Gretchen's summary:
Thank you to everyone who voted for me, to everyone who helped me in so very many ways. I was not successful in winning my campaign, but I was successful in raising issues and have a lot of fun.
Final Score: GQ:16,752 BS:19,531
When the VDT called, she added:
If the chairman-elect is for good communications, I challenge him to be transparent.
-jsq
There’s an election going on!
Here are some pictures of precincts around Lowndes County today.
I’ve seen no lines, and everything seems to be flowing smoothly.
Except there are multiple reports that when people call the Board of Elections
to ask where they vote they’re getting a “this number disconnected” message.
Apparently there are ten phone lines down there but only three people
answering them, and the phone is not rolling over properly.
Given all the recent changes in precincts, this is a problem.
Around 1PM Sara Crow said she heard at Pine Grove that about 900 people had
already voted there today.
I’m not blogging much today because I’m out helping
Gretchen for Lowndes County Commission Chair.
If you’ve got something interesting,
send it in;
I’m checking in frequently.
Here’s a slideshow:
Everyone Matters, so go vote!
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 November 2012.
Everyone matters, so go vote!
-jsq
Georgia Power is raising rates
in January, despite its recent announcement that it would lower
rates because of lower fuel bills.
Why raising?
Mostly the new nukes and for a new natural gas plant.
And 16% of the rise is for energy efficiency.
Does that seem like the right proportion to you?
Kristi Swartz wrote for the AJC 1 Nov 2012, Georgia Power bills to increase,
The average Georgia Power bill will increase about 44 cents a month starting in January, not decrease as many might have expected when the company announced last month its fuel costs had dropped.
The utility, which serves 2.4 million customers, notified state regulators in October that it would be applying for a residential rate reduction because the amount it pays for fuel has fallen 7 percent, saving $122 million. The utility cannot profit from lower fuel costs and must pass those savings on to customers.
So why are customer rates going up?
About $1.05 of the typical residential bill will go toward paying for a new natural gas unit at Plant McDonough-Atkinson in Smyrna. That increase already was approved as part of a three-tiered rate hike set in 2010.
Yep, that’s that set-in-2010 and keep-rising-’till-2013 natural gas rate hike that Georgia Power got away with while complaining about any potential solar subsidies. The one AJC complained would be “on autopilot”: Continue reading
If you think of nuclear reactors as something far away, or as much safer than Fukushima, you’re in for a surprise. The most notorious reactors are the ones not yet built, units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle near Augusta and their famous financial boondoggle. But others are closer, older, and more numerous than you may know.
Here’s a map by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
That map’s not clickable, so here’s a table, selected from an NRC table by distance from Valdosta:
| Name | Owner | Where | Distance from Valdosta |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hatch 1 & 2* | SNOC | 11 miles N of Baxley, GA | 100 miles | |
| Farley 1 & 2 | SNOC | 18 miles SE of Dothan, AL | 125 miles | |
| Crystal River 3 | PGN | 80 miles N of Tampa, FL | 160 miles | |
| Vogtle 1 & 2 | SNOC | 26 miles SE of Augusta, GA | 200 miles | |
| Summer | SCEG | 26 miles NW of Columbia, SC | 300 miles | |
| Saint Lucie 1 & 2 | FPL | 10 miles SE of Ft. Pierce, FL | 325 miles | |
| Oconee 1,2,3 | Duke | 30 miles W of Greenville, SC | 330 miles | |
| Robinson 2 | PGN | 26 miles NW of Florence, SC | 350 miles | |
| Sequoya 1 & 2 | TVA | 16 miles NE of Chattanooga, TN | 360 miles | |
| Catawba 1 & 2 | Duke | 18 miles S of Charlotte, NC | 390 miles | |
| McGuire 1 & 2 | Duke | 17 miles N of Charlotte, NC | 410 miles | |
| Browns Ferry 1,2,3* | TVA | 32 miles W of Huntsville, AL | 410 miles | |
| Turkey Point 3 & 4 | FPL | 20 miles S of Miami, FL | 440 miles | |
| Brunswick 1 & 2* | PGN | 40 miles S of Wilmington, NC | 480 miles | |
| Waterford 3 | Entergy | 25 miles W of New Orleans, LA | 495 miles | |
| Shearon Harris 1 | PGN | 20 miles SW of Raleigh, NC | 498 miles | |
| * GE Mark I; Duke: Duke Energy Power Company, LLC; Entergy: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.; FPL: Florida Power & Light Co.; PGN: Progress Energy; SCEG: South Carolina Electric & Gas Co.; SNOC: Southern Nuclear Operating Company; TVA: Tennessee Valley Authority | ||||
Five operating nuclear power reactors are closer to us Continue reading
More people have voted early in Lowndes County than ever before,
with cars often backed up onto the street waiting to get into
the Board of Elections.
Eames Yates wrote for WCTV Friday, Record Breaking Number of Early Voters in Lowndes County,
Continue readingMore people have now voted early in Lowndes County than any time in history. Sherrie Luther was voter 22,00[0]…
making her ballot the one that broke the previous record set four years ago.
In the 2008 presidential election, there were 45 days of early voting in Lowndes County. In this year’s election there were just 16 days. Nevertheless the record was broken.
