The latest update (20 February 2012) 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.
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
Budget amendments on the agenda for the Lowndes County Commission 
Work Session Monday at 8:30 AM 25 June 2012 and Regular Session 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 June 2012. See if you can find some clues to what those amendments might be in the the videos of last week’s budget hearing.
Also this week: appointments to four boards (Parks & Rec, Construction, KLVB, and Library), a public hearing on a road abandonment (Brinson Drive), and the County Manager has something to say about FY 2010 Community Development Block Grant. Plus a bunch of service contracts. Here’s the agenda for tomorrow and Tuesday.
-jsq
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
We’ve heard even German coal importers say solar beats coal. How long until clean solar beats dirty natural gas fracking?
Southern Company has already cut energy production from coal in half, from 70 or 80% to 35%. 
Unfortunately, SO did that mostly by shifting to natural gas. Natural gas produced through “a revolution in shale gas”, commonly known as fracking. Do we want to trade dirty water for clean air?
Unlike Johnson & Johnson and Dell (and Coke and Pepsi and Amazon and and more than a dozen more, including even Wal-Mart), the Southern Company has not cut ties with ALEC and its pro-fracking and anti-solar campaign. Why is the Southern Company betting on a dirty horse?
How long until SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning’s “one day” when renewable energy becomes economical? Sooner than his prediction of next decade, as in two years ago solar crossed nuclear, wind is already at parity with nuclear, and even Southern Company realizes coal doesn’t beat anything anymore.
How long before solar beats natural gas, relegating gas to much-reduced use as a backup for sun and wind power, as John Blackburn already projected in March 2010 can happen in North Carolina?
How long will it take for the sun and the wind, with a little water and even less natural gas, to power the world? How long? Not long.
Because the arc of the solar Moore’s Law is long, but it bends down for price per watt, while the price of fracking, no matter the quakes and dirty water for ever, does not.
-jsq
When did state tax policy become a plaything for companies, instead of a source of services for taxpayers? 
There’s a lot of fudging in the T-SPLOST article in the current Georgia Trend. I guess that’s not surprising when it’s mostly about the viewpoint of the CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
Ben Young wrote for Georgia Trend June 2012, Transportation Game Changer: July’s statewide referendum will determine Georgia’s economic future. There’s a lot at stake for all 12 regions.
“The reason our port is the fastest growing is because our road and rail network is so efficient,” says Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic De-velopment, another top RTR advocate. “If Zell Miller and other former administrations hadn’t done something to make the port more of a growth engine, we would now have little to no success in advanced manufacturing.”
Yet the rest of the article is all about roads, with little or nothing about rail, except for metro Atlanta and Charlotte as a comparison. Where are the rail projects linking Valdosta to Atlanta and Savannah, or the Valdosta MSA commuter rail or bus system? Nowhere in T-SPLOST.
It is also unclear how Georgia can sustain growth in logistics-related sectors that depend on moving goods quickly and efficiently — sectors believed to be leading us out of the recession — without strengthening the highway network, which has suffered due to lower gas tax revenues. Without an additional tax, there is no way to keep up what we have, much less build anything new, proponents say.
Um, then maybe the governor shouldn’t have 
refused to extend Georgia’s gas tax by 8/10 cent (almost as much as proposed the 1 cent T-SPLOST tax, but on gasoline, not on everything including food). And note “believed to be” and “proponents say”. Later in the same article:
People are desperate for more transportation funding and the improvements it will bring, but the referendum itself is complex.
Who are these unnamed “people”? The same “proponents” by whom things are “believed to be”? Isn’t it wonderful to base tax policy on hearsay?
If Georgia was serious about creating jobs to lead us out of the recession and into a national and world leader, Georgia legislators Continue reading
Ankle monitoring is fully funded this coming fiscal year, with a 2% increase, and the Sheriff’s office accounts for 35% of the county’s budget, yet the Public Defender had to beg for more funds. The state-imposed property tax assessment cap has expired, but no increases in the tax digest are yet expected. Sales tax revenues are gradually increasing. The state is fiddling with motor vehicle license fees, and nobody can predict the effect of that. The Industrial Authority and Parks and Rec are now shown in the Lowndes County budget; they and other transfers out account for about 15% of the budget, specifically about 6% VLCIA and 7% VLPRA. All that and more at Tuesday’s budget hearing.
A copy of the actual budget will be up shortly. Meanwhile, here a video playlist for the Lowndes County budget public hearing of 19 June 2012.
Chairman Ashley Paulk was not there. Commissioner Crawford Powell chaired the meeting instead.
Parks and Rec’s 1.25 mil and
Industrial Authority’s 1 mil
are now shown along with the county’s 7.31 mils of property tax
and integrated into the budget charts.
They and other transfers out account for about
15% of general fund expenditures.
