Tag Archives: Lowndes County

Clean green jobs for community and profit

Tell me who doesn’t want clean jobs for energy independence and profit?

“Environmental sustainability… can lead to more and better jobs, poverty reduction and social inclusion,”

The above quote is Juan Somavia in an article Stephen Leahy wrote for Common Dreams 1 June 2012, For an Ailing Planet, the Cure Already Exists,

Germany’s renewable energy sector now employs more people than its vaunted automobile industry.

No wonder, when German solar power produces more than 20 nuclear plants. How many jobs? According to Welcome to Germany 13 April 2012, Renewable Energies Already Provide More Than 380,000 Jobs in Germany, which cites a report from the German government,

The boom in renewable energies continues to create new jobs in Germany. According to a recently published study commissioned by the Federal Environment Ministry, the development and production of renewable energy technologies and the supply of electricity, heat and fuel from renewable sources provided around 382,000 jobs in 2011.

This is an increase of around 4 percent compared to the previous year and more than double the 2004 figure.

“Current employment figures show that the transformation of our energy system is creating entirely new opportunities on the job market,” said German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen.

“It is the major project for the future for German industry. This opens up technological and economic opportunities in terms of Germany’s competitiveness as an exporter and location to do business.”

Wouldn’t we like some of that here in sunny south Georgia, a thousand miles south of Germany?

Back to the Stephen Leahy article:

Globally, the renewable energy sector now employs close to five million workers, more than doubling the number of jobs from 2006-2010, according to a study released Thursday by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The transformation to a greener economy could generate 15 to 60 million additional jobs globally over the next two decades and lift tens of millions of workers out of poverty, concluded the study, “Working towards sustainable development”.

Everyone will benefit. Everyone can benefit starting right now.

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What does Remerton want to be?

Remember, Strickland Mill demolition on the agenda for today's Remerton City Council Work Session, 5:30 PM, 1757 Poplar Street Remerton, GA 31601. I'd post an agenda if they had put one on the web. Meanwhile, here's a question.

The VDT editorialized 1 November 2008, OUR OPINION: What does Remerton want to be?

Remerton is a unique place: A square-mile town surrounded by Valdosta. Remerton is literally a town within a town.

Its history stretches back to a time before Valdosta surrounded Remerton, back when Baytree was a dirt road and what is now the mall and numerous other stores and subdivisions were fields and woods.

Back then Remerton had a unique identity. It was a mill town, a company town to Strickland Mill. The houses that lined Remerton's streets were homes to the mill's employees and their families. Those families shopped at a company store, attended a Remerton church, and their lives revolved around raising families and working at the mill that towered over the small town.

That was then. The mill closed 30-some years ago. Over time, the houses which were once homes became shops. In the 1990s, fire destroyed the church which was replaced by commercial property. Unused land within Remerton's square-mile was developed into residences or businesses until no space was left. Older, long-time residents were replaced by college students. The mill-house shops increasingly became bars, pubs and restaurants. Amidst all of these changes, Remerton became a historic district, meaning that it must maintain the look of once being a mill town though it had become anything but a mill town.

And that is the problem facing Remerton today: What exactly has Remerton become?

The VDT details Remerton's current multiple personalities. Then it asks the question that has come up again today:

What does Remerton want to be?

Strickland Mill is the very symbol of Remerton. Is that what the people of Remerton want, or not?

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St. Augustine and Gornto Road in Final T-SPLOST list @ SGRC 2011-09-19

Maybe you’d like to know what are the T-SPLOST projects and how much they cost, so you can decide whether you think the tax is worth it (in addition to all the other considerations). That can take some work. Here’s an example.

Since Gretchen Quarterman asked what $5 million for one intersection would buy, T-SPLOST plans have been filed and a constrained list and then a final list approved by GDOT. Price tags jumped wildly up and down in the constrained list. For example, widening less than 3 miles of Old US 41 North from North Valdosta road to Union Road jumped from $8 million in June 2011 to $12 million in August.

In the final list, this item seems to be the one Gretchen was talking about:

RC11-000100 St Augustine Road at Gornto Road Intersection Improvements

You can find that one line on www.t-splost.com, which seems to be the state’s propaganda site for pushing T-SPLOST.

To find the current dollar amounts, you have to rummage around elsewhere until you find Continue reading →

Five million dollars for one intersection? —Gretchen Quarterman @ SGRC 2011-09-19

Gretchen Quarterman wanted to know what the money was going for, with an example:

…at Gornto. That's a total of 5 million dollars! I'm having trouble imagining what you could do for $5 million in that one block. Do you have to buy the new McDonald's that they're building? I mean what are we doing there?

