Tag Archives: Economy

Ben Hill Coal Plant Cancelled

Ben Hill Coal Plant was cancelled today by Power4Georgians (P4G). Losing Cobb EMC funding plus new air pollution regulations finally had a good effect.

According to SACE PR today, Proposed Ben Hill Coal Plant Cancelled in Georgia: Power4Georgians in Tenuous Position on Plant Washington After Legal Agreement

Clean air advocates and environmental groups won a victory today when Power4Georgians (P4G), the only company trying to develop expensive new coal plants in Georgia, agreed to comply with critical new safeguards against mercury pollution. The company also agreed to cancel the proposed Ben Hill coal-fired power plant and invest $5 million in energy efficiency and renewable projects. The Sierra Club, the Fall Line Alliance for a Clean Environment (FACE), Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), and the Ogeechee Riverkeeper, represented by GreenLaw and the Southern Environmental Law Center, successfully challenged the permit for Plant Washington issued by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, and the settlement agreement is pending approval by each group. If built, Power4Georgians’ Plant Washington will have to meet the much more protective emission standards for mercury and other air toxins.

The longterm implications are even better:

Continue reading →

Lowndes County position on LOST negotiations @ LCC 2012 04 09

Lowndes County Clerk Paige Dukes handed out this document, Lowndes County’s Report for Initial LOST Negotiations: April 9, 2012, at that first LOST meeting yesterday. When I spoke to her later, I mentioned that I thought it was the very model of how to write such a document: clear, complete, pithy, and easily understandable. She did not have a readily-accessible electronic copy, so I’ve posted these scanned images on the LAKE website.

The document includes a summary of the negotiation procedure (60 days to negotiate, after which it goes to mediation, then Superior Court “baseball arbitration”), plus how and how much LOST can reduce property taxes.

The rest of the document is the county’s position, which includes that the county provides services such as sheriff, courts, public health, and animal control that benefit the entire county, and the county could claim 72% of LOST. However, the county is only asking for the same 58% as negotiated in 2002.

A few things I did not know include that the dedicated millage for Parks and Rec (VLPRA 1.5mil) and the Industrial Authority (VLCIA 1 mil) come out of county property taxes, not out of any city property taxes. Also VLCIA’s millage started since 2002, before which VLCIA was funded out of hotel-motel taxes, including Valdosta hotel-motel taxes.

I also remarked to Paige Dukes that I wished the cities had prepared similar position statements. She said they may be depending on LOST negotiating documents by the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA), and that there were similar documents by the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG), both which you can find linked in on the LAKE website.

The ACCG guidelines include this interesting passage:

Continue reading →

No Gates for ALEC: who’s next to jump off the crony capitalism ship?

Apparently the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave more money to ALEC than Pepsi, Coke, Kraft, and Intuit combined, but no more. Who’s next?

Jessica Pieklo wrote yesterday for care2, Bill And Melinda Gates Dump ALEC,

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation became the latest high profile backer of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council to withdraw financial support after pressure from groups opposed to ALEC’s support of “stand your ground” laws and Voter ID.

And private prisons, such as the one CCA wanted to build in Lowndes County, and “anti-immigrant” bills that creat many new crimes to fill those private prisons. And charter schools, such as the referendum for charter school tax credits on the ballot in Georgia in November. Some of our local “white fathers” pushed school consolidation a few months ago and charter schools are yet another attack on public education, backed by ALEC.

Roll Call reports that a foundation spokesperson said it does not plan to make any future grants to the organization. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed more than $375,000 to ALEC in the past two years.

Meanwhile, according to ALEC Watch:

ALEC’s more than three hundred corporate sponsors pay annual membership dues ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to advance their agendas, plus additional fees of $1,500 to $5,000 a year to participate in ALEC’s various task forces, where, according to an ALEC publication, “legislators welcome their private-sector counterparts to the table as equals.”

That’s the very model of a bad public-private partnership and crony capitalism. (More detail by ALEC Exposed.)

So what excuse does the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have? Jessica Pieklo’s article says:

Continue reading →

Four minute work session @ LCC 2012 04 09

As I walked in the door, a couple minutes late due to construction on the hospital parking lot, Commissioner Crawford Powell said,

John, you’re late!

They were milling about and looked like they were about to start. But no, they had started early and Chairman Paulk told me the meeting had lasted four minutes because there hadn’t been much to say. So there are no videos of this morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session.

I remarked that it had seemed like a fairly complicated agenda, but he didn’t think so.

I asked him about this mysterious item:

7.b. Request from LCSO — GOHS Grant #2013-TEN-0077-00 & #2013-GA-0040-00

He said it is about some equipment to automate Sheriff’s deputies checking license plates against databases. I told him I had assumed they had already been doing that. He said they could do it by hand, but they’d get really tired trying to do as many as this device could do.

Presumably it’s similar to the Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) described by Doug Nurse in the AJC 20 March 2009, New police license plate scanner eyes criminals.

Alpharetta Police Officer John Allen said that a few weeks after the system became went online last August, he was driving home after a shift when the system alerted him that he had passed a stolen car. He wheeled around, and after a chase, arrested the thief.

“I never even saw the tag myself,” Allen said. “I would have just kept going. It catches things I would be unable to see.”

While I don’t know that I’m in favor of ALPR, it’s common enough elsewhere that I was actually surprised the famously drug-interdicting LCSO wasn’t already using it.

To the Chairman’s credit, as soon as I asked about the LOST meeting with the mayors, he said it was at 9:30 in the room next door, and the public was invited. I took videos of that LOST meeting, and they will appear soon.

-jsq

Shadowy LOST talks tomorrow morning among all the local elected governments @ LOST 2012 04 09

It’s great that the local cities and the county government think they can negotiate how to share Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) money this time without spending a lot of money suing each other like they did back in 2002. It’s not so great that they’re doing it at an unannounced time and place.

Kay Harris wrote Saturday in the VDT, LOST talks set to begin: County, cities to meet Monday,

As required by state law, Lowndes County issued a letter to the mayors of all the municipalities in the county, requesting they attend a renegotiation meeting Monday, April 9 to discuss LOST (local option sales tax) distributions.

“This has to be done and approved by the end of the year in order to stay in place, so we have to start the process now,” said Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk.

Well, that’s interesting. When is this meeting? Ah, the time of day wasn’t included in the article.

There’s a clue in David Rodock’s 31 March 2012 writeup about the Commission retreat, Continue reading →

Alcohol, development, and a tank? @ LCC 2012-04-09,10

A somewhat complicated agenda at Lowndes County Commission Monday morning (Work Session) and Tuesday evening (voting Regular Session): adoption of infrastructure for Laurelbrooke Subdivision Phase II, four public hearings (a rezoning, a road abandonment, a beer and wine license, and a liquor license). And these cryptic items:
7.a. Seminole Circle Property
7.b. Request from LCSO — GOHS Grant #2013-TEN-0077-00 & #2013-GA-0040-00
Your guess is as good as mine about the Seminole Circle Property. If the Commission wanted we the public to know, they would have told us.

Update 2012 05 06: fixed the date in the title.

However, I believe that 7.b. alphabet soup translates as Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) — Governor’s Office of Highway Safety (GOHS). The TEN in the grant numbers makes me wonder if those grants are related to GOHS’s Georgia Traffic Enforcement Networks:

The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety in cooperation with state and local law enforcement agencies has organized regional Traffic Enforcement Networks around the State of Georgia. There are currently sixteen regional traffic enforcement networks servicing all 159 counties in Georgia. The regional networks are open to all sworn law enforcement officers and prosecutors and are designed to enhance traffic enforcement activities through networking, training and legislation. The networks serve as a catalyst for traffic enforcement officers to voice their concerns and share ideas with their counterparts from other agencies in their region. Guest speakers and panelists have included state and municipal court judges, prosecutors, legislators, MADD representatives, Public Service Commission, and ALS judges.
LCSO participates in this TEN:
Southern Regional Traffic Enforcement Network (SRTEN) Counties included: Atkinson, Lowndes, Berrien, Brooks, Clinch, Coffee, Cook, Echols, Irwin, Lanier, Ben Hill and Tift.
Or maybe they’re just buying another tank. Or will the Commission require that “surrounding counties could be persuaded to contribute” financially like they did when refusing an emergency vehicle grant?

I’m guessing the Commissioners won’t like me guessing what they’re up to. But, you know, if they told us, for example by putting board packet details online with the agendas, we wouldn’t have to guess.

Here’s the agenda.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Col. Mark A. Ruse and Moody AFB ORI @ LCC 2012 03 27

Commissioner Richard Raines noticed Col. Mark A. Ruse of Moody Air Force Base in the audience and mentioned the operational readiness inspection (ORI) then in progress at Moody. In case anybody doesn’t know this, Moody AFB is by far the largest employer in Lowndes County.

The Col. said a few words, but it’s hard to tell what they were, since there’s no mic on the audience.

A student group also said a few words, but it’s hard to tell what they were, for the same reason.

Maybe Commissioners could ask people to come to the podium to speak, or deploy a mic that works for the audience.

According to his biography at Moody:

Col. Mark A. Ruse is commander of the 23rd Mission Support Group at Moody Air Force Base, Ga. He leads a group of more than 1,450 military and civilian members providing support and services to a population of 28,000 active duty, retired military and family members. His group maintains an installation with more than 830 buildings and more than 17,500 acres, including an adjacent bombing or strafing range. He is responsible for ensuring the readiness of support forces to mobilize and deploy to build, secure, and sustain air base operations at austere bare base locations anywhere in the world.

The 23rd Mission Support Group also retains responsibility for civil engineering, environmental compliance, disaster preparedness response, fire protection, security forces, airfield navigational systems, communications-computer systems, contracting, transportation, supply, food service, housing, recreation, family and community support programs, personnel, manpower, education and training.

He has a degree in civil engineering.

Also according to Moody (which apparently believes in transparency), 3 April 2012, Continue reading →

Austin solar sunflowers

What does a city with clean industry and clean energy do to attract more of it? One such city planted a solar sunflower array along its main interstate corridor.

Ariel Schwartz wrote for Inhabitant.com 17 August 2009, Solar Sunflower Field Energizes Austin, Texas

A retail lot in Austin, Texas recently sprouted a stunning field of solar sunflowers that soak up the sun’s rays to provide shade while generating a steady stream of renewable energy. Designed by public art team Harries/Heder, the installation consists of 15 flower-like solar photovoltaic panels located on a pedestrian and bike path between the village of Mueller and Austin’s highway I-35. According to Harries/Heder, the flowers are “an icon for the sustainable, LEED certified Mueller Development and a highly visible metaphor for the energy conscious City of Austin.”


View Larger Map

Are these solar sunflowers practically profitable? Perhaps:

In addition to providing shade for walkers and bikers, the solar flowers collect energy during the day to power the installation’s blue LED lights at night. Leftover power is sent to the grid to offset the cost of maintaining the installation.
But practicality of this particular field of solar flowers is not the point.

This is the point: Continue reading →

4 down and counting: Kraft and Intuit exit ALEC

After Pepsi and Coke, now Kraft (processed food products) said
“Our membership in ALEC expires this spring and for a number of reasons, including limited resources, we have made the decision not to renew.”
and Intuit (Turbo Tax and Quicken) also decided to let its ALEC membership lapse.

Reasons such as petitions by numerous organizations asking companies to ditch ALEC? We seem to have a case of the cheese fleeing the rat ship…. (Sometimes I wish I could draw.)

Here’s another petition for corporations to ditch ALEC. Let’s not forget ColorofChange’s petition about voter suppression.

And how about ALEC board member UPS, based in Atlanta?

-jsq

The costs of coal on your neighbors’ health

We can’t afford the costs of coal on our health.

John Sepulvado wrote for CNN Radio 1 April 2012, A power plant, cancer and a small town’s fears,

The two of them invested their life savings building their home. It’s a large ranch house on several acres, and the plan was the two of them would leave it for their sons and grandchildren. They gave up that dream after Maddox’s mother developed a rare form of ear cancer and died after living at the home for three years.

“I’m not going to bring my grandchildren up in this,” Maddox says. “Anybody who does would be a fool, I think.”

The problem, Maddox explains, is now he and his neighbors are getting sick. For Maddox, the first signs of trouble would come in the middle of the night, when he would wake up with nose bleeds mixed with clear mucus. Then his muscles started twitching, and then he got kidney disease, and then sclerosis of the liver.

Where does he live? Down the road from Plant Scherer in Juliette, Georgia: the nation’s dirtiest coal plant.

Georgia Power’s solution? Buy houses like his, cap the well, and raze the house.

Better solution? Get off of health-destroying moribund coal and get on with clean distributed wind and solar, for the profit (even to Georgia Power), for energy independence, for resilience, and yes, for our health.

-jsq