{"id":1895,"date":"2011-06-16T10:53:12","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/valdosta-budget-hearing-no-ciizens-spoke.html"},"modified":"2011-06-16T10:53:12","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:53:12","slug":"valdosta-budget-hearing-no-ciizens-spoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/valdosta-budget-hearing-no-ciizens-spoke.html","title":{"rendered":"Valdosta budget hearing: no citizens spoke"},"content":{"rendered":"Valdosta city officials advertised a budget hearing and no citizens spoke.\n<p>\nDavid Rodock wrote today in the VDT,\n<a href=\"http:\/\/valdostadailytimes.com\/todays-top-stories\/x357068408\/Valdosta-s-2012-budget-reviewed-by-citizens-and-public-officials\">\nValdosta\u2019s 2012 budget reviewed by citizens and public officials<\/a>\n<blockquote>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.valdostacity.com\/index.aspx?page=52\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/www.valdostacity.com\/Modules\/ShowImage.aspx?imageid=22\"><\/a>\nCity officials and staff gathered Wednesday night to discuss and review\nthe fiscal year 2012 budget. Public participation was advertised, but\nno citizens presented any concern at the meeting. This is the first\nbudget hearing, with the final adoption of the budget taking place at\nthe upcoming regular City Council meeting on June 23 at 5:30 p.m.\n<\/blockquote>\nNo citizens.\nI don&#8217;t live in Valdosta, so I didn&#8217;t go.\nApparently no\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/06\/im-obviously-here-on-one-issue-karen-noll-vlcia-14-june-2011.html\">\nValdosta residents who have any economic concerns<\/a> went, either.\n<p>\nThat&#8217;s too bad, because among the items discussed was this:\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>\nEnergy and fuel prices are a threat, since the private sector controls\nthe costs. Public Works, the Valdosta Fire Department and the Valdosta\nPolice Department use significant amounts of fuel.\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd I bet the city spends significant funds air conditioning its buildings.\nCosts that could be offset by investment in solar panels for those same\nbuildings.\nSolar panels that would limit ongoing electrical expenditures,\nand would also be a visible sign to residents and potential\ninvestors that Valdosta means renewable and sustainable energy business.\n<blockquote>\nAccording to Hanson, for every dollar spent by residents, $1.17 is spent\nby non-residents.\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd many of those non-residents would see those solar panels,\nwhich would spread the green reputation of Valdosta back to whereever\nthey came from.\n<p>\nIf Valdosta wants to be forward-looking,\n\n<!--more-->\nit could also convert some\nof its public works vehicles to electricity and run them off of solar.\n<p>\nThere&#8217;s also this:\n<blockquote>\nMuch of the budget this year will be spent on water and sewer\ninfrastructure; $4.9 million for the replacement of the elevated water\nstorage tank at Savannah-Fry; $4.85 million for a new outfall expansion\nat Mud Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant; $5.17 million for a de-watering\nfacility at Mud Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant. Approximately $30\nmillion will be spent on water and sewer infrastructure.\n<\/blockquote>\nWater is a huge local issue.\nSolar PV, unlike many electrical generation methods (such as biomass or nuclear)\ndoes not use water to generate electricity.\n<p>\nMeanwhile,\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/06\/im-obviously-here-on-one-issue-karen-noll-vlcia-14-june-2011.html\">\nnone of the anti-biomass speakers at the 14 June VLCIA meeting<\/a>\nshowed up at\n<a href=\"\/blog\/category\/vlcia-17-may-2011\">\nthe last regular VLCIA meeting<\/a> to talk about anything.\nLeigh Touchton was there as NAACP president to talk about other issues;\nhm; I thought that video was online, but it isn&#8217;t; I&#8217;ll fix that.\nI spoke as usual about transparency and opportunity, on\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/05\/expand-the-array-publish-the-minutes-private-prison-is-a-bad-idea-john-s-quarterman-vlcia-17-may-201.html\">\nprivate prisons, minutes, and solar energy.<\/a>\n<p>\nMore activism, please.\n<p>\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valdosta city officials advertised a budget hearing and no citizens spoke. David Rodock wrote today in the VDT, Valdosta\u2019s 2012 budget reviewed by citizens and public officials City officials and staff gathered Wednesday night to discuss and review the fiscal year 2012 budget. Public participation was advertised, but no citizens presented any concern at the [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,120,40,14,21,22,23,24,3,54,178,55],"tags":[8738,381,2061,8701,345,7,8714,60,6,8727],"class_list":["post-1895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-community","category-economy","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-transparency","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vlcia","category-water","tag-biomass","tag-budget","tag-electricity","tag-georgia","tag-larry-hanson","tag-lowndes-county","tag-solar","tag-tax","tag-valdosta","tag-water"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-uz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}