Author Archives: admin

Charter school bait and switch

Proponents of the state-forced charter school constitutional amendment

Mr. Moneybags
on the November ballot have a

website
that is full of bait and switch.
Most of it is about what they claim are the benefits of charter schools.
But that’s not what the referendum is about.
Local school boards can already authorize charter schools,
and many of them have.
The referendum would change the Georgia Constitution to authorize
an appointed state board to force charter schools on local elected school
boards that don’t want them,

granting more money per student than in public schools,
with

the difference to be made up from local property and sales taxes.
The most substantive thing I have found on the proponents’ website
says that last is not so, but unconvincingly.

Tony Roberts, President of Georgia Charter Schools Association wrote
to All Charter School Leaders and Board Members
7 August 2012,

Response to Letter from Herb Garrett of Georgia Superintendents Association,


Tony Roberts
One final, but important point, local school superintendents and
board members were adamantly against any local dollars going to
charter schools that were denied by a local school board. The final
version of HB 797 was negotiated to ensure that was the case —
the language is written right there into the law. So, to recap, they
insist on no local money going to state-approved charters, and then
get upset about the state money going to charters.

Curiously, he doesn’t cite that purported language.
The closest thing I can find in

HB 797
is

a paragraph I already quoted:

Continue reading →

Fracking water

Yet another reason why we should take water into account in
any development plan:
fracking for shale gas
uses huge amounts of water, competing with everything else,
maybe even using more than power plants and cities.

Delaware Riverkeeper and Protecting Our Waters wrote for Waterkeeper Alliance today,

The Water Footprint of Shale Gas Development,



Recent studies examining potable water supplies on a global scale,
the current trends in American water consumption and the causes of
depletion of this essential resource are helping us to understand
that the footprint of shale gas development expands indefinitely
when measured in water….

Of the seven nations where the groundwater footprint is greatest,
the U.S. is one of the fastest speeding towards disaster. According


to Cynthia Barnett’s Blue Revolution, scientists say the 20th
century was the wettest in a thousand years and now drier times are
ahead.[3] This means that many of the management schemes we use
now—based on 20th C planning—need to be changed to avoid
catastrophe. So the 410 billion gallons of water America uses every
day will suck the nation dry if we don’t stop over-tapping nearly
every river and aquifer.

The biggest U.S. users are power plants and agriculture with private

Continue reading →

Remerton City Council votes today @ RCC 2012-09-10


Strickland Mill For Sale
Tonight the Remerton City Council votes on

the old Strickland Mill at

1853 West Gordon Street,
same item as

discussed 4 June 2012
and

postponed 11 June 2012.
Also, Remerton doesn’t play mysterious about
the Haven.
All that plus signs, water, and alcohol.

I will be there for about half an hour, after which I have to go video
something else.
Could someone else video the rest of tonight’s Remerton City Council meeting?


City Clerk Rachel Tate
Here’s

the agenda,
which for some reason (I’m guessing City Clerk Rachel Tate not being available)
is a scan instead of a text-extractable PDF.
I’ve transcribed it below this time.

CITY OF REMERTON

REGULAR SESSION AGENDA

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

COUNCIL CHAMBERS

5:30 PM

Continue reading →

Public schools to be treated less favorably than state-dictated charter schools?

Do you want to pay more local taxes for state-dictated and state-run
charter schools?

Ellis Black (R-174)
In

HB 797,
one of the state laws we’re being asked to ratify with the charter school referendum
on the ballot in November,
in addition to the magic accounting rules that would

grant charter schools much more money per student than public schools,
it would create a state-wide charter school board that will take away
all oversight from the local school board for any charter schools the
state imposes on any locality.
Yet it does not provide additional state funding for the extra
money per student for charter schools, and it does
explicitly address assessed valuation of local taxes.

The state takes all control over local chartered
schools from the local school board in section 2A(7), last paragraph:


Amy Carter (R-175)
The local board shall not be responsible for the fiscal management,
accounting, or oversight of the state chartered special school.

Yet the state provides no additional funding for the additional money
per student for charter schools:


Jason Shaw (R-176)
2A(5) No deduction shall be made to any state funding which a local school
system is otherwise authorized to receive pursuant to this chapter
as a direct result or consequence of the enrollment in a state
charter school of a specific student or students who reside in the
geographical area of the local school system.

(6) Funding for state chartered special schools pursuant to this
subsection shall be subject to appropriations by the General
Assembly and such schools shall be treated consistently with all
other public schools in this state, pursuant to the respective
statutory funding formulas and grants.

The bill also inserts each of those paragraphs again elsewhere,
in case the point wasn’t clear enough.

