An open letter to Brad Lofton and Allan Ricketts,
Watching
a video of your speeches to the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
I was astonished to see Brad Lofton say nobody in the room but me
had sat down and gotten a presentation from VLCIA!
Brad Bergstrom has already reminded you that
Bergstrom and Seth Gunning sat down with VLCIA months ago.
I hope you weren’t failing to count Dr. Bergstrom
because he wasn’t physically in the same room at the time
you made that astonishing assertion.
And what about these people?
More
here.
Sitting directly in front of Lofton in those pictures of that June 10th
meeting in the VLCIA offices is Pastor Angela Manning.
I see later in the same video Allan Ricketts contradicts
Brad Lofton by referring to that very meeting that I organized on June 10th.
Yet one of Ricketts or Lofton (I can’t see which)
at the very end of the video claims VLCIA answered every one
of Pastor Manning’s concerns.
As I already pointed out directly to Brad Lofton before
the VBOE meeting, listening to the VLCIA persuaded Pastor Manning to
oppose the biomass plant, organizing
a town hall
at which numerous people spoke about the biomass plant, mostly against.
In case there is any doubt as to Pastor Manning’s position on the
biomass plant, she has since
spelled it out in a letter directly to Brad Lofton:
“I stand with the NAACP, the SCLC, the American Lung Association, and any other group fighting against the bio mass plant.”
In my
above message to Lofton, (sent, once again before
the VBOE meeting) I listed four unanswered concerns from the
June 10 meeting at VLCIA.
He responded by ignoring half of them
and inadequately answering two of them.
When I pointed this out to him,
he failed to answer any of them and asked for
assistance in recruiting jobs.
When I
offered such assistance
his
whole response was:
“We’re moving forward with permits in hand. Have a nice day.”
All the messages cited in the preceding paragraph were exchanged
before the VBOE meeting.
Yet Lofton and Ricketts stood up before the VBOE and asserted
all concerns had been answered.
Is that how someone acts who is seriously trying to answer concerns
of the community?
I do not appreciate Brad Lofton and Allan Ricketts using my name
to support the misinformation they conveyed in their
speeches to the Valdosta Board of Education.
When I first heard about this proposed biomass plant,
I thought it was green energy.
Attempts to obtain objective information about plant emissions
and fuel sources for all the similar nearby plants, together with
repeated presentations such as this from Brad Lofton and
Allan Ricketts, have persuaded me and others to oppose the
proposed biomass incinerator.
-jsq
John S. Quarterman
Project Director Allan Ricketts was on a speaker phone,
so Executive Director Andrea Schruijer gave the
Existing Industry and Project Report.
She thinks maybe three existing industry expansions in second and third quarter 2013.
They’ve continued working with a pharmaceutical company about locating here;
more on that later.
Continued work with three renewable and sustainable energy companies,
and Georgia Power is cooperating.
