the blog of LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange
Gretchen attended the annual Hahira Honeybee Festival Senior Walk Tuesday. Today's the parade, with candidates.
Sunny day
Pictures by gretchen for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2 October 2012.
Here's a slideshow.
Missed the candidates at VSU Tuesday?
You can
watch them on video (now with a third viewpoint).
And you can come to Hahira tomorrow to see them in the
31st Annual Hahira Honey Bee Festival, Inc. Parade.
Here are some
pictures and videos from last year.
The food and festivities start early in the morning and continue all day,
with the parade in the middle.
They had about 35,000 people last year, more than a dozen times
the usual population of Hahira.
-jsq
Monday morning was the first event of the 31st annual Hahira Honeybee festival: early morning food and conversation at the Honeybee breakfast.
This was underneath the water tower, at the community center on Randall Street, where the Senior Walk is going on this morning.
Continue reading "Hahira Honeybee breakfast @ Honeybee 2012-10-01" »
The Chamber, the Industrial Authority, and various other local leaders
say they want knowledge-based jobs, or creative jobs.
We won't get those just by teaching students to show up on time and
do what they're told: that's how you train factory workers,
not knowledge-based employees.
For creative jobs we also need Technology, Talent, and Tolerance.
How do you measure Tolerance?
One key component is the concentration of gays and lesbians.
So today's
South Georgia Pride Festival
is a good sign for creative jobs in south Georgia!
Richard Florida wrote 16 July 2012 for The Atlantic, The Geography of Tolerance,
The map above shows how metros across the U.S. score on the Tolerance Index, as updated for The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited. The chart below shows the top 20 metros. Developed by my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Kevin Stolarick, it ranks U.S. metros according to three key variables—the share of immigrants or foreign-born residents, the Gay Index (the concentration of gays and lesbians), and the Integration Index, which tracks the level of segregation between ethnic and racial groups.
Do you recognize that shape in the middle of south Georgia?
That's the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area,
consisting of Lowndes, Echols, Lanier, and Brooks Counties.
Looks like about 0.4 on the Tolerance Index.
So sure, we're no Austin, Texas, but we're in the same range as oh,
Charlotte, NC.
If you want to help promote creative jobs in south Georgia, there's a festival going on today:
South Georgia Pride Festival
noon until 6PM
John W Saunders Park
1151 River Street
Valdosta, Georgia
food and music all day
Who knows, the Mayor of Valdosta might even be there; what do you think? He certainly gave the festival plenty of earned media.
-jsq
The Industrial Authority apparently listened to its focus groups, and discovered that broadband and solar energy are important to attract industry. Andrea Schruijer even recommends conversation, which has been sorely lacking in recent years. Congratulations, Industrial Authority!
Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT today, Authority analyzes Valdosta business: Broadband, solar power, professional services targeted for growth,
The Authority also plans to work toward the availability of more broadband Internet service and solar power in Valdosta and surrounding communities. These amenities would help support local industries as well as draw new ones to the greater Valdosta area for the creation of new jobs.
That's a good start. Although it's not clear from the writeup that VLCIA quite got it about Internet access.
As part of presenting Valdosta as an attractive package for
prospective industries, the Authority attempts to ready the land set aside for development before beginning the recruitment process. This means investing in infrastructure, including broadband internet.
“It's not that we don't have broadband,” Schruijer said. “What we're looking at is the technology behind the broadband. We have it in certain areas, but in order for us to grow some of these core targets, such as professional services, we need that infrastructure.”
Well, actually, no,
we don't have broadband.
6Mbps is the fastest most people can get around here,
and 30Mbps is the slowest you can even buy in many countries.
Plus, it's not just fast Internet to industrial sites that's needed:
it's fast Internet access everywhere knowledge-based employees
may want to live.
But they're on the right track:
Because the Authority can't “buy” industries into coming to Valdosta—though it can offer tax abatements—it is necessary to make sure that new businesses have what they will need before ground is even broken, Schruijer said. To this effect, the Authority will “stimulate the conversation” to actively attract more broadband companies to the area.
A conversation! Now there's something we've been needing around here. And it's a refreshing change from only a year ago when all we heard was
"Debate is not allowed."
Maybe the Industrial Authority will be the organization that will show the rest of us how to hold civil discussions about things that affect all of us!
