Tag Archives: History

Videos: Courthouse Preservation Committee Hearing #1 @ Courthouse 2014-06-09



SCAD or VSU?
Historical Society or Public Defender?
Business incubator or state offices?
Outside and inside.
These and other ideas were brought up in the first of

three Courthouse Preservation Committee meetings, 9 June 2014.


Baha Zeidan and

Varian Brown wanted a business incubator.

Judge Ellerbee said the way the courthouse got into a mess in the first place
was people wanting to use it for many things in addition to courtrooms,
and he suggested not going the same route again.

Pat Sullivan suggested bringing in

SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design)
and having them design the building before renting it as a local campus.

Stanley Cox seconded that.
Sullivan even volunteered his oldest downtown Valdosta building, home of ClientTell,
for planning meetings.

Gretchen Quarterman
said to be sure Valdosta Farm Days, Juneteenth, and all the other
courthouse lawn events still can happen in conjunction with whatever
happens inside,

G. Norman Bennett said it would be a natural location for the Historical Society.
Glenn Gregory

told stories of historic preservation and suggested
VSU, state offices, or the Public Defender,
plus he noted there’s

another courthouse by the same architect, in Abbeville, GA.
They even let somebody speak who hadn’t signed up:

Valdosta Mayor John Gayle, who cautioned that the longer it sits,
the more it deteriorates.

Here are links to each video, followed by a playlist. Continue reading →

About 90% of U.S. wiretaps are for drug deals

Yet another reason to end the failed War on Drugs:
by far most U.S. wiretaps are for that one reason.
Sure, a wiretap helped catch a Mexican drug lord.
But without the War on Drugs, there would be no
drug lords, just like alcohol bootleggers vanished
after Prohibition ended.

Brian Anderson wrote for Motherboard 15 July 2014,

Almost 90 Percent of All US Wiretaps Listen for Suspected Drug Deals,


Earlier this year, Continue reading →

Board of Elections listened

One precinct off the list for closing, but what about others?
And what’s this about an unannounced change to the date of a
publicly-announced meeting of the Board of Elections?



After several people went to the 8 July 2014 Special Called Board of Elections
Meeting that I found in the VDT Public Notice listings,
and some of them talked to that board and to Lowndes County Commissioners,
apparently somebody listened.
According to Lowndes County Elections Supervisor Deb Cox to
Lowndes County Democratic Party Elections Chair Dennis Marks 13 July 2014:

Mildred Hunter is not being considered for consolidation. Deb

However, she did not say what other precincts might
still be slated for consolidation.

Rumor has it that Continue reading →

Solar Power Hot Topic on LAKE blog

Some like pithy posts, and others like long historical
summaries: see
the Solar Hot Topic for the latter.


I’ve just added links about solar parking lots, Oakland, CA, Dublin, GA and Lowndes High Schools, and super-lobbying group ALEC’s efforts in every state
legislature to oppose solar power.

Solar will win, simply because it’s already cheaper than anything else
and the prices keep going down. The fossil industry will delay as long
as possible to suck up more profit, but even Wall Street has turned
against fossilized utilities that aren’t doing renewables yet. We the
people will win. We just need to stop the fossil junkies from doing more
damage before they lose. The sun is already rising.

-jsq

Valdosta Farm Days this morning at the historic Lowndes County Courthouse

9AM to 1PM today!

Valdosta Main Street
is even advertising
Valdosta Farm Days in

Jacksonville.com:



Downtown Valdosta Farm Days, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Lowndes County
Courthouse Square, 100 E. Central Ave., Valdosta. Features a
farmers’ market, arts and crafts and educational information on
eating local, nutrition and food choices. Event is the first and
third Saturdays May through September. (229) 259-3577 or
ehill@valdostacity.com.

That’s the same historic Lowndes County Courthouse of the

Preservation Committee meetings: Continue reading →

Courthouse Preservation Committee Meetings

At different times of day so people with different work schedules can attend,
and actually asking for suggestions:
you can tell these meetings were organized by Judge McClane, not by the Lowndes County Commission.

Update 2015-03-21: Videos of
Hearing 1, 9 June 2014, videos of Hearing 2, 10 June 2014,
videos of Hearing 3, 12 June 2014,
and
Committee Report 12 January 2015.

