Tag Archives: Lu Williams

Broadband “huge strategic initiative for our community” —Mary Gooding for VSU @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Mary Gooding spoke up for VSU at

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013,
saying that
VSU President McKinney was
in Athens (as was President Perrin of Wiregrass), but he and
VSU:

We too believe that this is a huge strategic initiative for our community.
And we were thrilled after the meeting that we attended that
the city, the county, both educational institutions, the Industrial
Authority, everyone there, the hospital for sure, all agreed
that this had to be a significant incentive.

Mary Gooding

added:

At Valdosta State it’s becoming one of our biggest road barriers to
online degrees, to online classes.
That’s again more bandwidth that’s needed to be able to deliver
degrees and classes online.

That’s all good, but where were the superintendents and school boards
of the two K-12 school systems?
Where were library

Continue reading →

Broadband top priority, education, jobs, quality of life —Angela Crance @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Angela Crance,

Special Assistant to the President of
Wiregrass Georgia Technical College,
told

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013:

I’m here for Wiregrass, and
we just want to thank you for bringing this up and making it a top priority
for the community [looking at

Lowndes County Commission Chairman Bill Slaughter]
and

the Industrial Authority….

 

 

It’s definitely a priority for us….
Only 14% of our citizens have a college degree
and we need 70% to have a college degree within ten years.
To be able to accomplish that we’d better have

Continue reading →

Broadband “one of the number one issues” —Bill Slaughter @ VLCIA 2013-02-19

 



Lowndes County Chairman

Bill Slaughter
told

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
that broadband is:
“one of the number one issues”.

…certainly one of the most important recruiting tools that we’re
going to have to figure out in this community how we can get it. To
be honest with you, it’s a wide open question. Do you have the
infrastructure? How much will the infrastructure that we currently
have support? We’re going to have to find a way to get with the
professional providers and find out just exactly what these
capabilities are in our community…. I see that as the big
question. We’ve got to figure out where to start with it.

I think it is probably in my opinion one of the number one issues
that this community is going to have to address from the standpoint
of where we go with economic development in the future for this
community not only for new economic development but for existing
businesses as well. As a business begins to grow,

Continue reading →

Companies need broadband, especially in rural areas of our county —Andrea Schruijer @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Andrea Schruijer’s

Executive Director’s Report to

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
had one theme: Internet broadband speed and access.

It’s a concern, especially in more rural parts of our county….

It’s up to us to make sure that we create an awareness of the
importance of having that technology in our community.

Why the sudden (just started late last year) emphasis on broadband?

We’ve worked with a few of our existing industries
that do not have the capacity.
Operations have had to change
or move to different locations that have better connectivity.

That’s a not-so-veiled reference to the the company that located
in Lake Park and discovered there was no broadband,
and to the two companies that moved their IT operations to Thomasville.

She emphasized again that

broadband throughout the county was important:

Continue reading →

Industrial Authority prospects need Internet broadband speed @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Internet access (as "telecommunications infrastructure")
came up in Project Manager Allan Ricketts' report to

the Industrial Authority 19 February 2013
as a requirement for

a Fortune 500 customer service operation
and
for a

National health care service provider,
both considering locating here,
also as
bandwidth,
as a requirement for
jobs.


  • Fortune 500 customer service operation

    Needs secure telecommunications infrastructure; site visit 5 March. (And
    once again Col. Ricketts believes a company that says we're the primary
    option, without any sign of any due diligence to find out whether that's true.)

    Later,

    Tom Call asked
    how many jobs that company might bring, and Col. Ricketts elaborated
    on 100 jobs or more, with some detail on timeframe for bringing them on.

    Then

    Chairman Roy Copeland asked for elaboration
    on the telecommunications infrastructure issue.
    Col. Ricketts' answer was support for the training facility was what
    was needed, including bandwidth and security.


  • National health care service provider

    Needs telecommunications infrastructure.

Continued in the

next post.

Here's

a video playlist:

-jsq

Industrial Authority meeting tonight, about what, who can tell? @ VLCIA 2013-02-19



Same old

agenda tonight at the Industrial Authority (only the dates
change each month).
It’s now buried
three levels down on their website,
but at least
they’ve started archiving old agendas.
Still no minutes, though,
going on two years since

the VDT publicly exposed VLCIA’s expensive price tag for old minutes.

-jsq

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Agenda

Tuesday, February 19, 2013 5:30 p.m.

