Tag Archives: Planning

County quantifies some infrastructure payback times @ LCC 2012 03 31

Water and sewer take decades for return on investment, and roads and bridges probably aren’t any better. That’s worth remembering whenever solar, busses, or trains come up.

David Rodock wrote for the VDT Sunday, Commission wraps up annual retreat: Utility payments, road projects and waste disposal discussed

The cost of one mile of construction for water takes 23 years for a return on the initial investment; sewer takes 21.3 years.

The VDT didn’t specify the similar return times for road paving or bridge construction, but it’s a safe bet they’re at least as long. The farther water or sewer lines or roads or bridges are from population centers, the more they cost both directly in installation and indirectly in trips for fire and sheriff vehicles, and especially school busses. The county commissioned a report on that several years ago, as Gretchen reminded them last year. In the particular rezoning case on Cat Creek they were discussing then (Nottinghil), they made a decision to table which seems to have caused the developer never to come back with that particular sprawl plan. I congratulated the Commissioners at that time, and I congratulate them again on not promoting sprawl.

Sprawl costs the county, payback takes years, and longer the farther out it goes. What if we did something different? More on that later.

-jsq

 

 

Judge OKs Barnes and Richardson CWIP suit against Georgia Power

Historic Davids get approval for slingshot against power company Goliath.

Judge allows lawsuit over Georgia Power surcharge to go forward,

Fulton Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville’s ruling Thursday allows the lawsuit filed by former Gov. Roy Barnes and ex-Republican House Speaker Glenn Richardson to go forward.

The complaint said Georgia Power has improperly collected sales tax and fees on a surcharge created by a 2009 law. They say it has added up to as much as $100 million in costs to ratepayers.

This lawsuit opposes Georgia Power’s Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) that is already charging gapower customers for the Plant Vogtle nukes that won’t produce any power for years yet. If this lawsuit wins, they may not ever be built.

But you don’t have to wait for this lawsuit, or for the legislature to ban CWIP. You can oppose CWIP by paying for it in a separate check.

Maybe soon we can get rid of Georgia Power’s territoriality law so we can, like we could in 46 other states, generate our own solar or wind power and sell it to whomever we choose.

-jsq

Videos @ LCC 2012 03 26

These are videos of the Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 March 2012. They vote at their regular session tonight, 5:30 PM.

See also these special presentations:

Here’s the agenda.

Here’s a playlist of everything except the above two special presentations.


Videos
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 March 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

 

 

 

Strategic Plan Update and Personnel Policy @ VLCIA 2012 03 20

The Industrial Authority meets this evening at 5:30 in their usual location. It seems to be mostly about business parks this time, plus these interesting items:

Director’s Report –Andrea Schruijer

  • Strategic Plan response

  • Update on Personal Policy and Procedure Manual

Maybe they’re serious about input from the community for their strategic plan process.

Their website still has sidebar error messages like this:

Deprecated: Function eregi() is deprecated in /home/industri/public_html/modules/jsCookMenu/JSCookMenu.class.php on line 277

But it’s fixed enough that I could retrieve the agenda. This time they do not list what any of the expansion projects or potential projects are. They also still don’t say what the various executive sessions were for; I think real estate or personnel are the usual two reasons allowed by state law.

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street

 

Continue reading →

Barnes and Richardson against Georgia Power’s CWIP

Two former big-time politicos join the fight against CWIP.

Melissa Roberts wrote for CBS Atlanta yesterday, Unlikely duo challenges Ga. utility over rates,

The unlikely duo of ex-Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes and former Republican House Speaker Glenn Richardson are heading to court to challenge Georgia Power over a surcharge they say has cost ratepayers as much as $100 million.

They're going after Construction Work in Progress (CWIP)!

Jim Galloway in the AJC yesterday noted the irony,

The gentleman knows of what he speaks, and that is only one of the ironies here. The legislation that has allowed Georgia Power, for the last 15 months, to charge ratepayers for financial costs associated with the construction of two new nuclear power plants, was passed in 2009 during Richardson’s final session as the second- most powerful man in the Capitol.

Maybe he can help undo the harm he helped do. Ditto Roy Barnes, who got coal-plant-building Cobb EMC former head Dwight Brown off on a technicality.

