Tag Archives: History

Valdosta: 3rd poorest city

Valdosta #3! Followed by Albany #4! In poorest cities in the country. What can we do about that?

Michael B. Sauter, Alexander E.M. Hess and Samuel Weigley, 24/7 Wall St., wrote for NBC News 14 October 2012, America’s richest and poorest cities,

3. Valdosta, Ga.
  • Median household income: $32,446
  • Population: 140,599 (87th lowest)
  • Unemployment rate: 9.2 percent(140th highest)
  • Percent households below poverty line: 27.6 percent (ninth highest)

From 2007 to 2011, the unemployment rate in Valdosta increased by 130 percent, from 4 percent of workers to 9.2 percent. The number of employed workers declined by more than 6,000 during that time. Those jobs remaining often pay a lower salary. Last year, nearly 17 percent of the work force was employed in the generally low-paying retail industry, the sixth highest percentage of all metro areas. In 2007, just 11.3 percent of the labor force worked in retail. Valdosta, however, has an improving and active housing market. Home prices rose nearly 12 percent between 2007 and 2011. Despite these positives, 14.4 percent of housing units were vacant last year, higher than the national vacancy rate of 13.1 percent. Also, 15.3 percent of homes were worth less than $50,000 versus 8.8 percent nationwide.

The study is actually for “U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs” and this population is not just for Valdosta, it’s for the Valdosta MSA, which includes Brooks, Echols, Lanier, and Lowndes Counties.

Look who’s next on the list:

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Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-09-25

Fewer speakers at the Regular Session than at the previous morning’s Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission. The longest item was a citizen wishing to be heard, who only spoke for 3 and a half minutes. Up until then, the meeting took five minutes, as the Chairman noted. And everything was adopted unanimously, with little or no discussion.

Here’s the agenda, annotated below with links to the videos and a few notes, and followed by a video playlist.

  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
  4. Minutes for Approval
    First the Chairman welcomed Leadership Lowndes.
    Then both sets of minutes were unanimously approved with no changes.
    1. Work Session — September 10, 2012
    2. Regular Session — September 11, 2012
  5. For Consideration
    1. Bevel Creek Lift Station Repair —Mike Allen
      The total for the wastewater lift station was still $38,969 with the budget impact being the insurance deductible. Unanimously approved.
    2. Dell Lease Agreement for Sheriff’s Office Laptops —Aaron Kostyu
      Six years ago the Sheriff’s Dept. leased some laptops; plan was always to roll new laptops into the lease; that will be done using drug seizure funds. Unanimously approved.
    3. Contract with Corporate Health Partners
      County Manager Joe Pritchard said they had started looking into wellness plans several years ago, $260,000 in savings in health care expenses so far; partnership with SGMC and YMCA. Commissioner Joyce Evans wanted to know how regularly it would be monitoried. Answer: quarterly. Commissioner Richard Raines moved to approve Corporate Health Partners, except instead of a three year contract, an initial one year with two one-year extensions. Unanimously approved.
    4. Agreement with Basic Life
      Joe Pritchard alluded to yesterday’s presentation from Chris Park(? Clark?) recommending a change to basic life coverage, with an approximate annual savings of slightly over $10,000. Unanimously approved.
  6. Reports-County Manager
    Joe Pritchard had no report.
  7. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address
    Chairman Ashley Paulk noted it was 5:35, and then Ken Klanicki spoke for 3 and a half minutes, the longest item in the meeting, after which they adjourned.

Video Playlist
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 25 September 2012.

-jsq

Georgia Power’s Bowers pushes solar misinformation out the next fifty years

Paul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power, doubled down on baseload nuclear, coal, and natural gas for the next fifty years. What’s he scared of?

