 17 times that by 2010 and 48 times that amount last year.

And you ain’t seen nothing yet: Continue reading →

Going to Georgia Logistics Summit and retreating @ VLCIA 2015-03-17

They’re going to retreat April 10th after going to the Georgia Logistics Summit March 31st – April 1st. The Summit is in Atlanta, according to its own website. VLDA’s agenda doesn’t say where their retreat will be. Maybe they’ll say at their usual meeting this evening at their usual location. Here’s their agenda.

Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority
Tuesday, March 17, 2015 5:30 p.m.
Development Authority Conference Room
103 Roosevelt Drive
Monthly Meeting Agenda
Continue reading →

Videos: Leadership Lowndes, rezonings approved, one citizen about a Water Trail @ LCC 2015-03-10

Leadership Lowndes Class of 2015 was there, and Gretchen Quarterman spoke about the WWALS Alapaha River Water Trail Conference. Everything else went as predicted with the rezonings and pretty much everything else unanimously approved, at the Tuesday 10 October 2015 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

Continue reading →

Videos: Historic Courthouse, 2 rezonings, 1 utilities, MIDS bus, CDBG @ LCC 2015-03-09

These videos are of yesterday morning’s Work Session, and they’re voting right now on the annual grant paperwork for the county’s on-call bus system, run by MIDS, Inc., on a commercial and a subdivision rezoning, both previously recommended unanimously by the Planning Commission. Plus they will accept Utilities for Creekside West Phase II, i.e., water and sewer. They will declare at least two Potential Conflict(s) of Interest for Commissioner Joyce Evans and County Clerk Paige Dukes on the board of the hildren’s Advocacy Center of Lowndes County, Inc. (CAC), before agreeing for the Chairman to sign a Resolution to submit to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for the CAC. We don’t know what those conflicts are, because as usual the county only published the agenda sheets for each agenda item, without the rest of the details that are in the board packets.

Judge H. Arthur McLane spoke yesterday about the Courthouse Preservation Committee; see LAKE videos of its public meetings.

Tonight they have Citizens Wishing to Be Heard on the agenda.

It’s a welcome change that for rezonings they now consider traffic on nearby roads, unlike back in 2011 when then-Chairman Ashley Paulk said:

I’m not going to argue Bemiss Highway, it’s not a pertinent fact.

Who knows? Next maybe they’ll consider expanding to regular routes on the bus system.

Below are links to the LAKE videos from Monday morning, followed by a video playlist. Continue reading →

Don’t Frack Georgia –sing along

Alton Paul Burns commented yesterday on Fracking south Georgia and north Florida?

Mr Emmet Carlisle wrote a song about fracking Florida “Don’t Frack Florida”. So in support of that movement I wrote another verse:

The battle is on in Bama & Georgia too
Spectra wants to run a pipeline through,
They could care less ’bout me or you,
And they lie to FERC more than they have too,

More Solar energy, Yeah that’s the thing
To everyone this message we bring,
We don’t need Spectra’s pipeline, That’s a fact!
And we don’t have to Frack!

-apb

So this would be the chorus for that verse: Continue reading →

Historic Courthouse, 2 rezonings, 1 utilities, MIDS bus, CDBG @ LCC 2015-03-09

The county has an on-call bus system, run by MIDS, Inc., and they’re doing the annual grant paperwork. Judge H. Arthur McLane will speak this morning about the Courthouse Preservation Committee; see LAKE videos of its public meetings. Tuesday the County Commission will decide the rezonings, one commercial and one subdivision, previously recommended unanimously by the Planning Commission: will they discuss the poor people they’re displacing, unlike the Planning Commission? Plus they will accept Utilities for Creekside West Phase II, i.e., water and sewer. They will declare at least two Potential Conflict(s) of Interest for Commissioner Joyce Evans and County Clerk Paige Dukes on the board of the hildren’s Advocacy Center of Lowndes County, Inc. (CAC), before agreeing for the Chairman to sign a Resolution to submit to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for the CAC. We don’t know what those conflicts are, because as usual the county only published the agenda sheets for each agenda item, without the rest of the details that are in the board packets.

It’s a welcome change that for rezonings they now consider traffic on nearby roads, unlike back in 2011 when then-Chairman Ashley Paulk said:

I’m not going to argue Bemiss Highway, it’s not a pertinent fact.

Who knows? Next maybe they’ll consider expanding to regular routes on the bus system. Continue reading →

Fracking south Georgia and north Florida?

Potential fracking in north Georgia was too close, but what about right here in south Georgia? Florida has a snowballing anti-fracking movement. Looks like Georgia needs one, too.

300x149 South Georgia and North Florida Basins Map, in Shale gas basins in South Georgia and north Florida, by USGS, 4 June 2012 Dan Chapman, AJC Online Athens, 10 March 2013, Gas drillers turn to Georgia,

Jim Kennedy, the state’s geologist, says another company is considering the shale gas fields of the Mesozoic Basin that covers 60 percent of the Coastal Plain in South Georgia.

Most of the story is about proposed fracking in north Georgia that we noted back in 2013, plus fossil fuel industry propaganda about how great they say that would be for the local economy, with very little about the immense destruction, environmental hazards, and invasions of private property that would ensue. The AJC version of that Dan Chapman story didn’t seem to have Continue reading →

Renewables outcompete oil –National Bank of Abu Dhabi

A Middle East bank says:

300x309 Ambitious scenario, in Financing the Future of Energy, by National Bank of Abu Dhabi, March 2015 Renewables accounted for 57 per cent of global power investment in new generation in the period 2000-2013.

And that’s even with all the legal and financial roadblocks thrown up by entrenched fossil fuel companies and electric utilities. The report recommends aligning policy and finance:

To deliver a sustainable energy system for the long term, the financial community and policymakers need to work collaboratively: stimulating and de-risking investment, and developing innovative structures which can support the financing of future energy.

With that collaboration, the Middle East and North Africa could see this kind of energy deployment scenario: Continue reading →

Videos: Day 3 of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-05

The Airport Authority got inserted among the judges and lawyers, and the Coroner’s Office failed to turn in a budget. The day was mostly sitting around waiting, because most of the actual presentations were only a few minutes each, yet were scheduled hours apart, in the last day of the three days of “Budget Hearings” which aren’t really hearings because nobody from the public can speak and they don’t have a budget to hear yet. See the first day for the agenda.

Here are links to videos of each item with some notes by Gretchen, followed by a video playlist. No video for the first item, EMS, due to camera failure; sorry. For the rest, as the Chairman said, referring to Gretchen and the LAKE camera:

We have our videographer back there, so we’re ready.

Hm, maybe LAKE should submit a budget request to the county…. Continue reading →