On the county’s
front page:



The Lowndes County Historical Courthouse Preservation Committee will
host a series of public input meetings, beginning next week. The
meetings are being held in an effort to gather any ideas citizens
may have regarding possible future uses for the historic Lowndes
County Courthouse. Once the information is gathered, the committee
will present their recommendations to the Board of Commissioners.
Next week’s meeting schedule is as follows:
Monday, June 9, 6:00
p.m.; Tuesday, June 10, 3:00 p.m.; Thursday, June 12, 1:00 p.m. All
meetings will be held in Commission Chambers, Lowndes County
Administrative Building, 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta. For more
information, please contact Amanda Smith, at 229-671-2400 or

asmith@lowndescounty.com.

These meetings are also listed in the county’s calendar, but if you click on any of them you get a blank page.



The VDT has more details today, Continue reading →

Energy Policy Act of 2005 considered harmful



The same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that

subsidized dirty oil and fracked methane including LNG exports
also funded

that oxymoron “clean” coal such as Southern Company’s Plant Ratcliffe
in Mississippi,

ethanol production lining the pockets of Monsanto, and

the $8.3 billion loan guarantee
to Georgia Power for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.



2005 was a very long time ago in solar PV years:

prices are halved, and installed solar power production is up more
than ten times and growing exponentially like compound interest.
We need to stop throwing money at dirty, water-sucking,
centralized baseload 20th century non-solutions and get on with
clean 21st century distributed solar and wind power
for jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and water,
not to mention less climate change.

-jsq

As predicted U.S. solar capacity grew more than 400% in 4 years

This month’s eia report confirms that solar did exactly what

former FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff predicted:
“That’s what is happening in solar. It could double every two years.”
Wellinghoff’s further prediction remains on the money:
“…at its present growth rate, solar will overtake wind in about ten years. It is going to be the dominant player.”
Because of exponential growth like compound interest caused by ever-falling
solar PV costs,

solar will win like the Internet did.

U.S. Energy Information Administration (eia) wrote 22 April 2014,

Solar-electric Generating Capacity Increases Drastically in the Last Four Years,



U.S. solar capacity increased significantly in the last 4 years. In
2010, the total solar capacity was 2,326 MW which accounted for a
comparatively small fraction (0.22%) of the total U.S. electric
generating. capacity. By February 2014, this capacity increased 418%
to 12,057 MW, a 9,731 MW gain, and now accounts for almost 1.13% of
total U.S. capacity. Reported planned solar capacity additions
indicate continued growth

12,057 / 2,326 = 5.18 times, which is more than 2 * 2 = 4,
ergo Wellinghoff was right. Continue reading →

Videos: Candidates, Landowners, Methane and Solar Power @ SpectraBusters 2014-03-29


Candidates for Lowndes County Commission
went on the record (
Mark Wisenbaker
and

Tom Hochschild both running for District 3,
and

Norman Bennett
and

Gretchen Quarterman both running for District 5),
plus

a statement by County Chairman Bill Slaughter,
in addition to essential background information from
directly affected landowners in the audience and from the panelists
on why the proposed
Sabal Trail methane pipeline
is

bad for property values,
is

hazardous here and elsewhere,
and

will be obsolete in a few decades,
all at

a SpectraBusters panel on the Sabal Trail pipeline at VSU,
Saturday 29 March 2014.

The panelists were Continue reading →

Whom do you serve? A question for local government

A question asked about big oil and Mobile is just as relevant
to every local and state government along the proposed Sabal Trail
fracked methane pipeline,
and Transco and Florida Southeast Connection, too.
A couple of local elected officials and several candidates did make
public statements Saturday (stay tuned), so maybe we’re starting to
get some answers to this question in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Some other locations have already been getting answers.

Brad Nolen wrote for New American Journal 28 March 2014,

How Big Oil Controls Local Governments:
Whom Do You Serve? Thoughts on Local Government and Dirty Industries,



Now, it should go without saying that the purpose of councils,
commissions and public office in general is to represent the varied
interests of the citizens, and hopefully through consensus- seeking
achieve some semblance of collective wisdom; and then, if we’re
really lucky to apply said wisdom in charting our course toward a
Mobile our great grandchildren will be proud to inherit.

Yet, when it came to finding a voice to protect our drinking water
from Big Oil, we heard nothing substantive from our local leaders,
even though we marched on their doorsteps in boots that are still
wet with BP oil.

And now, Continue reading →