Category Archives: Community

Tinkering with number of schools doesn’t improve education —John S. Quarterman

While I agree with most of
Karen Noll’s post,
especially the part about CUEE should come clean about why it’s spending
so much money on something about which it knows little,
I don’t agree that consolidating high schools would help.

I remember when Lowndes County consolidated two high schools into one, and the rationale was cost saving and more resources for science classes. What it was really about was football.
And it worked: Lowndes High School now often wins the state championship,
and Valdosta hasn’t in a decade.
While education lags behind.

I think the Lowndes County Board of Education is doing the right

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Why is CUEE so interested? —Karen Noll

Received today on
We’re here to save our schools. -jsq

To date CUEE has lead the discussion and they have no role in making the
solutions happen if consolidation should go through. CUEE consists of
folks very minimally involved in the city schools at this time. Why is
this group so ‘interested in Valdosta City Schools’? Until this issue
is clarified CUEE’s motives will forever be questioned.

At the same time, if this issue is on the ballot we (parents, teachers,
BOEs…)must begin the true discussion of facts and become informed on
the issue that we may be called to vote on in November. So, here we are.

CUEE has spent thousands (more than 100 grand) to get this

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We’re here to save our schools —Sam Allen, FVCS, 7 July 2011



Sam Allen, former chair of the Valdosta school board and head of
Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) held

a press conference
to announce opposition after
CUEE announced 9,000 petitions for a referendum to
combine the Valdosta and Lowndes County school systems..
Why so late with the opposition?

Sam Allen explained:

“We were scared.
We were intimidated because we had heard about all these consultants coming down,
and all these studies being done.
So we just thought that we would just sit back and watch
and this thing would eventually go away like a bad dream.
But folks I want you to know it’s not going away like a bad dream.
It’s becoming a nightmare.

Now we stand before you with one purpose in mind:
do not sign any petitions.
… If it comes to a vote, we want you to vote no.”

Guess they’re not scared any more.

He added:

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Who wants to live in a prison colony?



Judy Green, a prison policy analyst says:

“The very first
contract
for the first private prison in America
went to CCA, from INS.”

Hear her in this video

Private Prisons-Commerce in Souls by Grassroots Leadership
that explains the private prison trade of public safety for private profit:

A local leader once called private prisons “good clean industry”.
Does locking up people for private profit sound like “good clean industry” to you?
Remember, not only is the U.S. the worst in the world for locking people up
(more prisoners per capita and total than any other country in the world),
but Georgia is the worst in the country, with

1 in 13 adults in the prison system.
And private prisons

don’t save money and
they

don’t improve local employment.
As someone says in the video, who wants to live in a prison colony?

We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education.

-jsq

PS: Owed to Jeana Brown.

1 in 13 Georgia adults in the prison system —Pew Center on the States



Georgia is number 1 in something: locking people up,
1 in 13 of adults,

according to the Pew Center on the States.


That costs us more than a billion dollars a year in tax money,
5.9% of the state budget.
That’s up from $133.26 million in 1983, increased by more than a factor of seven.


Meanwhile, the correctional population swelled from around 100,000 in 1982 to more
than 550,000 in 2007.
And while other states have started decreasing their prison populations,
Georgia’s continues to increase.
The state is even coming up with new ways to lock people up,
such as kicking them out of mental institutions.
We seem headed back towards

plantation slave labor
and

prison road gangs
in for minor drug infractions.

How about we reverse this trend?

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Biomass plant land offer: Industrial Authority board meets this morning

A usually reliable source tells me that this morning at 8AM
VLCIA will hold a special called board meeting to consider
a specific dollar offer from Sterling Planet for the site
of the proposed biomass plant.


I see nothing in the public notices online.
The Industrial Authority’s

own online calendar has today marked,
although it doesn’t say for what.
The VDT’s online calendar

does have it listed:

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Special Called Meeting

When Friday
Jul. 8, 2011
8:00 AM
Description Purpose of meeting is to discus real estate. Call 259-9972.
Where Authority Offices

2110 N. Patterson St.

Valdosta, GA

The VDT calendar doesn’t say what real estate, but the source
has usually been correct before.
Since it’s about real estate they’ll probably go directly into executive
session, which means the public can’t attend that part.
However, public can attend the public street outside.

VLCIA Chairman Jerry Jennett

previously said:

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Sunday Sales of Alcohol —Alexander Abell

Received yesterday. -jsq

Depending on what City Council decides at tomorrow’s meeting, citizens may
get a chance to vote in November whether or not to allow the sale of
alcoholic beverages in stores on Sundays. As an American and a strong
believer in freedom and democracy, I support this vote. I wonder why some
protest even having a vote.

I cannot think of a single good legal argument for banning the sale of
alcohol on Sundays. If you consider alcohol sinful, you are free not to
purchase or consume any no matter the day of the week. If it is not against
your own morals, why should

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Community Calendar —Jane F. Osborn



The latest update (5 July 2011) is online for the

community calendar
produced by

Jane F. Osborn
who organizes the

Valdosta Civic Roundtable.
She says:

…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

we are to go home, never ask questions —Barbara Stratton

This morning on

Lowndes County has transparency issues:



This is typical of all elected & appointed government bodies locally. The
common opinion is citizens are only valuable for voting. After we vote
we are to go home, never ask questions, never complain, & never comment
until it is time to vote again. The common consensus is we are not capable
of understanding what our elected/appointed officials are doing so we
need to stay out of the process totally. This is nanny state government
via local venues. We the people are reduced to you the unendowed &
unimportant. John – Our political views are usually polar opposites,
but we are always 100% agreed on shinning the light on government
black-outs. Keep up the good work.

-Barbara Stratton

Lowndes County has transparency issues —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 28 June 2011



No unfinished drafts will be published while Ashley Paulk is chairman,
or so he told us.

I asked him how he recommended citizens provide input to the
budget process?
He said at every meeting.

So I said I wondered why the county attorney seemed to be overbudget.
No response.

Then I got to my main point, which was that the county seems to have
a number of transparency issues,
such as



the missing ordinances he’d just heard about,



or Vince Schneider’s Foxborough McDonald’s issues,



or the animal shelter issues,
or



the T-SPLOST list that the Commission approved
on the basis of a one page list of one-liner with no details
that turns out to include things like

$10 million to widen New Bethel Road to Lanier County.

I said I would like to compare the county’s submissions for T-SPLOST
funding to the county’s Thoroughfare Plan
and the Comprehensive Plan; if I could find those plans online.
The Chairman said my five minutes were up.
I said “Alrighty” and moseyed back to my seat.
As you can see for yourself, it was actually 4 and a half minutes.

-jsq

Here’s

the video:

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