Tag Archives: Valdosta

ADS revolving door with local and state government

Not paid enough as an elected official? Apply to Advanced Disposal for a job! Then you can run for the statehouse, win, and sponsor legislation about waste collection! Oh, look: there’s Steve Edwards again.

CummingHome.com updated 25 September 2011 a press release originally published 20 September 2009, Former Mayor Joins the Advanced Disposal Atlanta Marketing Team,

Advanced Disposal Services, Inc., a regional provider of integrated solid waste and recycling collection, transfer, and disposal services, is pleased to announce the hiring of Brett Harrell as the Municipal Marketing & Government Affairs Representative for the Metro-Atlanta area.

Mr. Harrell brings a multitude of experience to his new position having spent time as former Mayor of the City of Snellville where he administered the city’s solid waste and recycling program serving Continue reading →

Videos of morning of budget discussion @ LCC 2013-06-05

Here’s a video playlist of Wednesday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Budget Discussion Meeting.


Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 June 2013.

They broke for lunch shortly before noon, and Gretchen had another appointment, so the video ends there, although the Commission apparently continued te discussion in the afternoon. Hm, if they had real discussion at their other meetings, they wouldn’t have to save it up for long marathon sessions like this….

-jsq

More clues to how much garbage collection fees will go up

ADS proposed last December to Lincolnton, GA, to start trash collection with a rate very like what Veolia bid to Lowndes County, with increases every year after that.

The Lincoln Journal wrote 6 December 2012, Council hears proposal to privatize garbage collection,

The Lincolnton City Council heard a proposal to privatize the municipality’s trash collection service at its regular meeting held Monday, December 3. The Lincolnton City Council heard a proposal to privatize the municipality’s trash collection service at its regular meeting held Monday, December 3.

The presentation was made by Kevin Rupinta, general manager, and Steve Edwards, area municipal marketing manager, of Advanced Disposal, the Columbia County company that also serves Lincoln County.

The written proposal stated: “Since Advanced Disposal collects garbage in Lincoln County and runs through and around the City of Lincolnton, Advanced Disposal offers the following to reduce the city’s expenses:

(1) Purchase the city’s garbage trucks at an agreed upon fair market value.

(2) Purchase the city’s carts at an agreed upon fair market value.

(3) Provide garbage service for the city at rates that mirror those charged to the county.”

The rates quoted were:

Continue reading →

San Onofre nuke closing for good –Socal Edison

A big victory today for anti-nuke and pro-solar activists: the leaky San Onofre nukes will stay closed for good! Cost to close them? Between between $450 million and $650. This is after SoCal Edison and 20% owner San Diego Gas & Electric “more than $780 million replacing the steam generators several years ago, which ratepayers are now repaying.” The new Plant Vogtle nukes are already about a billion dollars over and 19 months behind: let’s stop them now before Georgia Power and Southern Company waste any more of our money on them.

PR from SoCal Edison today, Southern California Edison Announces Plans to Retire San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,

Continue reading →

Budget hearing public notices @ LCC 2013-06-05

Yesterday’s County Commission meeting was billed as a Budget Discussion Meeting, and apparently it was not a public hearing on the county’s budget, because state law requires such a hearing to be advertised in the newspaper or published as a news story, a week in advance. This is different from public notice for other Commission meetings: for budget hearings the notice has to be not just sent to the newspaper: it has to be published, and not in the legal notices section, and it has to appear at least a week before the hearing. It’s also illegal to refuse to provide a copy of the submitted draft budget to the public or the news media:

O.C.G.A. 36-81-5.(d) On the day that the proposed budget is submitted to the governing authority for consideration, a copy of the budget shall be placed in a public location which is convenient to the residents of the unit of local government. The governing authority shall make every effort to provide convenient access to the residents during reasonable business hours so as to accord every opportunity to the public to review the budget prior to adoption by the governing authority. A copy of the budget shall also be made available, upon request, to the news media.

LAKE is a news medium, according to federal law.

Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts has Georgia Law on Local Government Budgets: Continue reading →

Solid Waste Corruption in Gwinnett County?

A federal corruption probe and a developer charged with bribing a county commissioner, who already resigned, admitting it; all that plus drug dealing, nepotism, perjury, cronyism, and at least one prison term, in Gwinnett County. This AJC story has a quote by VSU alumnus and current ADS rep. Steve Edwards.

David Wickert wrote for the AJC 8 September 2012, Widening probe stains Gwinnett reputation,

New details of a federal investigation paint a troubling picture of corruption deeply embedded in Gwinnett County—allegations that may undermine the county’s previously sterling reputation as an economic dynamo.