So where is the extra money to come from?
Here’s a hint:

Continue reading →

Open Records Officer at Lowndes County Commission @ LCC 2012-09-10

Apparently the Lowndes County Commission has noticed the


new provisions of the Georgia Open Records and Open Meetings laws
that

VLCIA’s lawyer explained to the Industrial Authority back in May,
seeing these two items on the agenda for Monday morning and Tuesday evening:

5.a. Adopt Resolution Appointing an Open Records Officer

5.b. Resolution Regarding Review & Approval of Minutes of Executive Sessions

Plus infrastructure for two subdivsisions,
one of them the famous

Glen Laurel,
several well/septic rezonings,
approval of
USGS Funding Agreement for HWY 122 Stream Gauge
(one of the four that

let us know about river flooding in Lowndes County
less than a month ago),
a beer license, and approval of the

changes to the ULDC that were discussed in the recent Planning Commission meeting,
in the public hearing the public didn’t know about.
And more.



Here’s

the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2012, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2012, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Germany Added 543 MW of Solar Power Capacity in July

While we in Georgia were still pouring money down that nuclear pit near the
Savannah River, Germany has been getting on with real renewable energy.
We could have deployed almost that much solar power with just the cost overruns
so far at Plant Vogtle.

Nicholas Brown wrote for Clean Technica 8 September 2012,

Germany Added 543 MW of Solar Power Capacity in July,



According to Matt McDermott of Treehugger: “[In] the first
half of 2012 Germany has installed just over 4.37 gigawatts of
grid-tied solar power. Remarkably just about 1.8 GW of that happened
in June alone (perhaps even more remarkable, this isn’t even a
record amount for one month in Germany).”

The amount of solar power capacity added in June was much more than
July’s, but July’s was still impressive. July’s addition brings
Germany’s total installed capacity for the first half of 2012 to
4,900 MW (4.9 GW).

This impressive solar installation rate had a lot to do with Germany’s
famous Feed-in Tariffs (FIT), but it also had a lot to do with
Moore’s Law, illustrated by that graph of cost per kilowatt rapidly
going down.



543 MW?
That’s more than the 330 MW of solar
the $913 million cost overrun at Plant Vogtle in the
first half of 2012 could have bought.
1800 MW in June and 543 MW in July?
That’s 2343 MW, which is more than the entire rated 2200 MW output of Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 put together, if they ever get built.
Sure, the sun doesn’t shine all the time, but in the years until the nukes ever
get built (if ever), how much solar could we deploy at the rate of one Vogtle unit equivalent a month?

Hey, maybe we should cancel Plant Vogtle and deploy solar instead!
Maybe Georgia Power and Southern Company will realize their big bet
has already gone bad.
Or maybe we should elect some Public Service Commissioners and legislators
who will get them to realize it.

-jsq

 

Industrial Authority goes solar, broadband, and conversational!

The Industrial Authority apparently listened to its focus groups,
and discovered that broadband and solar energy are important
to attract industry.
Andrea Schruijer even recommends conversation,
which has been sorely lacking in recent years.
Congratulations, Industrial Authority!

Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT today,

Authority analyzes Valdosta business:
Broadband, solar power, professional services targeted for growth,



The Authority also plans to work toward the availability of more
broadband Internet service and solar power in Valdosta and
surrounding communities. These amenities would help support local
industries as well as draw new ones to the greater Valdosta area for
the creation of new jobs.

That’s a good start. Although it’s not clear from the writeup that VLCIA quite got it about
Internet access.

As part of presenting Valdosta as an attractive package for


prospective industries, the Authority attempts to ready the land set
aside for development before beginning the recruitment process. This
means investing in infrastructure, including broadband internet.

“It’s not that we don’t have broadband,” Schruijer said.
“What we’re looking at is the technology behind the broadband.
We have it in certain areas, but in order for us to grow some of
these core targets, such as professional services, we need that
infrastructure.”

Well, actually, no,



we don’t have broadband.
6Mbps is the fastest most people can get around here,
and 30Mbps is the slowest you can even buy in many countries.
Plus, it’s not just fast Internet to industrial sites that’s needed:

it’s fast Internet access everywhere knowledge-based employees
may want to live.

But they’re on the right track:

Because the Authority can’t “buy” industries into coming
to Valdosta—though it can offer tax abatements—it is
necessary to make sure that new businesses have what they will need
before ground is even broken, Schruijer said. To this effect, the
Authority will “stimulate the conversation” to actively
attract more broadband companies to the area.

A conversation!
Now there’s something we’ve been needing around here.
And it’s a refreshing change from only
a year ago when all we heard was



“Debate is not allowed.”

Maybe the Industrial Authority will be the organization that will show the
rest of us how to hold civil discussions about things that affect all of us!

