Tag Archives: Valdosta

Stockholm Fossil Fuel Free City 2050

If a cold Nordic city at the latitude of Anchorage can do this, sunny Valdosta can do this:
The City of Stockholm’s “Action Programme on Climate Change” involves the participation of several groups: the City of Stockholm’s own departments, local businesses and those who live and work in the city. The work has been successful so far and the emission of greenhouse gases has been reduced. In 1990, emissions of 5.3 tons of CO2e* per person were registered compared with 4.0 tons CO2e per person in 2005.

The long-term target is for Stockholm to continue to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases at the same rate as between 1990 and 2005. In theory, this means that Stockholm will become a fossil fuel free city by 2050.

Greenhouse gas targets for the period of 2005-2050 compared with the base year of 1990.

* CO2e = means of specifying the effect of a gas on the emission of greenhouse gases compared to carbon dioxide.

-jsq

PS: This post owed to Tim Carroll, who saw it in Time Magazine.

Wiregrass Tech town hall on a soft skills/work ethics curriculum 8 August 2011

Found on the Lowndes County web pages:

Town Hall Meeting

with state and local leaders
Monday, August 8, 2011
6:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.

Wiregrass Georgia Technical College
Brooks Hall Conference Center
4089 Val-Tech Road, Valdosta

Give your input on a
soft skills/work ethics curriculum
required by House Bill 186 to help
prepare our future workforce for success and
help our businesses and industries to prosper.

Meeting will be moderated by Melvin Everson,
Executive Director of the Governor’s Office
of Workforce Development.

For directions or information please call 229-333-2121.

“It’s not about the children. It’s about somebody’s ego.” —Sam Allen, FVCS, 7 July 2011

Sam Allen asked in various ways:
“What about the children?”
He made it clear he doesn’t think school consolidation will help the children, and it will definitely hurt current Valdosta teachers and staff, so he says don’t do it.

Continuing the FVCS press conference, Sam Allen asked some good questions,

“If the school system was good enough for them, why isn’t it good enough for us?”
and
“If there’s not going to be any change, why are we doing it?”

Here’s Part 1 of 9: Continue reading →

Tinkering with number of schools doesn’t improve education —John S. Quarterman

While I agree with most of Karen Noll’s post, especially the part about CUEE should come clean about why it’s spending so much money on something about which it knows little, I don’t agree that consolidating high schools would help.

I remember when Lowndes County consolidated two high schools into one, and the rationale was cost saving and more resources for science classes. What it was really about was football. And it worked: Lowndes High School now often wins the state championship, and Valdosta hasn’t in a decade. While education lags behind.

I think the Lowndes County Board of Education is doing the right Continue reading →

We’re here to save our schools —Sam Allen, FVCS, 7 July 2011

Sam Allen, former chair of the Valdosta school board and head of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) held a press conference to announce opposition after CUEE announced 9,000 petitions for a referendum to combine the Valdosta and Lowndes County school systems.. Why so late with the opposition?

Sam Allen explained:

“We were scared. We were intimidated because we had heard about all these consultants coming down, and all these studies being done. So we just thought that we would just sit back and watch and this thing would eventually go away like a bad dream. But folks I want you to know it’s not going away like a bad dream. It’s becoming a nightmare.

Now we stand before you with one purpose in mind: do not sign any petitions. … If it comes to a vote, we want you to vote no.”

Guess they’re not scared any more.

He added: Continue reading →

Who wants to live in a prison colony?

Judy Green, a prison policy analyst says:
“The very first contract for the first private prison in America went to CCA, from INS.”
Hear her in this video Private Prisons-Commerce in Souls by Grassroots Leadership that explains the private prison trade of public safety for private profit:

A local leader once called private prisons “good clean industry”. Does locking up people for private profit sound like “good clean industry” to you? Remember, not only is the U.S. the worst in the world for locking people up (more prisoners per capita and total than any other country in the world), but Georgia is the worst in the country, with 1 in 13 adults in the prison system. And private prisons don’t save money and they don’t improve local employment. As someone says in the video, who wants to live in a prison colony?

We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education.

-jsq

PS: Owed to Jeana Brown.

1 in 13 Georgia adults in the prison system —Pew Center on the States

Georgia is number 1 in something: locking people up, 1 in 13 of adults, according to the Pew Center on the States.

That costs us more than a billion dollars a year in tax money, 5.9% of the state budget. That’s up from $133.26 million in 1983, increased by more than a factor of seven.

Meanwhile, the correctional population swelled from around 100,000 in 1982 to more than 550,000 in 2007. And while other states have started decreasing their prison populations, Georgia’s continues to increase. The state is even coming up with new ways to lock people up, such as kicking them out of mental institutions. We seem headed back towards plantation slave labor and prison road gangs in for minor drug infractions.

How about we reverse this trend? Continue reading →

Sunday alcohol sales last night was first reading in Valdosta City Council

Two comments yesterday morning:
Just for clarification purposes – this will be the “first reading” on this issue. No vote will take place tonight. It will be placed on our next council meeting agenda later this month for the second reading. That is when it will come to a vote.
-Tim Carroll
Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Carroll. At the reading today, I hope to present to you and all of the other fine leaders of our city the signatures gathered thus far.
-Alexander Abell
Here is Alexander Abell’s previous letter, which includes a link to the petition.

-jsq

Sunday Sales of Alcohol —Alexander Abell

Received yesterday. -jsq
Depending on what City Council decides at tomorrow’s meeting, citizens may get a chance to vote in November whether or not to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages in stores on Sundays. As an American and a strong believer in freedom and democracy, I support this vote. I wonder why some protest even having a vote.

I cannot think of a single good legal argument for banning the sale of alcohol on Sundays. If you consider alcohol sinful, you are free not to purchase or consume any no matter the day of the week. If it is not against your own morals, why should

Continue reading →

Many small ponds for flood control and irrigation

So Valdosta’s ponds for flood control idea is a good start on local water issues. Rather than a few big antiseptic ponds, how about many small distributed ponds, like the Georgia Soil and Water Conservation Commission’s Ponds Program:
Because of increased irrigation from existing ponds in Southeast Georgia due to saltwater intrusion into groundwater aquifers and moratoriums on well drillings along Georgia’s coast, GSWCC, in cooperation with NRCS, developed the Ponds Program. By helping landowners to construct new and renovate existing ponds for irrigation, the Ponds Program has been able to take advantage of rain harvesting to increase landowners’ irrigation capabilities while simultaneously reducing withdrawal from our aquifers, protecting and improving water quality, capturing sediment to reduce downstream transport, and providing wildlife habitats.

-jsq