Tag Archives: John Fretti

The city says solar is the future —WCTV

Dontaye Carter wrote for WCTV, Local Community Goes Solar
The Azalea City is now home to one of the largest solar arrays in Georgia. The city is hoping the solar power will provide a cleaner, greener energy source for the future.

Note “one of the largest solar arrays in Georgia” instead of Mayor Fretti’s “the largest array in the state of Georgia”. This is because Pete Marte of Hannah Solar had to correct what the mayor said. But the mayor promised to make this one bigger if somebody else leapfrogged it, so time to get cracking!

Back to the WCTV article:

The $1.4 million Wiregrass Solar project was built on two acres of land, which will produce 350-thousand kilowatts per hour of electricity annually for the next 30 years.

On average that will come out to about nine cents per kilowatt hour.

The city says solar is the future and on Thursday it lit the way.

Indeed!
There are 1,100 solar panels here, but organizers say the most surprising part is it took 18 months to find financing, but it only took five days to build.

If you’re wondering what made Valdosta such a popular spot to build the solar arrays, the company, Hannah Solar says it was the attraction of the Wiregrass Biomass plant and…

“The second is the sun. We get some incredible sun down here in Valdosta and it’s a longer solar day because we’re farther south,” said Hannah Solar CEO Pete Marte.

Funny how the biomass plant has taken even longer to not find financing, and still is nowhere near even starting building, if it ever gets there. Expanding the solar array as the mayor said we would sounds a lot more practical.

-jsq

Come back and expand on this one —Valdosta Mayor John Fretti

Yes, let’s celebrate Hannah Solar and this solar array! But why do people have to keep gilding the lily and claiming it’s the largest in the state when it wasn’t even back at groundbreaking? So if Valdosta Mayor John Fretti and County Commissioner Crawford Powell have agreed to expand this solar array if somebody leapfrogs it, time to get cracking! It was already leapfrogged before it was built.

After lauding his class of Leadership Lowndes over others, Mayor Fretti complimented various local organizations and said:

…not only that it has a good quality of life, it has the infrastructure that is needed for industrial recruitment, but that you will be successful when you locate in Valdosta-Lowndes County, and I think Hannah Solar is evidence of that.
All true, and note which comes first: “a good quality of life.”

Mayor Fretti quoted the first law of thermodynamics (conservation and conservation of energy) and remarked:

But now we have some energy sources in our area that we can take advantage of. Unfortunately we don’t have an ocean for tidal power. Unfortunately we don’t have geothermal as much as other areas of the country.

We do have sunlight. Certainly not as much as some areas of the country, but we have an abundance enough that we could put out what is currently the largest array in the state of Georgia.

That’s all good stuff, except this wasn’t the biggest solar array in the state even the last time Mayor Fretti stood on the same spot and said the same thing.

Maybe he (and everyone) should double-check what VLCIA tells him.

Brad Lofton knew Continue reading →

Runaround —Leigh Touchton

Leigh Touchton responded to Valdosta Mayor John Fretti’s response to her previous post. -jsq
Happy Birthday, Mayor Fretti, and thank you for posting publicly.

However, I wish you would stop trying to pass Mayor and Council’s portion of responsibility for the biomass incinerator to the Industrial Authority. I delivered a letter to Mayor and Council Thursday night outlining 10 reasons your Utilities Director can legitimately give when he (hopefully) follows Mayor and Council’s recommendation to refuse to sell gray water to the proposed biomass incinerator. I and many other citizens are tired of the run-around and the shifting of responsibility for this “biomess” from one public official or group to another.

A councilmember told me that Council would never vote

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Touchton v. City of Valdosta, Georgia, et al.

Mayor Fretti mentioned a lawsuit against him and the city of Valdosta that was dismissed. Court records on that are available.

According to Justia.com Dockets & Filings, Catherine Leigh Touchton filed a federal civil rights lawsuit 30 May 2007 against John Fretti and the City of Valdosta Georgia Middle District Court, On 17 April 2009:

Court Opinion or Order ORDER directing judgment for defendants on federal law claims. State law claims are dismissed without prejudice. Ordered by Judge Hugh Lawson on 4/17/2009.
A dozen similar lawsuits were filed the same day by Karen Camion, Faye Chachere, Jesse Clark, Callie Fielden, Reggie Griffin, Kathryn Harris, Willie Head, Joann Mosley, George Rhynes, Willie Roberson, Floyd Rose, and Mary Sherman. All appear to have had the same result.