The VDT’s writeup skips quickly over another big change:

Continue reading →

VZ 4G vs. AT&T DSL, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2012-09-08

It turns out you can’t yet buy

Verizon’s HomeFusion Broadband 4G wireless Internet service

in Georgia.
(You can buy it in Tennessee.)
However, in Georgia, you can buy one of several 4G LTE devices
that have most of the same capabilities.
For example, I have here a

Verizon Jetpack™ 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi©,
which is about the size of a pack of cards.
A few minutes ago I compared its speeds directly with AT&T 3Mbps DSL.
Here are the results.

The MiFi I’ve got is a slightly older model of the one pictured
above, because for years


AT&T DSL: 2.66Mbps down 0.31Mbps up

AT&T DSL

VZ 4G: 10.88Mbps down 7.14Mbps up

Verizon 4G

I’ve been using it and its predecessors
on road trips, for Skype, web browsing, blog posting, etc.
It’s also come in very handy as a

plan B home Internet access method
on the many occassions when AT&T’s DSL has flaked out.
Mostly I did not use it for uploading videos or watching them much,
because until recently it was relatively slow,
using

EVDO technology at about 1Mbps down and 0.7Mbps up.
Suddenly, the MiFi has gotten much much faster, ten times faster,
because Verizon has turned on their 4G LTE service in Lowndes County,
at least for mobile access.

The tables show results using

SpeakEasy Speedtest a few minutes ago.

Megabytes/sec Megabits/sec
down up down up
AT&T DSL 2.66Mbps 0.31Mbps 322KB/sec 38KB/sec
Verizon 4G 10.88Mbps 7.14Mbps 1360KB/sec 893KB/sec

Verizon’s 4G LTE is way faster,
as in

Continue reading →

Change the Atomic Energy Act? How about change the Georgia Electric Territorial Act?

In reaction to

the NRC denying a nuclear permit for Calvert Cliffs,


some nuclear backers suggest

changing the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to permit majority foreign ownership
of nuclear reactors.
What will they suggest next?
Asking Iran to invest in U.S. nukes?

Steve Skutnik wrote for http://theenergycollective.com 5 September 2012,

A cost-free way to open up nuclear investment,

If this seems entirely backward in a world of global production and
investment, that’s because it is. The current regulation is an


artifact of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which first authorized
private ownership of nuclear facilities. (Prior to this—per
the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, all nuclear technology was considered
a state secret, during the short time in which the U.S. enjoyed a
monopoly on the technology.)

Is there any real compelling reason for restrictions on foreign
ownership and investment in nuclear facilities to exist at a time
when the U.S. holding a monopoly on the technology has long since
passed? Issues of safety here of course are irrelevant—the
facilities would be licensed and regulated by the NRC, just as any
other nuclear facility is now. About the only salient objection is
the political one—i.e., the implications of a foreign entity
maintaining controlling ownership in key infrastructure. (Although
it’s hard to see anyone getting particularly upset about the
reverse—U.S. entities owning a controlling stake in
infrastructure in other nations.)

Yeah, sure, strict regulation
will deal with that, just like it prevents fracking from setting
drinking water on fire, or BP from poisoning the Gulf.
The new NRC head is

maybe well-meaning,
but it’s the same NRC

that gave Vogtle 1 a clean bill just before it had to shut down
and the same NRC that’s ignoring

cancer in Shell Bluff.

Oh, by the way, the article gets to the main point eventually:

Continue reading →

Big Little Water, a talk by Tom Baird, 11 Sep 2012

Tuesday, a talk by a fan from Florida
of our own Withlacoochee River, at the VSU Student Center,
7:30 9PM 11 September 2012, free admission.
-jsq

Big Little Water by Tom Baird, hosted by

Blazer Gardens
in conjunction with

WWALS

Big Little Water—a survey of the history, geology and
archaeology of the Withlacoochee River, with replica artifacts
people can handle, and slides.

“I’ll also get into some of the
current threats to the river and maybe we can get into a good
discussion and Q&A.”


Withlacoochee River
Tom Baird is an education consultant who has previously worked as a
high school teacher, community college instructor (oceanography and
microbiology), director of a science and environmental center,
supervisor of science (K-12) in Pasco Co., FL, Director of Science
(PreK-12) in Pinellas Co., FL, Principal of a
math/science/technology magnet high school in Pinellas Co., FL. and
director of a National Science Foundation program. He is on the
boards of the Panhandle Archaeological Society at Tallahassee and
the St. Marks Refuge Association. He most enjoys exploring Florida
and Georgia rivers by kayak and canoe. He is currently working on a
book about the Withlacoochee River of South Georgia and northern
Florida.


Blazer Gardens
Address:

VSU Student Union

Oak Street @ Baytree Road

Valdosta GA 31698


Map and Directions


WWALS
There’s also a

facebook invitation.

-jsq