Category Archives: Economy

Distributing information to citizens —George Boston Rhynes

Received yesterday on Valdosta LMIG resurfacing and transparency. -jsq

Thanks you so much for keeping us informed and it is still a disgrace that our elected officials cannot publish their meetings to all citizens. When will our Mayor; Council and County Commissioners start informing all the citizens and not just a select few of conservatives?

When will it all end? The time has come for change to take place in Valdosta for the good of all citizens and visitors. We need and should demand television, radio, internet and other means of distributing information to citizens.

How sad in 2012?

George included a video of his thoughts on elections hereabouts and elsewhere: Words from our YOUTHS….and where are you? Indeed George Rhynes is out there reporting the truth as he sees it, this time along with two VSU students.

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WSJ misunderstands why T-SPLOST was defeated

Inaccurate labelling is the reason T-SPLOST was defeated, along with Atlanta is not all of Georgia, but the Wall Street Journal doesn’t understand that.

Cameron McWhirter wrote for the Wall Street Journal 1 August 2012, Tea Party Ties Up Tax to Ease Atlanta Traffic

ATLANTA—Money and heavyweight endorsements don’t secure an election — especially when you propose higher taxes in a deeply conservative state with a robust tea-party movement.

A plan for a transportation sales tax was endorsed by Georgia’s Republican governor and the Democratic mayor of the state’s largest city. It was backed by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the area’s top businesses. It was pushed by top political consultants funded by more than $8 million in corporate and other donations.

Those against the plan were a loose coalition of tea-party activists, some environmentalists and a local branch of the NAACP. Their total raised? About $15,000.

But David slew Goliath.

That’s lazy reporting. Those “some environmentalists” included the Georgia Sierra Club, an organization which reportedly has more members than the state Democratic Party. And that’s just in Atlanta.

Opponents in our region included Democrat Ashley Paulk, who was on the T-SPLOST executive committee and is the current Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission, Democrat Gretchen Quarterman, who is the Chairman of the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP) and is running for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission, as well as Nolen Cox, Chairman of the Lowndes County Republican Party (LCRP), and Roy Taylor, LRCP First Vice Chair and well-known Tea Party activist, along with a wide range of other opponents.

Look at the difference between that Region 11 T-SPLOST vote map and this map of the Atlanta Metro T-SPLOST vote. Atlanta metro is clearly centered around Atlanta. Region 11 isn’t an economic region: the vote was split right down the middle between No on the east and west and Yes in between.

Region 11 throws together three population centers: Lowndes, Tift, and Ware Counties, with their largest cities Valdosta, Tifton, and Waycross. Lowndes and Tift are at least connected by I-75, and they and most of the ones around them voted against (Ben Hill, Turner, Berrien, Cook, Lanier, Echols, and Brooks). Ware County and all the counties east of it (Pierce, Brantley, and Charlton) voted against. In between there’s a complete barrier of counties that voted for T-SPLOST (Irwin, Coffee, Bacon, Atkinson, and Clinch). Those No counties completely separate the eastern Ware County group from the western Lowndes-Tift group.

The perception around here is that T-SPLOST was made up to affect metro Atlanta, and the rest of the regions were Continue reading →

PSC rubberstamps Vogtle costs; next day Fitch affirms Southern Company ratings

Need any more proof that Southern Company’s nuclear boondoggle only works with Georgia Power customer and taxpayer subsidy? PSC rubberstamps one day and Fitch affirms ratings the next day. Maybe we should elect Public Service Commissioners who will serve the public.

Georgia Power PR 21 August 2012, Georgia PSC approves Vogtle construction costs

The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) today in a 5-0 vote approved Georgia Power’s spending on Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4 for the period including July 1, 2011 through Dec. 31, 2011.

The next day, Fitch PR 23 August 2012, Fitch Affirms Ratings for Southern Company and Subsidiaries,

Continue reading →

Transit-Oriented Development or Communities not Cul-de-Sacs

It’s not just VLCIA’s Community Assessment that argues for a public transportation system in Valdosta-Lowndes County. Getting people to work without requiring cars is an even bigger problem in larger metropolitan areas, but many of the issues are the same here.

Nancy Andrews and Audrey Choi wrote for Huffpo 20 Aug 2012, How Transit-Oriented Development Can Help Get America To Work,

To truly get America back to work, we have to focus on more than jobs, jobs, jobs. It is about integrating jobs, transportation, housing and community services in ways that work equally well for lower- and upper-income families.