Nick Coltrain wrote for OnlineAthens yesterday, Renewable push not in the cards for Ga. Power,

Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers in Georgia Trend, November 2011 “Renewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,” Bowers said of fuels to create electricity. “Is it going to be 2 or 4 percent? That’s yet to be determined. Economics will drive that. But you always remember (that renewable energy is) an intermittent resource. It’s not one you can depend on 100 percent of the time.”

One time you can depend on it is hot summer days when everybody is air conditioning, which is why Roger Duncan of Austin Energy in 2003 Austin Energy flipped in one year from spouting such nonsense to deploying the most aggressive solar rooftop rebate program in the country. Austin Energy did the math and found those rebates would cost about the same as a coal plant and would generate as much energy. And when it is needed most, unlike the fossilized baseload grid, which left millions without power in the U.S. in June and hundreds of millions without power in India in July.

Bowers knows better than the nonsense he just spouted; as recently as November 2011 he told Georgia Trend,

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Georgia Power inches towards more solar, trailing New Jersey

If you’re quick, you may be able to sell solar from your roof to Georgia Power. If the PSC approves a pending request. If you get in before that new quota gets filled. And if you’re a Georgia Power customer. The rest of us? Not until the 1973 Georgia Electric Territorial Act is changed. Until then, Georgia will continue to lag way behind New Jersey in solar power.

210 MW is more than 50 MW but way less than 3,000 MW

Walter C. Jones wrote for the Augusta Chronicle today, Georgia Power plans to triple solar power use,

Georgia Power filed Wednesday seeking permission from state regulators to more than triple the amount of solar power it uses to generate electricity for its 2.4 million customers by swapping it for what was already planned from other renewable sources.

What “other renewable sources”?

The Georgia Power plan won’t affect rates because it is based on paying the solar providers what it would have paid the biomass provider, 13 cents per kilowatt hour, which is already figured into customer’s rates.

OK, that’s good, because it means biomass is well and truly dead in Georgia. But it also means Georgia Power isn’t very serious about solar, if all it’s doing is fiddling with accounting for the small amount of power biomass might have produced and not going for the real numbers solar can produce. OK, how many solar megawatts?

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Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-09-24

A parade of speakers not on the agenda extended yesterday morning’s Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission. They spoke about the conference center, about South Georgia Partnership for Homelessness, and about health and life insurance. Commissioners heard from staff about repairs to a sewage lift station and laptops for the Sheriff’s office. They vote on all these things at their Regular Session tonight at 5:30 PM.

Here’s the agenda, annotated below with links to the videos and a few notes, and followed by a video playlist.

  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
  4. Minutes for Approval
    1. Work Session — September 10, 2012
    2. Regular Session — September 11, 2012
    The Chairman announced guests not on the agenda.
  5. For Consideration
    1. Bevel Creek Lift Station Repair
      MR Systems’ quote for SCADA control panel was $13,775, plus another control panel $25,194, for a total of $38,969. Utilities Director Mike Allen said making an addition (presumably of the $25,194 control panel) would save four weeks of downtime.
    2. Dell Lease Agreement for Sheriff’s Office Laptops
    3. Contract with Corporate Health Partners
      County Manager Joe Pritchard said they had achieved $260,000 in savings towards projected $300,000 savings in health care expenses. He introduced Chris Park(?) with Park(?) Group and Jack Curtis with Corporate Health Partners. Pritchard said the county Wanted to add a wellness program to improve employee quality of life and wellbeing. Chris Park(?) spoke first. He introduced Jack Curtis, who spoke about a wellness program proposal.
    4. Agreement with Basic Life
      Chris Park(?) spoke again, saying what he was proposing would save $10,000 or 23% over the current plan while preserving all the current benefits.
  6. Reports-County Manager
    Joe Pritchard had no report, so they adjourned.
  7. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address
    That’s only for the Regular Session.

Video Playlist
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Brandon Livingston for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 24 September 2012.

-jsq

Sewers, laptops, and insurance @ LCC 2012-09-24

Repairs to a sewage lift station, laptops for the Sheriff’s office, and health and life insurance. I’ll bet this morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session will be brief.

