GEFA, road abandonment, bids, and water @ LCC 2015-05-26

We don’t know what the GEFA Loan Modification is about,
Photo: Michael Rivera, CC attribution share alike because not even the one-page agenda sheets are included this time. Similarly, we don’t know why they want to abandon Buck Cato Road (CR 880), or what vehicles they want to surplus and sell, or who else bid for the 3/4 Ton Truck for the Extension Service, or for the Tables and Chairs for the Emergency Operations Center, nor why the want to interconnect the North Lowndes and Kinderlou Water Systems.

Here’s the agenda. Because of the Monday Memorial Day holiday, the Work Session is Tuesday morning, the Regular Session is that same evening, and the Planning Commission also meets 5:30 PM Tuesday.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2015  8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2015 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Atlanta TV station exposes ALEC lobbyists in Savannah

Caught on-camera: ALEC’s off-duty sheriff’s deputies getting TV reporters thrown out of their own hotel for “taking pictures in the hotel”, after ALEC’s marketing droid denied any lobbying going on, nevermind the lobbyist and legislator in a bar spelling out how it works: ALEC gives “scholarships” to legislators who then meet in closed rooms with corporate reps (including all the companies involved in the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline) who have equal votes on draft bills for legislators to get passed as law in many states. Bills promoting fracking, pipelines, LNG export, and against solar power, renewable portfolio standards, not to mention for private prisons and privatized education and against municipal broadband and country-of-origin labelling, plus many other corporate give-aways subsidized by the taxpayers and the environment. It’s time for the IRS to revoke ALEC’s 501(c)(3) status. And for the Georgia legislature to apply the state’s sunshine laws to itself.

Brendan Keefe and Michael King, WXIA-TV, 22 May 2015, Legislators and corporate lobbyists meet in secret at Georgia resort, Continue reading →

Doublewide, Commercial, Professional, Residential, Landscape, Stormwater, Suburban, Agriculture, Schools, and Moody @ GLPC 2015-05-26

300x216 4872 Tillman Crossing Road, in Orchard at Stone Creek, by John S. Quarterman, 26 May 2015 The busiest Planning Commission agenda I can recall, is scheduled at exactly the same time as the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session because of the Memorial Day holiday. The biggest item is REZ-2015-11 The Orchard at Stone Creek, yet another subdivision on Old US 41 N, this one due west of Nelson Hill on Val Del.

600x374 Due west of Nelson Hill, in Orchard at Stone Creek, by John S. Quarterman, 26 May 2015

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission
Lowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park
REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING
AGENDA
Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue
Tuesday, May 26, 2015 * 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing

Continue reading →

Videos: Budget Work Session @ LCC Budget 2015-05-18

“Once you put in your transfers in and out, you have a balanced budget,” said Finance Director Stephanie Black. Transfers in from where? How does this magic work?

Even the Commissioners had no agenda to look at, although they did have printed copies of the draft budget, which the public could only see as it scrolled by on the screen at yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Budget Work Session, which was over by 10AM even though it was announced as 8:30AM to 5PM. However, it is good that they had this Work Session in public. County Clerk Paige Dukes told Gretchen afterwards that no draft budget would be available to the public until after two changes requested by the Chairman were incorporated. She did not say when that would be finished or when the draft budget would be available so taxpayers could comment. She did refer people to last year’s budget. The slides that Finance Director Stephanie Black presented do provide an interesting high level overview. Other than Commissioners and very few staff, the only people in the room were VDT reporter Joe Adgie, someone unidentified, and Gretchen taking these LAKE videos so you can see what happened. Continue reading →

Red Robin Hood with a Gold Belt @ VLCIA 2015-05-19

And a report on dual enrollment at Wiregrass Tech, on the agenda today.

Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority
Tuesday, May 19, 2015 5:30 p.m.
Development Authority Conference Room
103 Roosevelt Drive
Monthly Meeting Agenda Continue reading →

Fossil fuel subsidies 6% of world GDP: more than all govt health care spending in world

End fossil fuel subsidies and cut CO2 emissions by 20%, also removing any need for renewable energy subsidies.

Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m a minute, says IMF: ‘Shocking’ revelation finds $5.3tn subsidy estimate for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments,

300x251 Subsidies as percent of global GDP, in How Large Are Global Energy Subsidies?, by David Coady, Ian Parry, Louis Sears, and Baoping Shang, 1 May 2015 Fossil fuel companies are benefitting from global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a year, equivalent to $10m a minute every day, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF calls the revelation “shocking” and says the figure is an “extremely robust” estimate of the true cost of fossil fuels. The $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments.

The vast sum is largely due to polluters not paying the costs imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include Continue reading →

Budget Work Session @ LCC Budget 2015-05-18

Update 2015-05-18: Still no agenda posted as the meeting starts; not online; not on the outside of the building; not on the inside of the building. Is this legal?

An all-day Commission meeting with no agenda. And no draft budget that the public can see.

PUBLIC NOTICE-BUDGET WORK SESSION

Date: May 18, 2015
Time: 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Location: Lowndes County Commission Chambers
Address: 327 N. Ashley Street, 2nd Floor
Valdosta, GA 31601

The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners has scheduled a Budget Work Session for Monday, May 18, 2015, at 8:30 a.m. For questions please call County Clerk, Paige Dukes, at 229-671-2400 or pdukes@lowndescounty.com

Over on the Finance Department web page, it Continue reading →

China reduced CO2 emissions by 8% in 4 months

The carbon bubble is popping faster than most people imagined, and renewable sun, wind, and water power is taking over.

Ari Phillips, ThinkProgress, 15 May 2015, It Only Took Four Months For China To Achieve A Jaw-Dropping Reduction In Carbon Emissions,

China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, so small decreases in its emissions seem like monumental feats when compared to other countries. According to a new analysis, in the first four months of 2015, China’s coal use fell almost 8 percent compared to the same period last year — a reduction in emissions that’s approximately equal to the total carbon dioxide emissions of the U.K. over the same period.

The analysis, published by Greenpeace and Energydesk China, reviewed data from a number of sources, including China’s industrial output, and found that China had reduced its coal output by 6.1 percent in the first four months of 2015. The research team calculated that the drop in coal use translates into a nearly 5 percent drop in domestic CO2 emissions.

Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst who worked on the Greenpeace report, told RTCC that the report shows that China’s industrial output and thermal power generation are falling while renewable energy sources like hydro, wind, and solar are growing fast.

Niall McCarthy, Forbes, 12 May 2015, China’s Revolution In Wind Energy [Infographic], Continue reading →

Why can’t we have our own energy system?

Good question.

EWA, 7 May 2015, The Tesla Battery Heralds the Beginning of the End for Fossil Fuels,

Rather than wondering “Can we have our own energy system?” people are going to be wanting to know “Why can’t we have it?”

This is why early adopters like Alton Burns and George Bennett matter: other people start asking: why can’t we have that? And now that HB 57 is finally law, lots more people can have solar power without mortgaging the farm. Then they ask this question: why can’t we have storage?

The Tesla Energy program unveiled last week is Continue reading →

GA Gov. Nathan Deal signs solar financing law

The sun is finally rising on Georgia, and if that is possible, Florida can follow, and the southeast, the U.S., and the world.

Today is a historic day, when even a governor who took campaign finance funds from a long list of fossil fuel pipeline companies, the governor of the most corrupt state (least stringent ethics laws), when that governor finally signed a law that even the most corruption-prone legislature, after squelching similar bills for a dozen years, finally passed as HB 57 unanimously in both houses.

Dave Williams, Atlanta Business Chronicle, 12 may 2015, Gov. Deal signs bill letting solar installers offer customers third-party financing,

Georgia property owners will get more affordable options for installing solar panels at their homes and businesses under a bill Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law Tuesday.

The legislation, which sailed through the General Assembly unanimously, will let solar installers offer customers third-party financing of installations. That’s a major change from the old law, which required customers to pay up front.

Already two years ago the Georgia Public Service Commissioners, even though overwhelmingly campaign-funded by the industries they regulate, required Georgia Power to buy twice as much solar energy as it wanted. This year Georgia Power’s parent Southern Company’s annual report says its main source of new revenue for both 2013 and 2014 was solar power. And Georgia has already leaped from far behind to become the fastest growing solar market in the nation, with numerous Georgia Power solar utility-scale installations and smaller ones like for Alton Burns in Thomas County and today for George Bennett in Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia. This new law Gov. Deal just signed will accelerate that growth even more.

Luis Martinez, NRDC, 12 May 2015, The Sun Also Rises in the Southeast, Continue reading →