Tag Archives: LAKE

Olive Garden struggling to revive sales

Apparently there's trouble at Breadsticks. Candice Choi and Tom Murphy wrote for AP today, Darden's Olive Garden strains for a turnaround,

Darden Restaurants Inc. is struggling to revive sales at its flagship Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants. A key sales figure fell at the chains during the latest quarter, and the company issued a profit forecast that fell short of Wall Street expectations.

The Orlando, Fla.-based restaurant operator has been reworking the menu and pricing to reverse declining sales at Olive Garden, which is its biggest chain and accounts for almost half its revenue. The 10 percent rise in Darden's net income for the quarter came primarily from the opening of new locations, including those for its smaller specialty chains.

Hm, so they're trying to turn around by opening new restaurants. Yep:

Based on the long-term prospects for its brands, however, the company plans to accelerate growth in its fiscal 2013, with about 100 net new restaurants. The company had 89 more restaurants at the end of the quarter than it did a year earlier.

By the way, you can make the breadsticks yourself.

-jsq

Some transparent planning in buffalo

Donn Esmonde wrote for Buffalo News 24 June 2012, Big shots listening to community,

The times, they are a-changin'. The Millard Fillmore-Gates story is further evidence. The days when power brokers decided what was best behind closed boardroom doors, then tried to shove it down the community's throat, are mercifully ending. Break out the champagne.

The fallout from years of stalled projects and misfired magic bullets, and the emergence of more-enlightened power brokers, has adjusted boardroom attitudes. The altered mindset is —from the waterfront, to a reviving downtown, to whatever happens with Millard Fillmore Hospital —paving a path to happier endings, with less drama and fewer hard feelings. I think we could get used to this.

Faced with the eventuality of a massive, empty hospital bordering a prime neighborhood, Kaleida scheduled public forums and called in the cavalry of the renowned Urban Land Institute. What once was unthinkable in corporate boardrooms now is becoming reflexive.

“We learned from other examples that had not gone well…that we needed to involve the community, be transparent and collaborate,” said Kaleida's Ted Walsh. “All of that will help us to reach a better decision.”

The old boys actually listening to the community pays off! Hey, we could try that! Actually, VLCIA maybe has, with its strategic planning process. We shall see.

-jsq

Dublin ahead of us again: solar street lights

Dublin, Georgia already got MAGE Solar and car part manufacturer Erdrich Umformtechnik. Now Dublin is ahead of us again, with solar street lights.

Austin Lewis wrote for 13WMAZ yesterday, Dublin Sets Up Solar Street Lights,

Dublin has started putting up Solar street lights on South Jefferson near the city's downtown. This project got federal funding from the federal government administered by the Georgia's Department of Transportation.

And grant supported! If anybody around here had applied, maybe we would have gotten such a grant.

Instead, it's another first for Dublin:

"This is the first transportation corridor that has solar lighting in the state of Georgia so it's just very exciting for us, first to have a solar industry in Dublin, now to have the first state roadway lit by solar lighting," said Tim Lake, of T. Lake Environmental Design.

Bragging rights and practical, too:

Lake said the cost of these street lights is about $11,000 and that the standard street lights cost just over $7,600. But the typical street light have other costs like a leasing fee and monthly energy costs that go to the electric company.

He said because the solar street lights are powered by the sun, they will end up saving taxpayers about $500 dollars a month or $15 per street lamp.

"The first is return on investment happens very quickly, 3.7 months for the city to get a return on investment on these lamps," said Lake.

All that plus this:

The solar panels were also made in Dublin by MAGE Solar. Lake said this was a truly collaborative project.

Collaboration. Maybe our Industrial Authority should try it.

-jsq

All candidates for offices inside Lowndes County, Georgia in 2012

Here is a list of every candidate running this year for offices inside Lowndes County, Georgia (not including state and federal offices). -jsq

PARTISAN OFFICES

Chief Magistrate Judge

Joni B. Parker (R) (Incumbent)

4609 Oak Arbor Dr., Valdosta, GA 31602
229-244-0302 (h)
joniparker@yahoo.com

Solicitor General

Justin Cabral (R) (Incumbent)

1909 Williams St., Valdosta, GA 31602
229-444-1775 (h), 229-671-2510 (w)
jcabral@mchsi.com

Jason Cain (D)

505 Barfield St., Hahira, GA, 31632
229-251-7454 (h), 229-671-2800 (w)
cain102255@gmail.com

Richard A. Wilkes (R)

3525 New Statenville Hwy, Valdosta, GA 31606
229-559-1406 (h), 229-241-8602 (w)
rwilkes@thewilkesfirm.com

Judge, Probate Court

Terri Adams (R) (Incumbent)

3735 Creekwood Dr., Valdosta, GA 31602
229-251-1895 (c), 229-671-2652 (w)
reelectterriadams@gmail.com

Tina Folsom (R)

4246 Oak Forest Dr., Valdosta, GA 31602
P.O. Box 5041, Valdosta, GA 31604
229-245-1801 (h), 229-244-5400 (w)
tfolsom@langdalelaw.com

