Author Archives: admin

Okra and Workforce Development @ VLCIA 19 July 2011

People keep mentioning the okra gift, and George Rhynes was kind enough to video it for his blog, K.V.C.I., so here it is.
  1. I suggested to VLCIA as I earlier did to the Lowndes County Commission that they hang up a clock so people can see how much more time they have to speak. You can see Crawford Powell lurking in the doorway. Joyce Evans was also in the hallway at this VLCIA meeting. That’s 2 out of 3 voting Lowndes County Commissioners. Maybe VLCIA will get organized enough to find chairs for them next time.
  2. I pointed out Project Excel is the private prison CCA wants to build in Lowndes County, and I still owe VLCIA a letter about why I think that’s a bad idea.
  3. Finally, I gave new executive director Andrew Schruijer a present. Crawford Powell suggested it was potatoes. Nope, this time it’s okra! Picked it myself that morning.
Here’s the video: Continue reading →

When officials act like they are hiding something, they usually are. —VDT

Go VDT! There are so many potential applications of today’s editorial in the Valdosta Daily Times, from animals, to prisons, to zoning code enforcement, to biomass:
But there are still those who don’t understand the purpose of a newspaper, and it’s clearly not to be a marketing tool for the community. In addition to reporting the news of the day, a newspaper’s job as a member of the “fourth estate,” so deemed by Thomas Jefferson, is to hold public officials accountable for their actions.

“When officials act like they are hiding something, they usually are.”
To The Times and its editorial board, it’s far worse for the community’s image to have public officials knowingly lie, illegally withhold public documents and try to bully those who are only after the truth.

When officials act like they are hiding something, they usually are. You can’t be accused of lying if you don’t lie. You won’t receive an open-records request if you answer questions honestly and in accordance with the law.

Companies looking to settle in a community are understanding when it comes to crime, as it happens everywhere. But far more interesting to them is the honesty and integrity of the community’s officials.

If an entity will lie and withhold information from the local news media and the citizens, why would industry expect any different?

There was an old game show called Truth or Consequences. Too often, some entities ignore the truth and are surprised by the consequences. Sadly, the public too often feels the consequences when it could use a little truth.

Now let’s see them apply the same standard to CUEE, or can the VDT not see through the bogus claims of an organization it supports?

-jsq

There is no question how the Law reads —Susan Leavens

Received Monday as a response to Euthanization Violations at the Lowndes County Animal Shelter. -jsq
There is no question how the Law reads; the only question is who indicated there no wrong doing? And they were questioning my character? I question those people who indicated I had a bios opinion to read the laws of Georgia. I am aware you can mirror laws and even add to them in county ordinances but you cannot take away from the law in anyway.

From the United States Department of Agriculture Web Site on Euthanasia

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=AZ_INDEX

Under Guidelines for Euthanasia

When performing euthanasia in a shelter

Continue reading →

Moe the Owl: August LAKE meeting tonight

Come help us find out what’s going on and connect the dots,

When: 5:30PM tonight, Tuesday, 2 August 2011

Where: Moe’s on North Ashley in Valdosta
3145 North Ashley Street
Valdosta, Georgia
333-0649
The food is good at Moe’s, and you can see what they put in it.

Sign up for the facebook event or come as you are.

LAKE is the name; transparency is the game.

-jsq

Five Points Steering Committee presentation by Mara Register @ LCDP 1 August 2011

Mara Register gave a very interesting presentation about the Five Points Steering Committee (FPSC) last night at the monthly meeting of the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP).

She sent her slides to me this morning for publication by LAKE. Here they are on the LAKE web pages, in PPT, PDF, and HTML formats.

She said there is no FPSC web page, but their meetings are shown in the calendar of events on Valdosta’s city website. The next FPSC meeting shown there is for 18 August 2011.

Date: 8/18/2011 5:00 PM
Location:Valdosta City Hall Multi-Purpose Room
300 N. Lee Street
Videos of her talk will appear on the LCDP youtube channel.

I will probably post some more here about what she said and some of the Q&A that ensued. Meanwhile, you can see the slides for yourself.

