Tag Archives: Georgia

Mage Solar cuts ribbon in Dublin, Georgia

According to a press release on their site:
Ravensburg (Germany), 27th September 2010 – MAGE SOLAR, part of the globally operating MAGE GROUP, in conjunction with Governor Sonny Perdue and the City of Dublin County of Laurens Development Authority, conducted its official ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. The highly anticipated event marked the company’s official move of its new North American headquarters to Dublin, Georgia. Dr. Markus Feil, CEO of MAGE INDUSTRIE HOLDING AG headquartered in Germany; its Chairman of the Board, Kurt Rauch, as well as CEO of MAGE SOLAR GMBH, Norbert Philipp, also from Germany and other US company officials and employees of MAGE SOLAR, along with key community, political and a multitude of local, regional and international business leaders attended the momentous event.
That would be Dublin, with half the population of Valdosta, in Laurens County, with half the population of Lowndes County. Continue reading →

Brad Lofton’s Selective Memory

I see by yesterday’s VDT story about the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) meeting that Brad Lofton, executive directory of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), is reported as saying:
The people … that are opposing the plant … have yet to agree to sit down and talk with the authority directly about the plant.
He said somehing similar at the 29 Sep 2010 meeting of the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE). Except then he at least admitted that I had gotten the VLCIA presentation. Yet even then he forgot about the other people in this picture of that 10 June 2010 meeting at the VLCIA offices:


Pictured: Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Even earlier, Dr. Brad Bergstrom and Seth Gunning got a presentation from the VLCIA.

I pointed all this out a month ago, after the VBOE incident.

Why does Brad Lofton, a public employee, keep standing up before elected bodies and saying something that is not true?

-jsq

VDT on DoJ at SCLC

Reading the VDT’s editorial yesterday morning, DOJ’s lack of Judgment, I noticed this:
Given this era of YouTube, Internet blogs, and citizen journalists, we have to ask why only credentialed members of the media were asked to leave?

Some of the people in attendance during Sunday’s meeting have openly identified themselves in the past as active Internet bloggers.

For example when I stood up in the row behind the VDT reporter and identified myself as taking videos for LAKE for posting on the web? The editorial continues:
Any one of the people in attendance could have recorded the DOJ’s responses and posted them, but the DOJ didn’t ask to collect people’s cell phones.
I also said that due to the sensitive nature of the subject, instead of LAKE’s usual policy of videoing and posting everything that seemed interesting at a public meeting, at this meeting I was only videoing people who asked to be videoed. It wasn’t the DoJ’s responses that were sensitive (they said hardly anything after their introduction): it was what the people in the audience had to say.

I asked “the female DOJ attorney”, as the VDT calls her, Continue reading →

Condos and Agricultural Zoning: latest redraft of ULDC update

Jason Davenport, County Planner, has produced another redraft of the proposed changes to the Lowndes County, Georgia Unified Land Devleopment Code (ULDC). Here is his cover letter and here is the PDF of the proposed changes. Here’s the first table again:

During yesterday’s 3PM work session, Commissioner Lee asked the County Planner Continue reading →

VDT Elevates Biomass and Renewable Energy as Political Issues

The Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) has apparently decided biomass and real clean energy instead are political issues. As part of the VDT’s sudden turn against the VLCIA and its biomass plant, which was provoked by citizen and student activism, the VDT started a week of articles with the headline “Proposed plant said to be ‘medical atrocity'”, about Dr. William Sammons’ Monday talk about health problems of biomass and how solar is better.

The VDT then featured biomass in its reporting on the AAUW Candidate Forum: Continue reading →

Lowndes County Commission Meeting Tonight

The Lowndes County Commission meets tonight:
Lowndes County Administrative Complex
Commission Chambers – 2nd Floor
327 N. Ashley Street
Valdosta, GA 31601
Time: 5:30 p.m.
They represent the entire county (including the cities).

Their mission statement:

To provide an efficient, effective and responsive local government to all citizens of Lowndes County while maintaining the financial strength to meet any contingency
Anyone can stand up in the Citizens Wishing to Be Heard section of the agenda and say what’s on their mind. Say who you are, where you live, and be brief and polite.

-jsq

AAUW Candidate Forum Today, 7PM

Meet the candidates tonight:
AAUW Candidate Forum
7:00 p.m. – Rainwater Conference Center – The Valdosta chapter of the American Asso. of University Women will host the forum. It is open to the public. For more information, Dr. Martha Leake 229-333-5756
That’s the James H. Rainwater Conference Center, 1 Meeting Place, Valdosta, GA.

It’s for all candidates: Democrats, Libertarians, Republicans, and non-partisan; for statewide, congressional, and local. Attendees will have the opportunity to submit written questions to be posed to the candidates for their response.

Just before that, the Valdosta–Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce will host a Meet the Candidates Reception, for Chamber members and their guests, 5–7 P.M. Here is a list of the candidates who have confirmed (PDF). Continue reading →

Solar Booming Nationwide (so why not here?)

While the Wall Street Journal says biomass is a money-losing proposition, Stacy Feldman notes in Solve Climate News that U.S. Solar Market Booms, With Utility-Scale Projects Leading the Way:
America could add 10 gigawatts of solar power every year by 2015, enough to power 2 million new homes annually, industry and market analysts have claimed in a new report.
Continue reading →

ULDC Update Redraft for Monday’s Planning Commission

The Technical Review Committee (TRC) has reviewed the ULDC update and has produced a final draft for the Planning Commission, which meets Monday 25 October 2010 at 5:30 PM, still at the old county commission chambers at 325 W. Savannah Avenue.

More here about condominiums.

-jsq

Continue reading →

Subsidize Solar, not Coal or Biomass

The WSJ article about economic problems of biomass plants goes on to suggest the government subsidize biomass more. Clean Technica suggests a better idea: If solar got the same subsidies as fossil fuels, solar would be cheaper than current grid power everywhere in the U.S. Each taxpayer has spent about $521 towards coal over the past five years and only $7.24 towards solar. How about we reverse that?

Solar needs no fuel, no truck deliveries, and no emissions.

-jsq