Corey Hull said he didn't know, since at that time many of the projects didn't actually have plans. See the next post for what eventually happened with that one.

Here's the video:

Five million dollars for one intersection? —Gretchen Quarterman
T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC),
Corey Hull,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

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Not a special Local tax: it’s a Regional tax —Nolen Cox @ SGRC 2011-09-19

T-SPLOST is a misnomer: it's not a Special Location Option Sales Tax, since it's voted on as a region.

I think maybe we should have a gasoline tax to pay for roads.

Here's the video:

Not a special Local tax: it's a Regional tax –Nolen Cox
T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC),
Corey Hull,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

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Lowndes, Tift, and Ware donor counties and majority @ SGRC 2011-09-19

Someone asked:

If Lowndes, Tift, and Ware vote against it, and the other fifteen counties vote for it, that’s a majority.

Corey Hull:

As long as they reach 50% + 1 in voters.

Questioner:

Those three counties, which would probably be the three donor counties in this region… they could kill it for our region if it was a large turnout.

Roy Taylor:

A large county like we could kill it for everybody.

The referendum is still on for July (during the primary, with less turnout) not November (during the general election).

The eighteen counties are: Continue reading →

How do we vote on T-SPLOST? — Gretchen Quarterman @ SGRC 2011-09-19

T-SPLOST regions are an intermediate level of government in which all the people in the region vote together, not by counties.

Gretchen Quarterman asked:

When the 18 counties vote, is it county by county, say Atkinson votes yes, and Lowndes votes no, and if there were 9 counties that voted yes and 9 counties that voted no, or is it the total of all the voters together, and then we say there were 400,000 voters and it’s a simple majority.

Corey Hull answered:

It’s a simple majority. It’s the latter of how you described it, it’s all the voters together.

Here’s the video:

How do we vote on T-SPLOST?
T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC),
Corey Hull,
Nolen Cox, Gretchen Quarterman,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

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Lowndes County donor county @ SGRC 2011-09-19

Lowndes County would be a T-SPLOST donor county: it would put more money into T-SPLOST than it would get back for projects.

Somebody (I think it was Robert Yost) asked whether Lowndes County would be a donor county for T-SPLOST. Corey Hull said yes, that was the case. Someone else noted:

Atkinson County that’s been coming over here spending our money all these years, gets a little of it back.

And the smaller counties get penalized a lot more if they vote against T-SPLOST, because they depend much more on LMIG. So T-SPLOST among other downsides is a scheme to pit smaller counties against larger ones in the T-SPLOST region.

Here’s the video:

Lowndes County donor county
T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC),
Corey Hull,
Nolen Cox, Gretchen Quarterman,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

Nydia Tisdale returns to city council where she was thrown out for videoing

Remember Nydia Tisdale, who got illegally ejected from a Cumming City Council meeting for videoing an open meeting? She’s back, in the front row, videoing.

Previously we called Cumming someplace worse than here. But look at this:

A city of Cumming audio-visual recording policy sheet was available outside council chambers.

“Handheld audio and/or visual recording devices may be used from any location within the public seating area,” wrote Gerald Blackburn, city administrator. “No audio and/or visual recording device may be set up in the aisles.”

Hm, that’s better than the Lowndes County Commission, whose chair Ashley Paulk famously said,

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ALEC loses 8 more, including Wal-Mart

Even Wal-Mart ditches ALEC! What about the Southern Company?

ALEC Exposed is keeping a list of Corporations Which Have Cut Ties to ALEC, and since the ten we last counted, eight more have jumped the sinking lobbying ship: Blue Cross Blue Shield, YUM! Brands, Procter & Gamble, Kaplan, Scantron, Amazon, Medtronic, and Wal-Mart. That’s right, even Wal-Mart. Jason Easley wrote for Politicus USA yesterday, Wal-Mart Dumps ALEC and Outs Them as Un-American,

In a statement, Wal-Mart representative Maggie Sans wrote, “Previously, we expressed our concerns about ALEC’s decision to weigh in on issues that stray from its core mission ‘to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets…We feel that the divide between these activities and our purpose as a business has become too wide. To that end, we are suspending our membership in ALEC.”

Wal-Mart claimed that ALEC was no longer as interested in Jeffersonian free market principles as they were other partisan political issues. Two of those unnamed political issues are most certainly voter ID and stand your ground laws.

When even Wal-Mart complains that ALEC isn’t “free market” enough, Wal-Mart, which Continue reading →