Category Archives: Law

Elect Georgia Public Service Commissioners to represent you


GA PSC
The Georgia Public Service Commission decides how much you pay for energy.
If you’re tired of Georgia Power’s

three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool
and
Georgia lagging far behind other states in solar and wind energy,
or you just want

PSC members who will represent you
and who do not

accept massive campaign contributions from the utilities they regulate
or their employees or lawyers
like the incumbents do;
the incumbents who can’t even be bothered to show up for debates
or to answer questionnaires.


David Staples for GA PSC

Steve Oppenheimer for GA PSC
Here are two GA PSC challengers who did answer a questionnaire:

Democrat Steve Oppenheimer
and

Libertarian David Staples.
Early voting has already started:
you can vote for them today.


let the sun shine on Georgia
While you’re at it, you can

vote for statehouse legislators who will let the sun shine on Georgia.

-jsq

GA PSC questionnaire answers: Steve Oppenheimer


Steve Oppenheimer
The Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for
Georgia Public Service Commission.
None of the incumbents answered.
The two challengers did.
Here’s the one from
Steve Oppenheimer
for District 3.
-jsq

  1. As a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your campaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast?

    [I’m omitting the answers to this question. -jsq]

  2. How should the Public Service Commission consider and
    weight the impacts to community health (asthma, cancer rates, etc.)
    and on Georgia’s environmental (water quantity, air quality etc.)
    when making decisions about a utility’s generation portfolio?

    The PSC has a major role shaping energy policy for Georgia. I would
    like to schedule PSC hearings on the relationship of power
    production and our air, water, morbidity and mortality and our
    general quality of life. My professional background in dentistry &
    health care provides a keen understanding of the relationship of
    power generation and health. Dr David Satcher, former US Surgeon
    General and Executive Director Satcher Health Leadership Institute
    at Morehouse University has become a friend and part of my
    professional network during the campaign. I would like to see PSC
    convene hearings on the topic. Georgians for a Healthy Future, a
    relatively new, broad based, organization would provide another
    forum for discussion of these issues. Membership in Georgians for a
    Healthy Future includes Georgia Legislators on both sides of the
    aisle. The PSC must be a leader on these issues—as the
    legislature as a body will likely not be progressive on these
    issues.

Continue reading →

GA PSC questionnaire: David Staples


David Staples
The Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for
Georgia Public Service Commission.
None of the incumbents answered.
The two challengers did.
Here’s the one from
David A. Staples for District 5.
-jsq

  1. As a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your
    campaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast?

    [I’m omitting the answers to this question. -jsq]

  2. How should the Public Service Commission consider and weight the
    impacts to community
    health (asthma, cancer rates, etc.) and on Georgia’s environmental
    (water quantity, air quality
    etc.) when making decisions about a utility’s generation portfolio?

    Impacts to community health and the environment have to be considered
    very carefully. I know
    there are a number of different ways of viewing the situation but the
    explanation I’ve found
    that works best with Republicans in trying to get their support is that
    it comes down to a private
    property matter. The right to swing ones fist ends at the other
    person’s nose. Does anyone have
    the right to pollute the air that I breathe or the water that I drink?

    If I buy a piece of property for
    instance along the Savannah River or Ogeechee River, does someone
    upstream from me have
    the right to pollute the water that then flows onto my land, carrying
    those pollutants with it?

    Absolutely not.

Continue reading →

Adding another charter school authorizer reduces academic learning —Karen Noll

Received today on
Georgia charter schools do no better than traditional public schools. -jsq

The Stanford study,

Multiple Choice: Charter school performance in 16 states (p. 4),
also found that multiple authorizers:


Figure 15: Charter School Effect of Policy Variables

States that empower multiple entities to act as charter school
authorizers realize significantly lower growth in academic learning
in their students, on the order of -.08 standard deviations.

