Tag Archives: Transparency

Planning Commission agenda for Monday 2012-04-30

Here is the agenda for Monday’s meeting of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC). It was faxed to Gretchen Quarterman of LAKE by GLPC chair Bill Slaughter, at her request.

Does anyone volunteer to transcribe it or OCR it?

There appear to be four cases for final action by Valdosta Mayor and Council on 10 May 2012, and three cases for final action by the Lowndes County Commission on 8 May 2012. GLPC itself is advisory: it votes on recommendations, but it does not decide.

You may wonder why we don’t just point to the official copy of the agenda on the GLPC website. That’s because that website no longer exists (try the above link; you’ll see). It’s still linked to from the City of Valdosta web page for GLPC. More on all that later.

-jsq

Someplace worse than here

Eric Stirgus wrote for the AJC 25 April 2012, PolitiFact: For the record, it’s OK to record council meetings,

Meetings of the Cumming City Council rarely make the evening news, but that changed last week with video of a woman being tossed out of the public gathering.

The woman, Nydia Tisdale, was attempting to film the council’s meeting April 17, but she was told that was not going to happen.

“We don’t allow filming inside of the City Hall here,” Mayor H. Ford Gravitt said, “unless there is a specific reason.”

Hm, what does state law say?

Title 50, Section 14 of the Georgia Open Meetings Act:

“[v]isual, sound, and visual and sound recording during open meetings shall be permitted”

Stirgus notes some irony:

In a strange bit of timing, Tisdale was tossed from the council meeting on the same day Gov. Nathan Deal signed House Bill 397, a revised state law on open meetings and records aimed at providing greater access to documents and public meetings.

The Georgia Attorney General’s Office is investigating, as well it should. The investigation shouldn’t take long, since the entire incident is on video. Meanwhile, the mayor keeps digging:

Gravitt also explained that he had concerns that allowing one camera and tripod in would embolden multiple people to bring in cameras and tripods into a meeting.

Then people might know what’s going on!

Here’s the video:

Continue reading →

Coal ash at Plant Scherer considered harmful for your health

Penny-wise, pound foolish, that's coal and coal ash, we're all discovering.

S. Heather Duncan wrote for the Macon Telegraph 14 April 2012, Plant Scherer ash pond worries neighbors as Georgia Power buys, levels homes,

The home among the trees was supposed to be Mark Goolsby's inheritance. His 78-year-old mother now lives in the large, white, wood farmhouse that his family built before the Civil War.

But Goolsby says he'll never live there now.

That's because across the street and through those trees is one of the largest coal ash ponds in the country. It belongs to Plant Scherer, a coal-fired plant that came to the neighborhood considerably later than the Goolsby family. In the mid-1970s, Goolsby said, “when (Georgia Power) bought 350 acres from my dad, they told him we'd never know they were there.”

Those acres are now part of an unlined pond where Georgia Power deposits about 1,000 pounds of toxic coal ash a day. Neither federal nor Georgia rules require groundwater monitoring around the pond. The federal Toxic Release Inventory shows that in 2010 alone, the pond received ash containing thousands of pounds of heavy metals and radioactive compounds including arsenic, vanadium, and chromium.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that up to 1 in 50 residents nationally who live near ash ponds could get cancer from the arsenic leaking into wells. The EPA also predicts that unlined ash ponds can increase other health risks, such as damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system, from contaminants such as lead.

A massive 2008 spill from a Tennessee coal ash pond led to greater scrutiny of the dams that hold these ponds in place, and the EPA promised new rules for storing coal ash. The process led to broader awareness of a more long-term health threat: groundwater contamination from the ponds.

So what's Georgia Power's solution?

Monroe County property records show Georgia Power has spent about $1.1 million buying property near Plant Scherer between 2008 and the end of 2010. But the true number may be higher.

They're going to have to keep doing that until they buy up a lot more property, I predict.

Wouldn't it be cheaper for the future bottom line of Georgia Power and its parent the Southern Company to invest in solar and wind power?

-jsq

ALEC, bills to ditch renewable energy, and the Southern Company

Got caught promoting laws that encourage people to kill people? Double down on laws to kill people through pollution! That’s what ALEC is doing. And look who’s apparently a member of ALEC: the Southern Company, parent of Georgia Power, and proprieter of several of the largest and dirtiest coal plants in the country.

Brian Merchant wrote for Treehugger Tuesday, Two ALEC Campaigns Exposed: One Kills Renewables, One Boosts Fracking,

After major corporations like Pepsi, Kraft, Proctor & Gamble, and Coke all ditched the rightwing group, ALEC announced that it would Plant Scherer abandon its drive to enact gun and voter ID laws. The group’s decision came after a couple high profile campaigns were launched decrying ALEC’s involvement in passing the ‘stand your ground’ laws.

But the group is actually stepping up its efforts in other arenas, as I noted last week. And two new reports, one from ProPublica, the other from DeSmogBlog, outline its new aims: dismantle legislation that incentivizes renewable energy generation, and preserve loopholes that allow natural gas companies to keep the chemical cocktails in their fracking fluids secret from the public.

This is the same ALEC that promotes laws like Georgia’s HB 87 that lock up more people to benefit private prison companies like CCA, which wanted to build a private prison on Lowndes County, Georgia. Traficking in human beings is not too sordid for ALEC, so poisoning people through polution doesn’t seem surprising.

Hm, let’s look at the corporate membership of ALEC, as collected by Sourcewatch’s ALEC Exposed. Why there’s The Southern Company, parent of Georgia Power! I’m frankly a little surprised Continue reading →

ALEC “covers the spectrum in terms of bad policy for people” –FL news

ALEC will no doubt try to tar WCTV as “liberal media.” That will be amusing!