Vibrant communities where residents can walk to shops, restaurants, grocery stores and community services; and where public transportation provides convenient connections between home and work can be built. Planning community development with public transportation as a central consideration — transit-oriented development or TOD — can spur economic growth, sometimes dramatically. But that approach has not been systematically applied to communities of all income levels.

For these reasons, it is important for government, public transit agencies, nonprofits, foundations and the private sector to come together so that thriving communities for families of all economic levels can be created.

It’s a safety issue, too. Far more Americans die in traffic accidents than in foreign wars, and widening roads farther out just makes the problem worse. Currently, Lowndes County says that’s not pertinent.

Maybe we should change that. What if we built communities, not cul-de-sacs?

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VLCIA meets tonight, about what, we can’t tell @ VLCIA 2012-08-21

According to its website:

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority’s Regular Monthly Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, August 21, 2012, 5:30 PM at the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.

Last meeting, VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer told me the results of the focus groups would be presented this month. Maybe she meant at this meeting. On the VLCIA facebook page, there’s this paragraph from 14 August 2012:

We are excited to present our final Target Business Analysis to the community at the end of August. We took at 360 degree approach to targeting economic development activity concentrating on employment, workforce skill, investment, and innovation to identify clusters of economic activity and developing targeted strategies for economic development.

It links to this (unembeddable) video of Andrea Schruijer talking about cluster analysis. It’s good they’re branching out to new ways of doing PR. It would be even better if they also published agendas and minutes with content.

Here’s the (content-free) agenda for today’s meeting:

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, August 21, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Continue reading →

ALEC, private prisons, fossil fuels, and charter schools

It’s good to see someone trying a coordinated strategy for something good in multiple states, as Our Children’s Trust is doing for air as a public trust. We already knew going to multiple states at once works, because ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange, gets reactionary results that way.

How does ALEC do it? By

So once again, it’s refreshing to see somebody successfully try multiple states for something worthwhile!

The above ALEC projects are just some I’ve run across while researching local topics. It often seems as if every rock I turn over has the ALEC millipede scurrying around under it. Far more about ALEC is available through ALEC Exposed.

ALEC Exposed has a list of companies that have dumped ALEC recently. Georgia Power’s parent The Southern Company and UPS are still not on that list. You can help. Let them know you want them to dump ALEC!

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New research shows Natural Gas far more dangerous for climate stability —Seth Gunning

Received yesterday on U.S. CO2 emissions lowest in 20 years: that's good and bad: natural gas is methane, after all. -jsq

Yet another comprehensive article. I might also add that one of the major down-falls (if not the most significant) of large-scale conversions to natural gas is the resources lifecycle methane emissions.

As your readers likely know, Methane is about twenty times as 'potent' a greenhouse gas as Carbon Dioxide. That is to say, it is far more efficient at trapping heat then Co2. So, less methane has a far greater impact on climate disruption then more Co2.

Natural Gas, from the point of combustion, releases about half the amount of Co2 released from burning coal, and about 30% of what's released in burning oil. To keep the benefits of reduced Co2 levels when switching from coal to natural gas, natural gas wells and transport lines must leak less then 2% of methane into the atmosphere. Recent research from Cornell is showing that Fracking wells are regularly releasing more then 4%, and often as much as 8% —far exceeding the 2% threshold— and thus making Natural Gas a far more dangerous resource for climate stability.

Tom Zeller Jr. wrote for the NYTimes 11 April 2011, Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Problems

-Seth Gunning

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U.S. CO2 emissions lowest in 20 years: that’s good and bad

The good news: because utilities such as Southern Company are switching away from coal U.S. emissions of CO2 are the lowest they’ve been in 20 years. The bad news: they’re switching to natural gas, which not only still emits carbon dioxide, it pollutes groundwater through fracking, requires a lot of groundwater to do the fracking in the first place, and then uses more groundwater for cooling. But the further good news is cheaper energy sources drive out expensive ones, and wind and solar are already cheaper than nuclear and coal, and solar is already cheaper than natural gas. Oh, and solar and wind emit no CO2.

Kevin Begos write for AP yesterday, AP IMPACT: CO2 emissions in US drop to 20-year low

“There’s a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources,” said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado.

While conservation efforts, the lagging economy and greater use of renewable energy are factors in the CO2 decline, the drop-off is due mainly to low-priced natural gas, the agency said.

