Metro Atlanta cities want to air their business in living rooms. Alpharetta agreed to spend $68,000 for a video recording system in its council chambers. Dunwoody will shell out $93,000 for a digital video recording system, enabling residents to view city council and planning commission meetings live from home.Continue readingWhile not every city electronically records its council meetings, the practice has become increasingly popular.
“It’s an overall trend of cities, going where people are to share information, to keep people in touch,” said Amy Henderson, Georgia Municipal Association spokeswoman.
Tag Archives: Valdosta City Council
Videos and transparency –John S. Quarterman
Here
I discuss with the mayor
about the Valdosta City Council videoing their entire meetings and putting
them on the web for everybody to see.
The mayor indicated costs of streaming was an issue;
I recommended putting it on YouTube or Vimeo and letting them handle that part.
I think the AJC article he mentioned is this one:
Meeting access video grows among city councils,
by Patrick Fox, 18 Jan 2011.
This comment by the mayor was amusing:
The worst thing you could do would be to have one camera in the back that has room audio.Touche, Mr. Mayor! :-) What do you think, is a noisy video from the back of the room more useful than no video at all? Can you see him waving his arms around? Continue reading
“An error was made” –Luana Goodwin
This LTE appeared in the VTD 23 Jan 2011. -jsq
I wonder if there is any way for the Industrial Authority, County Commission and City Council to now do the right thing for Lowndes County. How can they save face?Reading the scientific data makes it clear that an error was made, and clearly this data wasn’t made available to those who have been charged with finding appropriate industry for us, industry that will raise the quality of life for the citizens of Lowndes County by providing good jobs. They can be excused for an industry that provides only a few jobs. Jobs are jobs, after all. But how can we help them apologize to all of us and thank those citizens who have spent so many hours of their own time gathering information and providing a forum to educate us? I wish it were possible.
Luana Goodwin
Valdosta
Farmers grow renewable energy? –James Wright
Grow crops to burn for fuel, or for food?
Valdosta City Council member
James Wright brings up
an article about farmers growing plants for biomass fuel.
These things get passed around by council members, and I’m pretty sure
this one that came to me indirectly is it:
November 12, 2010 – Incentivizing Renewable Biomass Production,
by New Energy Farms, Leamington, Ontario.
What they’re mainly recommending is
Miscanthus,
which is a genus of clump grass.
After all the citizens left –Valdosta City Council, 20 Jan 2011.
Now call me old-fashioned, but I prefer local farmers growing food Continue reading
After all the citizens left –Valdosta City Council, 20 Jan 2011
Want to know what your city council really thinks?
Stay through the entire meeting
and you’ll get some clues; or watch these videos by some who did stay.
City Manager, Attorney, and each council member say what’s on their minds.
Much of it addresses some of the questions asked by citizens earlier:
cracks in the MLK monument, biomass,
council members answering questions from the audience, etc.
What they didn’t talk about may indicate what various citizens
didn’t succeed in conveying to the council.
It’s not like what they were saying was a secret. The VDT reporter was there. They were finishing up the agenda with the sections “7. City Manager’s Report” and “8. Council Comments”. You can see them adjourn at the end. Some of them groused about the time citizens take up in “Citizens Wishing to be Heard”.
But remember, almost none of those citizens bothered to stay around to listen to them. Among the stay-latest: two cameras for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, providing you these two views: Continue reading
“I don’t feel my interests were adequately represented” –Matt Flumerfelt
First-time speaker Matt Flumerfelt notes the Valdosta City Council
and the Lowndes County Commission both disclaim responsibility for the
Industrial Authority even though both appoint its members,
and he thinks that may make VLCIA’s contract for the biomass plant
challengeable on constitutional grounds.
He also sent LAKE the appended article on 20 Jan 2011.
Video by John S. Quarterman of the regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 20 January 2011, for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Continue readingFaith In Technology Is What Got Us Into This Mess
by Matt FlumerfeltMany people in the Valdosta-Lowndes County community have faith that the proposed Biomass incinerator won’t harm anyone or anything, but faith in technology is what got us into our current environmental mess in the first place. Those old enough to remember the nuclear power debate will remember how many people gave assurances that nuclear power was safe, yet we see today how difficult nuclear waste is to dispose of and how much damage it has caused when things go wrong, which, human nature being what it is, they inevitably do. The recent gulf oil spill would not have happened if
District numbers and MLK repairs –George Rhynes
George Boston Rhynes
asks for Valdosta City Council members
to be easier to visually distinguish,
and thanks council and staff for promising to
pay attention to physical problems with the MLK monument.
Video by John S. Quarterman of the
regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 20 January 2011
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
-jsq
Pollution and a Private Prison? –Dr. Mark George
As
the VDT transcribed:
“I think we can do better than a generator that burns human waste. I think we can do better than a private prison and those are two things that we seem to be excited about as a community.”Dr. Mark George spoke to the Valdosta City Council, 20 Jan 2011:
We’ve previously written about CCA private prisons and AZ immigration law on 21 December 2010:
Considering how many local farmers and others around here use hispanic help without inquiring closely as to where they come from, a CCA prison in Lowndes County would be more than ironic.And in If it’s sunny enough in Buffalo on 16 September 2010: Continue readingSpending state tax dollars to lock people up while cutting funding for education that would cost less per person doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.
Is this what we want to be known for?
Text of letter from Russell Anderson to officials
Can you find a
“veiled threat” in the appended letter?
LAKE couldn’t.
Some people seem to be forming opinions of that letter without ever having read it. LAKE has published links to a PDF of it from four previous posts: “Far from Over”, “What is Fiery Roots”, Russell Anderson Responds, and “We got off on the wrong foot”. Formerly LAKE only had a PDF of a scan of a paper copy of the email of 3 Jan 2011. Per request, Russell Anderson has sent plain text, which appears below. -jsq
Continue readingAll,
My name is Russell Anderson. I am the Co-Director of Collectiveprogression.org and graduate of Valdosta State. I am writing to inform you of my intent to publish the below piece on our website and to our readership as well as produce a full length documentary about the community struggle against the proposed Wiregrass LLC biomass incinerator. I have you all on this email {Sterling Assets, Langdale’s, Council, Commissioners, Authority, Attorneys} and ALL of you have continued to pass the blame and buck on the building of this plant. Rather than doing the more responsible thing (pending EIS),
“Once again you ignore suggestions” –John S. Quarterman
I just sent this. -jsq
From: “John S. Quarterman”Continue reading
To: Brad Lofton
Cc: [see below]
Responding to Brad Lofton’s message, actually Dalton, Georgia already has a 365kW solar array installed and in use. That’s larger than the 350 kW array VLCIA has “about to break ground”, and Dalton got theirs without having to take a biomass plant with it.
As for wood-sourced biomass, Rayonier Jesup Mill produces around 78 MW, which is more than the 40MW biomass plant VLCIA is thinking about starting. Jesup also got high air and water pollution and high crime.
Meanwhile, Dublin is already hiring for 350 jobs for the MAGE SOLAR manufacturing plant, while VLCIA’s biomass plant would only bring 25 jobs.
Once again you ignore suggestions for clean energy projects and reiterate the biomass plant and its bag-on-the-side solar plant as the whole of VLCIA’s plan.
Fortunately, I have confidence that such experienced developers as the VLCIA board can do better than that.