Tag Archives: Planning

Keep waste sites open and reprioritize SPLOST —William Geyer @ LCC 2012-11-13



William Geyer expressed two widespread opinions,
keep the solid waste disposal sites open, and reprioritize SPLOST,
when he spoke at Tuesday’s

Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.
County Manager Joe Pritchard, the driving force behind the waste disposal decision,
still wasn’t listening.

Keep the solid waste disposal sites open

Saying he was William Geyer of 5474 Union Road, Hahira,
he asked the Commission to
reconsider their solid waste plan, and to keep the waste disposal sites open.

There’s people out there that can’t afford
what y’all are offering.
And with a budget as large as we got, I know there’s some way
to keep them open.
Not only that, Florida has them, and they don’t even man them.
I talk to a lot of people out there,
they don’t come here,
but I wish you really would reconsider,
because it is a plus for this county,
the elderly,
a lot of people here who are struggling, who can’t afford it.
I’m not saying I can’t; I can afford it,
but there’s a lot of people here who can’t afford it.

Reprioritize SPLOST

Geyer noted SPLOST was supposed to be for paving roads, but
lots of roads hadn’t gotten paved.

At that first SPLOST meeting, it was around 1984 or 5
they did my road, Union Road.
What happened to the rest of the roads that are dirt?
We’ve somehow lost our priorities.
We want a new library, we want a new this or that.
What about these people who live on these dirt roads
that were promised they’d be paved.
County Manager, how many miles of dirt roads do we have in this county?



County Manager Joe Pritchard obviously wasn’t listening,
“Pardon me?” he said, after the Chairman prodded him.
He didn’t know, either; he motioned

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Video playlist @ LCC 2012-11-12



The Lowndes County Commission invited a developer to speak
about his proposed rezoning at a Work Session
without inviting any opposition to speak.
Plus another rezoning, a proposed solid waste ordinance with exclusive franchise
agreement, and proposed appointments to five boards and authorities.
And at the end an animal event report.

Here’s

a video playlist:


Video playlist

Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

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

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 November 2012.

Here’s

the agenda again,
this time with links to the videos plus a few notes.

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Agriculture alive and well in Lowndes: even Kay Harris says so

The VDT went out and did some research and discovered that
agriculture is not only still here in Lowndes County,
it’s one of the biggest industries here, and by some
measures it’s increasing.
What if the local elected and appointed and self-appointed
boards and authorities helped promote agriculture
as a local industry?

Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday,

South Georgia agriculture alive and well,

Agriculture and forestry remain among the strongest economic engines
in South Georgia, including Lowndes County.

A look at the recent farmgate value for 2011 for Lowndes County
shows a $70 million effect on the local economy, making it one of
the strongest private-sector industries in the county following
South Georgia Medical Center.

The popularity of The Times’ bi-monthly sister publication Ag Scene
led this newspaper to look at the ag/forestry industry to see if it
has diminished in economic importance over the years.



Actually, the number of farms in Lowndes County

has slightly increased in recent some recent years.

The VDT proceeded to do som research, asking Jake Price,
Lowndes County Extension Agent, who noted there are actually
more farms in Lowndes County than in some surrounding counties,
because they tended to be smaller here, with quite a few people
farming on the side.
That and agriculture-based events have become more popular,
such as last week’s Hog Show.
(And he didn’t mention the new last year Valdosta Farm Days.)
He continued:

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Appointments to five boards, two rezonings, and a solid waste ordinance @ LCC 2012-11-12

Monday morning the Lowndes County Commission considers and


Tuesday evening votes on members of five appointed boards.
Who are the candidates?
The agenda doesn’t say.
The two rezonings are the same ones

the Planning Commission recently considered.
Presumably the solid waste ordinance has something to do with

the recent privatization decision.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2012, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

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Help the military stop climate change through sustainable renewable energy

In memory of Armistice Day, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the
eleventh month, when World War I ended,
let’s help the military get us off of oil
and to deal with climate change so fewer people will die in wars.

John M. Broder wrote for NYTimes 9 November 2012,

Climate Change Report Outlines Perils for U.S. Military,

Climate change is accelerating, and it will place unparalleled strains on


American military and intelligence agencies in coming years
by causing ever more disruptive events around the globe,
the nation’s top scientific research group said in a
report
issued Friday.

The group, the National
Research Council, says in a study commissioned by the
C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies that
clusters of apparently unrelated events exacerbated by a warming climate
will create more frequent but unpredictable crises in water supplies,
food markets, energy supply chains and public health systems.



Hurricane Sandy provided a foretaste
of what can be expected more often in the near future, the report’s
lead author, John D. Steinbruner, said in an interview.

“This is the sort of thing we were talking about,” said
Mr. Steinbruner, a longtime authority on national security. “You
can debate the specific contribution of global warming to that storm. But
we’re saying climate extremes are going to be more frequent, and
this was an example of what they could mean. We’re also saying it
could get a whole lot worse than that.”

…

Climate-driven crises could lead to internal instability or international
conflict and might force the United States to provide humanitarian
assistance or, in some cases, military force to protect vital energy,
economic or other interests, the study said.



This is in addition to the even more obvious
connection between war and U.S. dependence on foreign oil

which the veterans in Operation Free want to fix
by helping us shift to clean renewable energy.

“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.”

We also heard last year from

Col. Dan Nolan (U.S. Army ret.) that the Marines in Afghanistan
realized

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Solar up 50% over last year in Germany


July in Germany
wasn’t a fluke:
solar PV electricity production in Germany is up 50% over last year.
Maybe we hould consider a Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) in Georgia like that in Germany.
Unlike the Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charge on Georgia Power
bills for nuclear power people won’t get for years, if ever, FIT charges
only apply after solar power is flowing.

Bloomberg Businessweek via AP 5 November 2012,

German solar power production up 50 pct on year,


The German utilities’ industry association BDEW said Monday the
solar power output rose to 25,000 gigawatt hours in the January to
September period, from 16,500 gigawatt hours a year earlier.

It says solar power’s share in the country’s electricity production
rose to 6.1 percent from 4.1 percent. Wind power gained slightly to
8.6 percent from 8.0 percent. Biomass plants accounted for almost 6
percent.

It says all renewable energies combined accounted for about 26
percent of electricity production over the first nine months.

Germany decided last year to phase out nuclear power by 2022 and
replace it with renewable energies.



If you’re tired of Georgia Power and its parent Southern Company
pouring your customer and tax dollars down that nuclear pit near
the Savannah River, or if you’d just rather have solar or wind power,
you can send in your CWIP charge as a separate check, with a note on it.
Even if you’re not a Georgia Power customer, you can

contact them or Southern Company (or the GA PSC or the legislature)
about this.

-jsq

What people are interested in having their pennies spent on —Gretchen Quarterman

Received yesterday on

Allocate resources in a yearly budget? -jsq

As I was out campaigning, it was interesting what people are


interested in having their pennies spent on. Many want better
sidewalks and safer places to ride their bikes. One Valdosta police
officer particularly commented on the dangerous bike riding
conditions (especially on North Oak Extension). Many in the
un-incorporated areas want increased fire protection and it seems
that everyone better drainage (and I don't mean simply open ditches
for rain water) and still others would like to see some soccer
fields.

It seems like we should be able to do some prioritizations and then
save up for these things. I guess that will be up to the new
commission chairman and members and they will have to figure out how
to move forward without a SPLOST immediately in 2014.

Personally, I'd like to see a public accounting of how the previous
SPLOSTS were spent. And not in big categories, but the actual
details… But that's just me.

-Gretchen Quarterman

-jsq

Challengers made statehouse incumbents work in south Georgia



Hardly-funded insurgents led by Haley Shank put a scare into turncoat south Georgia statehouse
incumbents.
What would happen with well-funded candidates?

As we’ve already seen,

in new district 177 Dexter Sharper (D)
won 2 to 1 over opponent J. Glenn Gregory (R).
(All election data in this post is from
GA Secretary of State.)

Conversely, Jason Shaw (R-176) ran unopposed, perhaps because
he is the least offensive of the incumbents (he voted
against HB 1162
that put

the Atlanta-power-grab “charter school” amendment on the ballot,
although

he did vote for HB 797
that will funnel more of your local tax dollars to charter schools
imposed by Atlanta even if your school board doesn’t want them).

Other south Georgia statehouse incumbents, all Republicans, had
challengers, all Democrats.
All the challengers opposed Amendment 1.
Haley Shank did best, in District 173 against Darlene K. Taylor,
8,324 to 12,048 (40.86% to 59.14%).

Next was

Continue reading →

Allocate resources in a yearly budget?

Received today on

SPLOST VII lost. -jsq

After reading this post, a question came to mind. Have we the
citizens of Lowndes County


actually been encouraging our elected
officials to be fiscally irresponsible with public funds by allowing
SPLOST to continue? if elected officials had to allocate resources
in a yearly budget, we may actually encourage our officials to
allocate resources towards public projects that would be desirable
by the public rather than a priority in pthe minds of our elected
officials.

-Bill Grow

Congratulations Dexter Sharper, Demarcus Marshall, Chris Prine, and Justin Cabral!



Congratulations to Valdosta’s new state rep for District 177
Dexter Sharper who won by 67% to 33% over opponent Glenn Gregory,
who fought a spirited and clean campaign.
I look forward to Representative Sharper

meeting with the governor
and working for our community without compromise under the gold dome in Atlanta.

I’ll come back to the other statehouse races in a separate post.
Ditto the other statewide races.
Meanwhile, congratulations to some local winners below.



Congratulations new Lowndes County Commissioner for District 4
Demarcus Marshall, winning 64.91% to 35.09%
after spirited debate and much agreement
with opponent John Gates.
I look forward to Commissioner Marshall

grappling with education, jobs, tourism, and personnel
down at the county palace.




Congratulations on re-election, Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine!
Challenger J.D. Yeager fought a good fight, but the voters said
63.53% to 36.47% they did not
want to go back to the previous administration.
I look forward to Sheriff Prine continuing to protect the safety of
all the citizens of Lowndes County, including those in the cities.



Congratulations Solicitor General Justin Cabral on retaining your post
51.56% to 48.44%!
Very honorable mention to challenger Jason Cain,
who canvassed himself pretty close to winning.

Congratulations Joyce Evans

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