Check it out the notification thingy from the county actually works.
We got notified of a special called meeting.
From: listserv@civicplus.com
Date: 22 Jan 2015 13:52:48 -0600
Subject: New Event Special Called Meeting For cp-stcity2.civicplus.com
A new Event now appears on our site. Please click on the link below to go dir
ectly to the new posting.here.
A link under “News Flash” on the county’s front page leads to
this
slightly different version: Continue reading
Update 25 January 2015: Additional item #5 Anti-Chaining Ordinance Request – Dr. Amanda Hall;
see separate post.
Lowndes County won
an award for its budget as “a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide and a communications device.”
All good except: as a communications device?
They’d probably have to publish drafts of it before they passed it for
that to be true.
Unless they mean as in a public telling, not a public hearing.
They won last year, too,
along with 45 other winners in Georgia,
including Valdosta.
Award, or passing grade?
No rezonings, but
surplus computing devices,
abandonment of
Deloach Road E (CR 95),
more on the
never-ending juvenile justice Evidence Based Associates topic,
and
sewer gasses corrode manhole covers. I wonder how much gases
corrode pipelines?
The agenda (PDF) still doesn’t give the dates; just Monday and Tuesday, so I’ve inserted them in [brackets].
But congratulations on having the agenda online a week in advance!
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, [January 26th] 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, [January 27th] 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