Melissa Roberts wrote:

The lawsuit contends the utility is charging sales tax on the finance surcharge and the franchise tax paid to cities. Richardson said in a phone interview he and Barnes are two "Davids against the Goliath."

Add those two Davids to the two Davids of Savannah, Drs. Sidney Smith and Pat Godbey and their Lower Rates for Customers LLC. Add a few more thousand Davids around the state paying their CWIP in separate checks with objections.

New Hampshire banned CWIP and their nuke-building utility went bankrupt. Missouri banned CWIP. Iowa is working on banning CWIP. Georgia can ban CWIP, too. Watch out Goliath!

-jsq

 

 

 

 

I am very concerned about a community that would purchase an armored vehicle over weather radios —Sharon Flory

Received 17 February. -jsq
My name is Sharon Flory and I am the Sales Representative for Alert Works Products, the company who was working with Lowndes County to distribute roughly 3,500 weather radios to the community. After working for about 8 months with Ashley Tye we were both ecstatic when the grant came through only to be shot down by the newly appointed commissioner. I could not believe what I read below.
She quoted Lowndes County priorities: tanks and lunches for Commissioners, but no lunches for seniors? -jsq
I am very concerned about a community that would purchase an armored vehicle, that would only protect about 5 people at a time, over purchasing weather radios that would protect upwards of 10,000 people when you consider the families that live in each home.

I am a sales rep and my job is to sell radios BUT my job is also my passion. I live in Ohio and have been affected by storms all of my life. I have been down right scared to death from storms and feel that the politics in this town is not moving in the right direction.

I see that you have the same feelings and hope that you can make a difference. Thank you for caring and keep up the good work. Someone will listen!!!

-Sharon Flory
Alert Works
419-779-8132

Industrial Authority Retreat 2012 02 23

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority is having a retreat 9AM-2PM today. They have a facilitator, who is going through what looks like the usual facilitated procedures. She claims to be camera-shy, but Chairman Roy Copeland tells me he wants the Industrial Authority to be transparent and to be seen as transparent.

Here the facilitator is getting the board and staff to answer some initial questions.


Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Retreat, 101 N Ashley St., Valdosta, GA
Pictures and videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, 23 February 2012.

After they gave individual answers, they broke into groups each including board and staff: Continue reading →

Request for Bid: 2012 Strategic Plan Process –VLCIA

Found on the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) Meeting Schedule web page as Request for Bid: 2012 Strategic Plan Process. Retrieved 21 February 2012. Here’s an archived copy on the LAKE website.

The RFP says

The board will entertain proposals at the regularly scheduled meeting in February. Please email proposals to the following no later than 12:00 p.m. on March 16, 2012:
I asked Andrea Schruijer about those two dates just now on the telephone. She said they would look at any proposals they have received by the time of Thursday’s board meeting, but they would not vote on them then. Their March board meeting is scheduled for 20 March 2012, which is after the March 16th due date.

-jsq

Commission had not seen Moody AFB gate contract with Scruggs before Work Session @ LCC 2012 01 23

We still don’t know what the county is going to do about that cost overrun for the Moody AFB gate. Nobody said at the work session yesterday morning; maybe they’ll say at the regular session tonight when they vote on a contract with some sort of revised dollar figures in it.

County Manager Mike Fletcher waved around a copy of the revised contract with Scruggs Company for the new Moody AFB gate, but said he had not provided it to the Commissioners. I wonder if they’ll see it before they vote tonight? He said it was 226 pages long, but most of that was DOT boilerplate, and only something like 20 pages was the actual county contract. Seems like they could read that much by tonight.

So could we, the public, if it was somewhere we could see it.

He also didn’t say what happened to the $128,497.05 cost overrun. The Commissioners asked no questions.

Here’s the video:


Commission had not seen Moody AFB gate contract with Scruggs before Work Session @ LCC 2012 01 23
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 January 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Videos of LCC Work Session, 12 December 2011, and Regular Session tonight

Videos from Monday morning’s Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission are here. The previously-skipped hearing related to the Comprehensive Plan is on the agenda for tonight’s Regular Session, 5:30 PM at the county palace, 327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor.

These videos of Monday morning’s work session start some way into the agenda, because they started about five minutes early. Here are the videos.


Videos of LCC Work Session, 12 December 2011
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 December 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq