Category Archives: Community

Text Amendment —Richard Raines

Received yesterday, referring to
TXT-2012-02, which is on the agenda for

Monday morning’s Work Session and Tuesday evening’s Regular Session
of the Lowndes County Commission.
-jsq

From: Richard Raines

To: Gretchen Quarterman

Subject: RE: Text Amendment

Gretchen,

Based on a conversation with the Chairman yesterday, it is my


understanding that this issue will be tabled until sometime next
year (Chairman-elect Slaughter will decide when to put it back on
the agenda) because we are working with MAFB on a compromise as they
are well aware of our mandate to balance property rights with
protecting against base encroachment.

Since I’ve been on the County Commission we have made it a priority
to constantly evaluate the ULDC and all zoning districts. MAZ 1-3
is no exception and must be evaluated to make sure that it is
balanced and consistent.

We have discovered

Continue reading →

Solid Waste, Developer Favors, Dollar General, Library, and Alcohol: Agenda @ LCC 2012-12-10

Updates 9 Dec 2012: Marked with *.

Will the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday evening
finish railroading through their non-solution to solid waste disposal,


without shouldering its legal responsibility to protect
the environment and the public health, safety, and well-being from solid waste,
and what’s this about a vendor change?
Will the Chairman once again invite a developer to speak in Monday morning’s
Work Session without letting anyone else speak?
Will the Commission change the zoning code and rezone inside and against
the Moody Exclusion Zone for that same developer they already
provided $130,000 in road construction labor to back in 2007?
Does Naylor need the area’s nineteenth Dollar General, and who’s behind it, anyway?
How come the Five Points library is still on the agenda even though SPLOST VII failed?
And what are they doing to the Alcoholic Beverage Ordinance this time?
Come Monday morning at 8:30 AM and Tuesday evening at 5:30 PM and see!
Better yet, also call or write your Commissioner before then.

Trash

6.b. Solid Waste Ordinance

Will the Commissioners finish

railroading through their



already-failing non-solution to solid waste disposal
in the last session of this Chairman?
The plan for which they held

zero public hearings while any of
the Commissioners who voted on it this October were on the Commission,
yet someone down there feels free to

anonymously ridicule concerns about that plan failing?
Two citizens

spoke up anyway,
even though

Citizens Wishing to Be Heard
was after the scheduled vote last time,
and

another on this blog,
all willing to state their names, unlike the anonymous pro-trash-railroad
ridiculer.
What was that

unspecified new information
that caused them to table it last time, anyway?

8.b. Exclusive Franchise Agreement for Residential Solid Waste Collection Services with Advanced Disposal Services of Central Alabama, Inc.

What happened to Veolia;

Continue reading →

Land Development For Future Industries —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA

Executive Director Andrea Schruijer explained the Industrial Authority’s
theory behind all those industrial parks.
And she mentioned market analysis for a sustainable local economy.
Nothing about market analysis about whether industrial parks actually
bring in new businesses….

Valdosta CEO posted 28 NOvember 2012,

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Invests in Land Development For Future Industries,



Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta Lowndes County
Industrial Authority. A few years ago the community had the
foresight to approve a mill that they would set aside for the
Industrial Authority to provide for economic development. And
because the community did that, the industrial authority is able to
better plan for the future in growing our opportunities for economic
development. One of the things that we noticed a few years ago is
that we didn’t have enough land for development. And we didn’t have
the right sized tracks in case we had a large user coming in looking
at the community, where would we put them?



She says “the community did that”?
That’s funny,

Gary Minchew said he organized that.
Kari L. Sands wrote for VDT 20 June 2007,

Lowndes preps for vote on budget,

Continue reading →

Georgia statehouse and the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

Somebody wrote me a week or two ago:



I saw in todays paper Chip Rogers and other Senate leadership was changed yesterday.
Thank goodness!

Well, don't cheer too soon.
According to Jim Galloway in the AJC

15 November 2012,

"Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock withdrew his re-election
bid and endorsed Ronnie Chance of Tyrone, the governor's floor leader,
for the position."



Ronnie Chance is not only

also ALEC,
Chance is

the other ALEC state Senator
who put both the charter school amendment
and the multi-year amendment on the ballot.
Is this leadership "change" improvement?
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

Why must we get fooled again?
When will the people of the state of Georgia get tired of government
by astroturf and elect some legislators who will represent the people?

-jsq

Community Calendar —Jane F. Osborn 2012-11-19

The latest update (19 November 2012) is online for the community calendar produced by Jane F. Osborn who organizes the Valdosta Civic Roundtable. She wrote:

…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.

This time she remarks:

Note that the calendar runs nearly 60 pages, so you may not want to
print it. Please be sure to send in notices of community events open
to the public. Jane

Jane F. Osborn, MSSW

Valdosta, GA

229-630-0924

LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don’t.

-jsq

Who’s behind the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)


ALEC’s “our state legislators” are promoting the
anti-sustainability astroturf talking points at the Georgia
state capitol. But ALEC doesn’t seem to be the source of those
talking points. Who is? Follow the money: who stands to benefit the
most by obstructing public transportation, fuel efficiency, and
renewable energy? The fossil fuel companies, especially big
oil.

