Tag Archives: History

VDT and Chamber feuding about which is the most negative


popcorn



Image courtesy Fir0002/Flagstaffotos under GFDL v1.2

Break out the popcorn!
The VDT and the Chamber of Commerce are feuding.
About which one is the most negative!
Also, the Chamber hates agriculture.
And everything good around here is to the Chamber’s credit,
but anything bad is not their fault; just ask them.

The VDT editorialized 18 October 2012,

Is Valdosta really one of the poorest?
mostly criticizing

the recent report that ranked
Valdosta MSA as the third poorest in the country.
The VDT added:

Now that the world wide web has broadcast this story, what can be
done locally to combat this image? And what are the various entities
involved in job and business recruitment, i.e. the Chamber of
Commerce and the Industrial Authority primarily, doing to fix the
underlying problem — low household income and the high
percentage of individuals living below the poverty line.

Valdosta can attract retailers. But can Valdosta step it up and
attract larger industries offering high paying jobs? Has the
community turned away from what made this a successful, viable up
and comer in the state, namely manufacturing and agriculture? These
industries sustained Valdosta for many years and provided good, well
paying, solid blue collar and middle income jobs. Educational
opportunities are far greater today, there are more high school,
tech and college graduates in the area than ever, and blaming the
quality of the work force is starting to lose its luster as a viable
excuse for not bringing in industry. We have the land, we have the
workers, we have the infrastructure and we have a great location
with a good quality of life.

Perhaps the community leadership should focus on the assets that are
already here and less on what’s not. Then maybe the next time a
story like this appears on the Internet, Valdosta won’t be cast in
such a poor light.

The Chamber fired back a broadside to its members, which
I’ve included below here, since I don’t think you can find it online elsewhere.
Here’s the most precious part:

Second, while there is still farmland in Lowndes County, it’s
shrinking and when it sells, it’s for uses at prices that rule out
agricultural use. Agriculture had begun moving to nearby more rural
counties even before the cotton field at the end of Baytree Road
was paved over for Valdosta Mall. Our largest tractor and farm
implement dealers followed.

That’s right, farmland is good for nothing but paving over,
so says the Chamber!
Nevermind that knowledge-based workers generally like

Continue reading →

Softbank’s Son to install solar in Japan: watch out, Georgia Power!

The same Masayoshi Son who shook up Japan’s Internet market

and is about to do the same in the U.S.
is moving to modify Japan’s power market from nuclear to solar.
Watch out, Georgia Power and Southern Company!
If you don’t get a move on, Son-san will eat your lunch, too.

Mariko Yasu wrote for Bloomberg Businessweek 23 June 2011,

Softbank’s CEO Wants a Solar-Powered Japan,


Masayoshi Son
Billionaire Masayoshi Son made a fortune taking on Japan’s phone
monopoly. Now he aims to shake up its power utilities after the
worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. The 53-year-old chief executive
officer of Softbank says he will build solar farms to generate
electricity, with support from at least 33 of Japan’s 47
prefectures. He’s asking for access to transmission networks owned
by the 10 regional utilities and an agreement that they buy his
electricity. No other company has secured unlimited access to the
those transmission networks. The utilities would not comment.
Japan’s main business organization, the Keidanren, called for
“careful analysis” before any drastic change in the power system
took place.

If Japan ever felt ready to back Son’s ambitious plan, this is the
moment. Radiation has spread across at least 600 square kilometers
(230 square miles) in the northeast since the Mar. 11 earthquake and
tsunami led to meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.
Outgoing Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in May he will rethink a plan
to increase atomic power to 50 percent of the nation’s energy output
from 30 percent. Renewable energy already accounts for 10 percent,
according to Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy. Son
wants to see that tripled by 2020. “The question is how this nation
is going to survive after cutting nuclear power,” he said at a
government panel meeting on June 12.


