{"id":540,"date":"2012-08-27T17:08:21","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T21:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/vlcia-to-sue-sterling-power-about-biomass-site.html"},"modified":"2012-08-27T17:08:21","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T21:08:21","slug":"vlcia-to-sue-sterling-power-about-biomass-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/vlcia-to-sue-sterling-power-about-biomass-site.html","title":{"rendered":"VLCIA to sue Sterling Power about biomass site?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nI’d heard a rumor that some sort of lawsuit about the biomass site\nwas the subject of some of the Industrial Authority executive\nsessions for real estate discussions.\nVLCIA has finally said in public what their position is.\n<\/p>\n

\nJason Schaefer wrote for the VDT today,\n\nAuthority weighs suit for biomass land:\nSlow progress leads to default, contract argument<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThe Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority plans to send a\npetition to Lowndes County Superior Court to sue Wiregrass Power,\nLLC, for a clear title on the land purchased for the development of\na biomass energy plant.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Authority believes Wiregrass defaulted on a lease agreement to\nbuild the plant, placing ownership of the 22.22-acre tract back in\ntheir hands, but Wiregrass denies the allegations. This denial casts\n\u201ca cloud\u201d of suspicion on the Authority that may prevent\nit from re-marketing the property, according to the petition,\nleading to the suit.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSounds like they’re publicizing their intent\nto try to scare Sterling off without having to sue.\nI’m for that.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis may explain\n\na flurry of special called meetings they had in May and June 2011.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

\nIn June 2011, the Authority informed Wiregrass of the default and\ngave the company notice of termination of the agreement, as well as\na new offer, said Steve Gupton, attorney for the Authority.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\n\u201cWe wanted to try to get them an agreement to develop as a\nnon-biomass site, and we entered into a side-letter agreement to do\nthat until December 2011,\u201d Gupton said.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut the Authority never received any \u201cconcrete notice\u201d\nfrom Wiregrass that it planned to build the second solar facility,\nGupton said.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nNothing was said about such a notice or offer or letter in\n\nthe Attorney’s Report in VLCIA’s 14 June 2012 meeting,<\/a>\nunless it was in the\n\nlast half minute<\/a>\nwhen they were whispering and exchanging papers.\nIs that legal, by the way?\nIn an “open meeting” deliberately speaking so low spectators can’t hear?\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nThat was the meeting when\n\nMario Bartoletti<\/a>,\n\nMatt Flumerfelt<\/a>,\n\n<\/a>\nand\n\nKaren Noll<\/a>\nspoke against the biomass plant\nand asked for a no-biomass clause.\nAlso, I suggested to them they might\n\nexpand the solar plant as a way to\nemphasize that this area is for clean renewable energy.<\/a>\nI also suggested they publish their agendas online.\nTwo months later\n\nthey started doing that,<\/a>\nbut the timing is probably a coincidence.\n<\/p>\n

\nGupton also didn’t say anything about any of that\n\nin his Attorney’s Report of 19 July 2012,<\/a>\nalthough he did discuss VLCIA’s lease with the City of Valdosta\nfor the operational solar plant.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn between, they held\n\na special called meeting 8 July 2011 to discuss real estate,<\/a>\nwith the rumor that the real estate was the biomass plant.\n

\nI’m for this:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThe suit is necessary to clear the land title and allow the\nAuthority to move forward with a new agreement, Gupton said. The\nAuthority will likely pursue the expansion of the solar facility.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nOf course, even with clear title to the land, there’s\n\n<\/a>\nstill going to be difficulty getting a good power purchase agreement (PPA)\nbecause of Georgia’s 1973\n\nTerritorial Electric Service Act<\/a>,\nwhich says you can only sell to your one and only electric utility.\nGeorgia Power has already found all the 50 MW of solar the GA PSC\nrequired it to find,\nyet nobody can sell through Georgia Power to, for example TVA.\nMaybe VLCIA can help get that law changed.\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’d heard a rumor that some sort of lawsuit about the biomass site was the subject of some of the Industrial Authority executive sessions for real estate discussions. VLCIA has finally said in public what their position is. Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT today, Authority weighs suit for biomass land: Slow progress leads to […]","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":[97,120,14,18,2,20,21,22,23,24,1794,3,178,1810,1811,700,1521],"tags":[1816,1815,8738,8704,8701,8708,8699,1812,189,1814,1813,548,8702,8710,12,7,185,181,8711,8712,1035,1036,8713,183,8714,8840,1817,182,8700,6,180,8749,8842,8843,1819,8831,1818],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-economy","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-law","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-sterling-planet","category-transparency","category-vlcia","category-vlcia-14-june-2011","category-vlcia-19-july-2011","category-wace","category-wiregrass-solar","tag-14-june-2011","tag-allan-ricketts-acting-executive-director","tag-biomass","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-government","tag-irregular-meeting","tag-j-stephen-gupton","tag-j-stephen-gupton-attorney","tag-jerry-jennett-chairman","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mary-gooding","tag-norman-bennett","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-power-purchase-agreement","tag-ppa","tag-renewable-energy","tag-roy-copeland","tag-solar","tag-sterling-planet","tag-territoriality-law","tag-tom-call","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vlcia","tag-vlcia-14-june-2011","tag-vlcia-19-july-2011","tag-wiregrass-power","tag-wiregrass-solar","tag-wiregrass-solar-power"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-8I","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","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=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}