Category Archives: Economy

Rural revaluation meeting at Farm Bureau 2015-08-04

Are Bill Gates and subdivisions really more important than agriculture or rivers or public transportation? Come to Farm Bureau tomorrow evening and find out what’s going on with the rural land revaluation. facebook event.

When: 7PM, Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Where: 3296 Greystone Way, Valdosta, GA, (229) 242-7876

By: Farm Bureau board member Buddy Coleman called this meeting.

What: Compare the Comprehensive Plan to this revaluation here (PDF).

Sprawl: sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin (Or at least big tax increases). PDF of the report by UGA Prof. Jeffrey H. Dorfman Lowndes County paid for in 2007, The Local Government Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in Lowndes County.

Who: At least some of the Lowndes County Tax Assessors Continue reading →

Rural tax revaluation: Bill Gates and subdivisions more important than agriculture and public transportation?

Does this rural land revaluation map resemble the Comprehensive Plan Future Development map? Tax Assessors: Rural Land Accessibility Codes Why not? And why were rivers and public transportation not considered either by the Lowndes County Tax Assessors while tracts with road frontage were considered the “highest market area” and land purchases by Bill Gates were considered “benchmark sales” instrumental in pricing large tracts?

This rural land revaluation is yet another vehicle to drive development straight north into the agricultural areas of the county, not even stopping at the Withlacoochee River.

That way lies sprawl, which as Dr. Jeffrey H. Dorfman of UGA has said, “is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin* * Or at least big tax increases.”

The City of Valdosta better watch out! Much of this Continue reading →

Videos: Development Authority’s BRAT @ VLCIA 2015-06-16

They meet again tonight with a bylaw amendment scheduled, which is probably for extending officer terms to two years as Roy Copeland proposed. (He first suggested that at least several years ago when he was re-elected Chairman.) And their nominating committee nominated the same officers again.

Lots of dials showing targets and where they are in reaching them, which is good, because I keep getting questions about what they’re doing with all that tax money and are they doing enough to justify it.

One citizen asked about the airport and another (OK, me) handed out Alapaha River Water Trail brochures and once again suggested solar panels at the airport to turn that otherwise-unusable space into profit.

Here’s the agenda and below are LAKE videos, followed by a playlist. Continue reading →

Transportation and electrical presentations plus officer elections @ VLCIA 2015-07-21

VLMPO’s Corey Hull presents today at 5:30 PM to the Valdosta Development Authority. Their agenda doesn’t say about what, but one can guess about the proposed studies for public transit and for trucking around Valdosta. Don’t forget to go to the VLMPO Open House on 2040 Transportation Vision tomorrow.

Electrical Test Labs of Georgia, located in Lake Park, will talk about themselves.

And the Authority will elect officers, which I predict will be the same ones they’ve got now since that’s what their nominating committee recommended last month, plus the bylaw amendment I predict will be Roy Copeland’s recommendation to extend officer terms to two years.

Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority
Tuesday, July 21, 2015 5:30 p.m. Continue reading →

Videos: Suwannee-Satilla Water Council @ SSRWPC 2015-06-15

They’re updating the regional water plan. They want to cooperate with neighboring water councils and with similar organizations in Florida. They meet again today at Aniston’s Restaurant, 1404 W. Baker Highway, Douglas, GA. See also: Please join the opposition to the Sabal Trail watershed invader —WWALS to SSRWPC.

Continue reading →

Alabama Power wants more renewable energy due to corporate customer demand

Southern Company’s subsidiaries are all turning to the sun! Even that titanic ship is affected by the tugboats of its corporate customers.

Ari Phillips, ClimateProgress, 16 July 2015, This Massive Utility Wants More Renewable Energy Because Corporations Are Demanding It,

In June, Alabama Power, one of the country’s largest electricity providers, filed a petition with the state’s Public Service Commission to add up to 500 megawatts of renewable energy over the next six years. The utility, which serves over 1.4 million customers in Alabama, cited customer demand as a primary reason for adding all this renewable energy — specifically corporate customers.