Bribery allegations have now embroiled two county commissioners, a planning commissioner and a zoning board member….

One of Lasseter’s first acts upon taking office in January 2009 was to appoint Gary — a longtime friend — to the Municipal-Gwinnett County Planning Commission, which would pass judgment on his development plans, including the waste transfer station off Winder Highway.

More dominoes in the federal corruption probe began falling last week, when Continue reading →

Birds stop cleanup work at closed Hanford plutonium plant

Birds nested using radioactive mud from WW II-era nuclear bomb production plant, stopping attempts to clean up some of the worst leaking atomic waste, much of which is liquid in leaking tanks near the Columbia River. We have nuclear plants leaking radioactive tritium next to the Chattahoochee and Altamaha Rivers, and radiation is detectible in the Savannah River near Plant Vogtle. How many radioactive solar panels or windmills have you heard of?

Annette Cary wrote for the Tri-City Herald yesterday, Birds at Hanford vit plant spread contaminated waste,

Work stopped Wednesday morning at parts of the Hanford vitrification plant after radioactive contamination was detected under a bird’s nest, according to Bechtel National.

The contamination is suspected of coming from mud used for the nest, which may have belonged to a swallow, said Bechtel spokesman Todd Nelson. Only a small amount of contaminated soil was found, and the contamination was at a low level.

Should workers believe that?

Continue reading →

Community Calendar –Jane F. Osborn 2013-06-06

The latest update (Summer 2013) is online for the community calendar produced by Jane F. Osborn who organizes the Valdosta Civic Roundtable. She wrote:

…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.

She also remarks:

Please note that this prints out to over 60 pages, so you may not want to print it. Please feel free to send notices of events in the community that are open to the public. Jane

Jane F. Osborn, MSSW
Valdosta, GA
229-630-0924

LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don’t.

-jsq

ADS buys At Your Disposal

ADS just bought a company called At Your Disposal, Inc. That’s interesting, because just six weeks ago State Sen. Tim Golden’s fraternity brother Steve Edwards, Atlanta Sales and Marketing for Advanced Disposal Systems (ADS), said he didn’t forsee any additional acquisitions. Additional after ADS’s purchase of Veolia six months ago, just after the Lowndes County Commission chose Veolia’s highest bid for waste collection, which was not as high as its soon-to-be-parent-company ADS’s bid for the same service package.

ADS PR of yesterday, ADVANCED DISPOSAL ACQUIRES AT YOUR DISPOSAL, INC. FURTHER EXPANDING COMPANY’S NORTH GEORGIA OPERATIONS

MINERAL BLUFF, Ga., (June 4, 2012) — Advanced Disposal Services Inc., a regional integrated environmental services company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, has acquired the assets of At Your Disposal, Inc. The purchase further expands the company’s footprint in the North Georgia marketplace.

“Acquiring At Your Disposal presented an excellent Continue reading →

GM Ag corporations thank Jack Kingston for Monsanto rider

A long list of agricultural corporations wrote a letter thanking Jack Kingson (R GA-01) for working to get the Monsanto rider into the 2013 Ag. bill:

Again, we commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston’s efforts and urge the support of Section 733 in the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
This letter is on Monsanto’s own website. It contains not one word about public health or quality of food or preservation of farmers who do not choose to poison people the Monsanto way. The glyphosate mentioned in the letter is the principal ingredient in Roundup, and research shows it causes DNA damage even when vastly diluted. Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant crops are genetically modified to include a gene which produces a poison that other research indicates is toxic to humans. These poisons are what the Monsanto rider makes harder to get out of fields.

June 12, 2012 
The Honorable Harold Rogers 
Chairman 
House Committee on Appropriations 
United States House of Representatives 
H‐307 U.S. Capitol 
Washington, D.C. 20515  		The Honorable Norm Dicks 
Ranking Member 
House Committee on Appropriations 
United States House of Representatives 
1016 Longworth House Office Building 
Washington, DC 20515 
Page 1

Dear Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Dicks:   

Our organizations strongly support Section 733 of the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The provision will give growers assurance that crops developed through biotechnology that have already been approved by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) can be planted and harvested under temporary stewardship conditions in the event of litigation against the agency’s decision. We commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston for including Section 733 in the subcommittee bill and urge your support for this necessary provision when the Appropriations Committee considers this bill later this month. The provision addresses Continue reading →