Tag Archives: Forestry

Bids $1.4 million, insurance $1 million, and $0.4 million lease plus two Appointments @ LCC 2020-01-13

A million dollars for Paving – Quail Hollow Acres Subdivision and $0.4 million for Bid for a 3,000 Gallon Tanker for the Fire Department. Another million for 2020 Stop Loss Insurance Coverage through Symetra Life Ins. Company. A quarter million to relocate utilities at I-75 Exit 2 will be paid by GDOT. And a million in income for a Lease Agreement with the State Properties Commission for the Division of Family & Children Services (DFACS).

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Molly Deese wants to be reappointed to the Valdosta Lowndes County Conference Center and Tourism Authority. Incumbents almost always get reappointed if they say they want to, and the chances of them not reappointing the Vice President and General Manager of Wild Adventures is pretty slim. Ditto Dr. Frances Brown on the Lowndes County Board of Health.

They’re setting the Special Assessment interest rate “for all paving and utilityassessments that are not paid off within the initial 90-day phase. Unpaid assessments revert to installment agreements which are to be paid over a period of up to ten years.” New rate: 6.75% for 2020, down from 7.50% for 2019.

They’re setting qualifying fees to run for office, primary or general election: Continue reading →

Videos: County paying for road right of way @ LCC 2019-01-08

They added two items to the agenda they didn’t even mention in the previous morning’s Work Session: purchase of some real estate on Davidson Road near Moody Air Force Base, and “just compensation” for right of way on Simpson Road.

Wait a minute! For ten years we’ve been told the county no longer buys rights of way: if you want your road paved, you have to donate the right of way. So why this exception? And why sneak it in like this?

Will Kamisha Martin get paid for right of way if the county paves Black Road? Will Rev. Berlinda Hart Love get paid for right of way if the county paves Williams School Road? They were the two citizens who were heard.

Not on the agenda were Continue reading →

Videos: Retreat! Appointment to Development Authority, Abandon Reed Road, Ed Hay Lease, Forestry Speaks @ LCC 2019-01-07

Longest Monday morning was Chief Ranger Stephen Spradley’s Georgia Forestry report, a copy of which, scanned by Gretchen, is on the LAKE website.

Second longest was Chairman Bill Slaughter’s comments, in which he listed four upcoming events: Continue reading →

Appointment to Development Authority, Abandon Reed Road, End Hay Lease, Forestry Speaks @ LCC 2019-01-07

It’s the end of an era at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), excuse me, the Development Authority, now that Roy Copeland declined to be reappointed. To his joint-appointment position, Valdosta appointed Aneesha Johnson, and the Lowndes County Commission may confirm Tuesday.

Aneesha Johnson
DuPont Valdosta Plant Names Johnson New Plant Manager, Valdosta Today, 29 June 2015.

In Monday morning’s Work Session, they will also consider abandoning the end of Reed Road (presumably the part that runs down to the Withlacoochee River), and ending the hay lease (presumably on the county’s Land Application Site). Chief Ranger Stephen Spradley of Georgia Forestry will say a few words. They vote Tuesday at 5:30 PM.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2018, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2018, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Food Trucks on Agenda @ Hahira 2018-05-03

They are also talking about water tanks and treesand the work on I-75 Exit 29, including what the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) hasn’t covered that may have to be picked up in SPLOST VII.


Photo: WTXL ABC 27 News.

But the main topic, with a Public Hearing, is food trucks. That Zoning Text Amendment didn’t fare very well with the Planning Commission Monday. But of course GLPC is only advisory, and Hahira can decide whatever it wants. Expect at least the same speakers tonight as you can see in the LAKE videos of that Planning Commission meeting.

Thanks to Hahira City Clerk Lisa Mashburn for Continue reading →

The real worst and best cases of climate change

†What do you want? The planet Venus? The current degraded Earth? Or a better world we know how to create?

What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?
†Joel Pett, Lexington Herald Leader, 18 March 2012, The cartoon seen ’round the world

Mostly I post about solar and wind power winning, which is what I think is happening. But sometimes it’s worth a reminder of what could happen if we do nothing about climate change, and I posted on my facebook page a story about that. Which actually didn’t go far enough to the real worst case. Nonetheless, that story has been attacked by numerous parties of all political and scientific and unscientific stripes for being too doom and gloom. Yet none of the attackers bothered to mention a best case beyond “the same world we have now”. I have news for you: the world we have now is an ecological catastrophe, and we can do a lot better. So here’s the real worst case, the current case, which is far from the best of all possible worlds, and the real best case, as I see it. Plus what we can do to head for the best case.

grinning fossilized skull

First, the story I posted: David Wallace-Wells, New York Magazine, 9 July 2017, The Uninhabitable Earth: Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think. Notice that word “could”, which a lot of his critics seem to have ignored. He didn’t say “will”, and he clearly labeled what he was presenting as worst case scenarios.

In case anybody thinks he was making any of that stuff up, Wallace-Wells has also linked to an annotated version with footnotes for every substantial assertion. The annotated version notes at the top: Continue reading →

Duke Energy solar: NC, SC, and now Florida

Duke’s new solar farms in Florida echo what Duke was already doing three and a half years ago when an independent study concluded more solar power in North Carolina would save utility ratepayers tens of millions of dollars annually.


Duke solar power farm in Perry, Florida, courtesy Duke Energy

John Downey, Charlotte Business Journal, 23 October 2013, Study: Solar benefits outweigh costs in NC, Continue reading →

Sabal Trail destruction at Bell property, Mitchell Co., GA 2016-09-13

See for yourself what Jeb Bell was talking about to GPB, in these videos he sent of the destruction Sabal Trail is doing on his property. His father, James Bell, says it started immediately after a small protest Monday, and is plowing through gopher tortoise burrows, rare pitcher plants, large pine trees bulldozed and burned, and today within 300 yards of his house. James Bell the elder will be at the US 84 Withlacoochee River bridge 9AM this Saturday, September 17th 2016, to join the WWALS Watershed Coalition protest against Sabal Trail and the Dakota Access Pipeline, which are now owned by the same companies. That’s between Quitman and Valdosta, GA; see you there.

Sam Whitehead, GPB News, 15 September 2016, Sabal Trail Pipeline Plows Through Southwest Georgia, Local Opposition, Continue reading →

Videos: Community Policies, Comprehensive Plan Workshop #5 @ SGRC 2016-04-18

One video for all the fifth workshop on Community Facilities & Services and Intergovernmental Coordination for the Comprehensive Plan Update for Greater Lowndes County.

Here’s a video playlist: Continue reading →

Community Policies, Comprehensive Plan Workshop #5 @ SGRC 2016-04-18

6PM tonight at SGRC, fifth Workshop, as Ariel Godwin reminded us five days ago:

At our next workshop, we will finish reviewing the Issues and Opportunities for the Greater Lowndes Comprehensive Plan. We have two sections to review: Community Facilities & Services and Intergovernmental Coordination. I am attaching the Issues from those sections as they currently stand.

Since this is our second-to-last workshop, in the interest of time, I am attaching Continue reading →