Received yesterday. It’s a YouTube video. -jsq
Video by George Boston Rhynes for
K.V.C.I. Keeping Valdosta Citizen Informed
George has written up most of this in K.V.C.I. with pictures and YouTube videos.
Also, I appreciate the shoutout, George, and I’m sure the other people involved with LAKE and this blog do, as well.
-jsq
Maybe you think you’re safe, because you’re not out on the street. Think again: Continue readingThe most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalised in America.
Photograph: Robyn Beck/EPAPerhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
Traffic on Old Pine will be regulated by the amount of people who use the highway; traffic on Bemiss since you and I moved out there forty years ago.
…
I’m not going to argue Bemiss Highway, it’s not a pertinent fact.
That’s right, traffic and traffic safety are considered not pertinent to building subdivisions, according to the Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission, and the actions of the Commissioners and staff. The developer gets to consider only their one property and the neighbors get to deal with all the effects on all the related roads. Privatization of profits and socialization of problems such as traffic accidents. Does that seem right to you?
If not, it’s going to go on until more people argue and debate. In fact, many of Lowndes County’s T-SPLOST tax request would make the problem worse. See next post.
-jsq
John Larson and others, PBS, 22 July 2010, Profiles from the Recession: [VIDEO] Dangerous Crossing: A new suburbia as economy changes:
In recent years a little noticed shift has been transforming suburbia: the home of the middle class has become the home of the working poor. As a result, roadways that were built for the car are now used by a growing population that can’t afford to drive. The consequences can be deadly.
Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.
According to a recent report, by two national transportation groups, about 43 thousand pedestrians were killed in the U.S. in the last decade; “the equivalent of a jumbo jet going down roughly every month.”
Of course, the problem didn’t start with an increase in pedestrians. Continue reading
Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, wrote in the Washington Times 5 August 2011, JOHNSON: Hitting the cartels where it hurts: Legalization of marijuana would end drug profiteering and violence
As a Republican, he manages to say legalize and regulate but forget to mention tax, and he didn’t mention Jimmy Carter or Javier Sicilia calling for an end to the drug war, but he did mention (I added the links): Continue readingImagine you are a drug lord in Mexico, making unfathomable profits sending your illegal product to the United States. What is the headline you fear the most? “U.S. to build bigger fence”? “U.S. to send troops to the border”? “U.S. to deploy tanks in El Paso”? No. None of those would give you much pause. They would simply raise the level of difficulty and perhaps cause you to escalate the violence that already has turned the border region into a war zone. But would they stop you or ultimately hurt your bottom line? Probably not.
But what if that drug lord opened his newspaper and read this: “U.S. to legalize and regulate marijuana”? That would ruin his day, and ruin it in a way that could not be fixed with more and bigger guns, higher prices or more murder.
Now that’s privatization of justice! Looks a lot like no justice at all. Makes you wonder how many other people are in prison who shouldn’t be.A northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered Thursday to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive bribery scandal that prompted the state’s high court to toss thousands of juvenile convictions and left lasting scars on the children who appeared in his courtroom and their hapless families.
Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for taking a $1 million bribe from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as “kids for cash.”
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education.
-jsq
PS: Had to go to the Guardian for the picture, though.
Received today. -jsq
“I had so many things to add after the last one, that here is a new one….Jane”So the latest update (12 August 2011) is online for the community calendar produced by Jane F. Osborn who organizes the Valdosta Civic Roundtable. She wrote:
…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don’t.
-jsq
Continue readingThe LAKE blog has been doing an excellent job of publishing what is happening in various Valdosta and Lowndes County public meetings. I have been attending the Hahira City Council meetings for several months now and decided I would start posting a monthly blog summary of council meetings so Hahira residents will be aware of what is happening in their city. This is not intended to be an official documentation and citizens should depend on the official meeting minutes and/or discuss issues with city officials.
It was announced that a hearing had been advertised to discuss changing the millage rate for the city and it was decided the mileage rate would remain the same with no increase.
The review of bills/budget overages were approved by the council.
Addendum to the summary – Per history records, on Feb. 15, 2011 the Valdosta Daily Times printed an article about a special meeting of concerned citizens and Hahira city officials which discussed several agenda items relating to the city’s trash services. During the meeting citizens were not allowed to speak. Mayer Wayne Bullard recused himself after stating he was employed by All Green Services which could be a
County resident Ernest McDonald laid out a list of issues he said the
county hasn’t addressed correctly.
He said it wasn’t anything personal.
He wasn’t mad.
He just thought there were some issues that needed to be addressed.
For example, regarding moving a power line from one side of the road to another as agreed:
We met every person involved. The state, the high pressure gasline…. The telephone buried cable people, they came.It’s been so long the stakes rotted down, and nothing ever got done. As Ernest McDonald said:The county engineer came…. And we all agreed…. Put stakes in the ground…. The stakes had rotted down.
That’s not right.The County Engineer was missing from the meeting. It’s a bit hard to see in the picture, but there are only two heads in front of the glaring window, and the Engineer would be the third head in the middle.
In another issue, Ernest McDonald paid $650 to find a sewer line, marked it, and the county tore up Continue reading
This is Ronnie Ganas’s statement which was recieved June 6th 2011, at 2:44 pm from shirley kingIt’s rather hard to read, so here’s a transcription of what I think it says. -jsq-Susan Leavens
Continue readingOn several events I have observed the euthanzing being falsied and redone so the amounts should be correct. This records was redone by Michelle Shultz and she was approved to tdo this illegal action by Linda Patiskie. They both know this a controled substance accountability log. The euthanzing log and the bottles have a DEA number. This act of falsifying records have been seen by other Animal Control Officers and Shelter Attendants. I do not remember dates but euthanzing logs and tracking sheets and work schule and time sheets will prove the falsifing. Linda Patiskie has full Knowlegde and approved this illegal actions.
Shelter Attendents and Animal Control Officers have reported cruelty to animals and abuse