Category Archives: Economy

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it —? @ VBOE 29 August 2011

Research quality of education, property taxes, and property values after school consolidation, and you’ll find down, up, and down, said this speaker. Didn’t get his name; sorry.

I don’t have kids, but I have plenty of friends that do. that are in Valdosta city school system, and they like the direction that the school system is going. They like the quality of education that their children are getting at this time.

My grandfather used to say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It ain’t broke, so why are we going to let them try to fix it?

Do the research; I’ve done the research. Do the research on other communities that have consolidated two systems. When you get a big huge system, the quality of education goes down. Check it out. Research it.

Property taxes go up. Property values go down. Do the research.

You know, the research CUEE either did and rejected, according to Sam Allen about the questions VDT claims CUEE can’t answer. There are answers; just not ones CUEE likes.

Here’s the video:


If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it @ 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

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 →

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 →

“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 →

Time to divest from private prison companies

It’s time to stop private prison profiteering by refusing to take their profit: divest private prison company stock from personal, pension, and church funds.

There’s no need to speculate that private prison companies have incentive to keep more people locked up: CCA says so. Kanya D’Almeida wrote for IPS 24 August 2011, ‘Profiteers of Misery’: The U.S. Private Prison Industrial Complex:

CCA’s 2010 annual report states categorically that, “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws — for instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”

CCA continues, “Legislation has been proposed in numerous jurisdictions that could lower minimum sentences for some non-violent crimes and make more inmates eligible for early release based on good behaviour, (while) sentencing alternatives under consideration could put some offenders on probation who would otherwise be incarcerated. Similarly, reductions in crime rates or resources dedicated to prevent and enforce crime could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities.”

What’s this got to do with Georgia? Continue reading →

Anyone attending the CUEE meeting expecting a plan … left disappointed. —VDT

While many other people, such as Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS), are trying to prevent the damage to education CUEE is trying to cause through its “unification” referendum, CUEE had a meeting of its educational committee yesterday.

Sharah Denton wrote for the VDT, CUEE focuses on academics:

Anyone attending the CUEE meeting expecting a plan for how unification of the city and county school systems would work left disappointed. Instead of discussing how the school systems might merge if CUEE’s campaign to dissolve the Valdosta school charter succeeds during the Nov. 8 election referendum, the Education Planning Task Force focused on its primary objective: improving academics for area students.
So they have no plan, and of course they also have no control over academics. If “unification” passes, that control would lie with Continue reading →

Why can’t Winnersville have two great school systems? —Sam Allen @ VBOE 29 August 2011

CUEE has lost its framing. Nobody calls it “unification” but CUEE. Everybody else calls it consolidation, same as for the last thirty years. And Sam Allen is turning the tide against it.

Sam Allen, president of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) and former Valdosta School Superintendent said:

I promised myself three years ago when I left this place, that one thing I would never do, and that would come and attend another board meeting.
He said he came for a good cause this time.
The CUEE group is calling this unification all of a sudden. And I think that’s just a play on words, and a play on our intelligence. Because for thirty years we’ve called this process consolidation. Now all of a sudden we’re calling it unification.

We’re calling it unification because the only thing that we want to change is the central office. We want all the schools to remain the same. The only thing we want to change is what goes on right here at 1204 Williams Street.

Well if you’re going to unify a community, something has to change. This group has failed to put together a plan that we can follow.

And that’s the point, isn’t it? Continue reading →

SGMC absorbs Smith Northview Hospital

What could that $55 million or that $100 million have been used for that would have improved medical care around here?

Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday, SGMC acquisition of Smith Northview official:

Beginning today, Smith Northview is an official campus of South Georgia Medical Center.

Officials from the Hospital Authority of Valdosta-Lowndes County and Ameris Health Systems gathered Wednesday at SGMC to sign the paperwork together to finalize the sale.

SGMC purchased Smith Northview for $55 million, with no assumption of debt. Hospital Authority Attorney Walter H. New said the purchase was financed through an 18-month bridge loan, which is anticipated to be paid in full in December when SGMC is expected to have a $100 million bond issue to pay for current and future projects on the main hospital campus.

Interim CEO for Smith Northview, Shamb Purohit, said, “This is a wonderful moment and we need to celebrate it.”

Yeah, well, he’s paid to say that. I say it’s a sad day. First Smith Hospital moved from Hahira Continue reading →