Deidra White elected to Valdosta City Council, District 2

Deidra White will fill the District 2 seat currently held by Mayor Pro Tem Willie T. Head on the Valdosta City Council.
White defeated Dr. L.W. Williams in the runoff election with 56.87 percent of the vote, or 178 votes and Williams received 43.13 percent of the votes, or 135 votes.

The VDT says she said:

“My main focus is to make decisions that will help and not harm the people of the community,” White said.
Through the election and then the runoff White said she learned the process is very exhausting and tiring.
“No one can do it on their own, it takes many people from many different areas of the community to make something like this happen,” she said.

Here is her victory speech:

Local Thanksgiving

Here in Lowndes County and the surrounding area we have plenty of things to be thankful for:

A growing local food community, anchored by Jason DeLoach’s F.M. Guess Pecan Company of Valdosta, the Packhouse Market of Hahira, and of course Jim Fiveash’s Food Store of Hahira. Let’s not forget the Valdosta Farmer’s Market (1500 South Patterson Street) and Farmer Brown’s Produce. There’s even at least one local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) starting up.
Long distance transportation: Interstate 75 near I-10, numerous state highways, and an airport.
Delta Airlines (I never thought I’d be writing this) for competitive airfares (except during holidays). And landing on one of the longest runways in the state.
Railroads going in every direction carrying freight, which can also carry passengers whenever state and local people and governments get organized to do it.
Businesses moving in to take advantage of the transportation; working towards enough good jobs that young people don’t have to move away to find one.
County and city governments that are at least a little bit sceptical about exactly which businesses they encourage to move in.
Moody Air Force Base, by far the biggest employer, bringing diversity to the community both in serving personnel and in later retirees.
Two hospitals: South Georgia Medical Center and Smith Northview Hospital.
There’s even a Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) including the counties of Lowndes, Brooks, Lanier, and Echols, with a combined population of about 130,000. This is enough people to try things without waiting for Atlanta or Washington to tell us what to do.
Valdosta State University, one of two large regional campuses of the University of Georgia System, and one so active politically that it got its own voting precinct this year, the only college precinct in the state.
Live election results during each election, on the Lowndes County website. It’s the only county in the state that does this!
Georgia Military College, a liberal arts junior college.
Valdosta Technical College, or whatever it’s being called since the state reorganized it.
Thriving downtowns in Valdosta and Hahira. First Friday, Winterfest, Honeybee Festival: those are doing more to attract attractive businesses than any number of road projects.
Grand Bay Wildlife Management Area, preserving a little bit of the original ecosystem of the area; you know, pine trees, live oaks, wiregrass, pitcher plants, cypress swamps, alligators, great blue herons, and bobcats. Maybe you don’t. Go and see!
Trees, for forestry, and for themselves. See Patterson Street (a little planning kept it from looking like Ashley Street), and the oldest longleaf pines in the county are on the VSU campus; older than Valdosta. There are even a few left elsewhere in the county. Protecting forests is not just the right thing to do, it’s good business.
Rain, so trees and crops will grow.
Sunshine, much more than Germany, for example, so we can do solar if we want to.
Winning sports teams in Lowndes County and Valdosta high schools and VSU caused ESPN to name Valdosta TitleTown. Maybe that winning attitude can carry over to improving academics.
Theatre at the Dosta, VSU, and the high schools. If theatre was a sport, we’d be winning that, too!

Dites-moi
Pourquoi
La vie est belle,
Dies-moi
Pourquoi
La vie est gai? Tell me why
The sky
is filled with music,
Tell me why
We fly
on clouds above?

We live in an area with many advantages. You can probably list more of them.

Why stop with what we’ve got? Why not play up our advantages of transportation, natural environment, local culture, etc., and attract jobs for young people and make the place even better for everybody?

Germany: As much new solar power as 3 large coal or nuclear plants

Germany leads the world in solar installation, according to Erik Kirschbaum in Reuters 23 Nov 2009:

Germany, the world’s leader in photovoltaic which turns sunlight into electricity, had 5.3 GW installed at the end of 2008, including a previous record 1.6 GW added in 2008.
That was about a third of the world’s total of 15 GW. Three GW installed this year would produce as much power as three large coal-burning plants or three nuclear power plants.

Remember, Stuttgart gets about as much sunlight as Pittsburgh. And that’s in the sunny south of Germany. Georgia gets as much sunlight as Cyprus in the Mediterranean or Algiers in Africa.

Longterm local jobs that cannot be exported: solar installation

A press release by Southface promises:

Long-term jobs that cannot be exported will also come from developing workers skilled in the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays, and solar heating and cooling (SHC) systems.

How will that happen?

October 29, 2009 –
Led by the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), a research institute of the University of Central Florida, six southern states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will join together to create a “Southern Regional Resource and Training Program” to train a robust workforce in the installation of solar technologies for the burgeoning solar industry. Southface will deliver solar installation training through its new Green Jobs Training Center, and will serve on the program’s advisory board.

Southface is based in Atlanta. This is supposed to be a regional program, so maybe we can get some of these jobs right here in Lowndes County. The DoE says:

Southeast
* University of Central Florida ($2,800,000)
This project will create the Southern Alternative Energy Training Network, which will develop industry-recognized and staff-alternative energy training centers throughout the southern U.S. The resulting programs will create a trained pipeline of workers to meet current and future employment demands needed by the solar industry.

UCF is the coordinator, but there’s no reason a training center couldn’t be in Valdosta. Who at VSU should be involved in this?

Economic benefits of protecting natural ecosystems

Protecting forests is not just the right thing to do, it’s good business, says Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service, November 14, 2009, about a recent UN report:

Protecting natural ecosystems and biodiversity is worth trillions of dollars in annual economic benefits around the planet, says a new report released on Friday by the United Nations.

The actual report is TEEB for Policy Makers Report released 13 Nov 2009. The article continues, quoting one of the lead authors of the report:

“The technology of planting trees or replanting forests is thankfully free, and it has no side-effects,” said Sukhdev, who also leads the UN Environment Program’s Green Economy Initiative. “It’s powerful, it’s effective and it’s time tested. We just have to get people’s mindsets changed to start using these natural technologies that are available.”

Or just don’t cut down trees when paving roads.

Thoroughfare Plan for Lowndes County

Lowndes County is proposing to update its Thoroughfare Plan. The current one was approved in 2003. The draft sent Friday by the County Engineer to the Commission for approval today is here. In addition, here is the county’s Road Inventory. The first of these items is available on the Lowndes County web pages. The other two items don’t seem to have been posted there yet. These public documents paid for by tax dollars were obtained through public records requests and are being posted by LAKE as a public service.

In case you haven’t heard of the Thoroughfare Plan, it was described by the County Engineer during the County Commission’s work session yesterday morning as

…works as a guide for development and potential use changes in property.

Here is the Valdosta Daily Times report on that meeting: “Thoroughfare Plan sparks lengthy debate,” By Malynda Fulton, 9 Oct 2009. She writes that:

The Thoroughfare Plan, first adopted in 1983, is used as a guide for road improvement projects, private developments and land use changes.

The “20/30 plan” referred to in that newspaper article is the Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan developed in conjunction by the South Georgia Regional Development Commission, the County Commission, and the Valdosta City Council. Its purpose is:

The Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan is a road map for ensuring growth and development in the Greater Lowndes Communities occurs in a way as to maintain our quality of life and unique community character.

It’s quite interesting that both plans are intended to guide development, yet they recommend opposite outcomes. In particular, the justification given at the meeting for the proposed reclassification of Quarterman Road from local to minor collector was that “if it were developed” within 20 years there would be enough trips to justify such a classification. Yet the Comprehensive plan shows the same area as agricultural through 2030:

Perhaps better coordination is needed. Fortunately, the Chairman and the County Manager appear to be soliciting input.

The scheduled vote on approval of the new Lowndes County Thoroughfare Plan is at the regular Commission meeting at 5PM today, Tuesday 10 November 2009, at 325 West Savannah Avenue (near the water tower).

This blog post by John S. Quarterman.

-jsq

Deforestation Floods Wiped Out the Ancient Nazca of Peru

News in Discover Magazine from ancient Peru:

The new study, published in the journal Latin American Antiquity, found that the pollen in the older layers of soil came almost entirely from huarango trees. But by A.D. 400, pollen from corn and cotton plants had replaced the tree pollen, suggesting that the Nazca people had chopped down the forests to make room for agricultural fields. About AD 500, a major El Niño built up in the Pacific, deluging the nearby Andes with rain. Walls of water and mud washed down the valley and over the denuded landscape, sweeping away food crops, buildings and artifacts. Beresford-Jones compared it with the 1997-98 El Niño, which left the city of Ica 6 feet underwater [Los Angeles Times]. The floods of A.D. 500 were many times worse, the researchers say.

Does this sound at all like the Georgia floods of 2009?

Florida Gets Smart About Solar

While Georgia goes for questionable biomass, WCTV reports that CFO Sink Applauds Opening Of Solar Energy Center, Welcomes $200 million in federal funding for Florida.

Florida CFO Alex Sink welcomed the news that a $200 million grant will go to Energy Smart Florida for the installation of 2.6 million smart meters in homes and the installation of advanced monitoring systems in grid substations.
CFO Sink commended President Obama for his commitment to new energy and his visit for the opening of Florida’s DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, the nation’s largest solar photovoltaic plant. CFO Sink released the following statement:
“Florida has been known as the sunshine state because of our beaches, but today we are taking an important step forward in becoming known as the sunshine state because of our commitment to solar and alternative energy. I commend Florida Power & Light for opening the nation’s largest solar photovoltaic plant here in Southwest Florida, and welcome President Obama to our state to see firsthand how we are working to diversify and modernize Florida’s economy.
“I am also extremely excited that Floridians will benefit from a $200 million grant to modernize our energy grid, one of the largest smart grid grants in the country. As Floridians, we are ready to harness our creativity and entrepreneurial energy to make our state a national leader in the development of a 21st century economy.”

South Georgia has just as much sunshine as north Florida. And you can build solar equipment anywhere. For example in a county with I-75 running through it and I-10 nearby. Maybe if Atlanta won’t lead, Valdosta should.

Solar and Georgia Electric Member Corporations

John Oxford writes in the Moultrie Observer about Green energy at Expo:

Although no solar panels have been installed in Colquitt County yet, Park said they and other green power sources are gaining popularity in Georgia. Solar panels have been installed by EMCs across the state , and EMC is looking to more ways to make use of otherwise wasted materials.

Well, maybe not in Colquitt County, but Colquitt EMC has a grid tie to a solar installation in Lowndes County.

PS: The Moultrie Observer has the most annoying online ad on that page that I’ve run into in a long time.

Valdosta Candidates at LCDP, 5 October 2009

All local candidates were invited to speak at the Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting on 5 October 2009. Here are videos of the ones who appeared:

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE). ~~More are still uploading.~~ All the local candidate videos that LAKE took on 5 Oct 2009 are now in the playlist, as of 10PM 25 Oct 2009.

Videos taken at the 15 Sep 2009 political forum are already online.

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange