Category Archives: Planning

2011 Economic Summit by VLCoC

Myrna Ballard (President, Chamber of Commerce), Michael Jetter (Interim Executive Director for the Valdosta-Lowndes Conference Center and Tourism Authority), Amanda Peacock (Valdosta Main Street Manager), Allan Ricketts (Valdosta-Lowndes Industrial Authority Project Manager), Jane Shelton (Valdosta-Lowndes Airport Authority Member)
“Transforming our local economy”
“It’s the Mix that Matters”

Amber Eady wrote for WALB 18 May 2011 about Economic Summit meets to discuss economic health:
Community leaders in the Valdosta area came together at the 2011 Economic Summit to discuss the economic health of Valdosta-Lowndes County.

Economic Summit participants raised substantive questions for the panel and shared ideas for moving forward during the facilitated discussion portion of the Summit led by VSU Center for Business and Economic Research Director, Scott Manley.

WALB then quotes the Chamber’s press release.
Dr. Cynthia R. Tori presented the VSU Center for Business and Economic Research study, Lowndes County by the Numbers: How Do We Compare With Peer and Aspirant Communities?
That study sounds very interesting. Can we see a copy? Continue reading →

2011 Economic Summit @ VLCIA 17 May 2011

Col. Ricketts reported he was on a panel at the 2011 Economic Summit which was sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, and that he got a copy of a report by the VSU Center for Business and Economic Research about how the local area compares with others.

Mary Gooding said Col. Ricketts represented VLCIA very well.

If VLCIA knew how to do PR, this would have been a great PR opportunity for them to publicize.

Meanwhile, WALB and VDT reported on the event itself.

Here’s the video:


2011 Economic Summit @ VLCIA 17 May 2011
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 May 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

States lock up less people, but Georgia increases —Pew

A Pew Center on the States report from 1 April 2010, Prison Count 2010: State Population Declines for the First Time in 38 Years:
For the first time in nearly 40 years, the number of state prisoners in the United States has declined, according to “Prison Count 2010,” a new survey by the Pew Center on the States. As of January 2010, there were 1,404,053* persons under the jurisdiction of state prison authorities, 4,777* fewer than on December 31, 2008.

This marks the first year-to-year drop in the nation’s state prison population since 1972. While the study showed an overall decline, it revealed great variation among jurisdictions. The prison population declined in 26* states, while increasing in 24* states and in the federal system.

*Numbers updated as of April 1, 2010. (Report originally released March 17, 2010.)

Guess which way Georgia went? As you can see in the map, Georgia increased by 1.6% while Texas, already leading in not wasting tax dollars on new prisons, decreased by 0.7%. Continue reading →

Expand the array, publish the minutes, private prison is a bad idea —John S. Quarterman @ VLCIA 17 May 2011

Here’s what I said to the VLCIA board on 17 May 2011. Notes are appended after the video:


Expand the array, publish the minutes, private prison is a bad idea —John S. Quarterman @ VLCIA 17 May 2011
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 May 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Congratulations on the Wiregrass Solar commissioning. Since this was not ever the largest array in Georgia let’s encourage Mayor Fretti and Commissioner Powell to help VLCIA expand the local array.

Referring to Mary Gooding’s comments about people who wanted to see minutes probably going to be frustrated, I pointed out that Continue reading →

VSU Faculty Senate passes anti-biomass resolution

Karen Noll reported on WACE’s facebook page that the VSU Faculty Senate passed a resolution Thursday 19 May 2011 that biomass will not be considered renewable for VSU’s climate commitment goal.

Why? Because leading medical associations have identified woody biomass incineration as increasing risks of “a variety of illnesses, some life-threatening”, because biomass incineration produces more CO2, NOX, and fine particulates than existing coal plants, and because it “may lead to unsustainable forestry practices and a net increase in global greenhouse gas emissions”.

Who proposed this? Continue reading →

Solar power is the peoples power —Alden Hathaway

After he talked about expanding the Wiregrass Solar plant by another megawatt, Alden Hathaway of Sterling Planet said this:
Solar power is the peoples power.

