Tag Archives: Valdosta

Putting power on the grid at Wiregrass Solar Commissioning

Congratulations on the commissioning ceremony for Wiregrass Solar!


Allan Ricketts (Acting Executive Director, VLCIA), Georgia Power rep., Roy Copeland (VLCIA Board member), Crawford Powell (Lowndes County Commissioner), John J. Fretti (Mayor of Valdosta), Therrell “Sonny” Murphy (Chairman of Sterling Planet), Tim Golden (Georgia State Senator), Pete Marte (CEO of Hannah Solar).

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Community Building vs Anonymity

LAKE aims to provide transparency through citizen involvement and publishing information on the web and through the press.

There is a balance between citizen participation when saying things which one believes may be controversial and being protected from retaliation for having those potentially unpopular views. Because retaliation can happen there are times when anonymity is appropriate. If someone were to obtain, and want published, important documents about a local issue, they might choose to remain behind the scenes. This does happen with press sources and could happen here.

However, in the realm of community participation and community building, it is important for those who have a say to do so in public: both citizens and elected officials. Leigh Touchton has commented on this comparing people who speak at the citizen portions of public meetings or signing petitions with those who only meet privately with elected officials. People who are willing to put their name on their opinion are more respected than those who will not.

We recognize that people often share an IP address because they have one DSL or Cable connection at their home (like John and Gretchen Quarterman do). Or, they are using a shared network (say at the library or at a coffeeshop, as Gretchen Quarterman and George Rhynes have also been known to do). So, we recognize that an IP address is not a personal identifier. However, when comments from mulitiple people come from the same IP address (leigh.touchton, wow, duh, amen, thankyou, sludge) it behooves the address owner to take care with their network access. We agree with what jsq wrote about sockpuppets .

Everyone has a voice and this forum is an opportunity to have yours heard, if you choose. If you are too ashamed of your opinion to put your name on it, perhaps this forum is not for you. Community building comes from people building relationships and having dialog. We may not all agree, but if light is shined on issues, informed decisions might be made and in building community, fears may be decreased.

– Carolyn, Gretchen and jsq for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange

Using oil to move an automobile down the street … not something you’re going to see in 20 to 25 years. —Pete Marte

Pete Marte of Hannah Solar predicted that within a generation cars will run on electricity generated by solar arrays like the one commissioned last Thursday.

Col. Allan Ricketts introduced Pete Marte, CEO of Hannah Solar.

Here’s Part 1 of 3: Continue reading →

New Valdosta Council Districts (Proposed)

Valdosta City Councillor Tim Carroll (District 5) sent this map to LAKE for publication. I think District 5 is the one that sticks out to the northwest. The cover letter appears to have been addressed to his constituents. -jsq
Date: Friday, May 13, 2011, 8:07 PM

All –

I wanted to share the attached council district map changes with all of you. This map shows in the dark lines the existing city council districts.  The color area shows the changes.

As you can see my district, which is purple will change some as a result of the census numbers.  District 5 is giving up a little on the south border to District 6 and picking up on the eastern middle borders from District 4. The target average was 9084 citizens per district based off of the city wide count of 54,518.  District 5 will end up with a little more than that, but within the margin allowed by the census department.

I have enjoyed representing those that will move to district 6,

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Do you miss him yet? Brad Lofton in SC

He may be gone, but he’s still up to his old tricks, and he’s using us for a reference.

Adva Saldinger wrote in The Sun News 8 May 2011, Lofton hits ground running in new post; CEO asking taxpayers for $1.6 million:

The new Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp. president and chief executive is by many accounts aggressive and personable, and he says, ready to take charge and bring much needed jobs to the area quickly.

Brad Lofton said he will bring 500 jobs in the first 18 months, and an average of 500 jobs each year over the next five to 10 years.

And a pony!

Has anybody verified the jobs Lofton claimed he brought to Lowndes County? Continue reading →

“Solar power at one time was a theory, and now it’s in practice” —Sen. Tim Golden

State Sen. Tim Golden used Yogi Berra to illustrate that solar power is no longer just a theory: it’s now implemented in practice.
Yogi said, and I quote:
In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.
…

I thought about that quote because solar power at one time was a theory, and now it’s in practice.

A very good point.

(This is also where Sonny Murphy got the idea to quote Yogi Berra.)

Sen. Golden mentioned that he and Sonny Murphy grew up with Gov. Nathan Deal.

