Apparently the media campaign discussed in the January article didn’t happen, since it’s not mentioned in either of the later articles.
The February writeup does brag about the Industrial Authority’s “newly-designed Web site”. Well, it’s fancy, all right. Continue reading
No, not the courthouse. Older than that. 119 North Patterson Street. Here Pat explains the hidden windows they found: Continue reading
The other is about the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s 2035 Transportation Plan. $400 million. Hm, I wonder how much rail and bus passenger service we could implement with a fraction of that.
This appears to be the date and location for the Georgia EPD
air quality hearing for the Wiregrass Biomass plant proposed
for Valdosta:
6:30 PM, 27 April 2010We’ve been waiting on this date for a while. EPD is going to send a press release to the VDT a few weeks in advance and post it on its own website, www.georgiaair.org. Assuming, of course, that the date and place don’t change again.
Multipurpose Room
Valdosta City Hall Annex
300 North Lee Street
Valdosta, Georgia
Why should you care? This plant proposes to burn sewage sludge, which can release numerous hazardous chemicals into the air. Here is Seth’s letter to the editor of the VDT of 21 Feb 2010: Continue reading
With Congress and the White House considering spending scarce dollars to jump-start employment, they’ll need to get the biggest jobs bang for the buck to give Americans confidence that they’re spending our money wisely. Probably the biggest jobs generator of all, and one of the least recognized, is investing in forest and land restoration and sustainable management, with conservation, watershed projects, and park investment coming close behind.
That’s a very interesting jobs comparison; I didn’t know that.
To summarize, reforestation and restoration outperforms even the second-most jobs-intense activity analyzed by 74 percent, and conservation exceeds other major jobs alternatives, including especially new highway construction, Wall Street, and conventional energy sources like oil and nuclear.In fact, nuclear comes in dead last in this comparison.
And biomass produces less than half as many jobs as reforestation and land resto ration.
What to do with Detroit?
Cindy Perman writes for CNBC:
Mayor Dave Bing is apparently working on a radical plan that would bulldoze a quarter of the city — some of the most desolate areas — and return it to farmland, the way it was before the automobile. Any residents still there would be relocated to stronger neighborhoods.
Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genessee County, containing Flint, Michigan, remarks:
“The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across the US, there’s an assumption that all development is good, that if communities are growing they are successful. If they’re shrinking, they’re failing.”Actually, building more subdivisions just increases the deficit between tax revenues collected and cost of services provided.
Perman concludes:
Welcome to the future. Why does it look so much like 1910 instead of 2010?Perhaps because 1910 had railroads for mass transit and cities were still dense and close to existing services?
What happens when you
build an economy on real estate:
The once-vaunted Sea Island Co. is awash in debt, badly behind on its loan payments and desperately trying to find a buyer for its five-star portfolio that once seemed immune to the economic whims that batter regular folk.OK, so a big developer goes belly-up; who cares? Continue readingThe company’s downward spiral is a stunning tale of over-borrowing and over-expansion that collided with the worst recession since World War II, a downturn that has pummeled the luxury resort market across the nation.
The Metropolitian Planning Organization (MPO)
invited people to a Public Open House last week
about prioritization of the 2035 Transportation Plan, so we went to the
RDC offices on W. Savannah Ave. and had a look.
You can see many of
the same materials online.
The MPO has a comment form you can fill out and mail to them.
There is also contact information on their web pages.
They are actively soliciting input.
One thing I noticed was that along Cat Creek Road they are proposing several intersection upgrades (at Hambrick Road, New Bethel Road, and Radar Site Road) which look like they would funnel still more traffic through Hambrick Road to Moody AFB. Hambrick Road and Cat Creek Road are not highways. State highways 122 and 129 (Bemiss Road) make a nice fast route from Hahira to Moody. A few improvements at Walker’s Crossing (where 122 and 129 intersect) would seem much more appropriate. The MPO could request for the state to do that.
Widening of Old US41N is on the list again as a county project, this time as far as Union Road.
Several new roads are proposed throughout the city and county as well as widening of many roads with additional travel or turn lanes.
You can look over the list of projects and you’ll probably find ones to comment on.
How did Texas do that, and how can Valdosta and Lowndes County help Georgia catch up?
Some years back, Austin, Texas, which has been growing rapidly for decades, needed to find a way to produce more energy. Building a coal plant was not really an option for a city that had long sold itself as a home of green industry. Nuclear had a bad taste because in the 1980s Austin had been an investor in the South Texas Nuclear project, which had been late, over budget, never produced what it was supposed to, and had many political problems. So Austin settled on a new plan: instead of spending big bucks to build a dirty coal plant, use the same money to give rebates to homeowners and businesses for installing solar power. Big rebates: 75%, the largest, and among the first in the country. This made perfect economic sense, producing as much new energy as needed, without coal or nuclear, and distributed where it was needed.
Now Austin is trying a new wrinkle:
The Austin, Texas, city council has approved Austin Energy’s solar incentive program, which includes a new approach for commercial, multifamily and nonprofit customers. The new approach saves $2.4 million over the life of the program, according to the utility.Continue reading
The Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization
is holding an open house about its Long Range Transportation Plan.
(Not to be confused with the County’s Thoroughfare Plan, which has little or no open process.)
This Transportation Plan I think will include another attempt to design a bus
system; we’ll see. I’ll be there; how about you?
Here’s a transcription of the PDF flyer: