Tag Archives: Moody AFB

REZ-2012-09 Copeland rezoning @ LCC 2012-06-12

How can a man with health care financial troubles make a living with a shop he’s had for decades when some of the neighbors complain about a rezoning that is now required? A controversial case that raised issues ranging from wetlands to public safety to Moody Air Force Base jets flying out of Valdosta Airport made its way through two appointed boards to a Solomonic rezoning decision by the elected Lowndes County Commission. Nobody wanted to deny a man a living, but many people wanted to limit potential commercial uses of the subject property. The Commissioners attempted to take all that into account, yet failed to incorporate two major considerations raised by neighbors, mentioning one of them only to disparage it. Even that isn’t the end of it, since it may head back to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a buffer variance. Here are videos of REZ-2012-09 Copeland at the Lowndes County Commission.

It had been to the Planning Commission for a recommendation on rezoning, it had been to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a buffer variance, Monday morning it had been to the County Commission Work Session at which we learned a bit more, and Tuesday evening it went to the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session for a vote on rezoning.

Monday 11 June 2012 Work Session

At the 8:30 AM Monday Work Session, County Planner Jason Davenport had several updates since Commissioners had received their packets the previous week.

  • An email from a Mr. Bradford in opposition.
  • Some open records requests to be filled after the work session.
  • Some opponents of the rezoning had hired a lawyer. (Those of you who watched Bill Nijem at the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting already would have guessed that. Nijem also spoke the next day at the Regular Session.)
  • Davenport had met with the applicant, Mr. Copeland, who had provided more materials because he believed there were some accusations about lack of continuous operations in the building.

Davenport summarized that he thought there were three camps:

  1. Those not supporting the case.
  2. Those supporting the case,
  3. Those supporting the case with conditions,

He said one possibility would be for he and the county attorney to meet with the opposition attorney to try to work out some conditions.

Tuesday 12 June 2012 Regular Session

The agenda item was

6. Public Hearings – REZ-2012-09 Copeland, 3258 & 3264 Loch Laurel Rd, R-A & R-1 to C-C, well & septic, ~5 acres

Here’s a list of every citizen speaking for, at any of GLPC, ZBOA, or County Commission: John A. Copeland (the applicant), Kevin Copeland (applicant’s son), Nancy Hobby, Charles Miles, Fuller Sorrell, Alan Davis, Robert Roffe, and Norman Bush, plus a petition for.

Here’s a list of every citizen speaking against, at any of GLPC, ZBOA, or County Commission: Bill Nijem (attorney for several neighbors), Jimmy Hiers, Gail Hiers, Greta Vargas, and Patty Haynes.

For the rezoning

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The solar train is leaving the station, but the nuclear buggywhip is in the way

The president of the Georgia Solar Energy Association Solar Energy
Industries Association says the solar train is leaving the station nationwide, but Georgia remains enmeshed in tangled legislation. We could have changed that last year with SB 401 if Georgia Power and Southern Company’s vested interested in new nuclear plants at Plant Vogtle hadn’t gotten in the way. We can change it next year with a similar or better law. The time to contact your Georgia legislator or candidate is now, while election season is on.

Update 14 June 2012: Fixed Rhone Resch employment attribution.

Rhone Resch wrote for the Saporta Report, 3 June 2012, It’s time to put solar to work in Georgia

There are now more than 100,000 Americans employed at over 5,600 solar businesses in all 50 states. Many of these are small businesses that have been hit hard by the recession, but they are finding new opportunity for growth in the solar industry.

In Georgia, there are more than 80 companies in the solar value chain including Suniva, MAGE Solar, Inc. and Enfinity Corporation.
I will be joining representatives of each of these fine companies — and many others — at the Southern Solar Summit on June 15 in the Georgia Tech Research Institute Conference Center in Midtown Atlanta
to talk about the strides solar is making, and what remains to be done.

These companies are leading rapid innovation — across the entire value chain, from manufacturing improvements to new financing and sales mechanisms, that are allowing more and more Americans to go solar.

He points out that more solar was installed in 2011 than the total installed in 2008 and 2009, which shows that Moore’s Law continues to work for solar: the price per watt continues to go down, causing demand to go up. He projects forward:

The U.S. is on pace to install nearly 3,200 megawatts of new solar capacity this year with an annual growth rate of 30 percent through 2016.

At that rate, the United States would add more than 25,000 megawatts of new solar capacity between now and 2016. That is roughly the size of 25 coal-fired power plants and represents a significant opportunity for states that aggressively move to obtain a share of this exponentially growing market.

Hm, at Plant Vogtle the operating nuclear reactors produce about 2,430 megawatts and the two new ones under construction are supposed to produce about 2,200 megawatts. So that 25 gigawatts of new solar capacity by 2016 would be about 20 nuclear plants, a number that may be familiar from what Germany has already deployed. Somebody remind me again: why are we building any new nukes? How about if we end the nuke boondoggle and get on with clean green jobs for community and profit?

Rhone Resch says what Georgia can do:

Continue reading →

JLUS Transparency and Videos @ SGRC 2012-06-08

The South Georgia Regional Commission held a public hearing on Wednesday June 6th to give an overview of the current Implementation Phase draft of the Joint Land Use Study (JLUS) for Moody Air Force Base and surrounding communities.

Todd Miller, the project coordinator, gave a power point presentation. When asked if the presentation could be made available on the SGRC web site, he said yes (and then called to make sure I could find it).

The complete draft implementation phase documents are available at http://www.sgrc.us/JLUS/implementation.htm and the comment period is open until the end of June. Comments should be sent to Todd Miller at tmiller (at) sgrc.us.

Here's a video playlist:

JLUS Transparency and Videos
Public Hearing, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), Todd Miller,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, Fri, 8 Jun 2012 10:21:39 -0400.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-gretchen

Moody detonating tomorrow

Peculiar sounds from Moody are pretty common around here, but expect more tomorrow morning.

WALB at some unspecified time, perhaps today, Lowndes Co. 'booms' may be Moody detonations. This Moody PR is dated Tuesday, CONTROLLED DETONATION AT MOODY AFB,

4/24/2012—MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga.— — The 23d Civil Engineer Squadron Explosives Ordnance Disposal team will clear practice ordnance from target areas at Grand Bay Bombing and Gunnery Range from Monday, April 23 thru Thursday, April 26 for target maintenance and regular range repairs. On Friday, April 27 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., the EOD team will safely dispose of any ordnance deemed unsafe during the clearance with 2-3 munitions detonations.

The detonations are expected to be heard throughout Valdosta and surrounding areas. They are part of a controlled reduction of unexploded munitions and will be overseen by Moody explosives ordnance specialists.

Grand Bay Bombing and Gunnery Range is used by military aircrew and ground personnel regularly for tactical and ground maneuvers and weapons training.

Should you have any questions pertaining to this topic, please feel free to contact Moody Air Force Base Public Affairs Office at 229-257-3007. Also, visit Moody's official website www.moody.af.mil for more information on Moody and to view current news releases. Information is updated daily on our Facebook page, simply search Moody Air Force Base Official.

-jsq

Veterans for clean energy: Operation Free

Tired of expensive gas? Tired of expensive wars? Let’s get off of oil and onto clean renewable energy! That’s the message from Operation Free, a campaign of the Truman Project.

Mission: Secure America with Clean Energy.

Iraq War veteran Terron Sims said clean energy and veterans is a part of the “modern form of American exceptionalism.”

Here’s the video:

Pullquote:

“In Iraq… the lines would stretch up to ten miles long under the hot sun, under constant risk of attack by extremists. I realized then just how vulnerable it makes any country to be dependent on oil, especially the United States, which uses nearly a quarter of the world’s supply.”

The U.S. military is already leading us towards renewable energy. The Air Force, for example, has a goal of 25% of facility energy use from renewable energy by 2025, and Moody AFB is helping with that. Imagine if a substantial part of the military’s budget was repurposed to implementing renewable energy throughout the country to get us off of foreign oil. Now that would be national security!

And we don’t have to wait for Washington or Atlanta to get on with it right here in Lowndes County, for security, environmental preservation, jobs, and profit.

-jsq

Videos @ LCC 2012 03 27



Here are videos of the entire 27 March 2012 Regular Session
of the Lowndes County Commission (LCC).
The audio feed is coming directly from the Commission’s own audio system.
We don’t know why County Manager Joe Pritchard is frequently barely audible,
nor why the microphone at the audience podium sometimes seems hardly to be working, nor why Commissioners ask people in the audience to speak when there is
no microphone pointing at the audience.

