Here’s
a video playlist of the 20 November 2012 South Georgia Regional Library Board meeting.
And here’s
George Rhynes’ editorial on what he saw, heard, and was asked at that meeting.
He’d prefer SPLOST being spent first on sidewalks
than on moving the library where people would have
to go farther to get to it.
Also, like many of us, he’s tired of a few people controlling
the purse-strings without input from the rest of us.
He gave an example:
Category Archives: Education
SPLOST VII @ SGLB 2012-11-20
At
Tuesday’s South Georgia Library Board meeting.
a board member (his nameplate said Willis Miller)
wanted to know about SPLOST:
How we know it’s going to come up next November or at another time?
Good question.
Here’s video of the discussion as
it resumed later in the meeting:
SPLOST VII discussion at Monthly Meeting, South Georgia Library Board (SGLB),
Video by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I. and bostongbr on YouTube,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 20 November 2012.
Kay Harris said there had to be a minimum of twelve months, so November 2013 would be the next possible time. She said County Commissioner Richard Raines had expressed full support for the new library, and she was talking to the other commissioners. She was asked whether the SPLOST lists would be the same, and said there might be some changes, but she hadn’t heard anyone suggest that the Five Points property might be deleted. That’s curious, because she quoted Valdosta Mayor Gayle in the VDT 7 November 2012 as saying:
Continue readingHelp the military stop climate change through sustainable renewable energy
In memory of Armistice Day, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when World War I ended, let’s help the military get us off of oil and to deal with climate change so fewer people will die in wars.
John M. Broder wrote for NYTimes 9 November 2012, Climate Change Report Outlines Perils for U.S. Military,
Climate change is accelerating, and it will place unparalleled strains on
American military and intelligence agencies in coming years by causing ever more disruptive events around the globe, the nation’s top scientific research group said in a report issued Friday.
The group, the National Research Council, says in a study commissioned by the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies that clusters of apparently unrelated events exacerbated by a warming climate will create more frequent but unpredictable crises in water supplies, food markets, energy supply chains and public health systems.
Hurricane Sandy provided a foretaste of what can be expected more often in the near future, the report’s lead author, John D. Steinbruner, said in an interview.
“This is the sort of thing we were talking about,” said Mr. Steinbruner, a longtime authority on national security. “You can debate the specific contribution of global warming to that storm. But we’re saying climate extremes are going to be more frequent, and this was an example of what they could mean. We’re also saying it could get a whole lot worse than that.”
…
Climate-driven crises could lead to internal instability or international conflict and might force the United States to provide humanitarian assistance or, in some cases, military force to protect vital energy, economic or other interests, the study said.
This is in addition to the even more obvious
connection between war and U.S. dependence on foreign oil
which the veterans in Operation Free want to fix
by helping us shift to clean renewable energy.
“In Iraq… the lines would stretch up to ten miles long under the hot sun, under constant risk of attack by extremists. I realized then just how vulnerable it makes any country to be dependent on oil, especially the United States, which uses nearly a quarter of the world’s supply.”
We also heard last year from Col. Dan Nolan (U.S. Army ret.) that the Marines in Afghanistan realized Continue reading
Charles Darwin won 16% against Paul Broun (GA-10)
Occupy Athens, which a few weeks ago couldn’t draw more than a few people to its General Assembly, has pulled off some electoral theater seen nation-wide: write-in candidate Charles Darwin drew 16% of the vote against evolution-denier Paul Broun in Congressional district 10.
Natalie Jennings wrote for the Washington Post 9 November 2012, Charles Darwin earns nearly 4,000 write-in votes against Ga. Rep. Broun,
Darwin, who was the original proponent of the theory of evolution and died in 1882, got nearly 4,000 write-in votes against the incumbent Broun, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. Broun, a physician, is a creationist who in September said evolution was based on “lies straight from the pit of hell.”
And here’s part of what one of Occupy Athens wrote online today:
Continue readingWhat people are interested in having their pennies spent on —Gretchen Quarterman
Received yesterday on Allocate resources in a yearly budget? -jsq
As I was out campaigning, it was interesting what people are
interested in having their pennies spent on. Many want better sidewalks and safer places to ride their bikes. One Valdosta police officer particularly commented on the dangerous bike riding conditions (especially on North Oak Extension). Many in the un-incorporated areas want increased fire protection and it seems that everyone better drainage (and I don't mean simply open ditches for rain water) and still others would like to see some soccer fields.
It seems like we should be able to do some prioritizations and then save up for these things. I guess that will be up to the new commission chairman and members and they will have to figure out how to move forward without a SPLOST immediately in 2014.
Personally, I'd like to see a public accounting of how the previous SPLOSTS were spent. And not in big categories, but the actual details… But that's just me.
-Gretchen Quarterman
-jsq
Challengers made statehouse incumbents work in south Georgia
Hardly-funded insurgents led by Haley Shank put a scare into turncoat south Georgia statehouse
incumbents.
What would happen with well-funded candidates?
As we’ve already seen, in new district 177 Dexter Sharper (D) won 2 to 1 over opponent J. Glenn Gregory (R). (All election data in this post is from GA Secretary of State.)
Conversely, Jason Shaw (R-176) ran unopposed, perhaps because he is the least offensive of the incumbents (he voted against HB 1162 that put the Atlanta-power-grab “charter school” amendment on the ballot, although he did vote for HB 797 that will funnel more of your local tax dollars to charter schools imposed by Atlanta even if your school board doesn’t want them).
Other south Georgia statehouse incumbents, all Republicans, had challengers, all Democrats. All the challengers opposed Amendment 1. Haley Shank did best, in District 173 against Darlene K. Taylor, 8,324 to 12,048 (40.86% to 59.14%).
Next was Continue reading
Allocate resources in a yearly budget?
Received today on SPLOST VII lost. -jsq
After reading this post, a question came to mind. Have we the citizens of Lowndes County
actually been encouraging our elected officials to be fiscally irresponsible with public funds by allowing SPLOST to continue? if elected officials had to allocate resources in a yearly budget, we may actually encourage our officials to allocate resources towards public projects that would be desirable by the public rather than a priority in pthe minds of our elected officials.
-Bill Grow
Most corrupt state sells public education to Waltons
And it wasn’t even close:
2,152,091 to 1,526,959 (58.50% to 41.50%).
Lowndes County went for the Atlanta-power-grab “charter school” amendment
18,606 to 17,619 (51.36% to 48.64%).
The voters of Georgia just sold their children’s educational
birthright for a mess of slick brochures.
The
other ALEC amendment, on multi-year contracts,
passed by
an even wider margin:
2,241,621 to 1,275,809 (63.73% to 36.27%).
Lowndes went for it 20,205 to 14,414 (58.36% to 41.64%).
Apparently Georgia voters will vote for any old thing that’s submitted to them as a constitutional amendment.
Congratulations, ALEC and Wal-Mart!
You’ve demonstrated money talks and
slick brochures sell.
This was even better for you than
ALEC’s so-called anti-immigration law which the legislature passed
and
that actually devastates Georgia agriculture for
the profit of private prison company CCA.
This time you got the people of Georgia to vote directly against
their own best interests to the benefit of school privatizing
corporations in Virginia and Michigan!
Boo Georgia voters. You’ve just given the most corrupt legislature in the country the ability to commit you the taxpayers to contracts for decades. And you’ve just traded your children’s educational birthright for a mess of slick paper.
-jsq
SPLOST VII lost
Speaking of
transparency,
Lowndes County voters defeated SPLOST VII 18,864 to 17,923 (51.28% to 48.72%).
Kay Harris in the VDT today quoted Ashley Paulk with this reason:
The defeat came as a surprise to Mayor John Gayle but not to Lowndes County Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk, who said he warned the mayors of the five municipalities that if they continued to argue over LOST, the local option sales tax, that voters would turn against SPLOST in retaliation.
“I told them at the beginning if they didn’t stop arguing over a few percent of the LOST and refused to leave the numbers as is by taking the county’s offer, that taxpayers were going to turn against the SPLOST,” said Paulk.
“Voters are disenchanted with the way their local governments have gotten greedy and they’re tired of the arguments over money. They voted SPLOST down because they don’t trust us with their tax dollars, and it’s a real shame.”
I would agree bickering over the LOST pie was one of the reasons SPLOST lost, and add to that the opaque back-room processes by which the SPLOST VII projects were selected. While the library needs updated and expanded facilities, the lack of documented decision process for the architect and lack of adequate explanation for that probably didn’t help, either, nor did the county’s puzzling lumping of the library in with Parks and Rec. which they later tried to clarify. Perhaps the voters are tired of seeing transparency be a constant source of tension. And I’m using the library as just one example. I could equally cite the project for a farmers market under the overpass, which I think is a bad idea because the farmers market already has a fabulous location at the historic Lowndes County Courthouse, and so far as I know none of the vendors who sell there were even asked if they wanted a new location, much less the public who buy there.
At the public-not-invited SPLOST VII kickoff speeches the last speaker said they were not there Continue reading
Precincts on Election Day 2012 in Lowndes County, Georgia
There’s an election going on!
Here are some pictures of precincts around Lowndes County today.
I’ve seen no lines, and everything seems to be flowing smoothly.
Except there are multiple reports that when people call the Board of Elections
to ask where they vote they’re getting a “this number disconnected” message.
Apparently there are ten phone lines down there but only three people
answering them, and the phone is not rolling over properly.
Given all the recent changes in precincts, this is a problem.
Around 1PM Sara Crow said she heard at Pine Grove that about 900 people had
already voted there today.
I’m not blogging much today because I’m out helping
Gretchen for Lowndes County Commission Chair.
If you’ve got something interesting,
send it in;
I’m checking in frequently.
Here’s a slideshow:
Everyone Matters, so go vote!
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 November 2012.
Everyone matters, so go vote!
-jsq