The latest update (20 February 2012) 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
Remember
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),
the
big corporate lobby group that
helps CCA push for private prisons?
The one that
lobbied 24 states
to pass “anti-immigration” laws that create new misdemeanors and felonies
to send more customers to CCA prisons?
One governor has decided he’s had enough of that.
Zaid Jilani wrote for Republic Report 15 February 2012,
Minnesota Governor Calls Out Corporate Front Group ALEC, Vetoes Its Bills
It has grown so powerful that it now has
nearly one-third
of all state legislators under its umbrella.ALEC has worked with legislators to pass bills ranging from issues
as diverse as stripping unionized workers of their rights to
making it harder for low-income citizens to vote.
It is usually able to do so because it hands its corporate-written
template bills to state legislators and gets them passed without any
public scrutiny as to the origin of this legislation.Late last week, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D)
decided that
corporate front groups like ALEC should not be able to write his
state’s laws. Dayton decided to veto a series of “tort
reform” bills that would’ve restricted the rights of citizens
to sue to hold big corporations responsible. In a press conference
discussing his vetoes, Dayton condemned ALEC for providing the
templates for the bills. “I’ve found that Minnesotans
do not want
their laws written by the lobbyists of big corporations,” said
Dayton.
Here’s
video:
First of two reports on last night’s VLPRA steering committee received today. -jsq
If you attended any of the CUEE meetings the format was exactly the
same. We were divided into groups. Each person wrote down their
answers to a list of questions they handed out. Then each group was
told to combine their answers into a group list which was written on
poster size dry erase sheets. Then the sheets were displayed on the
wall in front of all the groups & the answers were discussed. I had to
leave when they were discussing the answers to the first question which
was: List the 5 things you think are most important to improve the
parks & recreation program. I am assuming the group lists were
combined into a master list for that question. They were doing each
question all the way through before going to the next question. I
brought the list of questions with me intending to share what they were
but I left my notebook in the car trunk of the person I was riding with
& forgot to get it when we left the Law Enforcement Appreciation
Dinner. I will not retrieve the notebook until Tuesday, but if you
want to know the questions I will send them to you then. If you want
more info in the meantime Karen Noll was there also. She came late &
probably stayed the entire time. We had interesting discussions at our
group table & I’m sure a lot of interesting subjects were covered.
However,
Continuing my response to
Barbara Stratton’s post:
if public-private partnerships are the aspect of private prisons that you oppose,
by all means oppose them for that.
Did you catch this part in
VLCIA’s recent response?
CCA has absolute discretion in issuing or withholding the NTP.
What kind of local government body gives a private company “absolute discretion”
on whether to proceed with a project?
What happened to those appointed officials’ own discretion as to the
appropriateness of a project for the community?
What if their due diligence turns up something unacceptable?
For example, that CCA told Decatur County that
both Lowndes and Decatur are getting a private prison (one state and one federal),
so the guff CCA told VLCIA about Lowndes being the primary site was disingenuous at best.
How about if
CCA has already breached the contract
by not supplying a required document?
How about if VLCIA receives
convincing arguments from the community
that a private prison is a bad business deal?
Indeed,
disaster capitalism or the shock doctrine
is nothing like the capitalism Adam Smith recommended.
The main point of the
petition against CCA’s private prison in Lowndes County is that
it’s a bad business deal: it wouldn’t save money; it wouldn’t increase employment;
and it would be likely to close, leaving us all owing money.
Did the Valdosta City and Lowndes County elected governments appoint these people
to abdicate their authority to a private company?
Maybe they did, since
those elected officials are in cahoots on this deal.
CCA lauded them all for their support after VLCIA signed the contract with that
“absolute discretion” language in it.
Does that seem right to you?
Florida has just demonstrated that
people of all parties can
join together successfully to oppose prison privatization.
Let’s do that right here in Lowndes County and stop the private prison!
-jsq
Received yesterday on
CCA offers to buy prisons from 48 states. -jsq
As always, LAKE is doing a fantastic job of uncovering the shadows.
However, please note there is a difference in capatalism & crony
capitalism. Liberals have their fair share of the crony variety also
AKA Soros & Monsanto, GM,etc. Free enterprise & capitalism is why
our borders are being crossed legally & illegally, but crony
capitalism will destroy us. If the government chooses to privatize
there should be clear total delineation between them & the private
business, not fascist public/private partnerships like CCA is
courting. We need to resist P3s totally, but they are being welcomed
with multi grant incentives & blessings of the Dept of Community
Development & its Chamber of Commerce conduits. We are on the same
team always for transparency in government & we can be on the same
team against CCA if we focus on fighting the 3P concept.Just a reminder, I used to work for CCA & I still love to see bad
men in shackles (emphasis on bad). I don’t share most of what I call
simplistic liberal views on prison reform, but I am certainly with
you against crony capitalism especially the public/private
partnership variety. As I’ve said before they are just the good old
boy system, legalized, subsidized, & on steroids.-Barbara Stratton
Barbara,
Thanks for the compliments, and we’re going to get you carrying a camera yet….
See
next post for the rest of my response.