Sherrie was rewarded
Received today on County trash plan already failing. -jsq
Yet another example of government contracting not following the fair bidding practices or allowing community public input. Even if you attend government meetings no bid information is made public & even if bids are referred to the amounts are always in those elusive "packets before you" that only the members have access to.
In a recent Hahira City Council meeting the city attorney ruled that the city council did not have to put out the garbage service for bids & that it did not even have to have a contract. As of December 31, 2012 the city collection services will not be under contract at all so who knows what the rates may be or if a lower bid would have saved citizens money?
I've been involved in government contracting for years & I can tell you that the recent path government bodies have endorsed is leading further & further away from the bidding procedures that were enacted to prevent good old boy politics & kick backs & is opening the door wide for public/private partnerships that never answer to the citizens.
The state attorney general's office which should regulate bidding practices will not interfere with county or municipal issues unless a citizen is willing to pay $500 to a lawyer to present the case to them. They justify this as catering to "home rule" but in actuality they are turning a blind eye because it is within their jurisdiction to rule on non-adherence to proper bidding practices.
If the state believes in "home rule" why is Governor Deal pushing a state charter school board amendment that will take away local rule? The state seems to pick & choose its standards.
-Barbara Stratton
-jsq
The
WCTV news report
didn’t mention something else LAKE has done about
the Tim Golden use of a LAKE video without the required attribution:
LAKE paid for
a TV ad on the same WALB market as Golden’s ad.
That
LAKE ad
is still playing today: watch the news and football on WALB
in Valdosta and Hahira.
Bikram Mohanty is a man of integrity running for Georgia state Senate.
The incumbent Tim Golden’s attack ad misuses a video I took of Bikram Mohanty, without the credit its YouTube license requires.
Tim Golden voted to put on the ballot an amendment that could siphon off your local tax dollars for charter schools, even if your school board doesn’t want them.
Vote for integrity; vote for Bikram Mohanty for Georgia state Senate,
and vote No for Amendment 1.
This WALB ad, like the WCTV news interview, is another rare instance of the LAKE politburo deciding LAKE would go on record as an organization, so I was speaking for LAKE.
TL;DR: If you want to use LAKE materials, cite the source.
-jsq
2,151 Friday and 23,324 Total voted early in Lowndes County Georgia thru 2 November 2012. I hear (unconfirmed) that those are both records, and you can see for yourself in the table below that Friday’s count was the highest for any early voting day this election. About half of active voters in the county voted early. That leaves another half to vote Tuesday. And there are more registered voters than typically active voters, so we could break a record for active voters Tuesday!
| Date | Daily | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Monday October 15 | 1,636 | 1,636 |
| Tuesday October 16 | 1,225 | 2,861 |
| Wednesday October 17 | 956 | 3,817 |
| Thursday October 18 | 643 | 4,460 |
| Friday October 19 | 1,433 | 5,893 |
| Monday October 22 | 1,289 | 7,724 |
| Tuesday October 23 | 1,449 | 9,173 |
| Wednesday October 24 | 1,363 | 10,536 |
| Thursday October 25 | 1,408 | 11,944 |
| Friday October 26 | 1,783 | 13,727 |
| Saturday October 27 | 1,279 | 15,003 |
| Monday October 29 | 1,707 | 16,713 |
| Tuesday October 30 | 1,533 | 18,246 |
| Wednesday October 31 | 1,386 | 19,632 |
| Thursday November 1 | 1,541 | 21,173 |
| Friday November 2 | 2,151 | 23,324 |
| Data courtesy of Lowndes County Board of Elections. | ||
You can still vote
7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
on that great election day, November 6th,
at
your precinct.
To find out which is your precinct, plus a sample ballot,
go to
My Voter Page by the Georgia Secretary of State.
Several recent elections here have been decided by less than 100 votes.
Your vote counts!
-jsq
WCTV got Tim Golden’s campaign on record admitting it used a LAKE video
without attribution.
Golden’s spokesperson claimed (erroneously) that they didn’t need to
cite the source.
As you can see below, that’s not what the license says.
Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV last night, Valdosta Man Takes Legal Action Against GA Senator Over Use Of Video,
Continue reading
A videographer in Valdosta is taking legal action against Georgia District 8 State Senator Tim Golden.
John Quarterman says video he shot was used in an “Attack Ad” against Senate candidate Bikram Mohanty without his permission.
“A video posted on Youtube that clearly says that attribution is required. And there’s no attribution, no sources sighted, and he didn’t ask permission. That’s mis-use of our material,” Quarterman said.
Yesterday on Nuclear Information and Resource Service’s website:
Update, November 1, 2012: UniStar is seeking review of decision by NRC Commissioners, Nuclear Energy Institute filed motion in support. NIRS and NRC staff support the ASLB decision. We will post the Commissioners’ decision when filed. However, today the ASLB officially issued an order terminating the Calvert Cliffs-3 licensing proceeding.
That continues what happened after EDF pulled out and neither Southern Company (SO) nor Duke would step in. Another one down, SO: watch out for your three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool at Plant Vogtle on the Savannah River!
-jsq
PS: Owed to Star Priscilla.