Category Archives: Government

Trash, health, and safety

Solid waste is a health and safety issue, according to Georgia law.

According to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources copy of the GEORGIA COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT OF 1990 AS AMENDED THROUGH 2004,

O.C.G.A. § 12-8-21. Declaration of policy; legislative intent

a) It is declared to be the policy of the State of Georgia, in furtherance of its responsibility to protect the public health, safety, and well-being of its citizens and to protect and enhance the quality of its environment, to institute and maintain a comprehensive state-wide program for solid waste management and to prevent and abate litter, so as to assure that solid waste does not adversely affect the health, safety, and well-being of the public and that solid waste facilities, whether publicly or privately owned, do not degrade the quality of the environment by reason of their location, design, method of operation, or other means and which, to the extent feasible and practical, makes maximum utilization of the resources contained in solid waste.

Emphasis added on the parts about health, safety, well-being, and the environment. Those are the goals of this legislation, stated twice in the first paragraph. Georgia being a home rule state, the implementation of these goals is now left to the local governing bodies. More on that next.

-gretchen

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 →

SPLOST, media, southside library: videos @ SGLB 2012-11-20

Here’s a video playlist of the 20 November 2012 South Georgia Regional Library Board meeting. And here’s George Rhynes’ editorial on what he saw, heard, and was asked at that meeting. He’d prefer SPLOST being spent first on sidewalks than on moving the library where people would have to go farther to get to it. Also, like many of us, he’s tired of a few people controlling the purse-strings without input from the rest of us. He gave an example:

Continue reading →

SPLOST VII @ SGLB 2012-11-20

SPLOST on the ballot again? --Willis Miller @SGLB 2012-11-20 At Tuesday’s South Georgia Library Board meeting. a board member (his nameplate said Willis Miller) wanted to know about SPLOST:

How we know it’s going to come up next November or at another time?

Good question.

Here’s video of the discussion as it resumed later in the meeting:

SPLOST VII discussion at Monthly Meeting, South Georgia Library Board (SGLB),
Video by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I. and bostongbr on YouTube,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 November 2012.

Kay Harris said there had to be a minimum of twelve months, so November 2013 would be the next possible time. She said County Commissioner Richard Raines had expressed full support for the new library, and she was talking to the other commissioners. She was asked whether the SPLOST lists would be the same, and said there might be some changes, but she hadn’t heard anyone suggest that the Five Points property might be deleted. That’s curious, because she quoted Valdosta Mayor Gayle in the VDT 7 November 2012 as saying:

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 →

GaSU wins at GA PSC, but will GaSU help all of us win in the legislature?

GA PSC Stan Wise’s 2009 nuclear CWIP lobbying points eerily matched Southern Company’s, but suddenly he’s got separation-of-powers religion about Georgia Solar Utilities (GaSU). The PSC recommended GaSU’s utility bid anyway. When the legislature takes that up in a month or so, will GaSU CEO Robert Green, unlike SO or Georgia Power or Stan Wise, help the rest of us little people fix the 1973 Territoriality law so we can sell our solar electricity on a free market?

Dave Williams wrote for the Atlanta Business Chronicle yesterday, Georgia Public Service Commission moves ahead on solar energy,

Georgia Power logo The Georgia Public Service Commission approved a plan by Georgia Power Co. Tuesday to acquire an additional 210 megawatts of solar generating capacity, more than tripling its investment in solar energy.

GA PSC PR about 20 November 2012 decisions But a sharply divided PSC also gave a potential competitor to Georgia Power its blessing to appeal to the General Assembly to amend a 39-year-old law that gives the Atlanta-based utility the exclusive right to continue serving existing customers.

Under Georgia Power’s Advanced Solar Initiative, the company will buy solar power produced by both large “utility-scale” solar farms and from smaller projects operated by residential and commercial property owners.

Right, that’s actually only 10 Megawatts from “smaller projects”, maintaining Georgia Power’s monopoly while throwing throwing a bone to the rest of us.

While the PSC supported Georgia Power’s plan unanimously, a subsequent motion by McDonald encouraging other solar utilities interested in serving Georgia to pursue their plans with the legislature passed by the narrow margin of 3-2.

Georgia Solar Utilities Inc., a company launched in Macon, Ga., earlier this year, filed an application with the PSC in September for authority to generate solar energy in Georgia on a utility scale.

The two Nay votes were from the two recently-reelected PSC members, apparently now thoroughly in the pocket of the incumbent utilities. Here’s one of them now:

Continue reading →

Agenda @ GLPC 2012-11-26

GLPC Agenda 2012-11-26

The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) meets next Monday, 26 November 2012. Here’s the agenda.

The agenda was emailed by Valdosta City Planner Matt Martin to Gretchen Quarterman who provided it to LAKE. GLPC itself still doesn’t have agendas online, sixteen months after SGRC stopped posting them.

Here’s a summary table of the cases.

-jsq

Lowndes County,
Final action
Tuesday
11 Dec 2012 		2. REZ-2012-18 Roger Budd
1006 Lakes Boulevard, Lake Park, Georgia
Request to rezone 0.87 acres from C-C (Crossroads Commercial)
to C-H (Highway Commercial)
3. REZ-2012-19 Robinson Milltown Properties, LLC
US Highway 84 East, Naylor, Georgia
Request to rezone 2 acres from E-A (Estate Agriculture)
to C-G (General Commercial)
4. TEX-2012-02
Lowndes County Board of Commissioners
A proposed text amendment to the Unified Land Development Code as it pertains to Single Family residential Density and Minimum Lot Area within the MAZ (Moody Activity Zone)
Valdosta,
Final action
Thursday
6 Dec 2012 		5. VA-2012-15 John McCranie
1404 Gornto Road, Valdosta, Georgia
Request to rezone 0.68 acres from Neighborhood Commercial (C-N)
to Community Commercial (C-C)
6. VA-2012-16 Tombrooks, LLC
316 Eager Road, Valdosta, Georgia
Request to rezone 1.80 acres from Single-family Residential (R-15)
to Single-family Residential (R-10)
7. VA-2012-17 El Toreo, Inc.
225 Norman Drive, Valdosta, Georgia
Request to rezone 15.04 acres from Single-family Residential (R-6)
to Highway Commercial (C-H)
8. VA-2012-18
City of Valdosta
Proposed text amendments to the City of Valdosta Land Development Regulations (LDR)

Car wash, parking, alcohol, and night flights: Videos @ GLPC 2012-10-29

The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission made recommendations on cases involving buffering a car wash, sizing parking spaces, alcohol at a corner store, and a development inside the Moody exclusion zone, all at its 29 October 2012 Regular Session.

Here’s the agenda, and here’s a video playlist, followed by a summary of the cases.

Regular Session, Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 October 2012.

Valdosta, Final action Thursday 8 Nov 2012

2. CU-2012-07 Stafford Properties

1609 Norman Drive, Valdosta
Request for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP for a Car Wash in a Community Commercial C-C zoning district.

Developer from Columbus spoke for.

Continue reading →

Alcohol at the corner store? @ GLPC 2012-10-29

The old store at the corner of GA 122 and Cat Creek Road was the subject of debate over alcohol at the Planning Commission’s 29 October 2012 Regular Session. Here’s a playlist.

This was the rezoning item:

4. REZ-2012-16 Cook County Land Ventures
SW corner of Georgia Highway 122 East and Cat Creek Road, Hahira
Request to rezone ~2 acres from E-A (Estate Agriculture) to C-C (Crossroads Commercial)

County Planner Jason Davenport said the owner wants commercial zoning for a store, since previous conditional use had expired, and there was concern about prohibiting alcohol, especially if 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 →