What’s this about a Bevel Creek Lift Station Repair? That sewer line station seems to have last been mentioned in a Commission meeting 11 February 2003:

Mr. Clark stated that the Bevel Creek Lift Station rehab came in under budget enough to cover the additional $26,000.00 from the Exit 22 project.

The Commissioners (of whom only Joyce Evans is still or again on the Commission) proceeded to approve one of their famous transportation change orders.

But what is Bevel Creek? According to Watershed Assessment: The Watersheds Associated with Lowndes County, Georgia, May 2001,

Bevel Creek discharges into the Withlacoochee River in north-central Florida.

Since Bevel Creek doesn’t join the Withlacoochee River in Georgia, it’s considered as a separate watershed basin for Lowndes County.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
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Yes VDT, but —Save Strickland Mill

On facebook, Save Strickland Mill just posted a critique of certain parts of the VDT’s writeup on the Remerton City Council’s Strickland Mill vote. -jsq

Valdosta Daily Times, September 12, 2012
Mill to come down: Buildings to be razed, historic tower to remain
by Quinten Plummer

VALDOSTA — The iconic smoke stack will still tower over the City of Remerton, according to local officials, but the majority of the historic Remerton Mill complex will be demolished and converted into a park after the City Council gave the mill’s owners the go-ahead for demolition during Monday evening’s regular session.

This is not a factual statement: the city council’s motion is as follows: Councilman Bill Wetherington made the following motion which was unanimously voted in by the council members present that night (note that councilman Sam Flemming was not in attendance)

“I move to approve the certificate of appropriateness 2012-04 for 1853 W. Gordon to be issued and effective as of October 25th 2012 for a period of one year from that date with the condition that the cotton mill smokestack remains intact and shall continue to remain intact in accordance with title 18 of the code of City of Remerton.”

The mill’s ownership group simply wants relief from its obligations to the property, and Remerton Mayor Cornelius Holsendolph said the restoration of the mill is just too large of a project for a city of Remerton’s size.

That is the reason why

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Valdosta Street Railway 1899-1924

 

What’s that little shelter by the front gate of VSU? It’s the last physical remnant of the Valdosta Street Railway, an early 20th century streetcar system, when Valdosta was the smallest city in the country to have one. Valdosta had 5,613 people in 1900, about twice as many as present-day Hahira.

Dean Poling described the origins of Valdosta’s streetcars in Valdosta Scene 26 February 2010:

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Streetcars and bicycles: upcoming movies at VSU

You do know that Valdosta was the smallest city in the U.S. that had a streetcar system, right? Here’s a movie about what probably happened to it, like all the others, followed by a movie about another mode of transportation: bicycles.

“Taken for a Ride” and “Pedal Power!” screening

Public Event · By Valdosta State University Social Issues in Film Series
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
7:00pm
VSU University Center room 1171
DOUBLE-HEADER!

“Taken for a Ride” focuses on the Great American Streetcar Scandal (or Conspiracy), in which major US companies deliberately bought-up and dismantled the public light-rail streetcar lines in dozens of American cities. The guilty companies? General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks—all companies that wanted to replace the public streetcars with buses and then private cars.

“Pedal Power!” is an inside look at the world’s growing cycling movement and how bikes are pushing-up against a dominant car culture in North America. From Critical Mass bike rides and “bike-to-work” programs, to increasingly popular “public bike” programs, bicycles are becoming an ever-important component of cities.

Co-sponsored with the Valdosta Community Cycling Center.

-jsq

 

Citizens plead for Strickland Mill, then a surprise offer @ RCC 2012-09-10

Haley Hyatt videoed yesterday’s Remerton City Council decision about Strickland Mill. Citizens pled, unsuccessfully, for it to be saved. Then the owners made a surprise offer.

Here’s Part 1 of 3:

The final plea was made by Celine H. Gladwin.

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