Currently we have
the local boards of education that authorize charter schools at a
very high rate, 94%. If the charter is not approved by the local
board then they can appeal to the Dept of Ed. For approval. So, by
adding another authorizer in the form of the UNCONSTITUTIONAL
charter school commission you simply reduce the academic learning of
the students! This is not about education this amendment is about
the money earned by some to keep power! Our constitution states that
we have an obligation to provide free quality education to all
Georgians. We have no obligation to line the pockets of the rich
with our tax dollars!

-Karen Noll

Charter school amendment: taxation without representation —Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09

Karen Noll spoke to the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday
about the charter school amendment,
saying it would implement taxation without representation

Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09
and would take more tax dollars from our public schools
to give twice as much money to special charter school students.

When you’re talking about my kids in the schools
and you’re going to take their money
and ship it to somebody else’s family and then there’s no accountability,
that’s just unacceptable.

Here’s

the video.

-jsq

“Great, big” SO is 1/10 Australia for solar farm deployment in Georgia


Solar Megawatts 2012-10-11
So if Southern Company is a “great, big company” similar to Australia,
why did Australia just deploy a solar farm ten times the size of
the biggest one SO has in Georgia?

Back in May, Southern Company (SO) CEO

Thomas A. Fanning said:

From an energy standpoint, Southern Company is a little bit smaller,
but similar to, the energy production profile of the nation of
Australia. We are a great, big company from an energy production
standpoint.

Meanwhile in Australia,
Giles Parkinson wrote for Clean Technica 10 October 2012,

Australia’s 1st Utility-Scale Solar Farm Now On!



At about 11am local time near the Western Australian town of
Geraldton this morning, Australia’s first-utility scale solar farm
was officially switched on.

It was a suitably sunny day (blighted by three million flies) and
although just 10MW in size, and built courtesy of funding from the
local government, a state-owned utility and by one of the wealthiest
companies on the planet, it may presage a dramatic change in the way
this country produces energy.

So what’s SO or Georgia Power’s biggest solar plant in Georgia?
You remember,

1 MW in Upson.

OK, to be fair, that’s just Georgia Power.
SO does have larger solar farms elsewhere, including

Now I know Georgia Power’s party line is that solar is only good in the U.S.
southwest.
But I don’t know how that explains

Continue reading →

Georgia charter schools do no better than traditional public schools

Let's look at Georgia's non-unionized public schools.
So far as I know, Georgia does not have teachers' unions.
But there's still no reason to believe charter schools in Georgia
would be any more magic

than in Chicago.

According to CREDO at Stanford University,
which has done

CREDO at Stanford University

state-by-state charter school studies,
they find

CHARTER SCHOOLS IN GEORGIA PERFORM
SIGNIFICANTLY BELOW THEIR TRADITIONAL
PUBLIC SCHOOL PEERS IN MATH:
No Difference Found in Reading Performance.
That's their press release.
Here's
the detailed study.

So if someone has a charter school idea that they think will perform

Vote No on Amendment 1
better than public schools,
they can talk to their local school board about that, and maybe
that local board will agree.
There's no need to authorize an unelected Atlanta board to force that charter
school on us.

Vote No on the charter school amendment in November.

-jsq

Chicago charter schools do no better than unionized public schools

The Georgia “charter school” amendment isn’t really about charter
schools (which any school district in Georgia can already approve,
and many have): it’s about

giving an unelected committee in Atlanta
power to force us to pay extra local taxes to fund charter schools we don’t want.
However, since the pushers of that amendment say it’s about charter schools,
it’s worth reviewing that charter schools actually on average perform
no better or even worse than traditional public schools.
Let’s look at what the pushers hate most,
unionized public schools in Chicago.
and then let’s look at Georgia’s non-unionized public schools.

Ben Joravsky wrote for chichagoreader.com 3 October 2012,

Today’s lesson: charters do not outperform unionized schools:
Confronting the anti-teachers’ union myth with, you know, facts

But as I was saying, the foes of the teachers’ union declare that we
should pay close attention to the all-important standardized test
scores. So let’s take a look.


Chicago Public Schools
There are 541 elementary schools in Chicago. Based on the composite
ISAT scores for 2011—the last full set available—none of
the top ten are charters. None of the top 20, 30, or 40 either.

