The Lowndes County Board of Health
met Tuesday 21 May 2013 at the Health Department.
Here’s the agenda, plus a video playlist.
Lowndes County Board of Health
Agenda
May 21, 2013
7:30am
Tag Archives: Georgia
Groundwater wall at Fukushima
Same design as Plant Hatch, which is leaking radioactive tritium into our groundwater. And when contamination gets into the watershed it doesn’t go away; there’s not even an ocean at Hatch or Vogtle for it to disperse into.
Tsuyoshi Inajima and Yuji Okada wrote for Bloomberg News today, Japan Orders Tepco to Build Underground Wall at Fukushima Plant
The Japanese government ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co. to build an underground wall at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant to prevent groundwater from flowing into basements of reactor buildings.
The government plans to set up a task force with Tokyo Electric, construction companies and plant makers by the end of June to discuss the details, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshimitsu Motegi said today in Tokyo. He made the remarks at a meeting with Naomi Hirose, the utility’s president, which was open to reporters.
Tepco has struggled Continue reading
Privatize TVA? Southern Company would like that
The hydropower assets of the Tennessee Valley Authority
would give Southern Company a way to avoid doing distributed solar for a while.
Will SO CEO Tom Fanning and Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers
bit the bullet and go straight for distributed solar instead of
helping Duke privatize TVA for a short-term stopgap that would
set both of them farther behind the disruptive solar curve?
Blue line: SCTY; red line: SO, chart by
Google Finance.
May 16th:
Goldman Sachs invested $500 million in SCTY.
May 22nd:
SO stockholder meeting.
May 24th:
S&P downgrades SO.
Wes Patoka wrote for Motley Fool 24 May 2013, Who Benefits the Most if the TVA Is Privatized,
Continue readingSolarCity disrupting utilities in Massachusetts; how about Georgia?
Why is great big Southern Company afraid of tiny SolarCity? Look at these 2.6KW of solar panels on a house in Bedford, Massachusetts. Think about much more sun in Georgia, financed by Google and Goldman Sachs, turning into votes for solar power. Big coal and nuclear boondoggles already don’t look so attractive anymore to investors.
By Giles Parkinson wrote for Reneweconomy on 9 October 2012, SolarCity’s big challenge: Prove that energy bills can fall,
SolarCity sees the traditional utilities as their biggest competition. “We compete with them on price, predictability of price and the ease by which customers can switch to electricity generated by solar systems,” it says.
“We have disrupted the industry status quo by providing renewable energy directly to customers for less than they are currently paying for utility-generated energy. Unlike utilities, we sell energy with a predictable cost structure that does not rely on limited fossil fuels and is insulated from rising retail electricity prices. As retail prices for electricity increase and distributed solar energy costs decline, our market opportunity will grow exponentially.”
Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Anthony Kim said the SolarCity filing could be a “game-changing moment for the solar industry” because it shows “how plummeting component costs benefit a company operating on the downstream side of the solar business.”
That article was posted before SolarCity’s stock went public, and before Goldman Sachs invested half a billion dollars in SolarCity. Six months later, we know Southern Company and Georgia Power are paying attention, because both SO CEO Tom Fanning and Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers said so at the Southern Company stockholder meeting.
-jsq
Exclusive franchise on photographing County Commission? @ LCC 2013-05-28
Does the county ordinance that adversely affects Deep South Sanitation
and no other company follow a pattern already set by the county?
The VDT posted pictures clearly taken not from the media box during
last night’s
Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission:
this one shows Gretchen videoing for LAKE from that media box.
Has the Lowndes County Commission granted an exclusive franchise
to the VDT for photographing, like the one it granted to ADS for trash collection?
Or has the Commission admitted its anti-videoing ordinance was actually
an illegal bill of attainder directed at LAKE alone?
If so, why is it still posted on the door?
And why is the county still planning to sue Deep South Sanitation
on account of an ordinance and contract that directly adversely
affects no other business?
Hm, could that also be an illegal bill of attainder?
In case you had any doubt the VDT’s pictures were taken during the actual
Commission meeting in session, this one is of
Steve Parker speaking in Citizens Wishing to be Heard.