Complacent Georgia Power and SO, you maybe don’t think he can do it?
NTT probably thought that, too:

Continue reading →

We can charge you even if it’s cancelled! —CWIPped Georgia Power


Steve Willis
An excellent article about the problems with Georgia Power’s
new nukes on the Savannah River gets at something you may not know:
they can charge you for them even if they’re cancelled!

Steve Willis wrote for the Georgia Sierran Oct./Nov./Dec. 2012 page 5,

Overruns, Uncertainty Plague Vogtle Expansion,

If Southern Company abandons this
project, the CWIP law not only allows
Southern Company to keep all of the
CWIP payments legally extorted from
customers, but allows them to keep
CWIP fees in place or even increase them
until all their costs and profits have been
fully recovered. Due to the run-away
cost overruns, the CWIP charge on your
monthly bill is already more than three
times what Southern Company confidently
claimed it would be at this time
when they presented their case to “your”
Georgia legislature in 2009.

And that

2009 legislature
rubberstamped CWIP so it appears on your Georgia Power bill as

Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery Rider.
Willis reminds us that the 2 nukes already at Plant Vogtle were projected
to be four nukes for $600 million and ended up being two for $9 billion.

Everyone has heard the saying “Fool me once, shame on you;
fool me twice, shame on me.” If the Vogtle expansion costs
balloon, as many analysts expect, it will cost

Continue reading →

Georgia Power hikes prices for gas and nuclear, then complains about solar

Back in February,

Georgia Power's natural gas Plant McDonough
Georgia Power argued that a free market in solar power would cause
price increases.
Yet they already increased prices for natural gas and
for nuclear plants that won’t produce electricity for years, if ever,
and are already massively overbudget and behind schedule.
Why should we believe them about solar when it’s their archaic projects
they already
are deploying that already have increased customer prices?

In February,

Greg Roberts of Georgia Power argued,

Another reason is that the customers of Georgia Power, Georgia’s

Georgia Power is the snail in the way of solar power in Georgia
EMC’s and Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia are paying for the
poles and wires to transmit power, and the back-up generation to
cover the electricity needs when the sun isn’t shining. These costs
will have to be recovered from other customers not getting the
privileged deal from the developer, raising everyone else’s rates.

While there are already numerous federal and state tax and other
incentives for solar development in Georgia, it is still much more
costly than the service provided by utilities. But what if
third-party solar developers could get other electric customers in
Georgia to foot the bill? That would be the result of this
legislation.

It’s like asking Sally’s Café to pay the electric bill of Joe’s
Cafe across the street, thus allowing Joe to undercut Sally’s
prices.

Georgia Power well knows they could take a percentage of any power
transmitted through their lines, so that wires and poles and
backup generation argument is ludicrous.
And as far as subsidies, how about this one,

Georgia Power, Get the Facts, Investing in Georgia’s Energy Future:

Continue reading →

Valdosta: 3rd poorest city

Valdosta #3! Followed by Albany #4! In poorest cities in the country.
What can we do about that?

Michael B. Sauter, Alexander E.M. Hess and Samuel Weigley, 24/7 Wall St.,
wrote for NBC News 14 October 2012,

America’s richest and poorest cities,



3. Valdosta, Ga.

  • Median household income: $32,446
  • Population: 140,599 (87th lowest)
  • Unemployment rate: 9.2 percent(140th highest)
  • Percent households below poverty line: 27.6 percent (ninth highest)

From 2007 to 2011, the unemployment rate in Valdosta increased by
130 percent, from 4 percent of workers to 9.2 percent. The number of
employed workers declined by more than 6,000 during that time. Those
jobs remaining often pay a lower salary. Last year, nearly 17
percent of the work force was employed in the generally low-paying
retail industry, the sixth highest percentage of all metro areas. In
2007, just 11.3 percent of the labor force worked in retail.
Valdosta, however, has an improving and active housing market. Home
prices rose nearly 12 percent between 2007 and 2011. Despite these
positives, 14.4 percent of housing units were vacant last year,
higher than the national vacancy rate of 13.1 percent. Also, 15.3
percent of homes were worth less than $50,000 versus 8.8 percent
nationwide.

The study is actually for “U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs”
and this population is not just for Valdosta, it’s for the

Valdosta MSA,
which includes Brooks, Echols, Lanier, and Lowndes Counties.

Look who’s next on the list:

Continue reading →

Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-09-25

Fewer speakers at the Regular Session
than at the

previous morning’s Work Session
of the Lowndes County Commission.
The longest item was

a citizen wishing to be heard, who only spoke for 3 and a half minutes.
Up until then, the meeting took five minutes, as the Chairman noted.
And everything was adopted unanimously, with little or no discussion.

Here’s

the agenda,
annotated below with links to the videos and a few notes,
and followed by

a video playlist.



  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
  4. Minutes for Approval




    First the Chairman welcomed Leadership Lowndes.

    Then both sets of minutes were
    unanimously approved with no changes.

    1. Work Session — September 10, 2012
    2. Regular Session — September 11, 2012
  5. For Consideration


    1. Bevel Creek Lift Station Repair       —Mike Allen

      The total for the wastewater lift station
      was still $38,969 with the budget impact being
      the insurance deductible.
      Unanimously approved.



    2. Dell Lease Agreement for Sheriff’s Office Laptops       —Aaron Kostyu

      Six years ago the Sheriff’s Dept. leased some laptops;
      plan was always to roll new laptops into the lease;
      that will be done using drug seizure funds.
      Unanimously approved.

    3. Contract with Corporate Health Partners

      County Manager Joe Pritchard said they had started looking
      into wellness plans several years ago,
      $260,000 in savings in health care expenses so far;
      partnership with SGMC and YMCA.
      Commissioner Joyce Evans wanted to know how regularly
      it would be monitoried.
      Answer: quarterly.
      Commissioner Richard Raines moved to approve

      Corporate Health Partners      ,
      except instead of a three year contract,
      an initial one year with two one-year extensions.
      Unanimously approved.



    4. Agreement with Basic Life

      Joe Pritchard alluded to

      yesterday’s presentation from Chris Park(? Clark?)
      recommending a change to basic life coverage,
      with an approximate annual savings of slightly over $10,000.
      Unanimously approved.

  6. Reports-County Manager

    Joe Pritchard had no report.

  7. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address



    Chairman Ashley Paulk noted it was 5:35, and then

    Ken Klanicki spoke
    for 3 and a half minutes, the longest item in the meeting,
    after which
    they adjourned.


Video Playlist

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 25 September 2012.

-jsq

Georgia Power’s Bowers pushes solar misinformation out the next fifty years

Paul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power, doubled down on baseload nuclear,
coal, and natural gas for the next fifty years.
What’s he scared of?

Nick Coltrain wrote for OnlineAthens yesterday,

Renewable push not in the cards for Ga. Power,


Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers in Georgia Trend, November 2011
“Renewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,”
Bowers said of fuels to create electricity. “Is it going to be
2 or 4 percent? That’s yet to be determined. Economics will drive
that. But you always remember (that renewable energy is) an
intermittent resource. It’s not one you can depend on 100 percent of
the time.”

One time you can depend on it is hot summer days when everybody is
air conditioning, which is why

Roger Duncan of Austin Energy in 2003

Austin Energy flipped in one year
from spouting such nonsense to deploying the most aggressive solar rooftop
rebate program in the country.
Austin Energy did the math and found those rebates would cost
about the same as a coal plant and would generate as much energy.
And when it is needed most, unlike the fossilized baseload grid,
which
left millions without power in the U.S. in June
and

hundreds of millions without power in India in July.

Bowers knows better than the nonsense he just spouted;
as recently as

November 2011 he told Georgia Trend,

Continue reading →

Georgia Power inches towards more solar, trailing New Jersey

If you’re quick, you may be able to sell solar from your roof
to Georgia Power.
If the PSC approves a pending request.
If you get in before that new quota gets filled.
And if you’re a Georgia Power customer.
The rest of us?
Not until the
1973 Georgia Electric Territorial Act
is changed.
Until then, Georgia will continue to lag way behind New Jersey in solar power.


210 MW is more than 50 MW but way less than 3,000 MW

Walter C. Jones wrote for the Augusta Chronicle today,

Georgia Power plans to triple solar power use,

Georgia Power filed Wednesday seeking permission from state
regulators to more than triple the amount of solar power it uses to
generate electricity for its 2.4 million customers by swapping it
for what was already planned from other renewable sources.

What “other renewable sources”?

The Georgia Power plan won’t affect rates because it is based on
paying the solar providers what it would have paid the biomass
provider, 13 cents per kilowatt hour, which is already figured into
customer’s rates.

OK, that’s good, because it means biomass is well and truly
dead in Georgia.
But it also means Georgia Power isn’t very serious about solar,
if all it’s doing is fiddling with accounting for the small amount
of power biomass might have produced and not going for the real
numbers solar can produce.
OK, how many solar megawatts?

Continue reading →

Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-09-24

A parade of speakers not on the agenda extended yesterday morning’s
Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
They spoke about the

conference center,
about

South Georgia Partnership for Homelessness,
and about

health
and

life insurance.
Commissioners heard from staff about

repairs to a sewage lift station
and

laptops for the Sheriff’s office.
They vote on all these things at their Regular Session
tonight at 5:30 PM.

Here’s

the agenda,
annotated below with links to the videos and a few notes,
and followed by

a video playlist.



  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
  4. Minutes for Approval

    1. Work Session — September 10, 2012
    2. Regular Session — September 11, 2012



    The Chairman announced guests not on the agenda.

  5. For Consideration




    1. Bevel Creek Lift Station Repair

      MR Systems’ quote for
      SCADA control panel was $13,775,
      plus another control panel $25,194, for a total of $38,969.
      Utilities Director Mike Allen said making an addition (presumably
      of the $25,194 control panel) would save four weeks of downtime.

    2. Dell Lease Agreement for Sheriff’s Office Laptops

    3. Contract with Corporate Health Partners



      County Manager Joe Pritchard said they had achieved
      $260,000 in savings towards projected $300,000 savings
      in health care expenses.
      He introduced
      Chris Park(?) with Park(?) Group and
      Jack Curtis with

      Corporate Health Partners      .
      Pritchard said the county Wanted to add a wellness program to improve
      employee quality of life and wellbeing.
      Chris Park(?)

      spoke first.
      He introduced Jack Curtis,
      who spoke about

      a wellness program proposal.

    4. Agreement with Basic Life

      Chris Park(?) spoke again, saying what he was proposing would save
      $10,000 or 23% over the current plan while preserving all the current benefits.

  6. Reports-County Manager

    Joe Pritchard had no report, so they adjourned.
  7. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address

    That’s only for the Regular Session.


Video Playlist

Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Videos by Brandon Livingston for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 24 September 2012.

-jsq

Sewers, laptops, and insurance @ LCC 2012-09-24

Repairs to a sewage lift station, laptops for the Sheriff’s office,
and health and life insurance.
I’ll bet this morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session will be brief.



What’s this about a
Bevel Creek Lift Station Repair?
That sewer line station seems to have last been mentioned in a Commission
meeting

11 February 2003:

Mr. Clark stated that the Bevel Creek Lift Station rehab came in
under budget enough to cover the additional $26,000.00 from the Exit
22 project.

The Commissioners (of whom only Joyce Evans is still or again on the Commission)
proceeded to approve one of their famous transportation change orders.



But what is Bevel Creek?
According to

Watershed Assessment:
The Watersheds Associated with
Lowndes County, Georgia, May 2001,

Bevel Creek discharges into the Withlacoochee River in north-central
Florida.

Since Bevel Creek doesn’t join the Withlacoochee River in Georgia,
it’s considered as a separate watershed basin for Lowndes County.

Here’s

the agenda.



LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2012, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →