Tag Archives: Valdosta

MLK and pipeline opposition

The fossil fuel opposition is the child and grandchild of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. With their nonviolence, truth, and action as a model, we shall overcome.

Bill McKibben, The Guardian, 25 August 2011, Martin Luther King’s legacy and the power of nonviolent civil disobedience: In opposing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, demonstrators are getting a sense of the civil rights leader’s courage,

Preacher, speaker, writer under fire, but also tactician. He really understood the power of nonviolence, a power we’ve experienced in the last few days. When the police cracked down on us, the publicity it produced cemented two of the main purposes of our protest: First, it made Keystone XL “ the new, 1,700-mile-long pipeline we’re trying to block that will vastly increase the flow of “dirty” tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico “ into a national issue. A few months ago, it was mainly people along the route of the prospective pipeline who were organising against it. (And with good reason: Continue reading →

South Georgia Growing Local at Pine Grove Middle School this Saturday

Update 2015-01-20: Actually that’s Wednesday 21 January 2015 for Gretchen on the Chris Beckham radio show, 105.9 FM, still at 8AM.

Gretchen Quarterman will be on the radio 7:30 AM this morning on the Scott James show 92.1 FM and 8:00 AM tomorrow January 21st on the Chris Beckham show 105.9 FM, talking about South Georgia Growing Local 2015, a full day of five parallel tracks of talks about soil, planting, fruits, vegetables, oils, permaculture, hydroponics, bees, bugs, invasive plants, citrus, chickens, goats, hams, cooking, water, and solar power, all here below the gnat line in our loamy soil and above our Floridan Aquifer. The conference is 9AM to 5PM Saturday January 24th 2015 at Pine Grove Middle School, on River Road north of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia. See you there!

-jsq

Solar financing bill HB 57

You won’t have to mortgage the farm to install solar power if this bill passes, because you’ll be able to get reasonable financing.

Update 2015-02-07: HB 57 was favorably reported out of the House Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee 28 January 2015, first time such a bill has ever cleared that hurdle.

The actual solar leasing bill in the Georgia House as of 14 January 2015 is HB 57 “…to provide for financing of solar technology by retail electric customers for the generation of electric energy to be used on and by property owned or occupied by such customers or to be fed back to the electric service provider”, aka the “Solar Power Free-Market Financing Act of 2015.” It includes the same old generation limits from the 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act (10 Megawatts per individual and 100 MW per company), but it blows a huge hole in the prohibition on power purchase agreements (PPAs).

Georgia Power and the Electric Membership Corporations have reportedly already agreed on this bill. If so, it should sail through the legislature. Still, it won’t hurt to call your Georgia House member and ask them to vote for it, and maybe become a co-sponsor.

Here’s PDF of the bill, and here’s the key provision: Continue reading →

DoJ ending civil asset forfeiture involving federal law

This should also reduce incarceration, through fewer unnecessary stops, so fewer drug busts. Next, how about end the failed War on Drugs?

By Robert O’Harrow Jr., Sari Horwitz and Steven Rich, Washington Post, 16 January 2015, Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with local, state police,

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges.

Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.

Since 2008, Continue reading →

Quail Hunt and Project Cold @ VLCIA 2015-01-20

And a City Council Retreat Presentation.

Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority
Tuesday, January 20, 2015 5:30 p.m.
Development Authority Conference Room
103 Roosevelt Drive
Monthly Meeting Agenda
Continue reading →

Georgia Power claims credit for solar leasing bill

That antique 1973 law may finally change to greatly facilitate solar financing through power purchase agreements (PPAs), now that Georgia Power has finally realized the good PR it’s getting for its own solar power deployments.

Walter C. Jones, Jacksonville.com, 13 January 2015, Solar access for residences, churches, small businesses could become easier under agreement,

ATLANTA | Homeowners, churches and small businesses would soon have access to the financing available in two-dozen states for the installation of solar panels with little upfront costs based on an agreement announced Tuesday during a legislative hearing.

Coming up with $18,000 or more in cash to install photovoltaic panels on the average home is difficult for most homeowners. But if the agreement becomes law, they could lease their roof to companies that pay them back with free electricity, selling the rest to the utilities.

Or cities or counties. Valdosta or Lowndes County, for instance, might save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on utility bills if they could finance solar power through PPAs.

Georgia has the fastest-growing solar Continue reading →

Board of Elections meeting @ Elections 2015-01-13

Received by email 8 January 2015, with no agenda and no other materials. -jsq

Notice is hereby given that the Lowndes County Board of Elections will conduct a public meeting on Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 4:30 p.m., at the Lowndes County Elections office, located at 2808 N Oak St., Valdosta, GA 31602.

All interested parties are invited to attend.

For meeting information, please call the Elections office at 229-671-2850 or e-mail elections@lowndescounty.com.

Valdosta City Council Retreats to Moultrie this weekend

Citizens can attend this open meeting to hear about that flooding study, traffic cameras, compensation, and other issues, even though it’s inconveniently located in another county, almost as if the Valdosta City Council didn’t want you to see what they’re doing. If City Hall wouldn’t do, why not the Convention Center? It has its own chef. Like the VDT editorialized, there was no need to go to a out-of-town fancy resort.

Joe Adgie wrote for the VDT 8 January 2014, Valdosta City Council retreating in Moultrie,

The two-day event will feature discussion of issues that Mayor John Gayle and the City Council want to focus on in the coming year, as well as priorities for the legislative delegation and the Georgia Department of Transportation.

In addition, the results of a city employee compensation study will be released and discussed at the retreat.

The number one issue listed by the council for the current year involves funding from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for a levee and pump proposal.

According to the city, Continue reading →

Expanded agenda, VLDA appointment, jail, taxes, water @ LCC 2015-01-12

Whose terms are up and who’s being considered for appointment (Teri Lupo for VLDA again), who bid and how much (including showers and roofing for the jail), and some detail about two tax rates: these are all big improvements to the agenda! I do wonder where the agenda item for the Water Trail resolution is.

However, there’s room for improvement. Even though you get this same extended agenda when you select “packet” for download, it is not the complete board packet. For example, each agenda item has a one or more page agenda item form, and each proposed agreement or contract typically is include in the paper packets the Commissioners get. There are no rezoning cases on this agenda, but when there are, those always contain several maps in the board packet, and often other information. There’s an HTML version of the agenda, in addition to PDF: that’s another big improvement! The HTML code includes this at the end of each item:

<div class="documents"> </div>

So it looks like the website software the county is using is prepared to include such documents. Maybe the county will actually include them soon.

Here’s the agenda in HTML and in PDF on the county’s website, and I’ve also included it inline below. Continue reading →

Sabal Trail like Keystone XL is for corporate profit not jobs

It would go through our land to be sold everywhere else, with no jobs here. It wouldn’t even be a nominal benefit for those of us whose land, water, and taxes it would take.

President Obama was half right:

Understand what this project is. It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else. That doesn’t have an impact on U.S. gas prices.

In his press conference of 14 November 2014, he was referring to the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. Add Atlantic to Gulf and the above quote applies equally to the proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

History has countered his next assertion: Continue reading →