Whether you’re talking about grid tied power here in America tied to the wire, or solar in the rural countryside of Uganda, it’s immediately available and accessible in all sizes. So I can use it to power a cell phone, charge a laptop, put light in a school, or pump water in a hospital. Solar is immediately available to do that, without massive which is a barrier to development in much of the developing world.

And to development in south Georgia, for that matter. So we can leapfrog that barrier with solar.

Here’s the video:


Solar power is the peoples power –Alden Hathaway
Commissioning Ceremony,
Wiregrass Solar, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 May 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Renewable Energy Network at Opportunity Central

Renewable energy for jobs: that’s something that would interest a Chamber of Commerce.

Partly due to MAGE SOLAR at Lowndes High School (thanks, Jerome Tucker!), the Valdosta – Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC) has taken an interest in renewable energy. ReKasa Deen, Business Development Director, already heads the Chamber’s Opportunity Central:

The Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber is positioning Metro Valdosta as Opportunity Central with opportunities for business to grow and thrive, career opportunities for well-educated young professionals and opportunities for cultural interests and active lifestyles.

The key phrase I keep hearing from VLCoC president Myrna Ballard is “knowledge-based businesses and jobs.” As it says on a recent Opportunity Central blog post:

New jobs follow bright and creative professionals…
Ms. Ballard and Ms. Deen have repeatedly said they see renewable energy as a source of jobs for graduates of our local high schools and colleges.

What do they mean by renewable energy? Continue reading →

“It’s an anti-American law” —Carlos Santana in Georgia

Carroll Rogers wrote in the AJC 15 May 2011, Santana blasts Georgia immigration bill before Braves game:
Legendary rock guitarist Carlos Santana, in town to be honored for a “Beacon of Change” award at Sunday’s MLB Civil Rights Game at Turner Field, called the state’s new immigration law “anti-American.”

Santana took his turn at the podium on the field in a pre-game ceremony before the Braves-Phillies game to criticize the immigration bill just signed into law by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal Friday.

“I represent the human race,” the Mexican-born Carlos Santana said. “The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

The Georgia immigration law, HB 87, cracks down on illegal immigration by increasing enforcement powers and requiring many employers to check the immigration status of new hires.

And this is just the start of what’s going to happen to Georgia as long as that law is in effect.

But what do you really think, Carlos? Continue reading →

Expanding Wiregrass Solar —Alden Hathaway of Sterling Planet

Alden Hathaway of Sterling Planet said he hopes to expand the Wiregrass Solar array in Valdosta to an additional megawatt, taking it from being one of the largest in Georgia to one of the largest in the southeast. This is the man Sterling Planet Chairman Sonny Murphy singled out for praise. This is the expansion project Sonny Murphy promoted in the Sterling Planet press release. Alden Hathaway knows what needs to be done, and Pete Marte and Hannah Solar stand ready to do it.

Alden Hathaway also talked about how solar helps load distribution on the electric grid, lowering electric rates for everybody. He remarked that once power companies realized that, they’d be for solar. More on that later.

But meanwhile, let’s ask Mayor Fretti and Commissioner Crawford Powell when they’re going to do this: Continue reading →

The backfire effect, and how to leapfrog it

If you have evidence against something that will harm public health or waste money, just tell everybody and they’ll understand and stop it, right? Nope, humans don’t work that way. More likely you’ll provoke the backfire effect, reinforcing beliefs in the bad information that caused the problem in the first place. Here are some ways to jump over that effect to get at solutions to the problem.

Shankar Vedantam wrote in the Washington Post 15 Sep 2008 about The Power of Political Misinformation, illustrating with a couple of well-known examples of misinformation (you’ll recognize them), and continuing:

Nearly all these efforts rest on the assumption that good information is the antidote to misinformation.

But a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people’s minds after it has been debunked — even among people who recognize it as misinformation.

Countering bad information directly just reinforces it.

Chris Mooney wrote more about why that is in Mother Jones 18 April 2011, The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science: Continue reading →