Author Archives: admin

See Gretchen Quarterman on the radio


Gretchen Quarterman on Chris Beckham's radio show 11 October 2012
“I think people would be more interested in government if they could see it going on,”
said

Gretchen Quarterman,
candidate for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission,
on the Chris Beckham drive-time radio show
11 October 2012,

105.9, WVGA.
Here’s

video of that interview,
followed by some excerpts.

A few excerpts:

Our county government does a lot of stuff really great…
but one of the things they don’t do very well
don’t advertise themselves;
not very transparent;
they don’t say what a great job they’re doing;
so I thought we could improve in that area.

The County Commission a couple of years ago had

two different studies commissioned
about growth and planning, and one of them was…

Sprawl to ruin, by Prof. Dorfman

growth close to existing services.
The county already has an urban service area, like how far the
water line goes, how far the sewer line goes.
And that growth should be infilled, and not expand outside of that area,
because that saves resources in terms of how far you have to send the
sheriff, how far the school bus has to go.
And they also gave an average house price, what it costs in terms of
property taxes to support the services that are sent to them, to a development.

So I would say close in to existing services is the way to go.

We need to actively seek out manufacturing jobs,

Continue reading →

Score high on ALEC policy, score low on education

 

According to ALEC’s own website, states that score high
on ALEC’s education policies score low on education.
Remember,

ALEC is behind the Georgia charter school amendment
on the November ballot.
If you didn’t believe

Stanford Credo’s study that showed
adding a charter school authorizer, as that amendment would do,
reduces academic learning,
how about ALEC’s own data?

Bill Simon write for The Political Vine today,

Charter Schools and ALEC: The Facts ALEC Doesn’t Want You To Know,

If you take the state performance rankings and match them up to each
state’s education policy rankings, you come-up with an entirely
different picture of how little (if any at all) a state’s degree of
conservative education “policy” translates into actual
education performance.

I did this (
PDF copy available here)
and this is what the 2012 Top 10 states in Performance looks like,
and their corresponding Policy ranks:

2012 Performance/Policy Rank


ALEC's 17th Report Card on American Education

  1. Massachusetts / B-
  2. Vermont / D+
  3. New Jersey / B-
  4. Colorado / B
  5. Pennsylvania / C+
  6. Rhode Island / C
  7. North Carolina / C
  8. Kansas / C-
  9. New Hampshire / C+
  10. New York / C-

The numbers are ALEC’s performance rankings,
and the letters are ALEC’s policy grades.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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

Sewage problems in Quitman


Pipes
In Quitman, several people told LAKE about an extensive sewage problem
on the south side of town.
At one house we were told that she had been having problems for 13 years.
She said the city told her to lift up her pipes, which she did.
Yet sewage still makes a pit in her yard, which she has covered with tin;
you can see the pit under there.


Tin

Lifting up the tin

When she uses her plumbing, sewage backs up inside the house.
The city sent a jail inmate

Continue reading →

Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-10-09



The big item at Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session
was, same as

at Monday’s Work Session,
the waste management railroad,

terminating in a decision.
Other topics included citizen Karen Noll speaking

against the charter school amendment.

Here’s

the agenda
with links to the videos and a few notes, or links to separate posts.
Apologies for the poor sound on the first videos;
we didn’t have the usual camera.
Of course, if the Commission did its own videoing and posting, that problem
would be unlikely to occur.




  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag

  4. Minutes for Approval

    1. Work Session — September 24, 2012
    2. Regular Session — September 25, 2012



  5. Public Hearing — REZ-2012-15 Glenn O’Neal,     Pecan Plantation Rd. & US Hwy 84 W E-A to C-H, County
    Water & Septic, ~4.5 acres
  6. For Consideration


    1. Bevel Creek Lift Station Pump Repair
    2. Alapaha Waterline size Increase

    3. Beer License — Naylor’s Pantry — 8777 E. Hwy 135
    4. Refunding Revenue Bonds

    5. Solid Waste Management Request for Proposal
  7. Reports




    1. Community Planning Month Proclamation


      Plus recognition of two planners from Moody AFB.

    2. Employee Health Fair



    Chairman Ashley Paulk interjected not on the agenda




    • some comments about recently deceased former VSU president Hugh C. Bailey,

    • and noted the fire chief had a new fire truck, which was parked outside.
  8. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address





    • Karen Noll spoke against 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.


    • Ken Klanicki never actually even approached the podium.
      After being asked by the chairman to come to the podium or leave the room,
      he wandered to the back of the room and was escorted out by a deputy sheriff.
      He called me by name as he left, but I have no idea what he was trying to
      accomplish.
      He called me later, but when I asked him that, he had no explanation.

Here’s

a video playlist.
It shifts from the first camera (good video, poor sound) to the second camera (video with no closeups, good sound) in the middle, when I arrived with the second camera.
The rest of the first camera videos are tacked onto the end.
Next time we’ll attempt to have the good camera.


Video Playlist

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 9 October 2012.

-jsq

 

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

“I don’t think it could get any easier” –Richard Raines on solid waste @ LCC 2012-10-09 @ LCC 2012-10-09

Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission voted to abolish
the current rural waste collection centers and to contract with Veolia
for waste pickup like in urban areas.
This decision on an essentially rural matter
was made by three urban Commissioners without any public
hearing on their current RFP.

Before deciding,

County Manager Joe Pritchard gave the history of the county's
waste management railroad.
A curiously redacted history.



As y'all know, in FY 04 and 05,
operating costs of the solid waste program was approximately
$1.1 million increasing at a rate of approximately 10% a year.
As a result the at-that-time recently passed service delivery
[…] act of General Assembly, the county and the cities of Lowndes County
were forced to come to an agreement on the delivery of the vasrious services.
As a result of that, solid waste came to be funded strictly on a user fee basis.

I'm guessing he's referring to HB 489, the

Local government service delivery strategy agreement of 1997.
As we learned from Richard Raines Monday,

it's not clear HB 489 precluded a special tax district for waste disposal
similar to the special tax lighting districts the county often sets up
for streetlights in subdivisions.
I've seen no indication the county ever seriously looked into that.

In April and May of 2008 the county advertised and conducted a series
of eight public meetings in which we were asked by Commission
to gather input from the public regarding the various options that
were available.
During those meetings it was obvious that there was not one clear
option that was chosen by the public.

Obvious to whom?
For that matter,

Continue reading →

WCTV on LCC Chair Candidates


Greg Gullberg at the Lowndes County Palace
Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV today,

Lowndes County Commission Chair Candidates Polar Opposites,

The Chairman of a County Commission can have great impact on the
lives of residents. And in one local county, the candidates couldn’t
be more different.

She wants to make it easier to see what the Commission is doing;
he worries ordinances make it too difficult for business.


Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes County Chairwoman

Bill Slaughter for Lowndes County Chairman


Gretchen Quarterman speaking to the Lowndes County Commission

WCTV using LAKE video
Here’s
the WCTV video,
which appears to start with outtakes from LAKE videos of Commission meetings.
LAKE videos that were taken by… Gretchen Quarterman.
The one of her speaking to the Commission? Camera on a tripod.


-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 →