{"id":2324,"date":"2011-03-15T13:43:32","date_gmt":"2011-03-15T17:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/vdt-on-lofton-leaving.html"},"modified":"2011-03-15T13:43:32","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T17:43:32","slug":"vdt-on-lofton-leaving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/vdt-on-lofton-leaving.html","title":{"rendered":"VDT on Lofton Leaving"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/a>\nWhat’s Brad Lofton’s legacy?\n

\nThe VDT finally published something today about Brad Lofton moving to\nMyrtle Beach, apparently mostly drawing on the same SC newspaper story\n\nLAKE picked up on last Thursday,<\/a>\nwith some material from\n\nthe second SunNews story of Friday<\/a>.\nThe VDT did\n\nadd some local interviews:<\/a>\n\n\n

\nJerry Jennett, chairman of the Industrial Authority, feels that Lofton\nhas brought a number of great projects into the area, including the Home\nDepot expansion, Martins Famous Pastry Shoppe, Smith Drugs and Valdosta\nOptics Lab Inc.\n

\n\u201cWhen you hire good people to work for you and they go on with their\ncareer, you have to be proud of them for doing better for themselves,\u201d\nsaid Jennett. \u201cI\u2019ve been in tune with just about everything he\u2019s\ndone for us. He may not have approached things in the way I would have,\nbut when you try and make people do stuff exactly the way you want to,\nyou completely wash out any chance of new ideas or progressive actions,\nand Mr. Lofton has done a lot for this community.\u201d\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, those all sound like good projects and good jobs.\nAlthough I do wonder why Chairman Jennett didn’t list the\nWiregrass Solar project.\nAnd we already remarked Thursday that he’s\n\nMovin’ on up.<\/a>\n

\nBut what’s that over Mayor Fretti’s shoulder in the VDT photograph\nof the \nWiregrass Solar groundbreaking?<\/a>\nWhy, it’s a protest sign against the biomass plant!\nThe VDT asked Lofton about that:\n

\nLofton wanted to clarify that he was not leaving Valdosta because of\nthe Wiregrass Power LLC biomass facility and the controversy surrounding\nthe project.\n

\n\u201cMy move had absolutely nothing to do with the biomass plant or any\nof the stresses involved with that project,\u201d said Lofton. \u201cWe\u2019ve\nannounced 17 new projects since I began, with over 2,000 new jobs and\nalmost $500 million in economic development in the area, so I\u2019m hoping\nthat the biomass project is not my legacy.\u201d\n<\/blockquote>\nWait, after all the effort he’s spent pushing the biomass project,\nwhy doesn’t he want it to be his legacy?\nIs there perhaps\n\nsome downside to the biomass plant?<\/a>\n

\nI wonder if VDT or VLCIA will get around to correcting their\nincorrect history?<\/a>\n

\n-jsq\n

\nUpdate 2:38 PM 15 March 2011: Added missing link to VDT story.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s Brad Lofton’s legacy? The VDT finally published something today about Brad Lofton moving to Myrtle Beach, apparently mostly drawing on the same SC newspaper story LAKE picked up on last Thursday, with some material from the second SunNews story of Friday. The VDT did add some local interviews:","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[97,120,16,2,21,32,23,24,133,178,1521],"tags":[1747,8701,186,8702,12,7,4561,2428,4939,6,2900,180,8742,8749],"class_list":["post-2324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-environment","category-government","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-vdt","category-vlcia","category-wiregrass-solar","tag-brad-lofton","tag-georgia","tag-jerry-jennett","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-myrtle-beach","tag-south-carolina","tag-sunnews","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-daily-times","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vdt","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-Bu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324","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=2324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}