Clerk, Superior Court

Beth Copeland Greene (R)

2351 Copeland Rd., Valdosta, GA 31601
229-242-2368 (h), 229-333-5129 (w)
bgreene413@yahoo.com

Amanda Seago O’Steen (R)

714 Northside Dr., Valdosta, GA 31602
P.O. Box 4793, Valdosta, GA 31604
229-249-0834 (h), 229-269-2081 (w)
osteen4clerk@hotmail.com

Tina M. Riggins (R)

710 Northside Dr., Valdosta, GA 31602
229-245-8316 (h)
rigginstina@hotmail.com

Sheriff

Chris Prine (D) (Incumbent)

3938 Glen Meade Dr., Valdosta, GA 31601
229-559-6147 (h), 229-671-2900
prine_c@bellsouth.net

J.D. Yeager (R)

5427 Sycamore Run, Hahira, GA 31632
229-294-4094 (h), 229-740-0978 (w)
jd@jdyeager.net

Tax Commissioner

Continue reading →

Smart grid already in use due to heat waves

So if heat waves already require spot buys of electricity at high prices and is already enabling a market in demand responses to bring down, even while most electricity in the U.S. still comes from big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear, natural gas, and hydro, why is Southern Company saying we have to wait on a smart grid to deploy solar and wind energy?

This is from an EnerNOC Press Release of today that is all over the net:

…on Thursday, June 21, EnerNOC was dispatched by eleven grid operators and utilities across the US and Canada, including eight in Pennsylvania and New York, largely in response to a record heat wave across the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions that put strain on the grid and drove real-time energy prices in some regions to over $1,500 per megawatt hour, approximately 60 times higher than the previous week’s average prices. Demand response reduces the need for utilities and grid operators to procure additional supply at such high prices both by reducing overall demand on the grid and by targeting reductions in particularly constrained areas.

So demand response is energy conservation through energy distribution efficiency.

Well, maybe demand response duing that heat wave was on a small scale. Or not:

“Nearly 1,200 commercial, institutional, and industrial energy users in Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Ontario, and other constrained regions responded to Thursday’s dispatch, providing valuable capacity to the grid that helped to stabilize prices and reduce system strain,” said Tim Healy, Chairman and CEO of EnerNOC. “Our DemandSMART application, which streams real-time energy data from thousands of sites, showed demand quickly drop from the grid as our network was activated and allowed our customers to see the contribution they were making to grid reliability and reduced prices.

So sure, this is a press release from the company that’s doing this electricity dispatch. But it’s verifiable, starting with the customer company contacts in the press release.

FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff pointed out years ago that Continue reading →

Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-06-12

Here is a video playlist of the entire 12 June 2012 Lowndes County Commission meeting.

Ashley Paulk prepended a word about Ed Christian, a deputy he hired when he was sheriff, who lost his son recently.

They reappointed Ms. Iverson to the Children and Family Services Board.

Seats of Joseph Stevens, Richard Lee, Steve Gupton were up for appointment on the Public Facilities Authority. Former Commissioner Lee apparently did not want to be reappointed; the other two did. Commissioner Powell wanted to be appointed. Commissioner Raines so moved, Commissioner Evans seconded, and all three Commissioners voted for. Yes, Commissioner Powell voted for himself to be on that board.

Reappointed Cindy Vickery to the South Georgia Community Service Board.

Adopted a speed zone ordinance without giving any clue what is in it. More on that later.

Determination to hold a public hearing to make Brinson Drive a dead end road, so traffic cannot come on or off of Pikes Pond Road.

A Nondisclosure Agreement with JMF Solutions, Inc., turned out to be about providing voice and data to part of the county via a county water tank.

County Clerk Paige Dukes was pleased to have approved a Contract with Municipal Code Corporation which included the second half of the funding she wanted to complete converting ordinances from paper to more legible formats.

Fire Chief Richard Guyton requested permission to apply for a $25,000 grant for emergency equipment which he said would require no matching funds. Commissioner Raines indicated his displeasure Continue reading →

How long until solar beats gas?

We’ve heard even German coal importers say solar beats coal. How long until clean solar beats dirty natural gas fracking?

Southern Company has already cut energy production from coal in half, from 70 or 80% to 35%. Unfortunately, SO did that mostly by shifting to natural gas. Natural gas produced through “a revolution in shale gas”, commonly known as fracking. Do we want to trade dirty water for clean air?

Unlike Johnson & Johnson and Dell (and Coke and Pepsi and Amazon and and more than a dozen more, including even Wal-Mart), the Southern Company has not cut ties with ALEC and its pro-fracking and anti-solar campaign. Why is the Southern Company betting on a dirty horse?

How long until SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning’s “one day” when renewable energy becomes economical? Sooner than his prediction of next decade, as in two years ago solar crossed nuclear, wind is already at parity with nuclear, and even Southern Company realizes coal doesn’t beat anything anymore.

How long before solar beats natural gas, relegating gas to much-reduced use as a backup for sun and wind power, as John Blackburn already projected in March 2010 can happen in North Carolina?

