Author Archives: admin

Sonny Vickers, Mayor of Valdosta?

A usually-reliable source says Sonny Vickers will be appointed interim Mayor of Valdosta tomorrow by the Valdosta City Council at its 5:30 PM 8 September meeting.

Since he’s running unopposed for City Council District 3, Sonny Vickers can resign from that post, get appointed mayor, and get re-elected as Council 3 in November.

This is the same method used in 2003 when former Mayor James H. Rainwater died before the election. Council appointed David Sumner interim mayor. According to the VDT 31 August 2011:

At that time, Councilman David Sumner assumed the role of mayor, but had to resign his council seat to do so. He had already qualified to rerun for his seat in the November 2003 election, was re-elected to his seat and stepped down as mayor at the end of 2003, re-assuming his duties as a newly elected councilman at the beginning of 2004.

If they don’t appoint Vickers interim mayor tomorrow, the Valdosta City Council will probably appoint somebody else. According to the VDT today:

Vickers is among those being considered for appointment by council, along with Dexter Sharper and David Sumner, who are also former council members. Vickers pointed out that he did not submit his name for consideration, but rather it was mentioned in conversations with other council members.
We’ll see.

In the November election, one of Brooks D. Bivins, John Gayle, or Gary Minchew will be elected mayor (unless of course there’s a runoff).

-jsq

T-SPLOST meeting in Waycross today

Update 12:30 8 September 2011: SGRC provided a fixed link to the public comment form.

The first SGRC public meeting about the T-SPLOST Draft Constrained Investment List is today in Waycross:


View Larger Map
Wednesday, September 7, 2011; 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.; at the Southern Georgia Regional Commission Waycross Office; 1725 South Georgia Parkway West, Waycross, Georgia; presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m.
If you live near Waycross, you may want to compare your local projects in the Draft Constrained Investment List with the previous unconstrained list to see what’s still in there and if there are any 50% cost increases like the Old US 41 North widening.

The VLMPO SGRC web page includes a link to a Public Comment Form but as you can see that link gets “page cannot be found”. Doubtless that’s an accident, given that VLMPO is and SGRC are among the most devoted to transparency of local governmental organizations.

Fixed now, with this new link to the public comment form.

I’d like to point out VLMPO SGRC does T-SPLOST administration, but is not responsible for the content of the project lists; those come from your local governments and are selected by the T-SPLOST regional committee and the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Here’s the PDF public meeting notice received 30 August from VLMPO SGRC along with the cover letter already published. HTML version is appended below.

-jsq Continue reading →

Copy charter schools or something else that works?

Instead of copying failed experiments like Hamilton County, Tennessee, how about copying some of the charter schools that do work? Or some other model that actually does work to improve education?

Sam Dillon wrote for the NYTimes today, Troubled Schools Try Mimicking the Charters

Classrooms are festooned with college pennants. Hallway placards proclaim: “No Excuses!” Students win prizes for attendance. They start classes earlier and end later than their neighbors; some return to school on Saturdays. And they get to pore over math problems one-on-one with newly hired tutors, many of them former accountants and engineers.

If these new mores at Lee High School, long one of Houston’s most troubled campuses, make it seem like one of those intense charter schools, that is no accident.

In the first experiment of its kind in the country, the Houston public schools are testing whether techniques proven successful in high-performing urban charters can also help raise achievement in regular public schools. Working with Roland G. Fryer, a researcher at Harvard who studies the racial achievement gap, Houston officials last year embraced five key tenets of such charters at nine district secondary schools; this fall, they are expanding the program to 11 elementary schools. A similar effort is beginning in Denver.

Charter schools were supposed to be pilot projects, so why not adopt what works there in public schools?

However, this still seems to be all about test scores. Maybe some public schools could look farther afield, Continue reading →

Georgia still in the solar shade

The 20th century with its coal and oil and nuclear was more than a decade ago now. It’s time for Georgia to see the 21st sunshine.

Jerry Grillo wrote for the July 2011 Georgia Trend, Partly Sunny In Georgia: The state’s solar industry is growing steadily, but slowly, as the national industry explodes

“Georgia is shackled to the 20th century,” Peterson says. “If all I did was look at Georgia, I’d think we were doing well. But I work all over the country, and I’m not kidding when I say we’re dealing with $500-million solar projects that have no chance of coming here because of systemic problems that keep Georgia from participating in the 21st-century economy, which has renewable energy as a major component.

“It’s disgusting, considering our potential, how much opportunity is lost, how much capital investment is passed up.”

All it would take to fix this is the political will.

Maybe if the people and elected and appointed officials look at the handwriting on the wall: Continue reading →

Boston catches up with Atlanta: you can video police

Poilce are public employees, and the public has a right to video them doing their duty; so says a federal appeals court.

Pace Lattin wrote for Technorati, Federal Courts Rule it is Not Illegal to Film Police John S. Quarterman

The First Court of Appeals has reached a decision that would allow the general public to video-tape police officers while they are working. This decision comes right after several well-known public cases have come to light involving citizens being arrested for video-taping police.

This specific case in question was Simon Glik vs.The City of Boston (and several police officers), in which a teenage Simon Gilk was arrested after videotaping Boston Police abusing a homeless man. While Mr. Gilk was not interfering with the police, he was arrested on wiretapping charges.

The ACLU had sued on his behalf, even when the charges were dropped, noting that there was a growing epidemic of citizens in the United States being arrested by police for videotaping, even when documenting police brutality and abuse.

