How do you like the new wordpress site for the LAKE blog? We’re still settling in here, so there will probably be some changes yet. Meanwhile, all the old content is here in the new location.
Author Archives: admin
Videos: Tourism Authority February meeting @ VLCCCTA 2013-02-27
Here are videos of the February meeting of the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Convention Center and Tourism Authority.
We can guess they met again 27 March 2013,
but there’s nothing on
their website
or
their facebook page
to indicate that.
Their Chair
did say 27 March 2013 was the next meeting right at the end of this meeting.
And their executive did promise
the new website will have meeting times, list of board members, etc.
They’re
spending money on security cameras and VCRs;
hm, maybe they could use some of those cameras to record their own events?
Maybe record other board and authorities, and maybe even elected bodies?
I would post the agenda, but I don’t have one; only this
picture of the announcement on the door
of the Convention Center.
They talked about
financials and events vs. event days; they had 25 events in January, down
slightly from the same month a year ago, but event-days were similar.
Perhaps someone would like to listen to the whole thing and report back on what they did?
Here’s
a video playlist:
Videos: Tourism Authority February meeting
Regular Session, Valdosta Lowndes County Conference Center and Tourism Authority (VLCCCTA),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 February 2013.
-jsq
NJ 1 GW Solar: GA #22
While Georgia
failed to reform its antique Territorial Electric Service Act
and
toyed with a solar monopoly,
New Jersey, far to the north with far less sun,
finished installing a gigawatt (1,000 megawatts) of solar power.
The rest of the
U.S. installed 3.3 MW total, slightly higher
than projections of 3.2 MW, but Georgia lagged behind.
When will the legislature and the Public Service Commission,
and perhaps more importantly, Georgia Power and Southern Company,
stop
stop wasting our money on that three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture boondoggle
at Plant Vogtle
and get on with solar in Georgia for jobs, for profit, and for clean air and water?
Pete Danko wrote for
Earth Techling and Huffpo 20 March 2013,
New Jersey Solar Capacity Hits 1 Gigawatt,
U.S. installed 3.3 Gigawatts of solar in 2012, on target
Moore’s law continues to drive solar costs down and installations up.
According to SEIA,
U.S. Market Installs 3,300 Megawatts in 2012; Driven by Record Fourth Quarter,
2012 was a historic year for the U.S. solar industry. There were
3,313 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed
throughout the year, which represents 76% growth over 2011’s record
deployment totals. The fourth quarter of 2012 was also the largest
quarter on record as 1,300 MW came online, driven in part by
unprecedented installation levels in the residential and utility
markets. SEIA and GTM Research forecast that the market will
continue to grow at a steady clip with over 4,200 MW of PV and 940
MW of concentrating solar power (CSP) expected to come online in
2013. (All data from SEIA/GTM Research “U.S. Solar Market
Insight 2012 Year-In-Review” unless otherwise noted.)
And those new installations are driven by solar PV prices continually falling in
Moore’s Law for solar:
Billions for Cape Wind
Wind, wind, blow away the NIMBYs.
David Richardson
wrote for Grist today,
Cape Wind wins billions in backing, launches offshore wind in the U.S.
What do you do when local opposition to an offshore wind farm
project dries up, when the NIMBY crowd runs out of steam, when the
federal government gives the green light and extends every permit
and courtesy the law will allow, when the technology is tested and
proven, and there’s nothing left to do but build it? Well, then you
go looking for money — lots of it. After more than a decade of
preparation, the Massachusetts wind energy company Cape Wind has
done just that — and the results are looking promising.A $2 billion agreement with Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ penned last
week catapults Cape Wind to a commanding lead in the race to be the
first offshore wind project in the U.S. When complete, 130 turbines
in Nantucket Sound will generate 468 megawatts of electricity,
enough to power 100,000 to 200,000 households in the Cape Cod
region, depending on the season. If the company can get construction
started this year, Cape Wind’s clean power could begin turning on
lights from Buzzards Bay to Provincetown by 2015.
There’s more in
the article.
-jsq
Rural hospitals closing
A state that forces hospital closings by refusing Medicare expansion
while spending a billion dollars a year on locking up too many
prisoners has its priorities wrong.
