Tag Archives: Lake Park

It’s an opportunity –John S. Quarterman

“Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.”

Here is my response to James R. Wright’s questions about jobs and priorities. -jsq

It’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently searching for our next meal to help those who need jobs, and thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime. Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.

Switchgrass seemed like a good idea five or ten years ago, but there is still no market for it.

Meanwhile, local and organic agriculture is booming, and continued to boom right through the recession.

Not just strictly organic by Georgia’s ridiculously restrictive standards for that, but also less pesticides for healthier foods, pioneered as nearby as Tifton. That’s two markets: one for farmers, stores, and farmers’ markets in growing and distributing healthy food, and one for local banks in financing farmers converting from their overlarge pesticide spraying machinery to plows and cultivators.

Similarly, biomass may have seemed like a good idea years ago, but with Adage backing out of both of its Florida biomass plants just across the state line, having never built any such plant ever, the biomass boom never happened.

Meanwhile, our own Wesley Langdale has demonstrated to the state that

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Communities watching boards

Susan Hall Hardy says that in most places industrial authority executives don’t interact with their communities. Well, paraphrasing what Yakov Smirnoff used to say, in Lowndes County, community interact with officials!

Here is her comment from 15 March 2011 on this blog:

Not to be rude, although honesty is very often perceived that way these days, but, the industrial authority executives rarely thank their communities. In the six states I’m most familiar with, these fellows see themselves as beholden only to their employers. After all, they work with their directors, elected officials, a few bankers and city/county department heads. Rarely do they come in direct contact with the average voter, employee or homeowner, although all those people often pay a large part of their salaries and office operating expenses. Despite the public funding, these groups are usually tight lipped about how they do business and rarely provide the public with records or audits. We’ve all put up with that manner of doing business for so long we now see it as just that — the way you do business. We’d never accept that from a nonprofit organization, a charity group or most elected officials. Shame on us all.
Susan, you’re helping by reading, and you’re helping more by posting. Many local officials have noticed LAKE and this blog because they know people read it.

Anyone who wants to help still more, you, too, can go to a meeting. The Industrial Authority is a good one to attend, but I hear the Tree Commission isn’t trying as hard to enforce things, and does anybody know anything the Hospital Authority does? The Airport Authority? Continue reading

G. Robert Carter (1924-2011)

Update 13 Feb 2011: A very nice biography and tribute in the VDT today. His birth year is corrected in the title of this post.
According to the VDT today [12 Feb 2011]:
At approximately 11 a.m. Saturday morning, emergency personnel responded to the residence of G. Robert Carter, former Lowndes County Commissioner and Sheriff. Carter, who was recently hospitalized for an unnkown illness, has reportedly passed today.
Two weeks ago he spoke as he was being honored at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner:


G. Robert Carter, former Lowndes County Commissioner District 3, former Sheriff,
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
I’ve lived long enough to appreciate the Greatest Generation, but also to appreciate the younger ones coming along to take our place.

I’m not totally out of business; I might be able to help you somewhere down the line. As I told Crawford, don’t wait until you get in trouble. Come to see me before you get in trouble.

Here are videos of all the tributes to Sheriff Carter that evening. Continue reading

Why “jobs, jobs, jobs” isn’t good enough for the public good and the general welfare –John S. Quarterman

Sure, everyone wants jobs for the people right now and jobs so the children don’t have to go somewhere else to find one. But what good is that if those jobs suck up all the water those children need to drink?

This is the problem:

“What I believe the three most important things are, not only for our community, and our state, and our country, but for our country, thats jobs number 1, jobs number 2, and jobs.”


Brad Lofton, Executive Director, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

I shook Brad Lofton’s hand after that speech and told him I liked it, because I did: in general it was a positive speech about real accomplishments. I’ve also pointed out I had a few nits with that speech. This one is more than a nit. This one is basic philosophy and policy.

Now one would expect an executive director of an industrial authority to be all about jobs. And that would be OK, if Continue reading

What was missing from Brad Lofton’s speech?

Seems like there’s something from Brad Lofton’s speech at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce on 28 January 2011. Right at the end he mentioned:
a project we’ve been working on


Brad Lofton, Executive Director, Valdosta-Lowndes COunty Industrial Authority,
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

What could that project be?

Right at the beginning Lofton said:

Ben Copeland beat me slap silly
Maybe that’s a clue. What did Ben Copeland say about Brad Lofton?
Brad Lofton was going to talk after me, and he’d talk about biomass. [laughter]
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Brad Lofton’s memory fails him again, and again….

Speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce 28 January 2011, Industrial Authority Executive Director Brad Lofton remarked about:
The largest solar panel array that we are aware of today in the state of Georgia. That’s 350 kW solar panel array that you’ll be seeing coming out of the ground February first.


Brad Lofton, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

That’s funny, because as readers of this blog may recall, on 18 January 2011 I pointed out to Lofton that: Continue reading

Brad Lofton asks for your ideas

In a generally congenial and well-received speech to the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce (LPCoC), Industrial Authority (VLCIA) executive director Brad Lofton gave an update on various projects and concluded by asking for input. “Economic development is a team sport,” he said, and “Give us ideas” and “There’s one of us and hundreds of you.”

Lofton was introduced by LPCoC chairman Dan Bremer who said that Lofton and VLCIA brought a plant to Lake Park with 400 workers.

In his speech, Lofton lauded the LPCoC as a great incubator of local businesses.

It’s going to come from all of you.
He talked about expanding local industries, especially PCA at length, asking David Carmon of PCA to stand up, saying PCA made a $230 million expansion in 2010, and noting “We had to compete for the PCA project.” Continue reading

Biomass water usage as a problem. –Ben Copeland

Ben Copeland, who is on the Suwannee-Satilla regional water council, has learned something about rivers:
“One of the things that keeps some of these rivers going is the treated effluent that goes into them.

Now Brad Lofton wants to use some of that up in a biomass plant. We have a problem there.”

It’s at the end of this video:


Video of Ben Copeland, Past Chairman of the Board, Wiregrass Technical College,
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Matthew Richard brought up a similar point in his LTE in the VDT of yesterday: Continue reading

Ben Copeland on water and growth in south Georgia

Ben Copeland asked the big question: “How much growth do we want?” He related it to regional water in the aquifer, rivers, growth, and planning, speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner, 28 January 2011.

Copeland is Past Chairman of the Board, Wiregrass Technical College. He serves on the regional water planning council. He said those councils were started due to worries about Atlanta not having a reliable water supply. He said the councils were planning for water and wastewater to 2050. The local regional council is the Suwannee-Satilla regional water council. He described the extent of the water planning region (see map). He expects finalization of the water plan by May. He talked about the Floridian aquifer, and how he’s worried not so much about Atlanta taking our water as about Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee. “Because they all have their straws in that same aquifer.”

Finally, Ben Copeland asked the big question: “How much growth do we want?”

“Do we want to be Jacksonville? Do we want to be Tallahassee? Do we want to be a large metropolitan region?

Folks are going to move to south Georgia, I can tell you that, because of all the resources that we have. I’m a great believer in the free enterprise system. How much do we try to limit that?

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Parks and Rec. Appointment, Lowndes County, Georgia

Previously, the Valdosta City Council appointed City Council member Robert Yost to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks & Recreation Authority (VLPRA). The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners debated appointing a Commissioner to the VLPRA at their June 8 meeting:

They decided to appoint their chairman, Ashley Paulk, to the VLPRA. Chairman Paulk said he would serve, but as a private citizen. I wonder then what the point was of appointing him, rather than someone else.

When Valdosta appointed Yost, Ashley Paulk provided this statement to the VDT: Continue reading