Access to related documents is available by registering with PACER. They don’t charge until a user runs up a minimum amount of usage.

-jsq

Disturbing things —Dr. Noll

Dr. Noll posted a comment today about last night’s Valdosta City Council meeting, and we thank him for his report:
What I found most disturbing are actually the following things that happened at last night’s meeting:
  1. A Mayor in absentia because he is celebrating his birthday and decided not to attend because of a lack of agenda items for the meeting.
  2. A mother being harassed by Mr. Taylor who makes sexist comments when her daughter is receiving an award for an essay contest.
  3. A City Council and ALL of its members who continue to hide behind a policy that supposedly does not allow them to respond during meetings. As if they would respond before or after meetings.
  4. City Council member Yost going into a tirade about my wife’s comment in regard to “boring” meetings, when she is referring to the experience of our children who have been sitting through quite a few of them by now. Such meetings are indeed “boring” to a 9 and 12 year old.
  5. Council member Yost then goes on to “thank” all of us for staying until the end of the meeting so that we could witness the important work they do. Like what? The replacement of two belt press sludge pumps, the renaming of a street? If there is an important piece of work Mr. Yost and his colleagues could impress us with, it would be a resolution to not sell water to a biomass plant that threatens the health of our community!
-Michael Noll
Sometimes sludge replacement parts are boring, but if we don’t replace them and the wastewater treatment plant overflows, it may pollute your yard or your creek. Best we take of it ahead of time and be proactive, rather than reactive. Let’s take care of a problem before it happens!

-gretchen

PS: Don’t forget to go to the Planning Commission on Monday.

Biomass protesters @ VCC 24 March 2011

Black and white, young and old, conservative and liberal, college professors and unemployed: dozens of them demonstrated against biomass outside the Valdosta City Council meeting, 24 March 2011:

As Dr. George said Continue reading →

We have plenty of sunshine here –Dr. Serrán-Pagán @ VCC 24 March 2011

Dr. Cristóbal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes reminds us we don’t need a biomass plant because:
We have plenty of sunshine here.
You’d think the Valdosta City Council would know that, since only about a month ago Mayor Fretti assisted groundbreaking for Wiregrass Solar LLC. Maybe it takes somebody from Spain to remind everyone. Spain, which is a leader in solar power in the world. Spain, which is actually north of Georgia.

Here’s the video:


Protesters outside the
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Valdosta State of the City –Mayor Fretti

Here’s the text of Valdosta Mayor Fretti’s State of the City speech of yesterday. I thought they said it would be available on the web today, but if so, I’m not sure where. Pictured is Rudy the K9 dog, who is mentioned in this passage:
Now Wally was purchased with grant funds. Rudy was trained with grant funds. Our mobile command center was purchased with grant funds. Several other pieces of equipment for Police and Fire departments are purchased with grants. Now, there are those that scream and shake their fist at government to say, “Take no grants, for they are evil”.
Continue reading →

VSU Advanced Journalism Class, VCC, 10 Feb 2011

Mayor Fretti welcomes a VSU advanced journalism class, as well as David Rodock of the VDT, while Gretchen pans around the room. Hm, advanced journalism: maybe they’d like to video events?


Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 10 February 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Meeting video “increasingly popular” –AJC

Patrick Fox writes in the AJC, 18 Jan 2011, Meeting access video grows among city councils:
Metro Atlanta cities want to air their business in living rooms. Alpharetta agreed to spend $68,000 for a video recording system in its council chambers. Dunwoody will shell out $93,000 for a digital video recording system, enabling residents to view city council and planning commission meetings live from home.

While not every city electronically records its council meetings, the practice has become increasingly popular.

“It’s an overall trend of cities, going where people are to share information, to keep people in touch,” said Amy Henderson, Georgia Municipal Association spokeswoman.

Continue reading →