In fact, you’ve got to go to 41 to find a charter. Take a bow, CICS
Irving Park!

Most of the 49 charters on the list are clustered near the great
middle, alongside most of their unionized neighborhood schools.

The top scorers are public schools with unionized teachers who are
members of the Chicago Teachers Union.

UNO is

a charter school operator. Joravsky compares one of its schools side-by-side with a unionized public school.

Continue reading →

What Georgia Power is afraid of: GaSU and Dr. Smith; and you

So what is Georgia Power afraid of

that made their CEO Paul Bowers double down on old-style baseload?
Competition, that’s what!
What could be more scary in the power-monopoly state of the

1973 Territorial Electric Service Act?


GaSU sun
On one side, Georgia Power faces

GaSU and its 80 or 90 MW solar plant proposal.
Walter C. Jones wrote for OnlineAthens 24 September 2012,

Proposed solar company could stir up Georgia’s utility structure,

A proposal from a start-up business promises to lower electricity
rates by rebating profits to customers if given a chance to compete
as Georgia Power Co.’s “mirror image.”


GaSU fb profile image
To proceed with its long-range plan of developing 2 gigawatts of
solar power, the start-up, Georgia Solar Utilities Inc., wants to
start by building an 80-megawatt “solar farm” near
Milledgeville as soon as it gets a green light from the Georgia
Public Service Commission. GaSU filed its request last week, and as
of Monday, it’s still too fresh for public evaluation.

So radical is the proposal that spokespersons for Georgia Power and
the Georgia Solar Energy Association said they still were evaluating
it and could not comment.

Groups that normally advocate for customers also are staying quiet.

GaSU executives recognize such a big change won’t come easily.

Continue reading →

Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-09-25

Fewer speakers at the Regular Session
than at the

previous morning’s Work Session
of the Lowndes County Commission.
The longest item was

a citizen wishing to be heard, who only spoke for 3 and a half minutes.
Up until then, the meeting took five minutes, as the Chairman noted.
And everything was adopted unanimously, with little or no discussion.

Here’s

the agenda,
annotated below with links to the videos and a few notes,
and followed by

a video playlist.



  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
  4. Minutes for Approval




    First the Chairman welcomed Leadership Lowndes.

    Then both sets of minutes were
    unanimously approved with no changes.

    1. Work Session — September 10, 2012
    2. Regular Session — September 11, 2012
  5. For Consideration


    1. Bevel Creek Lift Station Repair       —Mike Allen

      The total for the wastewater lift station
      was still $38,969 with the budget impact being
      the insurance deductible.
      Unanimously approved.



    2. Dell Lease Agreement for Sheriff’s Office Laptops       —Aaron Kostyu

      Six years ago the Sheriff’s Dept. leased some laptops;
      plan was always to roll new laptops into the lease;
      that will be done using drug seizure funds.
      Unanimously approved.

    3. Contract with Corporate Health Partners

      County Manager Joe Pritchard said they had started looking
      into wellness plans several years ago,
      $260,000 in savings in health care expenses so far;
      partnership with SGMC and YMCA.
      Commissioner Joyce Evans wanted to know how regularly
      it would be monitoried.
      Answer: quarterly.
      Commissioner Richard Raines moved to approve

      Corporate Health Partners      ,
      except instead of a three year contract,
      an initial one year with two one-year extensions.
      Unanimously approved.



    4. Agreement with Basic Life

      Joe Pritchard alluded to

      yesterday’s presentation from Chris Park(? Clark?)
      recommending a change to basic life coverage,
      with an approximate annual savings of slightly over $10,000.
      Unanimously approved.

  6. Reports-County Manager

    Joe Pritchard had no report.

  7. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address



    Chairman Ashley Paulk noted it was 5:35, and then

    Ken Klanicki spoke
    for 3 and a half minutes, the longest item in the meeting,
    after which
    they adjourned.


Video Playlist

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 25 September 2012.

-jsq