How long will it take for the sun and the wind, with a little water and even less natural gas, to power the world? How long? Not long.

Because the arc of the solar Moore’s Law is long, but it bends down for price per watt, while the price of fracking, no matter the quakes and dirty water for ever, does not.

-jsq

Johnson & Johnson and Dell dump ALEC: where’s Southern Company?

J&J and Dell ditched ALEC, for two dozen bailing out of that ship of dubious lobbying. Where's The Southern Company? Still supporting ALEC's pro-fracking and anti-solar campaign?

A week ago Rebeka Wilce reported for PR Watch that Johnson & Johnson 19th Company, 23rd Private Sector Member, to Cut Ties with ALEC. Today Scott Keyes reported for ThinkProgress that Dell Becomes 21st Company To Drop ALEC. So many companies have ditched the corporate-legislative private-public partnership American Legislative Exchange (ALEC) that it's hard to keep count. Yet we still haven't heard from The Southern Company (SO), even as ALEC continues its drive to dismantle incntives for renewable energy and preserve fracking loopholes, and The Southern Company continues expanding use of natural gas (knowing it comes from fracking) while putting off solar and wind until "one day" some time next decade maybe, and (through its subsidiary Georgia Power) actively opposing fixing Georgia legislative hurdles to renewable energy. All that plus wasting Georgia Power customer cash and taxpayer dollars on useless new nukes at Plant Vogtle.

Come on, Southern Company and CEO Thomas A. Fanning: you can do better than that! Turn to the sun and the wind for clean green jobs for community and profit.

If you're a Georgia Power customer and you'd like to help persuade SO, you can pay your Plant Vogtle Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charge in a separate check and write on it what you'd like instead. Even if you're not, it's election season, and every member of the Georgia legislature is running: you can contact your candidate and find out what they're willing to do to get us solar and wind for energy independence, jobs, community, and profit.

-jsq

Georgia Trend Propagandizes for T-SPLOST

When did state tax policy become a plaything for companies, instead of a source of services for taxpayers? There’s a lot of fudging in the T-SPLOST article in the current Georgia Trend. I guess that’s not surprising when it’s mostly about the viewpoint of the CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

Ben Young wrote for Georgia Trend June 2012, Transportation Game Changer: July’s statewide referendum will determine Georgia’s economic future. There’s a lot at stake for all 12 regions.

“The reason our port is the fastest growing is because our road and rail network is so efficient,” says Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic De-velopment, another top RTR advocate. “If Zell Miller and other former administrations hadn’t done something to make the port more of a growth engine, we would now have little to no success in advanced manufacturing.”

Yet the rest of the article is all about roads, with little or nothing about rail, except for metro Atlanta and Charlotte as a comparison. Where are the rail projects linking Valdosta to Atlanta and Savannah, or the Valdosta MSA commuter rail or bus system? Nowhere in T-SPLOST.

It is also unclear how Georgia can sustain growth in logistics-related sectors that depend on moving goods quickly and efficiently — sectors believed to be leading us out of the recession — without strengthening the highway network, which has suffered due to lower gas tax revenues. Without an additional tax, there is no way to keep up what we have, much less build anything new, proponents say.

Um, then maybe the governor shouldn’t have refused to extend Georgia’s gas tax by 8/10 cent (almost as much as proposed the 1 cent T-SPLOST tax, but on gasoline, not on everything including food). And note “believed to be” and “proponents say”. Later in the same article:

People are desperate for more transportation funding and the improvements it will bring, but the referendum itself is complex.

Who are these unnamed “people”? The same “proponents” by whom things are “believed to be”? Isn’t it wonderful to base tax policy on hearsay?

If Georgia was serious about creating jobs to lead us out of the recession and into a national and world leader, Georgia legislators Continue reading →

Ankle monitoring funded, public defender not; VLCIA and VLPRA visible: Video Playlist @ LCC Budget Hearing 2012-06-19

Ankle monitoring is fully funded this coming fiscal year, with a 2% increase, and the Sheriff’s office accounts for 35% of the county’s budget, yet the Public Defender had to beg for more funds. The state-imposed property tax assessment cap has expired, but no increases in the tax digest are yet expected. Sales tax revenues are gradually increasing. The state is fiddling with motor vehicle license fees, and nobody can predict the effect of that. The Industrial Authority and Parks and Rec are now shown in the Lowndes County budget; they and other transfers out account for about 15% of the budget, specifically about 6% VLCIA and 7% VLPRA. All that and more at Tuesday’s budget hearing.

A copy of the actual budget will be up shortly. Meanwhile, here a video playlist for the Lowndes County budget public hearing of 19 June 2012.

Chairman Ashley Paulk was not there. Commissioner Crawford Powell chaired the meeting instead.

Parks and Rec’s 1.25 mil and Industrial Authority’s 1 mil are now shown along with the county’s 7.31 mils of property tax and integrated into the budget charts. They and other transfers out account for about 15% of general fund expenditures.

Finance Director Stephanie Black said

Your CHIP grant was not renewed.

That’s news to me, since I thought the Commission Continue reading →