Author Archives: admin

What a successful Chamber of Commerce looks like

Here’s what a successful Chamber of Commerce looks like:
State Sen. Bill Montford, right, congratulates Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director David Gardner on the National Solar Power’s massive solar farm project.

With the excitement of a massive solar-energy farm coming to the community still fresh on their minds, Gadsden County businesses are looking ahead to the potential such a project could have on the local economy.

Monday’s announcement by National Solar Power was a discussion topic Wednesday at the “Go Gadsden” breakfast of the Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce. The invited speaker, state Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, told the gathering the project’s impact will extend well beyond the county.

“This is good for Gadsden County, but it’s good for all of North Florida,” Montford said during the breakfast at the Florida Public Safety Institute in Midway. “We believe it’s just the beginning.”

I look forward to seeing Myrna Ballard in such a picture. Or Andrea Schruijer.

-jsq

October LAKE meeting: the owl at Bojangles

Last month, we said this month we would get organized. Like what we’re doing? Come help.
Monthly LAKE Meeting
When: 5:30 – 6:30 PM,
Tuesday 4 October 2011
Where: Bojangles
1725 West Hill Avenue
(Highway 84)
Valdosta, GA 31601-5147
229-242-4202
This will be a brisk meeting due to the immediately-following LCBOE Why We Oppose Consolidation meeting at LHS.

If you follow the LAKE blog, On the LAKE Front, which you can also see through the LAKE facebook page, you know what we cover, from protesters to private prisons to gardening to schools, all of which turn out to be related. What else do you want to investigate? You can be LAKE, too!

If you’re on Facebook, please sign up for the event there.

Or just come as you are.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

-jsq

Why We Oppose Consolidation —Lowndes County Schools

From their website:
Lowndes County Schools will be hosting a forum entitled Why We Oppose Consolidation on October 4, 2011 at 7:00pm in the Lowndes High Cafeteria. All community members invited to attend.
Some people have been confused by LCBOE’s image version of this meeting announcement:

The meeting starts at 7PM on the fourth of October, which is Tuesday.

They’ve also put the LCBOE resolution online in plain text. Here’s the earlier LAKE transcription from our video of Supt. Smith reading the resolution. Here are videos of that entire LCBOE meeting, including the unanimous vote to adopt the resolution.

-jsq

Consolidation has nothing to do with improving our children’s education —Etta Mims

Received Thursday. -jsq
I know that there are many “newcomers” to the area which supported consolidation until they connected the dots and realized this has nothing to do with improving our children’s education.

See also Valwood, CUEE, and the Chamber.

-jsq

You call Sheriff; Sheriff calls animal control —Susan Leavens

Received today on Stray dogs and the law @ LCC 27 Sep 2011. -jsq
If Mr. Paulk was a “normal citizen” he would know if you call the sheriff’s department for a animal problem he would know they call animal control! And it is up to the animal officer if they want to give the dog back to the owner… Officers have done it many times. It is under the discretion of the animal control officer. Poor Ashley should know what the ordinance says I mean he was the sheriff for many years as he has indicated many times and since he is the County Chairman now one would think he would know what the orinance says. This poor guy was given wrong information by the County Chairman on how to fix the problem… perhaps if the man caught the dog and brought it to the shelter he would be better off. The owner would have to show proof of rabies vaccination and pay impound fees. $25 impound fee, $12 for a voucher if the dog does not have proof of current rabies vaccination. The prices are not much but it is incontinent. If it is not sterilized (spay or neutered) it doubles on each impound… fees can rack up pretty fast $25, $50, $100 and so on. The sheriff’s office is not going to handle owner involved cases, if the dog was returned to the owner it was not a stray. Sorry Ashley Paulk you’re so wrong on this one!

Solar: Infinite and Clean —Michael Noll

In today’s VDT. -jsq
If we are to believe Fox News and the Tea Party, solar doesn’t work because the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra went belly up, despite the fact that it received $535 million in subsidies. While wasting an enormous amount of tax dollars on a company with a flawed business concept should raise everyone’s eyebrows, the conclusion that the Solyndra mess means “solar doesn’t work” is mind-boggling. It’s like saying “cars don’t work” because Chrysler went bankrupt in 2009, or “T-shirts don’t work” because Fruit of the Loom filed for Chapter 11 in 1999.

Solar is one of the most attractive renewable sources of energy throughout

Continue reading →

…to give to somebody who didn’t work —Nolen Cox @ LCC 27 Sep 2011

Nolen Cox seems to think CHIP grant recipients don’t work.

Chairman Paulk declined to let Mrs. Cox speak because he said in a letter to the Commission she called them idiots. When he let Nolen Cox speak, Cox said:

I think it’s interesting that the comments about the CHIP grant comes after the vote. Y’all must be an all-wise group.
Chairman Paulk referred to that as sarcastic. Cox disagreed. Paulk said it was in his opinion and he decided such things there.

Cox asserted that:

to get a $300,000 grant it takes about $420,000 of tax money accumulated from citizens.
He didn’t cite any source for those figures. He did claim the Commission was luring people into homebuying while home prices are going down.
Somebody had to work for the money that they didn’t get to give to somebody who didn’t work.
Sounds like he was saying CHIP grant recipients don’t work. I wonder how they pay their mortgages then, since CHIP grants as near as I can tell only help with down payments?

I guess he didn’t hear Carolyn Selby’s point that CHIP grants turn renters into property tax-paying owners. Seems like that would help keep Nolen Cox’s property taxes low.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Thanks for CHIP and lower monitors; also solar just to the south —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 27 Sep 2011

I thanked the Commission for doing the right thing about the CHIP grant. And for at least three people sitting up front (Evans, Paulk, and Pritchard) lowering their monitors so citizens (and even cameras) could see their faces.

Then I relayed the news about the $1.5 billion investment in Gadsden County, Florida for a 400 MW solar project. Plus ongoing jobs, expanded education, private sources of investment, and customers for the electricity. Unlike the failed local biomass project, National Solar Power’s Gadsden County project already has Progress Energy signed up as a customer for its electricity. I recommended that the Commission go on record as being in favor of such projects locally.

Here’s the video:


Thanks for CHIP and lower monitors; also solar –John S. Quarterman @ LCC 27 Sep 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Judge rules against Florida prison privatization

Judge Jackie Fulford ruled yesterday for the Second Circuit Court of Florida
that the prison privatization plan the Florida legislature added to the state budget is unconstitutional on a key point of all prison privatization schemes. Her ruling agreed with the Florida Police Benevolent Association, which is a union of correctional workers.

Judge rules prison privatization plan unconstitutional Dara Kam wrote for Post on Politics yesterday, Judge Rules Florida Prison Privatization Unconstitutional,

The privatization of 29 prisons in the southern portion of the state from Manatee County to Indian River County to the Florida Keys should have been mandated in a separate bill and not in proviso language in the budget, as lawmakers did in the must-pass budget approved in May and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, Fulford ruled.

“This Court concludes that if it is the will of the Legislature to itself initiate privatization of Florida prisons, as opposed to DOC, the Legislature must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act,’” Fulford wrote in her order issued Friday morning.

The order doesn’t say Florida can’t privatize prisons, rather that it can’t do it by hiding it in the budget process. But alleged budget savings are the only reason privatization backers are willing to admit to, so that’s no small matter.

And if prison privatization is such a money-saver, why did the prison companies’ cronies in the statehouse try to do it like this: Continue reading →

Thanks for accepting the CHIP grant —Carolyn Selby @ LCC 27 Sep 2011

Carolyn Selby stood up to thank the Commission for accepting the Community HOME Investment Program (CHIP) grant.
This grant will serve people who are in the 80% or below median income bracket. These people probably would not be able to afford purchasing a house without down payment assistance. And especially in today’s economic times these people need a hand up. Instead of renters, they become taxpayers, and that certainly helps our economy.

Here’s the video:


Thanks for accepting the CHIP grant –Carolyn Selby @ LCC 27 Sep 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq