| 104 | 100% | total |
| 4 | 3% | newdown |
| 17 | 16% | newlow |
| 6 | 5% | newtop |
| 16 | 15% | down |
| 32 | 30% | low |
| 72 | 69% | top |
Newly down since 23 Feb 2013 on 6 March 2013
Newly down since 23 Feb 2013 on 6 March 2013:
FitzPatrick,
Indian Point 3,
Brunswick 2,
Monticello.
Category Archives: Transparency
Sinkholes in Florida, and in Lowndes County, Georgia
The sinkhole that formed under a man’s bed and pulled him in has made a lot of news in Florida, plus another one a few miles away. But the news seems to neglect why those sinkholes are forming. Could it be the same reason sinkholes are forming in Lowndes County, Georgia? And will the Lowndes County Commission do anything about that before we see news about somebody here falling into a sinkhole?
Will Hobson, Laura C. Morel and Jodie Tillman wrote for the Tampa Bay Times 1 March 2013, Seffner sinkhole 911 call: ‘Bedroom floor just collapsed’,
Jeremy Bush just went to bed when he heard what sounded like a car hitting the house. Then screams from his brother Jeffrey’s bedroom.
“Help me! Help me!”
Someone flipped the lights. Jeremy, 36, threw the door open, revealing a sight that defied belief: The earth had opened beneath his brother’s bedroom and was swallowing everything in it. The tip of Jeffrey’s mattress was the only thing left, and it was sinking into a churning sinkhole.
The Tampa Bay Times has a long series on what happened afterwards, rescue workers who didn’t find him, the demolition of the house, objects found, etc. They never quite get around to saying why the sinkhole was there. They first say (Shelley Rossetter 2 March 2013),
Continue readingTourism Authority met this morning @ VLCCCTA 2013-02-27
Did you know the Valdosta-Lowndes County Convention Center and Tourism Authority was meeting this morning? Well, if you happened by the Convention Center you would find this Announcement on the door:
Picture by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 February 2013.
Most boards post an actual agenda on the door, but this one is just an announcement. If they posted that on their website or their facebook page I can't find it.
Gretchen says they did have a quorum ( unlike last month) and they were quite welcoming of her and the LAKE video camera. However, they did not provide her with an agenda. She says they didn't give anything to the VDT reporter, either.
-jsq
Proposed abandonment of a portion of County Road 16/Old State Rd. —Brett Huntley @ LCC 2013-02-25
Received today; he sent it to all the Commissioners. -jsq
Continue readingTo the commission on the proposed idea of road abandonment on County Rd. #16:
On the morning of 2/25/13 after the county commission’s morning work session, my wife and I spoke with Joyce Evans and Bill Slaughter on some of our concerns and new found technical information about road abandonment, Georgia state waterways, and what the county and state are expected to protect.
During our conversation we were told that for unexplained legal reasons the county would have to give the road back to the land owner. At this time my thoughts and questions come back to: Why if for legal reasons do we have to give the land back or away, and why are we even having to have a public hearing on this matter, if the public has no say?
Also during this conversation Bill mentioned
Work Session this morning? Lowndes County web site down again @ LCC 2013-02-25
Is there a County Commission Work Session this morning at 8:30 AM? Can't find out from the county's website: it's down again. Is this a good way to demonstrate that Internet access is "one of the number one issues"?
First noticed about 7AM,
http://www.lowndescounty.com/
not responding, same as
three weeks ago.
Once again I also tried it from somewhere far away geographically and on another
ISP, with the same results as last time.
Alert!: Unexpected network read error; connection aborted.
So it looks like the Lowndes County Commission's website is down. Speaking of far away, why does it seem to be hosted in Dallas, Texas?
Well, let's see if there's any information on their facebook page. Nope; still content-free.
Here's a response Gretchen got from County Clerk Paige Dukes when she inquired after the last outage:
Continue readingBroadband on the table @ VLCIA 2013-02-19
Internet speed and access (appearing as Broadband)
played a starring role at the 19 February 2013 meeting of the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
with a surprise cameo by Lowndes County Commission Chairman
Bill Slaughter (appearing as himself)
and a bravura performance by Angela Crance of Wiregrass Tech,
with a strong supporting role by VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland,
and Mary Gooding standing in for VSU.
Internet access (as "telecommunications infrastructure")
came up in Project Manager Allan Ricketts' report as a requirement for
a Fortune 500 customer service operation
and
for a
National health care service provider,
both considering locating here,
also as
bandwidth,
as a requirement for
jobs.
That was the main theme of
Executive Director Andrea Schruijer's report,
especially in rural parts of our county,
especially for a home-based call center.
Even Rotary Clubs
need broadband.
VLCIA is also helping find potential sites for several utility-scale photovoltaic solar installations.
The Industrial Authority Board was down to three members, barely a quorum: Mary Gooding, Chairman Roy Copeland, and Tom Call. Whereabouts of Norman Bennett and Jerry Jennett were undetermined. I can't complain; I was in bed with a sinus infection.
Here's the agenda (such as it is), with links to the videos and some notes, often in separate posts.
Continue readingRotary Clubs need broadband @ VLCIA 2013-02-19
Before the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013 meeting, Gretchen told Bill about how she’s now videoing at Rotary and putting playlists on the web with some delay. Bill and Gretchen (and Commissioner John Page) go to the same Valdosta Rotary Club. This is yet another use of Internet access: attracting participants to local community groups, and getting their speakers to a wider audience.
-jsq
I don’t want to say we don’t have broadband —Andrea Schruijer @ VLCIA 2013-02-19
Unfortunately, Andrea Schruijer made clear that much of what
had just been said at the
the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
hadn’t been heard.
It’s not that we’re saying we don’t have broadband. We have connectivity; that’s not the issue. We have great partners that help us with that.
Well, local “leaders” need to learn to say it: “we don’t have broadband!” Many of the people of Lowndes County and even more in the surrounding counties can’t afford Internet access at all, as Idelle Dear told the Lowndes County Commission. And the “great partners” Ms. Schruijer bragged about will never provide it for us without a lot of prodding, because AT&T and Verizon and Sprint and Comcast and Mediacom don’t think anything outside the Atlanta beltway has enough population density to bother with, and even in Atlanta all people get is U.S.-style low-speed low-reliability Internet connectivity that would never even be on sale in Japan or France or Korea or Finland or even Estonia.
Tom Call illustrated my point when he
talked about a residential project
where a provider installed cable and claimed they were providing voice, TV, and Internet access, but then didn’t actually have the capacity for Internet
when people started using it.
Broadband “huge strategic initiative for our community” —Mary Gooding for VSU @ VLCIA 2013-02-19
Mary Gooding spoke up for VSU at
the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013,
saying that
VSU President McKinney was
in Athens (as was President Perrin of Wiregrass), but he and
VSU:
We too believe that this is a huge strategic initiative for our community. And we were thrilled after the meeting that we attended that the city, the county, both educational institutions, the Industrial Authority, everyone there, the hospital for sure, all agreed that this had to be a significant incentive.
Mary Gooding added:
At Valdosta State it’s becoming one of our biggest road barriers to online degrees, to online classes. That’s again more bandwidth that’s needed to be able to deliver degrees and classes online.
That’s all good, but where were the superintendents and school boards of the two K-12 school systems? Where were library Continue reading
Broadband top priority, education, jobs, quality of life —Angela Crance @ VLCIA 2013-02-19
Angela Crance,
Special Assistant to the President of
Wiregrass Georgia Technical College,
told
the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013:
I’m here for Wiregrass, and we just want to thank you for bringing this up and making it a top priority for the community [looking at Lowndes County Commission Chairman Bill Slaughter] and the Industrial Authority….
Continue readingIt’s definitely a priority for us…. Only 14% of our citizens have a college degree and we need 70% to have a college degree within ten years. To be able to accomplish that we’d better have