Lloyd Alter wrote for Treehugger 29 June 2012,
Exposing the Influence Behind the Anti-Agenda 21
Anti-Sustainability Agenda, first pointing out that most people
never even heard of Agenda 21:

…a recent survey showed that most people never heard of it and

Few have heard of Agenda 21 and only 6% oppose it
 only 6% say they are against it. so why are politicians from
State governments up to the National Republican Party and
Presidential candidates like Newt Gingrich make such a big deal of
it?

“People don’t wake up in the morning sweating bullets about the
United Nations.”-Robin Rather

Robin Rather of Collective Strength, who commissioned the
survey, says “I genuinely believe the Agenda 21 phenomenon is
highly manufactured. It’s not out there in the mainstream.”

There are a number of leads back to big oil, starting with one
of the main conduits of the talking points, the John Birch Society,
one of whose founders was Fred Koch, founder of Koch industries,
a diversified multinational that has large fossil fuel components.
His sons David and Charles founded Americans for Prosperity.

When he is not out on the public speaking circuit, Tom DeWeese
is President of the American Policy Center, the loudest mouthpiece
of the anti-Agenda 21 crowd.

Alter digs into APC board connects to big oil,

Continue reading →

Grant funding opportunities: deadlines very soon

Received today from Bryan Zulko of USDA. -jsq




Community Food Projects Competitive Grants Program – Application deadline:
Nov 28, 2012
Grants to plan or implement food projects designed to meet the needs of low-income individuals and increase community self-reliance concerning food and nutrition.

Great American Main Street Awards (GAMSA) – Application deadline: Dec 3, 2012
Grants to recognize exemplary and innovative revitalization achievements in revitalization of historic and older neighborhood commercial districts using a community-driven, historic-preservation based approach.

Continue reading →

ALEC and the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

Why do I keep associating the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points
with ALEC?
Because ALEC's "our state legislators" were promoting them at Georgia's Capitol.


ALEC logo

Chip Rogers
Two out of three of
the Georgia legislators Jim Galloway named in

Georgia's own 52-minute video on the ‘Agenda 21’ conspiracy,
namely

Chip Rogers and Barry Loudermilk,
are associated with ALEC.

Senate Majority Leader (now former) Chip Rogers (R-21)
has been ALEC's State Chaimran for Georgia and received ALEC's
2011 State Chair of the year Award.
Surely you remember him!
Rogers

sponsored both misleading amendment 1 ("charter schools") and
misleading amendment 2 ("multi-year contracts") on this year's ballot.


Barry Loudermilk
Rep. Barry D. Loudermilk (R-14) is on ALEC's
Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force.
How convenient that Loudermilk is the

Secretary of the Georgia
Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee!

So there is at least a convergence of ALEC's "our state legislators"
and those pushing this anti-sustainability agenda.
This is not surprising, since ALEC is opposed to clean, sustainable energy,
as confirmed by

ALEC's own attempt to rebut that point.
A rebuttal that brought to light ALEC's phrase "our state legislators".

I see Loudermilk is a sponsor of a bill called the

Georgia Government Accountability Act,

Continue reading →

The real U.N. Agenda 21

What is this Agenda 21 referred to by the

anti-sustainability astroturf talking points
movie shown at the Georgia statehouse?


The real Agenda 21 is a typical U.N. set of do-good wishful thinking


documents adopted at a U.N. conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
If you think it’s been successful in actually implementing sustainability,
you haven’t paid attention this summer to the
U.N. Rio+20 successor conference from
activists actually interested in a sustainable economy.
Such pro-sustainability activists generally

bemoaned the lack of effective action in the intervening twenty years:
the climate continues to warm as almost every nation continues to burn
more fossil fuels.
The U.N.’s own Rio+20 document pretty much

relegates such concerns to a sideline to an expanding economy.

The U.N.’s intentions are good: this is a small planet with

Continue reading →

Anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

For many months I have been resisting requests from various people
(both pro- and anti-sustainability) to write about Agenda 21.
Why resist? Because I considered the anti-Agenda 21 campaign
a distraction from real issues.
Now that ALEC’s “our state legislators” have
made Georgia an international laughingstock over it,
I suppose it’s a big enough distraction to write about.
But the topic of this series is sustainability:
you know, exactly what the astroturf talking points are meant to subvert.
Sustainability is important, and we should talk about it.


Better Georgia: Agenda 21 Full Video from Bryan Long on Vimeo
Jim Galloway’s 12 November 2012 AJC article,

Georgia’s own 52-minute video on the ‘Agenda 21’ conspiracy,
notes that the video some of ALEC’s “our state legislators” chose to play
in the state capitol, like every other attack on sustainability that
uses “Agenda 21” as a key talking point, also includes this:

”The Delphi technique was developed by the Rand Corporation
during the Cold War as a mind-control technique. It’s also known as
‘consensive process.’ But basically the goal of the Delphi
technique is to lead is to lead a targeted group of people to a
pre-determined outcome…..”

The actual RAND Delphi study is

RAND logo

readily available on the web,
and it doesn’t say what Agenda 21 conspiracy buffs say it says.
Come on, conspiracy buffs: show me where the RAND study says its
goal is “to lead a targeted group of people to a pre-determined outcome.”
Nobody can show me that, because it doesn’t say that.

Galloway’s article says

ALEC’s “our state legislators”
were being taught that T-SPLOST was

Continue reading →