Troy Kinsey wrote for WCTV Monday, themselves as members of ALEC. Damien filer with ‘progress florida’ says its time for them to break their ties with a group that’s taking national heat over ‘Stand Your Ground’.

“This is not just about ‘shoot first’ laws; this is about everything from the so-called ‘parent trigger’ law that we saw during the last legislative session, the prison privatization schemes that we’ve seen crop up. It really covers the spectrum in terms of bad policy for people, and policy that’s really aimed at padding the pockets of the corporations that fund this organization.”

Hm, I wonder who in the Georgia statehouse are ALEC members?

-jsq

Leon County Commission agenda packets and videos

Apparently the same day Tallahassee and Leon County Florida Commissioners met together, the Leon County Board of Commissioners had its Regular Public Meeting. I know this because they publish on the web agendas with board packet details for each item plus video. They already have video on the web after yesterday’s meeting.

Do you prefer just to listen, without having to look at them?

View Live or Previously Recorded Commission Meetings on Real Audio

They’ve even got a trouble ticket system for tracking requests from citizens!

Maybe the Lowndes County Commission and the various local city councils could ask Leon County, Florida how they do it.

-jsq

If someone wants to build offices there’s plenty of room downtown.

Meanwhile, just across the Florida line, Leon County Commission and the Tallahassee City Comissioners don't seem to want sprawl.

James Buechele wrote for WCTV yesterday, Neighborhood Has Zoning Concerns: County commissioners met to talk about nine amendments for a comprehensive plan to tackle developments.

Leon County commissioners and Tallahassee City Commissioners met Tuesday evening to talk about nine proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan.

One of the issues dealt with the Haute Headz salon off of Thomasville and Gadsden roads in Mid-Town.

Property owner Marshall Cassedy wants to see the area in this section of Mid-Town changed from a residential preservation zone to one that would allow offices.

Right now, it's home to the salon, but because of the residential preservation zone, if something should happen to the business a home would have to take it's place instead of another business.

That's something Cassedy wants to change because he says the busy location is not ideal for a home.

But opponents say that if someone wants to build offices there's plenty of room downtown.

"We already have about a million and a half square-feet of vacant office space in the city and the county," said Tallahassee resident Darwin Gamble. "Help building more offices won't create more jobs."

This issue was tabled at the meeting and will come up again June 26th. Until then both sides will continue to negotiate.

That's almost strategic:

"Help building more offices won't create more jobs."

-jsq

Southern Company wants even more special nuke loan terms

Southern Company wants even more special loan guarantee terms for its new Plant Vogtle nukes. When that or CWIP gets revoked, maybe Southern Company will see that solar is a lot less trouble, and more profitable.

The license authorized by the NRC 9 February 2012 for the new Plant Vogtle nukes is the first one in thirty years. Harvey Wasserman wrote for CounterPunch 18 April 2012, The Big Liability,

It’s about a proposed $8.33 billion nuke power loan guarantee package for two reactors being built at Georgia’s Vogtle. Obama anointed it last year for the Southern Company, parent to Georgia Power. Two other reactors sporadically operate there. Southern just ravaged the new construction side of the site, stripping virtually all vegetation.

It’s also stripped Georgia ratepayers of ever-more millions of dollars, soon to become billions. This project is in the Peach State for its law forcing the public to pay for reactor construction in advance.

Look on your Georgia Power bill for Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery Rider, aka Construction Work in Progress (CWIP). It’s probably about 3% of your bill, for power you may never receive.

If you get your electricity from an EMC instead, remember Georgia’s Electric Member Corporations already participate in the existing Plant Vogtle nukes, so you’ll be on the hook one way or another for the new nukes.

When the project fails, or the reactors melt, the public still must pay.

And even before then, Georgia Power customers get to pay for cost overruns. Not to worry; last time nukes were built at Plant Vogtle, they only ran over budget by a factor of seven.

Southern Company’s existing Plant Vogtle reactors had an unexpected shutdown last year days after NRC said they were fine. And Southern Company says Continue reading →

Concrete flaws at Vogtle delay construction, require modified nuke permit

Concrete sinking into the dirt less than two months after licensing? One license amendment already requested and dozens more to come? Does this give you confidence in Southern Company's ability to build a safe nuclear plant without huge cost overruns charged to you the Georgia Power customer or you the taxpayer?

In mid-March the nuclear industry bragged about

Progress continues at the construction site of Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4 — the country's newest reactors and the first to be licensed since 1978.

We discover that at the end of March Southern Company had to ask NRC for a licensing change due to construction problems. Vogtle Nuclear Construction Faces “Additional Delay” Based on Miscalculations in Foundation Concrete — News Release from NC WARN and Alliance for Nuclear Accountability—April 9th, 2012, Continue reading →

Interesting voting at Lowndes County Republican Convention Delegate Meeting

Some Ron Paul supporters videoed the reading of results for votes in Lowndes County for delegates to the Republican National Convention. One of the people up front asked incredulously:

You're trying to copy them all?

As the video notes:

A copy wouldn't be too much to ask would it?

Curiously, the video also omits the actual list of names.

The moderator asked for those opposed to accepting the delegate slate for one district to stand up. Several people did. A loud complaint was heard:

For what purpose?

Um, because you asked if there was any opposition?

There's more, involving attempts to amend to add other delegates "that's gonna be a problem", requests for a count that it's not clear is ever taken, at least one person raising his hand and then having to ask whether hands were for or against, etc.

Here's the video:

The video says they were supposed to have a 2/3 majority to adopt the slate of delegates, and it doesn't look like they got it. Yet it was declared passed:

It's passed. It's done. No more discussion.

-jsq