What’s that little shelter by the front gate of VSU? It’s the last physical remnant of the Valdosta Street Railway, an early 20th century streetcar system, when Valdosta was the smallest city in the country to have one. Valdosta had 5,613 people in 1900, about twice as many as present-day Hahira.
Dean Poling described the origins of Valdosta’s streetcars in Valdosta Scene 26 February 2010:
Continue readingYou do know that Valdosta was the smallest city in the U.S. that had a streetcar system, right? Here’s a movie about what probably happened to it, like all the others, followed by a movie about another mode of transportation: bicycles.
“Taken for a Ride” and “Pedal Power!” screening
Public Event · By Valdosta State University Social Issues in Film Series
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
7:00pm
VSU University Center room 1171
DOUBLE-HEADER!“Taken for a Ride” focuses on the Great American Streetcar Scandal (or Conspiracy), in which major US companies deliberately bought-up and dismantled the public light-rail streetcar lines in dozens of American cities. The guilty companies? General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks—all companies that wanted to replace the public streetcars with buses and then private cars.
“Pedal Power!” is an inside look at the world’s growing cycling movement and how bikes are pushing-up against a dominant car culture in North America. From Critical Mass bike rides and “bike-to-work” programs, to increasingly popular “public bike” programs, bicycles are becoming an ever-important component of cities.
Co-sponsored with the Valdosta Community Cycling Center.
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John Page, recent winner of the Republican Primary for
Lowndes County Commission District 5,
spoke as a citizen wishing to be heard in
yesterday’s Commission meeting.
He said he was resigning from his appointed post on the Planning Commission
effective 31 December 2012
because he sees it as a conflict with his upcoming elected position as a
County Commissioner, plus he said he does not have time to do both.
(Since there is no Democratic or other candidate for District 5,
Page will be the Commissioner.)
Page recommended
his primary runoff opponent Jody Hall
as his replacement on the Planning Commission.
Update 2012-09-20: Fixed video embedding.
Here’s
the video:
Resigning from Planning Commission; suggest appoint Jody Hall —John Page
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 September 2012.
I commend John Page for both of his decisions, and for announcing all this in a public meeting in front of a video camera. Maybe as a County Commissioner he will support transparency. And I commend Jody Hall for being willing to serve on the Planning Commission. Maybe as a Planning Commissioner he will support transparency.
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Europe has no shale gas, so, unlike the U.S., natural gas will not be getting in the way of quickly moving to renewable wind and solar energy.
Barbara Lewis and Henning Gloystein wrote for Reuters 23 August 2012, EU Green Energy Drive Says No To Shale Gas, Looks Towards More Renewable Power Sources,
In the medium term, the value of conventional gas is in providing reliable baseload power to supplement unpredictable renewables, which depend on the sun shining or the wind blowing.
Danish state-owned utility DONG Energy, which has relied heavily on coal-fired power generation, sees a combination of gas and renewables as the way to go.
“We see gas-to-power and wind energy as the ideal mix, together comprising clean and stable energy. Wind energy as the clean energy source, and gas-to-power as the balancing power,” Carsten Krogsgaard Thomsen, DONG Energy’s acting CEO, said.
Meanwhile, Windpower Monthly reported 13 August 2012, Dong issues 2012 profit warning,
Continue reading
Yesterday morning’s County Commission Work Session
started on time!
In addition to the open records and open meetings items,
it included a report from KLVB, two rezonings, typo fixes and date changes
in the ULDC, a vanity road name change, an alcohol license and an
alcohol ordinance change, a USGS river gauge, surplus vehicles,
purchase of a new fire truck, and more!
They vote on all this tonight at their Regular Session, 5:30 PM.
Here’s
the agenda.
5.a. Unsurprisingly, the County Manager suggested the County Clerk be appointed the Open Records Officer now required by state law. 5.b. They also have a resolution before them about review and approval of minutes of executive sessions, but of course they don’t allow we the taxpayers to see that before they vote on it.
They considered adopting subdivision infrastructure for 5.c. Glen Laurel and 5.d. Crestwood.