The VDT's writeup skips quickly over another big change:
Continue reading "Industrial Authority goes solar, broadband, and conversational!" »
Leaving another event, I saw this on the street in Charlotte.
Whit Jones said they'd just had a demonstration demanding Duke Energy dump ALEC.
Also that he had encountered Duke CEO Jim Rogers and asked him when
Duke would dump ALEC.
Rogers was uncommittal.
Here's
Jones' blogged account of that encounter:
In short, I asked Duke's CEO Jim Rogers if he would listen
to the over 100,000 people who are calling on him to have Duke Dump ALEC and stop funding voter repression. He responded that "he'd be listening," and when I pressed him for a commitment to drop ALEC he said "I'm not going to give you [a commitment right now] but you can trust that I'm paying attention to what you're saying, and you'll know in due time."
Here's video of the event.
This morning WTOC interviewed Paul Wolff, Tybee City Council, and
Karen Grainey, Coastal Chapter, Georgia Sierra Club,
about
Wind Works: for Jobs, for Georgians, 6-9 PM tonight 31 August 2012 Tybee Pier.
Paul Wolff said we have a potential for 14.5 gigawatts off the Georgia coast, without interfering with shipping lanes or the ocean ecology. He noted big wind turbines need everything down to ball bearings, much of which can be (and some already is) produced in Georgia. LAKE blog readers know Paul Wolff as somebody who has put his money where his mouth is, with solar on his roof.
Here's the video. Also PR from SACE and a facebook event.
WTOC-TV: Savannah, Beaufort, SC, News, Weather
-jsq
PS: Owed to Seth Gunning.
-jsq
Received yesterday on WCTV on biomass site VLCIA v. Sterling Planet. -jsq
Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy (WACE) have made it clear from
the start that biomass plants have a number of issues: 1) biomass plants bear significant health risks; 2) biomass plants waste enormous amounts of water; 3) biomass plants are risky investments in an increasingly competitive energy sector; and 4) biomass plants contribute to global warming.
In the light of rising global temperatures, worsening drought conditions, and dropping prices for solar panels, an increasing number of people are understanding these simple truths.
The Industrial Authority has to be congratulated for the courage to admit that energy from biomass plants is indeed more expensive than energy from solar plants, and we have not even figured in the costs associated with the consequences of air pollution coming from biomass plants.
(For more information on biomass plants, here a testimony I recently gave: http://www.bredl.org/pdf3/120828_WACE-Comments-Docket_NO-E-100_SUB113.pdf)
Although this point has already been made earlier, note again that solar plants are much better alternatives, economically and environmentally: they do not pollute our air, they do not need any water, and a huge spill of solar energy is simply called a sunny day ... of which we have plenty here in the south.
-Michael G. Noll
-jsq
WCTV does what VDT dares not:
Greg Gullberg mentioned last year's biomass protests in the first sentence of this
story about the Industrial Authority threatening to sue Sterling Planet
to get clear title to the former proposed biomass plant site.
Greg Gullberg reported for WCTV yesterday, Dispute Over Land For Proposed Biomass Plant,
The vocal protests in Valdosta are long gone, but the controversy over the proposed Biomass plant lingers. This time not for concerns of health safety, but over the land.
The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority plans to sue Wiregrass Power LLC to end its contract.
Ban the Burn Go 100% Solar.
The proposed Biomass Plant was supposed to be a low-cost source of efficient energy. Supporters say it would have created hundreds of jobs. But opponents say the health risks include cancer, lung disease and respiratory disease.
750,000 gallons of water each day
Tell me, Col. Ricketts, doesn't it feel better to be visibly on the side of the people, instead of having to defend a bad business deal?
Continue reading "WCTV on biomass site VLCIA v. Sterling Planet" »
It's Hahira Third Thursday tonight from 5PM to 8PM: farmers market, food, hot dogs, hamburgers, music!
Third Thursday comes again on the 20th of September.
The following Saturday, the 22nd of September, it's Motor on Main from 2-6:30 PM and Fall Dance 6:30 to 10:30 PM.
For more information, please contact:
Stacey Dershimer
Special Event Coordinator
City of Hahira
102 S. Church Street
Hahira, GA 31632
229.794.2567 office
229-560-0627 cell
[email protected]
Hahira Happenings on facebook
-jsq
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