Some of these videos have already been blogged:

Here’s

a playlist:




Videos

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 March 2012.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

Col. Mark A. Ruse and Moody AFB ORI @ LCC 2012 03 27

Commissioner Richard Raines noticed Col. Mark A. Ruse of Moody Air Force Base
in the audience and mentioned the
operational readiness inspection (ORI) then in progress at Moody.
In case anybody doesn’t know this, Moody AFB is by far the largest employer
in Lowndes County.

The Col. said a few words, but it’s hard to tell what they were, since
there’s no mic on the audience.

A student group also said a few words, but it’s hard to tell what they
were, for the same reason.

Maybe Commissioners could ask people to come to the podium to speak,
or deploy a mic that works for the audience.

According to

his biography at Moody:

Col. Mark A. Ruse is commander of the 23rd Mission Support Group at


Moody Air Force Base, Ga. He leads a group of more than 1,450
military and civilian members providing support and services to a
population of 28,000 active duty, retired military and family
members. His group maintains an installation with more than 830
buildings and more than 17,500 acres, including an adjacent bombing
or strafing range. He is responsible for ensuring the readiness of
support forces to mobilize and deploy to build, secure, and sustain
air base operations at austere bare base locations anywhere in the
world.

The 23rd Mission Support Group also retains responsibility for civil
engineering, environmental compliance, disaster preparedness
response, fire protection, security forces, airfield navigational
systems, communications-computer systems, contracting,
transportation, supply, food service, housing, recreation, family
and community support programs, personnel, manpower, education and
training.

He has a degree in civil engineering.

Also according to Moody (which apparently believes in transparency),
3 April 2012,

Continue reading →

Lowndes County and Valdosta history: origins of the old boys

If we want good clean industry for jobs for local people, we need good clean local government, too.
Why do our local government bodies

hide when they discuss public goods like waste disposal,
try to

avoid stating public positions on issues,
and

fail to publish minutes of elected bodies?

A little reading in local histories of the area or talking to people


who were involved even a generation or two back indicates that Lowndes
County has always been a cliquish sort of place, mostly run by old boys,
for reasons that made some sense in the early days (lack of resources,
mainly), but doesn’t so much anymore in these days of I-75 and I-10,
airport, railroads that still go everywhere, Moody AFB, VSU as a regional university, technical and community colleges,
two hospitals and medical industry, TitleTown, Grand Bay WMA, Wild Adventures,
and south Georgia sunshine we can export to Atlanta and points north.

Here are a few books about the old days, all available in local libraries
and possibly in local bookstores:

Continue reading →

Solar thermal for Moody AFB

Moody AFB helps USAF lead the military and the country in solar installations
by adding solar thermal.


Did you know?

Federal mandates require that 25% of Air Force facility energy use
comes from renewable energy sources by 2025 and Moody will help….

It’s a shame we have to go to Binghamton and Ithaca, New York, to get the equipment.
You’d think we could build solar thermal hot water heaters right here
in sunny south Georgia, and install them, too.
The architect, however, was local.
Congratulations to Moody AFB and Slone Associates for installing solar hot water!



The installer, Intelligent Green Solutions (IGS) of Ithaca, New York,

has the details:

The installation is a large solar thermal system that includes:

  • 20 TitanPowerPlus 2.0 Flat Plate Solar Collectors
  • 512 Gallon Solar Hot Water Storage Tanks

The completion target date was end of December.

SunMaxx Solar press release of 29 Jan 2012,

SunMaxx Solar and Intelligent Green Solutions Install Solar Thermal System at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia,

Continue reading →

Alcohol ordinance and license plus two road abandonments @ LCC 2012 02 13-14

What does a Community Corrections Director do?
What is the proposed modification to the alcohol ordinance?


We don’t know, because the county doesn’t post the details of
agenda items, just cryptic shorthand that may mean something
to Commissioners or staff, but that means nothing to the public.

At this morning’s work session and tomorrow evening’s regular session,
the Lowndes County Commission has a brief but eventful agenda,
including a modification to the alcohol ordinance, an alcohol license,
a DHS grant
a GDOT grant for a road project on Davidson Road (presumably related
to the new Moody AFB gate),
two road abandonments,
and this interesting item:

6.h. Request from Superior Court to establish salary of the Community Corrections Director

Your guess is as good as mine.

Here’s

the agenda.

-jsq


LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

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