Finance Director Stephanie Black said
Your CHIP grant was not renewed.
That’s news to me, since I thought the Commission Continue reading
You may have wondered, how was Southern Company (SO) CEO Thomas A. Fanning so ready and able to respond at length to any question at the SO shareholder meeting? Because he’s a class A CEO who does his homework, such as this white paper he wrote dated September 2011: American Energy Policy, Jobs and the Economy, in which he explains what he meant by “the revolution we have seen in the shale gas industry”.
So, natural gas is important, but it’s not a panacea. Here’s why.
First, the reason prices have dropped so far is because of a new technology called fracking, which releases natural gas from so-called tight rock formations, such as shale gas. Fracking is the injection of chemicals underground, which have the effect of fracturing the rock deposits, thereby releasing the natural gas. There are environmental concerns around the chemicals associated with the fracking process. Those concerns have to be resolved.
Those concerns range from polluted groundwater to earthquakes. It’s great that SO is turning away from coal. I don’t think it’s so great to trade dirty air from coal for dirty water and earthquakes from fracking.
Secondly, many of these shale gas deposits are in places where there is no sufficient pipeline infrastructure necessary to move the gas to the places it’s needed to generate the electricity. Pipelines will have to be built. It will take time. We need to resolve that issue, too.
Meanwhile, rooftop solar Continue reading
The first 100% VSEB contract, local industry expansion, new prospects, a bank lost a bond, and new Georgia sunshine laws require attention. Here are videos of the entire 22 May 2012 meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) board. Here’s the agenda.
Guests included a camera crew from VSU, one of whom was Cameron Copeland, Chairman Roy Copeland’s son.
CPA Tom Davis said the county told him revenues were flat, so VLCIA would get about the same amount as last year. Tom Call asked if revenues would catch up over 6 months or 8 months. Call said they would eventually.
Tom Call reported for the budget committee and said
expenses were projected to be down for the coming year,
plus the budget would be more specific about where revenues
were being spent.
Meghan Duke
reported
they had gotten an article in the newspaper,
and they had held an OSHA training meeting at Wiregrass Tech.
They plan to hold further courses and will send out a survey about that.
She also
expected updates to the land-searching
Valdosta Prospector website
to be ready in a few weeks.
She and Andrea Schruijer had
selected 3 finalists
out of 10 proposals to redo the VLCIA website.
Her only stated criterion for picking one was
“I just have to go with my gut.”
Website completion had been scheduled for September, but had been deferred. Roy Copeland wanted to know when. Continue reading
New Georgia sunshine law explained by VLCIA attorney J. Stephen Gupton.
Some highlights include:
Here’s the video:
New Georgia sunshine laws explained by VLCIA lawyer
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager, Tom Davis, CPA, Lu Williams, Operations Manager, S. Meghan Duke, Public Relations & Marketing Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 May 2012.
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
-jsq
VLCIA is even posting notices of committee meetings now! According to their website, the Industrial Authority has two meetings today:
Committee Meeting Notice The Nominating Committee for the Valdosta Lowndes County Industrial Authority will meet Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 1:00 PM at the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.
The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority’s Regular Monthly Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 5:30 PM at the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street.
The nominating committee is for officers; they elect new ones annually. Here’s the agenda. It has no content, but at least they post one. Unlike their minutes.
-jsq
Continue readingValdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, June 19, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
The Hospital Authority is selling off a mental health and substance abuse treatment center: a public hearing 9AM 23 July 2012.
Update 8 July 2012: fixed date in title.
Found in Georgia Public Notice:
The Valdosta Daily Times
Lowndes CountyPUBLIC HEARING NOTICE PURSUANT TO O.C.G.A. 31-7-74.3
PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE PURSUANT TO O.C.G.A.
31-7-74.3The Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County, Georgia will
J. Randall Sauls, Secretary,hold a public hearing regarding a proposed sale to Acadia Greenleaf, LLC, an affiliate of Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc., 830 Crescent Centre Drive, Franklin, Tennessee 37067, the real estate, assets and operations owned by The Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County, Georgia associated with its operation of the Greenleaf Center located at 2209 Pineview Drive, Valdosta, Georgia and the Greenleaf Outpatient Center, located 2217 Pineview Drive, Valdosta, Georgia. The public hearing shall be held on July 23, 2012, at 9:00 a.m. in Dining Rooms 1 and 2 on Level 1 at South Georgia Medical Center, 2501 N. Patterson Street, Valdosta, Georgia 31603. At said public hearing, the subject matters required by O.C.G.A. 31-7-74.3 will be described, discussed and disclosed.
The Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County, Georgia
Walter H. New
Attorney at Law
P.O. Box 111
Quitman GA 31643
00030430
5/22,25;06/01/12
-gretchen