Norman Bennett, VLCIA board member and former chairman of the Lowndes County Commmission,
asked Corey Hull:
Can you explain that again for me about the penalties if the voters don’t pass the tax? If the county’s got a project, then they’ve got to put up ten percent or whatever the percentage is?Continue reading
What’s this about yet another sales tax decided on by
regional transportation boards and GDOT?
Corey Hull of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO) explained T-SPLOST at the regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). Georgia HB 277, which was passed by the legislature and signed into law last year, calls for a 1% regional sales tax (T-SPLOST) to fund transportation projects.
The region including Lowndes County has 18 counties, Continue reading
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:55:16 -0400Continue readingDear Councilman Wright.
Valid points and a great question to ponder. You may recall my quote from Benjamin Franklin: “Waste not, want not”.
Add to that a quote from the Sierra Club: “Energy use should be minimized through conservation and efficiency. In the near future, efficiency is the only “energy source” which does not incur some environmental damage and which is available immediately in generous supply. Sophisticated building construction, efficient appliances, recycling, modernized industrial processes, programmable thermostats, public transit supplemented by fuel-efficient cars, and many other innovative technologies can reduce energy use tremendously, while saving money.”
In other words, we are wasting enormous amounts of energy and money
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:11:48 -0400Continue readingI thought you all might find this power point article interesting. It was sent to me by a group representing local small farmers who are looking into growing bio-crops for economic opportunities to feed their families. The information below is from the power point presentation.
THE GREENING OF BLACK AMERICA INITIATIVE:
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:59:49 -0400Continue readingJames:
Thanks so much for sharing this and for your continued strong support of our client’s green renewable energy project. In addition to assisting the country in reducing our consumption of middle eastern fuel and improving the environment, this project will provide a much needed economic impact for landowners of every race, and the Industrial Authority will assist in the efforts underway to assist local farmers. Google “benefits of biomass electricity,”
© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons.
Monthly LAKE Meeting
When: 5:30 PM, Tuesday 5 April 2011
Where: Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli
1407 W Hill Ave Ste 1
Valdosta, GA 31601
(229) 241-9944
That’s on Hill Ave just east of St. Augustine Road. They’re open until 9PM, and they’d be happy to push a few tables together for us.
Restaurant review and source of the picture.
Help cover food, water, transportation, incarceration, solar energy, biomass, and regular local government meetings: you never know when news will be made!
If you follow the LAKE blog, On the LAKE Front, which you can also see through the LAKE facebook page, you know what we cover, from protesters to private prisons to gardening, all of which turn out to be related. What else do you want to investigate? You can be LAKE, too! Continue reading
Molly Duet
writes in the VSU newspaper today:
Protestors wearing respirator masks held signs reading “Biomass? No!” in front of the Valdosta City Hall building on Thursday. Members of the Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy, the VSU student organization Students Against Violating the Environment, and other concerned Valdosta citizens showed up to protest the construction of the Wiregrass Power: Biomass Electric Generating Plant.The Spectator article quotes from two speakers for whom LAKE happens to have video, linked below. Continue reading“We already have solar power resources in place that we could be using and I feel like money should be directed towards that,” Ivey Roubique, vice-president of the Student Geological Society, said. “It wouldn’t be good for the community and even though I’m in college here it still matters.”
When public officials ignore objections for long enough, eventually
people start speculating as to their motives, in this case about the proposed biomass plant.
Here’s
the video:
-jsq
Here’s the video:I’m the president of Students Against Violating the Environment at VSU. I’m here representing 200+ members of SAVE, that consists of students, faculty, community members. We are deeply concerned with environmental issues and we are networking together to make this city a more humane and sustainable community for future generations.
As a student, I feel I have the right to be able to breathe clean air at the college I attend. With this biomass plant possibly being built here, the future for generations to come are in jeopardy, and we want to protect our fellow and future students’ health.
Please take into consideration the future health of this university and its community, and don’t sell grey water to the proposed biomass plant.
Erin Hurley, President of
SAVE, Students Against Violating the Environment, speaking at
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
She said who she was, who she represented, how many, what they were for, what they wanted, quickly enough that attention didn’t waver, slowly and loudly enough to be heard, and briefly enough to transcribe, with pathos, logic, and politic. Even the mayor looked up at “As a student….”
-jsq
Such publicly owned networks can offer services that incumbents don’t, such as the 1Gbps fiber network in Chattanooga, Tennessee, run by the government-owned electric power board. And they sometimes have more incentive to reach every resident, even in surrounding rural areas, in ways that might not make sense for a profit-focused company.According to this map of Community Broadband Networks by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, quite a few small cities in south Georgia have municipal cable networks:
All three of Moultrie, Thomasville, and Cairo use CNS, whose brochure for Moultrie says you can get:
| Downstream | Upstream | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 5 Mbps | 1 Mbps | $29.95 |
| 12 Mbps | 2 Mbps | $35.95 |
| 22 Mbps | 3 Mbps | $49.95 |
If Moultrie, Thomasville, and Cairo, and yes, Doerun can do this, why can’t Valdosta and Hahira?
And then how about add on a wireless network to reach the rest of us rural folk?
Maybe then we wouldn’t be the Internet backwoods.
-jsq
![](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emperor_Norton_proclamation_re._assumption_of_prerogatives_WFHM_SF.JPG")