Tom Baxter wrote for SaportaReport yesterday,
Ominous signs for rural Georgia as hospitals shut their doors,
Lewis forecast at the beginning of the year that five to six rural
hospitals might be forced to close in 2013, and already there have
been two.
Calhoun Memorial Hospital in Arlington closed in February,
and
Stewart-Webster Hospital in Richland shut its doors last week.That’s only a foretaste, Lewis says, of what’s going to happen when
the Affordable Care Act next year eliminates the
subsidies which
have been key to the survival of many of these hospitals, and
imposes new standards — for instances, penalizing hospitals
for readmitting patients in less than 30 days — which will
directly impact their bottom line.“We will probably get hurt worse than any state in the
nation,” Lewis said last week. “It’s not like we will be
friendly faces to the feds, and they’re going to come in and do
major damage to us. ” He’s certainly not an enthusiastic fan
of Obamacare, but thinks the state has no choice but to accept the
Medicaid expansion which was intended as compensation for what the
new law takes away.“With Obamacare coming down the pike, if we don’t get some
kind of relief in (Medicaid) expansion, we will face certain
death,” Lewis said last week.
Ah, so the problem isn’t ObamaCare: it’s Gov. Deal’s refusal to
accept Medicaid expansion!
The AJC warned us about that back in August:
Valdosta PR about wastewater issues
The city of Valdosta responds. I have decorated this PR with a few
images with links, and a few comments after it. -jsq
Mayor and Council Address Recent Wastewater Issues,
The Valdosta Mayor and City Council are committed to providing quality
municipal services that meet the expectations of our citizens. In addition
to providing fire and police protection and other beneficial quality of
life services, the city leadership is equally committed to providing
adequate water and wastewater treatment services to its citizens,
maintaining a functioning sewer collection system and discharging treated
water in an environmentally responsible manner.
Recently, citizens have been inundated with information about
the current state of the city’s wastewater treatment plant and sewer
collection system, as well as the decisions made during the recent flood
event. The following information is provided to explain the recent event
and to help citizens better understand these important issues and the
dedicated work of their elected officials and municipal staff.THE SITUATION
Prison gang violence
This is what eventually happens in
a country with 5% of the world’s population yet 25% of the world’s
prisoners,
in a state that has
1 in 13 adults in the prison system (jail, prison, probation, or parole): prison violence the prisons can’t deal with,
possibly including
the mysterious violence at Valdosta State Prison.
When we stop locking up so many people by ending the war on drugs,
we’ll have plenty of money to adequately secure the few remaining
real violent offenders.
Rhonda Cook wrote for the AJC Saturday,
Gang violence in prison is increasingly deadly,
In a little more than 10 months, 12 inmates and a guard have been
stabbed to death in Georgia prisons, a dramatic uptick in violence
that law enforcement officials and human rights advocates agree
points to increased gang activity.“We cannot remember a time like this when we were getting this
volume and severity of violence,” said Sara Totonchi,
executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, which
monitors prison violence.
People who go into such prisons, if they aren’t already violent,
are likely to be taught to be violent, and some just don’t come back out.
Yet those that do get out can be bad for the rest of us:
Spilling Sewage Pictures by Gabe Fisher 3:30 PM 24 March 2013
Received yesterday. -jsq
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 15:43:47 -0400
All, just so everyone is on the same page- the sewer line is currently
spilling sewage. It just started at mu house but has been going strong
at sugar creek for awhile by the looks of it. Here are some current
pictures as of 3:30 today. It will get worse until the river crests..Gabe
Videos: Beer, filters, roads, weather, and executive session @ LCC 2013-03-25
A beer license, and some filters for public works:
that's all that's on the agenda for the unquestioning Lowndes County Commission.
They did have two very brief reports on the weekend's
weather and how they dealt with it.
Then they went into executive session for real estate and litigation,
which seems to have been the real purpose of this meeting,
which otherwise lasted four minutes.
They vote on the agenda items Tuesday at 5:30 PM.
Here's
the agenda,
with links to the videos and some notes.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor