Tag Archives: Economy

Internet and Energy at the Bird Supper

Dear Bird Supper attendees,

Two things could greatly help south Georgia:
better Internet access and solar power.
You could help stop two telecommunications bills
and help pass two energy bills for jobs and education
in south Georgia.

Internet Access: help stop two telecommunications bills

The local Industrial Authority, Chamber of Commerce, Valdosta City Council,
and Lowndes County Commission have recently realized that
fast Internet access is essential to attract businesses,
for their employees to work at home, for applicants to apply for jobs,
for students to submit assignments, and for general quality of life.


  • HB 282 against muni broadband

    This bill would prohibit local governments from providing Internet access
    if any local census block has 1.5Mbps access.
    Localities may or may not want to do it themselves, but they shouldn't
    be prohibited from using this option now that it is obvious to everyone
    that the commercial incumbents are not doing the job.
    Legislators please vote this bill down.


  • HB 176 for higher cell towers with less local government oversight

    This really bad bill would let cell telephone companies build towers
    wherever they want to at any height, taking away local government
    power to regulate that.
    It could even let private companies exercise eminent domain.
    Legislators please vote this bill down.

Energy: help pass two energy bills

Solar power can be a
distributed source of jobs in south Georgia.
Antique laws and a subsidized nuclear boondoggle are hobbling solar power.


  • GA SB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act

    Senator Buddy Carter has introduced a Senate bill for the current session
    of the legislature, SB 51, "The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed
    Generation Act of 2001". It attempts to fix Georgia's special solar
    financing problem, the antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act,
    which says you can only sell power you generate to your one and only
    pre-determined electric utility, at whatever rate that utility sets.


  • HB 267 Financing costs; construction of nuclear generating plant

    Stop Georgia Power from charging customers for cost overruns for Plant Vogtle,
    already 15 months behind schedule and a billion dollars overbudget for power
    that nobody has received, yet Georgia Power has already billed customers about
    $1.7 billion.
    Bipartisan cosponsors are Jeff Chapman (R—Brunswick) District 167 and
    Karla Drenner (D—Avondale Estates) District 85.
    This boondoggle on the Savannah River is what Georgia Power and Southern Company
    are doing instead of deploying solar inland and wind off the coast.

-jsq

Please deny the closure of County Road 16 leading to the Alapaha River —three neighbors

Received today; they sent it to all the Commissioners. -jsq

To the Lowndes County Commission:

It has been quite an experience dealing with the proposed closing of


a portion of County Road 16. Our quaint spot on the river in Naylor,
Lowndes County is something that can easily be taken for granted,
but it is something that should be treasured and appreciated by the
entire county. While we have learned a rich history about Naylor and
the County Road proposed to be closed, we will not encumber you with
these details. We will let you know in this letter the laws and
reasons why the proposal should be denied.

First off, the landowner did not legally own the land when he made
his request for the closing of the road. The legal date this
property was deeded to Phillip Connell is February 8, 2013. The day
his request was made is unknown because the letter sent had the date
whited out and is an exact copy of the September 10, 2010 letter he
submitted. It is known that the proposal for a public hearing was
made in the Commission meeting January 22, 2013. The county should
not be hearing this proposal for being misled by Phillip Connell.
Why instead is the County claiming that a legal transaction for this
land occurred 2 or 3 years ago and now has extended it to 3 or 4
years ago? Where is the proof for this claim?

Second, the landowner’s claim about liability, trash and trespassing
is

Continue reading →

Reconsider closing this road —James Manes

Received today; he sent it to all the Commissioners. -jsq

James
Manes 107 Shiloh Rd. Ray City,
GA 31605

Regarding
Regular session held Jan 22, 2013; Agenda 7 B, a request for road
abandonment, I would like to state my opinion.

The
road abandonment was to close a section of County Road 16 Old State
Road. I feel this issue is not a open and shut case.

The
county has determined “the road has been ceased to be used by the
public”, and has no “substantial public purpose”.

I
am aware the law (32-7-2 a) states “The department must confer with
the governing authority of the county’s or municipalities
(Unincorporated Naylor GA.), and give due consideration to their
wishes in such abandonment.”

I
have not been able to find any public records of

Continue reading →

Water trails for economic benefit —Bret Wagenhorst

This letter demonstrates many public uses of the Alapaha River at
Hotchkiss Crossing by everyone from Boy Scouts to doctors,
and indicates economic benefits of water trails. -jsq



February 4, 2013

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners

327 North Ashley Street – 3rd Floor

Valdosta, GA 31601

RE: Hotchkiss landing closure

Dear Commissioners:

I have lived in the
South Georgia region for the past 16 years. I am also a practicing
physician and have a love of the out of doors, especially canoeing,
camping and hiking. I also serve on the board of

WWALS Watershed Coalition,
a local river advocacy group trying to promote awareness
and preservation of our local rivers. It has recently come to my
attention that you are considering the potential closure of the
Hotchkiss landing site along the Alapaha River near Naylor. I would
like to put in a word in favor of keeping the landing site open.

I have canoed dozens of
different sections of the Alapaha River from north of Tifton all the
way to Statenville, as well as portions that join with the Suwanee
River in Florida. Without a doubt, one of the most fun and scenic
sections to paddle is from the put-in near Burnt Church outside of
Lakeland down to the Hotchkiss landing. I have taken various groups

Continue reading →

Broadband 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 reading →

Rotary Clubs need broadband @ VLCIA 2013-02-19


Bill Slaughter, Dennis Marks, John Page, Gretchen Quarterman @ Valdosta Rotary Club 2012-09-12

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’m super-excited about the whole broadband thing —Gretchen Quarterman @ VLCIA 2013-02-19

And now a word from the only person in the room at the

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
with actual experience in bringing Internet broadband access to new areas,
invisible behind the camera but clearly audible,
Gretchen Quarterman:

I’m super-excited about the whole broadband thing,
because you know that’s near and dear to our heart, and our background.

But please be very careful about the buill that’s before the legislature
that will prohibit municipal Internets.
Right now the legislature is trying to take off the table muncipal Internets.
And I think that a municipal Internet would be a really great solution here.
So let your legislator know that’s a bad idea; they shouldn’t take that
off the table from us.

That’s

HB 282, in opposition to which Amy Henderson of Georgia Municipal Association
said:

Broadband is economic development.

Gretchen continued:

At the Chamber’s annual meeting when a local speaker stood up she talked
about the
that’s doing really well right now is
agriculture


and I’m pleased to announce
that

the South Georgia Growing Local Conference will be here in January of 2014
the last weekend, a Friday and Saturday.
It’s an equivalent of the Georgia Organics big conference that they have
in Atlanta.
Except that it’s for south Georgia local growers, farmers, homesteaders.
We just were in Reidsville this last January
and Lowndes County is going to have it next year.

And the whole series of South Georgia Growing Local Conferences (this will
be the fourth) has been organized largely online,
in yet another use of Internet access for economic development,
in this case sustainable local development.

OK, one more:

Rotary Clubs need broadband.

-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.

Continue reading →

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….

 

 

It’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

Continue reading →