The SGRC website has been updated to correct the error for the public
comment form. Thank you for letting us know and helping to spread the
word about these public meetings.
Public Comment Form
Southern Georgia Regional Transportation Roundtable
and asks for your name, address, phone, email, and your comments.
I bet you could email that information if you don’t want to print
out the form and write on it.
The
public notice about the regional T-SPLOST meetings said:
Comments are being accepted by email at chull@sgrc.us, by fax at
229-333-5212, or by mailing them to SGRC, ATTN: SG RTR, 327 W Savannah
Ave., Valdosta, GA 31601.
For more information please call Corey Hull at 229-333-5277.
We can only prosper as a society if we work together. Despite the
differences we might have, we share so much more in common. Yet it seems
that we prefer to fall into separate camps, that we seek to view issues
in black and white, and that we like to belong to those who have “got
it all figured out”. Just pick your side (liberal, conservative)
and you “know” who got it all wrong.
I have been humbled by the wide-ranging support WACE received to stop
a biomass plant that was once considered a done deal. In the end what
mattered was the realization by people across all ages, racial and
ideological lines that we want to breathe clean air, and that we don’t
want to waste millions of tax dollars on a project that will lead to
increases in respiratory illnesses, heart diseases, and cancer. Thus
the people spoke up, and with the help of elected representatives and
the Industrial Authority “no biomass” became the consensus.
In the last couple of months I noticed another issue many agree on.
This is the clearest statement of the football argument I’ve heard.
This is the same speaker who already mentioned
quality of education, property taxes, and property values,
so this is just one argument among many.
The speaker is associated with FVCS, and if I went to VHS,
I’d know his name right away; I’m an LHS graduate.
The first thing they’ll do is sell that stadium.
They’d be crazy not to do….
They’re not going to pay upkeep on two stadiums.
Look at Tallahassee, Macon: all the schools play at one stadium….
…
Don’t let those people run the show.
Don’t let them take the power away from us.
…
If one day it makes good economic sense for y’all to
make the decision to sell that property to Valdosta State
and build another stadium and we can come out ahead,
I think that’s a great idea.
Like my granddaddy said, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
By “those people” I don’t think he means the Lowndes County Board
of Education; I think he was referring to CUEE.
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.
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.
“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 →
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?
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 →
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
The SGRC website has been updated to correct the error for the public comment form. Thank you for letting us know and helping to spread the word about these public meetings.