A frenzy of shale gas drilling in the Northeast’s Marcellus Shale and in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana has caused the wholesale price of natural gas to plummet from $7 or $8 per unit to about $3 over the past four years, making it cheaper to burn than coal for a given amount of energy produced. As a result, utilities are relying more than ever on gas-fired generating plants.

Both government and industry experts said the biggest surprise is how quickly the electric industry turned away from coal. In 2005, coal was used to produce about half of all the electricity generated in the U.S. The Energy Information Agency said that fell to 34 percent in March, the lowest level since it began keeping records nearly 40 years ago.

And that’s why Southern Company (SO) turned towards natural gas: it’s cheaper! SO still prefers nuclear and coal before gas, as SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning keeps reminding us. But even SO couldn’t ignore “the revolution in shale gas”, which is cheaper prices through fracking. Solar PV costs dropped 50% last year alone. How long can SO ignore that?

“Natural gas is not a long-term solution to the CO2 problem,” Pielke warned….

Continue reading →

Government Affairs Council, Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce, 2012-07-31

The Chamber’s Government Affairs Council (GAC) met 31 July 2012, and Gretchen was there with video camera. In the first video, they’re talking about sales tax on energy, tax holidays, and about business partnerships in support of the arts. I readily admit I have not watched these videos all the way through: we have so many videos in the queue I’m trying to work off the backlog. If any of you see something especially interesting in these videos, please let us know so we can blog about it. Even better, send us what you think so we can consider posting that.

The Chamber’s web page about GAC appears to be empty. Maybe it works in IE or something. Over on Chamberorganizer, there’s a page about Erika Bennett:

Hello, and welcome to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce. I am the Business Advocacy & Marketing Coordinator. I coordinate the Chamber’s Government Affairs Council, which watches business legislation throughout the year to ensure that Valdosta is business-friendly.

Here’s a video playlist:

Government Affairs Council, Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce, 2012-07-31
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.

Here’s an update about a GAC meeting of 17 January 2012.

Here’s Chamber PR about the GAC 2011-01-11, New Government Affairs Council Gives Voice to Local Businesses:

Continue reading →

Valdosta rank in Georgia cities

Increased population is using increasing resources Recently I saw someone speculating online that Valdosta’s rank among Georgia cities was rising because its population is growing. And its population is indeed growing, as you can see in the graph on the right or the Census Bureau data in the table below right. (Compare to similar information for Lowndes County.) But not as fast as some other Georgia cities, so Valdosta’s rank is not increasing. In fact, the opposite: Valdosta has been dropping in rank.

Census Pop. %±
1860 166
1870 1,199 622.3%
1880 1,515 26.4%
1890 2,854 88.4%
1900 5,613 96.7%
1910 7,656 36.4%
1920 10,783 40.8%
1930 13,482 25.0%
1940 15,595 15.7%
1950 20,046 28.5%
1960 30,652 52.9%
1970 32,303 5.4%
1980 37,671 16.6%
1990 40,135 6.5%
2000 43,724 8.9%
2010 54,518 24.7%

Here are city ranks for the censuses from 1980 to 2000:

1980 7 Atlanta, Columbus, Savannah, Macon, Albany, Warner Robins, VLD.
1990 11 passed by Augusta, Athens, Roswell, Marietta
(Augusta and Athens cheated by consolidating with their counties.)
2000 14 passed by Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, and Alpharetta
2010 14 Sandy Springs passed Macon and Marietta dropped two,
but Valdosta remained #14

So actually Valdosta has been decreasing in Georgia city rank over time, because cities in the Atlanta metro area have been growing faster.

Now I don’t consider that a bad thing: population growth isn’t the same thing as economic growth, and economic growth isn’t the same thing as prosperity or well-being. But it’s an interesting bit of history.

Rank1980199020002010
1 Atlanta Atlanta Atlanta Atlanta
2 Columbus Augusta Augusta Augusta
3 Savannah Columbus Columbus Columbus
4 Macon Savannah Savannah Savannah
5 Albany Macon Athens Athens
6 Warner Robins Athens Macon Sandy Springs
7 Valdosta Albany Sandy Springs Macon
8 Roswell Roswell Roswell
9 Marietta Albany Albany
10 Warner Robins Johns Creek Johns Creek
11 Valdosta Marietta Warner Robins
12 Warner Robins Alpharetta
13 Alpharetta Marietta
14 Valdosta Valdosta

-jsq