Industrial Authority Conference Room

2110 N. Patterson Street

Continue reading →

Videos: new website @ VLCIA 2013-01-15



Both
Meghan Duke (PR and Marketing)
and Andrea Schruijer (Executive Director)
invited comments and additional information for the new website.
They were speaking to their board at its meeting last night, but in the Industrial Authority’s

new conversational spirit,
maybe they’ll take suggestions from the rest of the community, as well.
Both Allan Ricketts (Project Manager)
and
J. Stephen Gupton (Attorney)
said the Hahira well site work was going well.
They’ve got a new intern,
and I reminded them about
the need for fast Internet access.
It was a long meeting by County Commission standards,
yet short for Industrial Authority
meeting: about half an hour.

Here’s

the agenda,
with links to the videos, and a few notes.

-jsq

Continue reading →

Industrial Authority: new website, same old agenda tonight @ VLCIA 2013-01-15





The Industrial Authority has a spiffy new website under a new domain,

buildlowndes.com,
and with their new logo, formerly only on their

facebook page.
Their

meeting agenda for tonight, however,
is the same old recycled content-free placeholder.

I sure don’t miss the old hexagon menu, the new menu is up top and
usable before they waste a bunch of space with stock photos.
The
Our Team
page even links to the Linkedin profiles of

Andrea Schruijer
and

Meghan Duke.
While Allan Ricketts does have a Linkedin profile,
it’s not very fleshed out and they don’t link to it.

The
Recent Investments
page is interesting, although it would be more so if

Continue reading →

Industrial Authority working for solar in south Georgia @ VLCIA 2012-12-18

The

Industrial Authority
is working to find locations for some of the
210 MW Georgia Power got the PSC to shift
from biomass to solar back in September.
That’s a good next step.

Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT 23 Dec 2012,

Solar power push has Authority working to establish connections,

Since the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Georgia

Allan Ricketts, Projects and Existing Industry Manager, VLCIA, 2012-12-18
Power Company’s plan Nov. 20 to add 210 megawatts of solar power to
its electrical grid, the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial
Authority has been devising strategies to draw solar energy
producers to South Georgia.

Georgia Power will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) from solar
energy collection and production companies in early 2013, according
to the PSC, and the company will contract with the lowest bidders to
purchase their energy and place it on the Georgia Power electrical
grid for public consumption.

Georgia Power plans to add 90 megawatts to its grid from distributed
generation (small companies producing between 100 kilowatts and 1
megawatt), and 120 megawatts of large utility-scale projects
producing up to 20 megawatts each. The company plans to price the
solar energy at $0.13 per kWh for distributed generation and up to
$0.12 per kWh for utility-scale projects, according to the PSC.

This government-approved commercial push for solar energy could be a
boon to sunny South Georgia as well as the greater Valdosta area
specifically, and the Authority is prepared to accommodate the solar
energy producers they expect.


Andrew Schruijer, Executive Director, VLCIA, 2012-12-18
“I think there’s a very good possibility of solar energy
coming to South Georgia,” Executive Director Andrea Schruijer
said. “Possibly in the near future.”

There’s more in the VDT story.
It’s pretty much what
Col. Ricketts also told me after the VLCIA meeting Tuesday a week ago.
He asked me if I knew what “distributed” meant.
I pointed out Georgia Power’s version of distributed was actually not
very distributed, compared to

Continue reading →

Same old agenda at VLCIA tonight @ VLCIA 2012-12-18

According to their

website
(but curiously

not their facebook page):


VLCIA logo
The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority’s Regular Monthly
Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 5:30 PM at the
Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.

I mentioned to a VLCIA board member Friday that the agendas never changed,
except for the dates for minutes of previous meetings and of financial statements.
I really must apologize!
This one also differs from last month’s agenda in three more ways:

old Executive Director’s Report-Allan Ricketts on behalf of Andrea Schruijer


new Executive Director’s Report- Andrea Schruijer

old Adjourn General Meeting into Executive Session

old Adjourn Executive Session into General Meeting

old Adjoujrn General Meeting

new Adjourn General Meeting

That’s right: apparently Andrea Schruijer is in town this time,
there’s no scheduled Executive Session, and a typo is fixed.

However, they didn’t change any of the lists of existing or prospective
businesses, or meetings attended, or changes to the website, or acreage owned.
Because the agenda never lists any of those things, nor anything else of substance.
While that sort of secrecy was perhaps useful in trying to sneak
in a private prison and a biomass plant, I wonder if it really helps

attract high tech business like Richmond County
or

attract a solar park like Decatur County?

Here’s
the agenda.

-jsq

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Agenda

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 5:30 p.m.

Industrial Authority Conference Room

2110 N. Patterson Street

Continue reading →