“This program was driven by conversations with customers looking to meet renewable mandates pushed down from their headquarters,” said Tony Smoke, Alabama Power vice president of marketing, in a statement announcing the request. “As a service provider, our focus is to make sure we are providing customers access to choices they want.”

It’s like Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning said in May Continue reading →

Airport Authority Budget Request discussed and approved @ LCC 2015-07-14

Not on the agenda, discussed for fifteen minutes, then suddenly approved: more funding for the Airport Authority, at the 14 July 2015 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission. Which was similar to the previous morning’s transportation study discussion, except the Commission didn’t vote that time on any possibility of funding that one.

TSA has reduced the amount of money it gives to small airports like Valdosta and in order to have Continue reading →

Transportation explained to Lowndes County Commission @ LCC 2015-07-13

The county asked SGRC a bunch of questions about the $15,957 public transit and trucking studies at yesterday morning’s Work Session that they didn’t ask about the $16,915 they spent two weeks ago to upgrade a water main to subsize a developer. Commissioners seemed to think VLMPO hadn’t involved them in planning the study proposals, when in fact their own Chairman and County Manager and Engineer had been involved all along, plus five county-appointed citizens.

300x225 Corey Hull, in Public Transportation and Trucking Studies Explained, by Gretchen Quarterman, 13 July 2015 County Manager Joe Pritchard said Commissioner Joyce Evans and Chairman Bill Slaughter had asked him to get the Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC) to explain its proposed transportation studies. He also introduced Lisa Crib, whom he said was the new SGRC Executive Director.

Corey Hull spoke for SGRC, saying he first wanted to know their questions. Chairman Bill Slaughter asked: Continue reading →

100% renewable energy for U.S. by 2050

Here’s how to convert everything from air conditioners to trucks 300x170 End-Use U.S. Power Change over Time, in 100% clean and renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for the 50 United States, by Mark Z. Jacobson et al., 27 May 2015 from fossil fuels to 100% renewable sun, wind, and water power by 2050, generating more jobs than would be lost from dirty energy, stopping tens of thousands of premature deaths from pollution, saving about 4% of U.S. GDP, plus saving $3.3 trillion worldwide climate change costs.

That’s 100% as in no coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, or biomass, just clean solar, wind, and water power: 90% by 2035, 80% by 2030, and 25% by 2025. No new technology required: just existing solar, wind, and water power production with batteries and hydrogen fuel cells for transportation, plus huge efficiency savings both from using electricity directly and through other well-known techniques.

A cleaner, healthier world is within our reach. And when even the country’s most corrupt legislature can unanimously pass and the Georgia governor who took campaign funds from six pipeline companies can sign a solar financing law, while Georgia has already become the fastest-growing solar market in the country, renewable energy is producing the political will to get this done.

Stanford Report, 8 June 2015, Continue reading →

County and landowners still paying for failed 2007 James Road mega-mall boondoggle @ LCC 2015-06-22

Back again: the James Road subsidy for a failed mega-mall that we just keep on paying, eight years later!

Five companies showed up at the May 27th pre-bid meeting, but only one bid for $71,192 was received from Rountree Construction for the Commercial Driveway for Raceway on James Road, said County Engineer Mike Fletcher at the 22 June 2015 Lowndes County Work Session. The Commission at their 23 June 2015 Regular Session approved that yet another fix-up payment caused by the county’s 2009 widening of James Road “from a two-lane local road with ditches to a five-lane road with curb and gutter” for the never-happened Market Street mall and subdivision project. And local elected officials say bus systems need subsidies? Every road and bridge is a subsidy for private developers. And James Road is a subsidy we just keep on paying year after year.

The county spent SPLOST VI funds and $587,000 in GDOT funds on this subsidy for private developers, some of them from Tampa, while requiring local James Road property owners to Continue reading →