Tag Archives: Law

GA PSC questionnaire: David Staples

David Staples The Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for Georgia Public Service Commission. None of the incumbents answered. The two challengers did. Here’s the one from David A. Staples for District 5. -jsq

  1. As a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your campaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast?

    [I’m omitting the answers to this question. -jsq]

  2. How should the Public Service Commission consider and weight the impacts to community health (asthma, cancer rates, etc.) and on Georgia’s environmental (water quantity, air quality etc.) when making decisions about a utility’s generation portfolio?

    Impacts to community health and the environment have to be considered very carefully. I know there are a number of different ways of viewing the situation but the explanation I’ve found that works best with Republicans in trying to get their support is that it comes down to a private property matter. The right to swing ones fist ends at the other person’s nose. Does anyone have the right to pollute the air that I breathe or the water that I drink?

    If I buy a piece of property for instance along the Savannah River or Ogeechee River, does someone upstream from me have the right to pollute the water that then flows onto my land, carrying those pollutants with it?

    Absolutely not.

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Adding another charter school authorizer reduces academic learning —Karen Noll

Received today on Georgia charter schools do no better than traditional public schools. -jsq

The Stanford study, Multiple Choice: Charter school performance in 16 states (p. 4), also found that multiple authorizers:

Figure 15: Charter School Effect of Policy Variables

States that empower multiple entities to act as charter school authorizers realize significantly lower growth in academic learning in their students, on the order of -.08 standard deviations.

Currently we have the local boards of education that authorize charter schools at a very high rate, 94%. If the charter is not approved by the local board then they can appeal to the Dept of Ed. For approval. So, by adding another authorizer in the form of the UNCONSTITUTIONAL charter school commission you simply reduce the academic learning of the students! This is not about education this amendment is about the money earned by some to keep power! Our constitution states that we have an obligation to provide free quality education to all Georgians. We have no obligation to line the pockets of the rich with our tax dollars!

-Karen Noll

Charter school amendment: taxation without representation —Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09

Karen Noll spoke to the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday about the charter school amendment, saying it would implement taxation without representation Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09 and would take more tax dollars from our public schools to give twice as much money to special charter school students.

When you’re talking about my kids in the schools and you’re going to take their money and ship it to somebody else’s family and then there’s no accountability, that’s just unacceptable.

Here’s the video.

-jsq

“Great, big” SO is 1/10 Australia for solar farm deployment in Georgia

Solar Megawatts 2012-10-11 So if Southern Company is a “great, big company” similar to Australia, why did Australia just deploy a solar farm ten times the size of the biggest one SO has in Georgia?

Back in May, Southern Company (SO) CEO Thomas A. Fanning said:

From an energy standpoint, Southern Company is a little bit smaller, but similar to, the energy production profile of the nation of Australia. We are a great, big company from an energy production standpoint.

Meanwhile in Australia, Giles Parkinson wrote for Clean Technica 10 October 2012, Australia’s 1st Utility-Scale Solar Farm Now On!

At about 11am local time near the Western Australian town of Geraldton this morning, Australia’s first-utility scale solar farm was officially switched on.

It was a suitably sunny day (blighted by three million flies) and although just 10MW in size, and built courtesy of funding from the local government, a state-owned utility and by one of the wealthiest companies on the planet, it may presage a dramatic change in the way this country produces energy.

So what’s SO or Georgia Power’s biggest solar plant in Georgia? You remember, 1 MW in Upson.

OK, to be fair, that’s just Georgia Power. SO does have larger solar farms elsewhere, including

Now I know Georgia Power’s party line is that solar is only good in the U.S. southwest. But I don’t know how that explains Continue reading →

Georgia charter schools do no better than traditional public schools

Let's look at Georgia's non-unionized public schools. So far as I know, Georgia does not have teachers' unions. But there's still no reason to believe charter schools in Georgia would be any more magic than in Chicago.

According to CREDO at Stanford University, which has done CREDO at Stanford University state-by-state charter school studies, they find CHARTER SCHOOLS IN GEORGIA PERFORM SIGNIFICANTLY BELOW THEIR TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL PEERS IN MATH: No Difference Found in Reading Performance. That's their press release. Here's the detailed study.

So if someone has a charter school idea that they think will perform Vote No on Amendment 1 better than public schools, they can talk to their local school board about that, and maybe that local board will agree. There's no need to authorize an unelected Atlanta board to force that charter school on us.

Vote No on the charter school amendment in November.

-jsq

Chicago charter schools do no better than unionized public schools

The Georgia “charter school” amendment isn’t really about charter schools (which any school district in Georgia can already approve, and many have): it’s about giving an unelected committee in Atlanta power to force us to pay extra local taxes to fund charter schools we don’t want. However, since the pushers of that amendment say it’s about charter schools, it’s worth reviewing that charter schools actually on average perform no better or even worse than traditional public schools. Let’s look at what the pushers hate most, unionized public schools in Chicago. and then let’s look at Georgia’s non-unionized public schools.

Ben Joravsky wrote for chichagoreader.com 3 October 2012, Today’s lesson: charters do not outperform unionized schools: Confronting the anti-teachers’ union myth with, you know, facts

But as I was saying, the foes of the teachers’ union declare that we should pay close attention to the all-important standardized test scores. So let’s take a look.

Chicago Public Schools There are 541 elementary schools in Chicago. Based on the composite ISAT scores for 2011—the last full set available—none of the top ten are charters. None of the top 20, 30, or 40 either.

In fact, you’ve got to go to 41 to find a charter. Take a bow, CICS Irving Park!

Most of the 49 charters on the list are clustered near the great middle, alongside most of their unionized neighborhood schools.

The top scorers are public schools with unionized teachers who are members of the Chicago Teachers Union.

UNO is a charter school operator. Joravsky compares one of its schools side-by-side with a unionized public school.

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What Georgia Power is afraid of: GaSU and Dr. Smith; and you

So what is Georgia Power afraid of that made their CEO Paul Bowers double down on old-style baseload? Competition, that’s what! What could be more scary in the power-monopoly state of the 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act?

GaSU sun On one side, Georgia Power faces GaSU and its 80 or 90 MW solar plant proposal. Walter C. Jones wrote for OnlineAthens 24 September 2012, Proposed solar company could stir up Georgia’s utility structure,

A proposal from a start-up business promises to lower electricity rates by rebating profits to customers if given a chance to compete as Georgia Power Co.’s “mirror image.”

GaSU fb profile image To proceed with its long-range plan of developing 2 gigawatts of solar power, the start-up, Georgia Solar Utilities Inc., wants to start by building an 80-megawatt “solar farm” near Milledgeville as soon as it gets a green light from the Georgia Public Service Commission. GaSU filed its request last week, and as of Monday, it’s still too fresh for public evaluation.

So radical is the proposal that spokespersons for Georgia Power and the Georgia Solar Energy Association said they still were evaluating it and could not comment.

Groups that normally advocate for customers also are staying quiet.

GaSU executives recognize such a big change won’t come easily.

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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

Joint Resolution in Support of Quality Public Education —Lowndes and Valdosta Boards of Education

Yesterday I asked But what does the joint resolution actually say? Karen Noll has supplied the answer, in the form of a PDF of the signed resolution, transcribed below. This thing makes the education paragraph in the Occupy Valdosta Mission Statement sound mild-mannered. We’ve already seen the state’s response. -jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
AND
VALDOSTA CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION
JOINT RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF
QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION
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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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