-jsq
I don’t usually promote anonymous blog comments, but here’s one
received Monday on
Media flap over Lowndes grading. -jsq
The reporter didn’t call it “new”, Troy Davis did when he sent it to
all the teachers. Maybe you should talk with some teachers who are
deeply against the policy before you start ranting. And to correlate
this with consolidation is ridiculous, you’re just stretching for
controversy.-Amy
Dr. Smith enumerated several other things which he alleged that reporter
misrepresented; see above link.
And Dr. Troy Davis
set the record straight yesterday in the VDT.
I’d be happy to talk to teachers, pro or con. Send ’em over!
“Stretching for controversy”? Around here you have to duck to avoid controversy.
You know, like the VDT saying it won’t publish any more stories about school
consolidation….
I see the VDT is not ducking this one, though, rather helping stir it up.
In yesterday’s story, the VDT announced mission accomplished:
The new grading policy for grades third through eighth released by the
Lowndes County school system in January has stirred controversy locally
and even nationally.
It wasn’t the grading policy that stirred controversy, it was Scott James, Fox News,
the VDT, the AJC, the SMN, etc.
And that “controversy” will make it easier the next time “unification”
rears its ugly head.
-jsq
What does a Community Corrections Director do?
What is the proposed modification to the alcohol ordinance?
We don’t know, because the county doesn’t post the details of
agenda items, just cryptic shorthand that may mean something
to Commissioners or staff, but that means nothing to the public.
At this morning’s work session and tomorrow evening’s regular session,
the Lowndes County Commission has a brief but eventful agenda,
including a modification to the alcohol ordinance, an alcohol license,
a DHS grant
a GDOT grant for a road project on Davidson Road (presumably related
to the new Moody AFB gate),
two road abandonments,
and this interesting item:
6.h. Request from Superior Court to establish salary of the Community Corrections Director
Your guess is as good as mine.
Here’s
the agenda.
-jsq
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
The Decatur County newspaper brags about prisoners competing with free labor,
while
helping try to attract another prison.
Brennan Leathers wrote for the Post-Searchlight 3 January 2010,
Walls going up at new ag building,
Work on Decatur County’s new agricultural office building is quickly
progressing, with interior walls being put up and the installation
of a roof soon to follow.Decatur County Prison inmates with carpentry and construction
experience were working hard last Friday, putting up the interior
walls inside the 9,724-square-foot building under construction near
the Cloud Agricultural Building off Vada Road.
Which means some local workers with carpentry and construction
experience were not working on that project.
Do we want a private prison in Lowndes County so more prisoners
can compete with local workers here, too?
If you don’t think so, remember
CCA says community opposition
can impede private prison site selection.
Here’s a
petition urging the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
to stop the CCA private prison.
-jsq
We haven’t looked in on the little town of 3,000 odd people of
Quartzsite, Arizona, lately.
Its goings-on continue to seem eerily applicable to our own county
of 100,000 odd people.
On 9 December 2011, the Attorney General of Arizona,
Tom Horne,
issued a statement
Re: Open Meeting Law Complaint against Town of Quartzsite Common Council (the “Council”),
saying that the town Council had violated the state Open Meetings Law (OML)
four times:
This one wasn’t a violation, but may be at least as important:
The purpose of the OML is to require public bodies to meet publicly
and openly so that al persons so desiring may attend and listen to the
deliberations and proceedings.
Why, I believe that’s
the same in Georgia!
It seems back-room meetings are bad:
George Page, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County
Parks and Recreation Authority (VLCPRA), said at the 9 January 2012
meeting of the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
that amateur baseball tournaments were coming in April 2012,
bringing 1200 room nights to Valdosta.
That caused applause.
He said the Black Softball Association is coming in February,
with 80-100 teams, and more room nights.
Local players won’t have to go to Atlanta for tournaments anymore.
Ed Hooper wrote for the VDT 1 Dec 2011,
Baseball tournaments coming to Lowndes County
At its monthly meeting on Wednesday, the Valdosta-Lowndes County
Parks and Recreation Authority announced the
United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA)
is set to bring its highly-respected
baseball tournament to Valdosta and Lowndes County in April.The tournament features 24 teams from the state of Florida and 24
from Georgia, and consists of teams from ages 9-14 years old. The
tournament will run from April 22-24, and will be played at Freedom
Park, Vallotton Park, South Lowndes Park, Lowndes and Valdosta High
Schools and possibly Valdosta State University.“It will be the absolute best 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and
14-year-old teams coming out of the state of Georgia to face
Florida,” Bubba Smith, Director of Tournament Operations for
the USSSA said. “Obviously, it is a real competitive
tournament that we put together, but it is real exciting to give the
teams opportunities to mingle with each other.”…
VLPRA director George Page also announced the Black Softball Association
Tournament, which features 80-100 teams, will be played in Valdosta this
upcoming February. The tournament will bring in around $200,000 to the
local community.
At LCDP, he said all those tournaments would bring
close to half a million dollars into the economy.
More applause.
“I’m not a director to sit behind my desk and wait for them to come to us.”
Apparently he’d modest, as well, because even more tournaments are coming,
and the expected economic benefit
of all those tournaments is actually larger.