6. Videos of the KLVB report and of applicant Emily Macheski-Preston are in a separate blog post.
7. Public Hearings:
Continue reading
Lowndes County Emergency Management Director Ashley Tye
reported to the Lowndes County Commission at their
Work Session yesterday morning
that
after the floods of 2009, Lowndes County negotiated with USGS to put a
stream level monitor on the Withlacoochee Little River at the GA 122 bridge,
and the county typically renews that funding once a year.
We shall see whether they approve that this evening.
Here's the video:
Lowndes County continuing funding for USGS HWY 122 Stream Gauge —Ashley Tye
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 10 September 2012.
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In
yesterday morning's Work Session,
County Finance Director Stephanie Black
proposed a letter of understanding
for Morgan-Keegan to act as underwriter for
approximately $17 million
to refund the original bonds done for this building as well
as the water-sewer bonds only if the terms are favorable and
the net value savings are at least 3%.
Current projections show a savings of
$1.2 million or a little over 7% at this time.
Chairman Ashley Paulk remarked that:
The bond market has changed drastically.
At least the county palace that former Chairman Rod Casey got a former commission to approve at his last Commission meeting now won't cost we the taxpayers quite as much as we thought. They vote on this tonight.
Here's the video:
County to renegotiate bonds for the county palace
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 10 September 2012.
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In
the 10 September 2012 Lowndes County Commission Work Session,
Aaron Strickland of
Keep Lowndes-Valdosta Beautiful (KLVB)
said there were two applicants for appointement to the
KLVB board: Emily Preston and Deanna Wagner.
They did not speak;
Emily Macheski-Preston and Deanna Wagner.
Ms. Macheski-Preston spoke (included below); Ms. Wagner did not;
maybe tonight.
He gave a brief verbal report, which he said was a summary of a report he submitted last week (which we the taxpayers haven’t seen). He said at their Rivers Alive event last year they had a record number of sites cleaned: seven. Great American Cleanup, KLVB’s signature event used to be 1 day, but this year was 3 days.
He read some statistics on numbers of volunteers and things cleaned up. He listed some future events. There’s more in the video.
Commissioner Richard Raines wanted to know how much time commitment was involved. Answer: an hour per board meeting and helping out with events and committees.
Here’s
the video: video of Aaron Strickland’s aural report:
Proponents of the state-forced charter school constitutional amendment
on the November ballot have a
website
that is full of bait and switch.
Most of it is about what they claim are the benefits of charter schools.
But that’s not what the referendum is about.
Local school boards can already authorize charter schools,
and many of them have.
The referendum would change the Georgia Constitution to authorize
an appointed state board to force charter schools on local elected school
boards that don’t want them,
granting more money per student than in public schools,
with
the difference to be made up from local property and sales taxes.
The most substantive thing I have found on the proponents’ website
says that last is not so, but unconvincingly.
Tony Roberts, President of Georgia Charter Schools Association wrote to All Charter School Leaders and Board Members 7 August 2012, Response to Letter from Herb Garrett of Georgia Superintendents Association,
One final, but important point, local school superintendents and board members were adamantly against any local dollars going to charter schools that were denied by a local school board. The final version of HB 797 was negotiated to ensure that was the case — the language is written right there into the law. So, to recap, they insist on no local money going to state-approved charters, and then get upset about the state money going to charters.
Curiously, he doesn’t cite that purported language. The closest thing I can find in HB 797 is a paragraph I already quoted:
Continue readingYet another reason why we should take water into account in any development plan: fracking for shale gas uses huge amounts of water, competing with everything else, maybe even using more than power plants and cities.
Delaware Riverkeeper and Protecting Our Waters wrote for Waterkeeper Alliance today, The Water Footprint of Shale Gas Development,
Continue reading
Recent studies examining potable water supplies on a global scale, the current trends in American water consumption and the causes of depletion of this essential resource are helping us to understand that the footprint of shale gas development expands indefinitely when measured in water….
Of the seven nations where the groundwater footprint is greatest, the U.S. is one of the fastest speeding towards disaster. According
to Cynthia Barnett’s Blue Revolution, scientists say the 20th century was the wettest in a thousand years and now drier times are ahead.[3] This means that many of the management schemes we use now—based on 20th C planning—need to be changed to avoid catastrophe. So the 410 billion gallons of water America uses every day will suck the nation dry if we don’t stop over-tapping nearly every river and aquifer.
The biggest U.S. users are power plants and agriculture with private