Even the Cumming City Council, which illegally ejected Nydia Tysdale for videoing an open meeting, realized its error and she now videos from the front row. Only Lowndes County, Georgia continues to post a sign on the door saying all videoing and photographing must be from the back of the room. And then it lets one news organization violate its own ordinance, but not another.
To quote former Chairman Ashley Paulk: Continue reading
Videos: trash, appointment, GEMA, juveniles, mowing, and wellness @ LCC 2013-05-28
Trash wasn’t on the agenda, but it was the biggest issue.
Like
last Regular Session
a Commissioner who happens to be a Christian minister
prayed for one thing
while
the Commission does the opposite.
Commissioners and staff also seemed confused about
a mowing contract but we don’t know why,
since none of us have seen what they were looking at.
A Board incumbent was reappointed without discussion.
In good news, county employees have lost 600 pounds.
Here’s the agenda, with a few notes and links to the videos. See also the Work Session of the same morning.
Continue readingLOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Losing our individual freedom of choosing –Carl Johnson Jr. @ LCC 2013-05-28
A veteran said he was concerned about losing our freedoms
right here in Lowndes County because of the Commissions’
recent trash collection decisions,
in yesterday’s
Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Excerpts from what Carl Johnson Jr. said:
As I drove into town today I drove by… Brown’s produce. Right across the way was Mr. Carter’s produce. Both of them same business. Why not just take Mr. Carter’s business, and say, well, we’re going to give it all to Mr. Brown…. We think it’s in the best interests of the county. That’s not the American way of life. Competition in everything is the strength of America….
[Applause]
He said he didn’t know the intricacies of the law,
but he asked the Commission to reconsider.
Attorney for Lowndes County Walter Elliott looked on stone-faced.
County Manager Joe Pritchard, as usual, paid no attention to citizen speakers.
There’s more in the video: Continue reading
A county that eats its own –Gretchen Quarterman @ LCC 2013-05-28
“Stop wasting taxpayer money” said Gretchen Quarterman in yesterday’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
I sort of wish that I had been able to observe the executive session where you discussed the pending lawsuit against Deep South Sanitation. I wonder who asked the question “Is it beneficial to all concerned?” I wonder which one of you said “This will really attract people to start or relocate business in our county when we sue one of our local business owners.”
If I were considering a business move, I wouldn’t move to a county that eats its own.
I ask that you drop the lawsuit and stop wasting taxpayer money. Thank you.
[Applause]
Bill Slaughter and Gretchen Quarterman were inducted into Valdosta
Rotary on the same day (12 September 2012); that’s John Page,
already a member, standing behind them.
County Attorney Walter Elliott is also a member.
The Rotary Continue reading
We like doing business with Deep South Sanitation –Duane Roark @ LCC 2013-05-28
A 47-year local resident got up to say he liked Deep South Sanitation
after he tried the monopoly company, and he likes having a choice.
This was in yesterday’s
Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Duane Roark said he was a satisfied customer of the recycling centers the county closed, and he didn’t like it when he heard he had to do business with ADS. Nonetheless, he signed up, but he wasn’t happy because of numerous mistakes so he switched to Deep South Sanitation, where the CEO answers the phone and delivered a can that same day. DSS: a man with one truck: what harm is he doing?
We like that we have a choice….
And he’s got my vote.
[Applause]
Some of the incumbent Commissioners may find votes hard to come by.
More in the video:
Continue readingWhy are we running a family owned business out of business? –Steve Parker @ LCC 2013-05-28
Private citizen Steve Parker spoke up as a satisfied customer
of Deep South Sanitation, and a dissatisfied former customer of the
other trash company,
wondering “What’s wrong with competition?” in yesterday’s
Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Mr. Raines said it beautifully, wanting freedom in his prayer. I agree with him, wanting the freedom to make a choice, so I hired Deep South. Now I’m told that it’s been the position of the board to dismantle Deep South, to tell him to cease and desist, and to take away his business license which he got from the previous board. I know a lot of you inherited this issue, by the way. But at the same time, what is the greater good being served to the county? Why are we taking a family owned business and running them out of business in effect?
What’s wrong with competition? I’m in the financial business and if somebody would give me an exclusive to every client in Lowndes County that would be a pretty good day for me.
He continued Continue reading