-jsq

Real discussion for real education: Shanghai

Here’s how they do it in the best education system in the world:
Shanghai’s education system is distinctive and superior—and not just globally, but also nationally. Hong Kong, Beijing, and ten Chinese provinces participated in the 2009 PISA, but their results reflected education systems that were still the same-old knowledge acquisition models, whereas Shanghai had progressed to equipping students with the ability to interpret and extrapolate information from text and apply it to real world situations—what we would normally refer to as ‘creativity.’ Twenty-six percent of Shanghai 15 year-olds could demonstrate advanced problem-solving skills, whereas the OECD average is 3 percent.
I do mean that literally, the best in the world:
Every three years, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) administers its worldwide Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to measure how well a nation’s education system has been preparing its students for the global knowledge economy. Nations such as South Korea, Finland, and Singapore have traditionally topped the rankings, but, apparently, even they are no match for Shanghai, which shoved the others into lower positions in its very first year of participation in the programme, in 2009.
That’s according to Jiang Xueqin writing in the Diplomat 1 August 2011, How Shanghai Schools Beat Them All.

So, how did they do it? Continue reading →

“Debate is not allowed.” Well, why not?

The real problem with education around here is the adults who refuse to hold a civil discussion.

I hear this all the time around here:

“We’re not going to get into debate.”
“We will not, however, debate you over e-mail.”
“There’s been enough debate.”
“one more public meeting with 15 minutes of pros and cons and then hopefully that will be the end of discussion.”
“I’m not going to debate you about that.”
“Debate is not allowed.”
Well, why not? When did “debate” become a dirty word? What if we call it a civil discussion, will that make it sound better? Nobody seems to know how to do that, either.

And that, my friends, is the real failure of the local education system.

Next: how they do it in the best education system in the world.

-jsq

Euthanization Violations at the Lowndes County Animal Shelter —Judy Haverkamp @ LCC 26 July 2011

Lots of “don’t know the results of that” for drug testing, administrative review board, etc. Why don’t we know the results of those things?

Judy Haverkamp talked about what she’d discovered through open records requests.

“It seems like there’s been the same violations still occuring at the shelter even up to this year, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is trying to make an effort to correct these problems!”
She repeatedly cited Georgia code sections that had been violated.

This pretty much sums it up:

“Why would you not do the proper thing to make this process as painless as possible?”
Indeed, why not?

-jsq

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Lunch and Learn —Joe Pritchard @ LCC 26 July 2011

New program for the public to learn about Lowndes County government.

In his County Manager report, Joe Pritchard announced the first first lunch and learn, which will be a discussion of general government, noon ’til 1PM, 11 August 2011, second floor of administrative complex.

“The lunch and learn program will take various topics, and allow the public to meet for an hour, ask questions, interact on those particular topics.”
County Clerk Paige Dukes will be conducting this first meeting.

Commissioner Crawford Powell asked Continue reading →

Let’s put Lowndes County on the Clean Economy Map!

Look where those clean economy jobs are:
Among regions, the South has the largest number of clean economy jobs though the West has the largest share relative to its population. Seven of the 21 states with at least 50,000 clean economy jobs are in the South. Among states, California has the highest number of clean jobs but Alaska and Oregon have the most per worker.

A per-county map is included, on which you can see North Carolina and Atlanta, but nothing in south Georgia. Let’s put Lowndes County on the clean energy map!

The gigaom article recommends:

To help boost the clean energy economy even more, the Brookings report suggests that Congress could pass a national clean energy standard, put a price on carbon, use the government as a chief customer of cleantech goods (Obama has been strong on this), find more ways to help proven clean technologies pass the so-called Valley of Death, as well as increase funding for basic science and early-stage high risk projects (like the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program).
That’s good stuff, but we don’t have to wait for the feds. The Wiregrass Solar plant sets a precedent that we can build on. That plant is readily expandable to an additional megawatt. It can also be used to attract financing for other projects, projects that can use local labor, for example solar electricity and hot water like the example in Quitman.

Lots of places have forged ahead into real clean energy on their own, such as Birmingham, England and San Antonio.

Sure, we’re not nearly as big as those places, or so local “leaders” remind me. So let’s find some projects of our scale that we can do, and let’s do them! A real leader might say, as Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio did, that renewable energy is

“…the nexus between sustainability and job creation. Every now and then, perhaps once in a generation, there presents itself a moment, an opportunity, for those cities that are willing to seize it, to truly benefit the region for generations to come.”
That opportunity is right here in south Georgia, waiting for us to seize it.

-jsq