This op-ed by me appeared in the VDT today, 24 Feb 2011.
On 15 Feb 2011 I spoke directly to the VLCIA board about the main points
and the next day I sent them the longer version,

Why “jobs, jobs, jobs” isn’t good enough for the public good and the general welfare,
which includes links to videos of the relevant speeches and to

VLCIA’s charter. -jsq

Everyone wants jobs for those who need them and jobs for
young people so they don’t have to go somewhere else to find one.
But what good is that if those jobs suck up all the water those people
need to drink?

At the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner Brad Lofton gave
a speech which I liked, and I told him so afterwards, because it
was mostly about real industry with real jobs that that the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) has brought
into the area.

But it had a problem:

“What I believe the three most important things are, …
for our community, and our state, and our country, …
that’s jobs number 1, jobs number 2, and jobs.”

An executive director of an industrial authority should be all
about jobs, as long as the industrial authority listens to other people or
organizations who have larger concerns for our community, our state,
and our country. But that isn’t what’s happening.

Speaking immediately before Lofton, Ben Copeland, former chairman
of the board of Wiregrass Technical College asked:

“How much growth do we want?”

Copeland is on the regional state water board, and he also asked:

“Do we want to be Jacksonville? Do we want to be Tallahassee? Do we
want to be a large metropolitan region? …
Water is going to be very important as we expand our industrial
base. Because we’re going to have folks who like to start up jobs here
because of the water we have. How much of that water can be used to
sustain jobs. Those are the questions….
People need to be informed; need to be aware; that we have to use
resources very very carefully; at the same time in a way that provides
jobs to our citizens for prosperity.”

Lofton said nothing about those questions, but this is not about Brad
Lofton. The VLCIA board does not address those questions. Instead, as
they have stated in their meetings, they trust trust government agencies
to run down checklists. They systematically ignore evidence brought
to them by outside parties.

VLCIA needs to take into account resource use, specifically water, but
also air, forests, roads, and other resources, in ways that are verifiable by
independent third parties. VLCIA needs to take into account existing
communities. Individually, VLCIA board members may be able to say,

“I am not a scientist; I am a business man.”

But as members of the VLCIA, and collectively as the VLCIA board,
they are making decisions that affect not just their own individual
businesses. Decisions that affect not just the individual businesses
they are evaluating. They are making decisions that affect the whole
community. In their role as the VLCIA board, they are not just business
people. They are policy makers for the whole community. Policy makers
who need to be taking into account the health, safety, and livability
of the community.

VLCIA’s own charter says:

“This act, being for the purpose of developing and promoting the
public good and the welfare of the County of Lowndes and the City
of Valdosta and their inhabitants, shall be liberally construed to
effect the purposes hereof.”

Not just promoting the bottom line of the companies coming here; not
just trusting government agencies to check boxes on checklists; not just
bragging about numbers of jobs brought into the community. To develop and
promote the public good and the welfare of the community. To do that job,
they need to listen to the whole community, and take into account what
people not in their club say.

VLCIA needs to step up to its responsibility to the next generation.
It’s not good enough to say,

“You either trust them or you don’t. I happen to trust them.”

Trust isn’t enough. VLCIA needs to verify that a business is appropriate
for the public good and the general welfare. If they’re not willing to
do that in-house, they need to start listening to the numerous people
not on their staff or board who are doing it for them.

The Valdosta City Council and the Lowndes County Commission need
to appoint people to the VLCIA board who will listen, and then watch
them to be sure they do.

VLCIA has a hard job. And they’re not used to all this citizen
involvement. But we who are interested, all of us, are not their enemies:
we are their allies as part of the same community, state, and country.

John S. Quarterman is a resident of Lowndes County.