He said he met Pete Marte of Hannah Solar at the governor’s office the previous day, at the signing of HB 346, which includes solar tax credits. That’s the bill that Wes Hudson said “extends the renewable energy tax credit to the year ending Dec. 31, 2014, and for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 it newly expands the total statewide credit amount from $2.5 million to $5 million in each of the years 2012-2014.”

Sen. Golden once again said we’d gone from theory to practice.

He lauded Jimmy Carter for putting solar panels on the White House Continue reading →

The city says solar is the future —WCTV

Dontaye Carter wrote for WCTV, Local Community Goes Solar
The Azalea City is now home to one of the largest solar arrays in Georgia. The city is hoping the solar power will provide a cleaner, greener energy source for the future.

Note “one of the largest solar arrays in Georgia” instead of Mayor Fretti’s “the largest array in the state of Georgia”. This is because Pete Marte of Hannah Solar had to correct what the mayor said. But the mayor promised to make this one bigger if somebody else leapfrogged it, so time to get cracking!

Back to the WCTV article:

The $1.4 million Wiregrass Solar project was built on two acres of land, which will produce 350-thousand kilowatts per hour of electricity annually for the next 30 years.

On average that will come out to about nine cents per kilowatt hour.

The city says solar is the future and on Thursday it lit the way.

Indeed!
There are 1,100 solar panels here, but organizers say the most surprising part is it took 18 months to find financing, but it only took five days to build.

If you’re wondering what made Valdosta such a popular spot to build the solar arrays, the company, Hannah Solar says it was the attraction of the Wiregrass Biomass plant and…

“The second is the sun. We get some incredible sun down here in Valdosta and it’s a longer solar day because we’re farther south,” said Hannah Solar CEO Pete Marte.

Funny how the biomass plant has taken even longer to not find financing, and still is nowhere near even starting building, if it ever gets there. Expanding the solar array as the mayor said we would sounds a lot more practical.

-jsq

Come back and expand on this one —Valdosta Mayor John Fretti

Yes, let’s celebrate Hannah Solar and this solar array! But why do people have to keep gilding the lily and claiming it’s the largest in the state when it wasn’t even back at groundbreaking? So if Valdosta Mayor John Fretti and County Commissioner Crawford Powell have agreed to expand this solar array if somebody leapfrogs it, time to get cracking! It was already leapfrogged before it was built.

After lauding his class of Leadership Lowndes over others, Mayor Fretti complimented various local organizations and said:

…not only that it has a good quality of life, it has the infrastructure that is needed for industrial recruitment, but that you will be successful when you locate in Valdosta-Lowndes County, and I think Hannah Solar is evidence of that.
All true, and note which comes first: “a good quality of life.”

Mayor Fretti quoted the first law of thermodynamics (conservation and conservation of energy) and remarked:

But now we have some energy sources in our area that we can take advantage of. Unfortunately we don’t have an ocean for tidal power. Unfortunately we don’t have geothermal as much as other areas of the country.

We do have sunlight. Certainly not as much as some areas of the country, but we have an abundance enough that we could put out what is currently the largest array in the state of Georgia.

That’s all good stuff, except this wasn’t the biggest solar array in the state even the last time Mayor Fretti stood on the same spot and said the same thing.

Maybe he (and everyone) should double-check what VLCIA tells him.

Brad Lofton knew Continue reading →

How to get public officials to respond to the citizens?

Leigh Touchton asked me,
Mr. Quarterman, what can we do, do we have to go to the state legislature to get a law passed to force these so-called public officials to answer questions and respond to the citizens?
First of all, my compliments to anyone such as Leigh Touchton who has been doing politics around here longer than me for asking my opinion, because that indicates they are pretty good at it and are probably asking many people their opinions.

My answer: carrots along with sticks, and shine some light! That all builds political capital, which will be needed for elections.

We need many people building a community doing many things. If I knew a simple answer that would change things magically overnight, I’d recommend it, but I don’t. I don’t even know if I know a long answer, but I’m pretty sure that any answer will require a community, because Continue reading →

What does this mean? —Leigh Touchton

This comment from Leigh Touchton came in last night on It’s not over until it’s over. I have added links and pictures. -jsq
I asked VLCIA Board member Roy Copeland afterwards whether this means the biomass incinerator is STILL going to be built? He shrugged and walked away.

Karen Noll asked Allan Ricketts what does this mean, since we all heard Lowndes County Commission Chairman Paulk give us a very different scenario at the last LCC meeting, and his remarks were covered in the Valdosta Daily Times. Mr. Ricketts said he was not aware of Chairman Paulk’s remarks.

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