The First Court Agreed with the ACLU that this should be legal, and wrote that: “The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles [of protected First Amendment activity].

The Atlanta Police Department already avoided this problem by settling a previous case and making a policy that citizens can video police. This appeals court ruling now says anybody can, nationwide, because of the First Amendment.

Why has this become an issue lately? Continue reading →

CCA really doesn’t like community opposition, so apparently it works

Private prison company CCA, which in conjunction with ALEC promotes laws in dozens of states and nationally that lock up more people for CCA’s private profit at taxpayer expense, really doesn’t like community opposition to siting private prisons in their communities. Hm, why would CCA hate community opposition so much, unless it works?

Not quite rolling his eyes when she mentions visiting communities, CCA’s video pair disparage community opposition to private prisons on their own web page, When Corrections Meets Communities:

Question: There are Web sites and blogs that are adamantly opposed to your company and industry, and they provide negative information about you. Why?
Hm, you mean like some of the material on this blog?
Answer: CCA and all corrections companies recognize the ongoing efforts of local, loosely formed grassroots groups and national, well-funded associations that jointly oppose the establishment of partnership prisons, many for self-serving reasons. Such groups go to great lengths to attack, criticize and misrepresent the entire industry. They make false allegations and often rely on hearsay and unreliable sources. Regrettably, these biased groups often resort to misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric to turn isolated incidents into broad generalizations about the corrections industry as a whole.
Well-funded? Har! OK, not this blog. That plus we provide evidence, like Continue reading →

“I have seen cameras here at this building when it concerns football” — George Boston Rhynes @ VBOE 29 August 2011

If TV cameras show up for football, why don’t they show up “when the people come together on issues such as this, not just black folk, not just white folk, but all Americans are here tonight because of our concern”?

George Boston Rhynes made three points: Continue reading →

“It would be impossible for us to sell bonds at this time” —Dr. Cason @ VBOE 29 August 2011

The school consolidation referendum is already having ill effects more than two months before anybody gets to vote on it. The Valdosta School Board has had to postpone further work planning for a new elementary school.

Valdosta School Superintendent Cason made what probably would have been a routine report about 11. A. Selection of architect for Southeast Elementary – Dr. Cason – information only:

However, since the referendum for consolidation made the ballot, it would be impossible for us to sell bonds at this time.
because who would buy them, knowing the selling school board might not exist come this November? Or, if the consolidation referendum passes, for some unknown time after that? So the board decided to postpone even selecting an architect until the consolidation question is resolved.

Here’s the video:


“It would be impossible for us to sell bonds at this time” —Dr. Cason @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

“We may face community opposition to facility location” —CCA

Look who cares about community opposition!

In CCA’s 2010 Annual Report to the SEC:

We may face community opposition to facility location, which may adversely affect our ability to obtain new contracts. Our success in obtaining new awards and contracts sometimes depends, in part, upon our ability to locate land that can be leased or acquired, on economically favorable terms, by us or other entities working with us in conjunction with our proposal to construct and/or manage a facility. Some locations may be in or near populous areas and, therefore, may generate legal action or other forms of opposition from residents in areas surrounding a proposed site. When we select the intended project site, we attempt to conduct business in communities where local leaders and residents generally support the establishment of a privatized correctional or detention facility. Future efforts to find suitable host communities may not be successful. We may incur substantial costs in evaluating the feasibility of the development of a correctional or detention facility. As a result, we may report significant charges if we decide to abandon efforts to develop a correctional or detention facility on a particular site. In many cases, the site selection is made by the contracting governmental entity. In such cases, site selection may be made for reasons related to political and/or economic development interests and may lead to the selection of sites that have less favorable environments.
CCA doesn’t like community opposition, because it reduces CCA’s ability to site prisons, which adversely affects their bottom line. Funny how that happens because a private prison company’s main goal is profit, not rehabilitation, public safety, or justice.

We don’t have to accept a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. If we tell the Industrial Authority and CCA no, CCA will probably go away.

And the more communities that tell CCA no, the less profitable they will be.

-jsq

We still believe in school unification, but we can no longer support the current effort. —VDT

The VDT can read the handwriting on the wall, at least when it’s in the form of resolutions from both school boards.

After dancing around the issue and muttering about “ugly turns”, the VDT finally gets to the point in its editorial of today:

We still believe in school unification, but we can no longer support the current effort.

For the past several weeks, readers have asked us how unification would work. Would it change millage rates? Would students be bussed cross-county? Who would lose or keep their jobs? When would Valdosta City Schools dissolve its charter and the Lowndes County School System take over? What are the estimates on cost savings? Would it be more efficient? What happens Nov. 9, the day after the election?

We’ve asked these questions, too. No one can answer them.

The organization that worked to place the issue on the ballot has not offered satisfactory answers. Community Unification for Educational Excellence has admirably spent time proposing ways to increase academic performance if the systems are unified. But CUEE has yet to present a recommended plan for how the merger would work.

If the referendum passes, the school boards will decide how unification would proceed. And both school boards are opposed to unification.

It is this prevailing sense of the unknown that has spurred The Times to oppose the Nov. 8 referendum.

There are too many unanswered questions. There are too many uncertainties at this point. There has to be a better way to present this to the voters.

A vote for unification in this climate is a vote for chaos.

Most of those questions do have answers: Continue reading →