Tag Archives: History

County and landowners still paying for failed 2007 James Road mega-mall boondoggle @ LCC 2015-06-22



Back again: the James Road subsidy for a failed mega-mall that we just keep on paying,
eight years later!

Five companies showed up at the May 27th pre-bid meeting, but only one bid for
$71,192 was received from Rountree Construction for the
Commercial Driveway for Raceway on James Road,
said County Engineer Mike Fletcher at the

22 June 2015 Lowndes County Work Session.
The Commission
at their 23 June 2015 Regular Session
approved that yet another fix-up payment caused by
the county’s

2009 widening of James Road “from a two-lane local road with ditches to a five-lane road with curb and gutter” for the never-happened

Market Street mall and subdivision project.
And local elected officials say bus systems need subsidies?
Every road and bridge is a subsidy for private developers.
And James Road is a subsidy we just keep on paying year after year.

The county spent SPLOST VI funds and $587,000 in GDOT funds on this subsidy
for private developers,

some of them from Tampa,
while requiring local James Road property owners to Continue reading →

Exxon acted on climate change in 1981, funded deniers 27 more years, and is back at same Malaysia oil and gas field

Exxon showed more sense three decades ago than now,

 when it’s
back at the same Malaysian oil and gas field it backed off from in 1981
because it would release massive amounts of carbon dioxide that would
accelerate climate change.
It’s time to end the era of fossil fuels and get on with changing
the world to cheaper, faster, and far cleaner sun, wind, and water power.

A decade before Al Gore’s 1992 book

Earth in the Balance,
years before Bill McKibben’s 1989 book

The End of Nature,
before
the same year as
the publication of the first GISS scientific study on

Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide in Science,,
according to Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, 8 July 2015,

Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says — but it funded deniers for 27 more years, Continue reading →

Want to help stop racism? End the failed war on drugs!

If we’re tired of arguing over pieces of cloth, how about we do


something about one of the main tools of racist oppression in the
U.S.? Legalize drugs, thus stopping paying for 75% of the U.S.
prison population, which is far more black than white, and is often
rented out for literally pennies.
Remember, slavery is not illegal
in the U.S., as long as it is punishment for some crime. Second clause, 13th Amendment:

except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted

More black men are in jail, prison, probation, or parole now
than were enslaved in 1850, as Michelle Alexander has noted.
Anyone who says Continue reading →

Jimmy Carter’s dream of a solar-powered world is coming true now

U.S. president Jimmy Carter had a dream,

300x300 10360845 897383750328270 6241606373708524983 N, in Work together to turn our vision and dream into a solar reality --Jimmy Carter, by Climate Reality Project, 20 June 1979
thirty six years before Pope Francis spelled out why we all need to escape a dark hot nightmare,
and Jimmy Carter’s sunny dream is now coming true.

Today, in directly harnessing the power of the Sun, we’re taking the
energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever
see, and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

Continue reading →

GA Gov. Nathan Deal signs solar financing law

The sun is finally rising on Georgia, and if that is possible,
Florida can follow, and the southeast, the U.S., and the world.



Today is a historic day, when even a governor
who took campaign finance funds from
a long list of fossil fuel pipeline companies,
the governor of the most corrupt state
(least stringent ethics laws),
when that governor
finally signed a law that even the
most corruption-prone legislature,
after squelching similar bills for a dozen years,
finally passed as HB 57 unanimously in both houses.

Dave Williams, Atlanta Business Chronicle, 12 may 2015,

Gov. Deal signs bill letting solar installers offer customers third-party financing,

Georgia property owners will get more affordable options for
installing solar panels at their homes and businesses under a bill
Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law Tuesday.

The legislation, which sailed through the General Assembly
unanimously, will let solar installers offer customers third-party
financing of installations. That’s a major change from the old law,
which required customers to pay up front.

Already two years ago the Georgia Public Service Commissioners,
even though overwhelmingly campaign-funded by the industries they regulate,

required Georgia Power to buy twice as much solar energy as it wanted.
This year Georgia Power’s parent Southern Company’s annual report says
its main source of new revenue for both 2013 and 2014 was solar power.
And Georgia has already leaped from far behind to become the fastest
growing solar market in the nation,
with numerous Georgia Power solar utility-scale installations
and smaller ones like
for Alton Burns in Thomas County
and
today for George Bennett in Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
This new law Gov. Deal just signed will accelerate that growth even more.

Luis Martinez, NRDC, 12 May 2015,
The Sun Also Rises in the Southeast, Continue reading →

Alapahoochee Historic Farm Heritage Days 2015-04-10


300x413 Flyer, in Alapahoochee Historic Farm Heritage Days, by John S. Quarterman, 10 April 2015
25th Semi-Annual Alapahoochee Historic Farm/Heritage Days will take
place April 10-11 from 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Located at
202 Bethel Church Road in Echols County.

Here’s

their flyer on their facebook page. Continue reading →

Condemnor bears the burden of proof –GA 2006 Constitutional Amendment

Sabal Trail can’t just assert public use for its pipeline: it has to prove it,
according to the Georgia Constitution.



The
Constitutional Amendment
referred to by the landowners Attorney Jonathan P. Waters

at yesterday’s eminent domain hearing in Leesburg, GA
passed
7 November 2006 by 1,622,403 to 338,876, or 82.7% to 17.3%.
Here’s then-Governor Sonny Perdue’s press release when he signed the law to put it on the ballot, which includes this sentence:

Public benefit from economic development shall not constitute a
public use.

So it would appear vague claims of tax revenue or illusory jobs
are not enough, Sabal Trail.

Here’s the

“neutral summary and explanation” required by Georgia state law: Continue reading →

Report of the Historic Courthouse Committee @ LCC 2015-03-09

No education, all law enforcement:

Sheriff’s Office or

Public defender’s office.

300x413 Cover letter, in Report of the Historic Courthouse Committee, by H. Arthur McLane, 12 January 2015
Either would save the county money in the long run and preserve the courthouse
through use of its services (heat, light, air conditioning).
Plus some points on renovating the courthouse building and grounds.
Judge McLane referred to this report in his

talk at the Commission Work Session 9 March 2105,
in which he said it would not be possible for VSU to use the courthouse
without “some pretty dramatic and we think negative” changes to the building.

In his cover letter, Judge McLane said he was not sending the actual
report to the Commissioners, yet clearly they were reading it in the
Work Session, because they asked questions from it.
And now you, the public can see the report.
LAKE did not get it from the Commission, which so far as we know has
not published it.
The cover letter and the report are below in full. Continue reading →

Sheriff’s office and VSU @ Courthouse 2014-06-12



The Sheriff’s office could use more space,
and VSU would like a research center downtown.
For context, videos of the other hearings, and the Committee’s report,
see

Courthouse Preservation Committee Meetings.

Continue reading →

More ideas on day 2 @ Courthouse 2014-06-10


When a local goverment-appointed committee actually asks
the people what they want, sometimes the people speak up,
this time mostly about education as a driver for the local economy,
plus the Public Defender’s Office.
For context, see
Courthouse Preservation Committee Meetings.

Continue reading →