Category Archives: Government

Alabama requires schools to check for immigrants

Should schools teach all students to become productive members of society, or should they scare off people the state doesn’t like at the moment, spending resources to do it that could be spent teaching?

Liz Goodwin blogs in The Lookout for Yahoo! News, 10 June 2011, Alabama immigration law pressures schools to check immigration status

Alabama’s new immigration law is drawing comparisons to SB1070, the anti-illegal immigration crackdown signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer last year before a judge quickly blocked it from going into effect.

But Alabama’s new law is actually much broader and much tougher than SB 1070–most notably for a provision that asks school administrators to check the immigration status of their students.

Supporters say the law will help the state determine how much public money goes to educating undocumented children.

“That is where one of our largest costs come from,” Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale told The Montgomery Advertiser. “It’s part of the cost factor.”

So deal with it by putting more unfunded work on the heads of school administrators?

Besides, if all the schools are required to do is check, what money does that save? Continue reading →

U.S. Senate finds drug war failed

When it’s so obvious even the U.S. Senate can find it, after the rest of the world points it out, maybe there’s something to it.

Eyder Peralta wrote for NPR yesterday, Report: U.S. Drug War Spending Is Unjustifiable

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said that after a year-long investigation by a Senate subcommittee, “it’s becoming increasingly clear that our efforts to rein in the narcotics trade in Latin America, especially as it relates to the government’s use of contractors, have largely failed.”

The report comes a week after a high-powered commission of former world leaders came to the conclusion that the global war on drugs had “failed.” Mark wrote about that report, last week.

That would be Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy that recommended start legalizing drugs with marijuana?

And what happens to what little there is of a business plan for private prisons when the U.S. and Georgia wise up and legalize marijuana and other drugs?

We don’t need another bad business boondoggle in Lowndes County. Spend that tax money on education instead.

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Lowndes County is disaster area —Gov. Deal

Climate change makes Lowndes County a disaster area.

Amber Eady wrote for WALB, Deal requests disaster designation for Lowndes County:

Gov. Deal sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asking that 22 Georgia counties be declared disaster areas because of Georgia’s ongoing drought.

Lowndes County was on that list of 22 counties that Deal wants to be declared as disaster areas.

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Industrial Authority debts could force Lowndes County to raise taxes

A mil here, a mil there; soon we’re into real money! Can the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) commit we the local taxpayers to a $150 million bond issue for a private company like the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority just did? Maybe.

VLCIA has already issued $15 million in bonds for which apparently the Lowndes County Commission has committed the county, that is, we the taxpayers, to pay the debt service. That comes out of VLCIA’s one mil of dedicated tax income. But according to the intergovernmental contract, it’s actually not even just from VLCIA’s current millage:

Section 4.4 Security for Contract Payments and for Bonds.

(a) The obligation of the County to make the payments required pursuant to Section 4.1(a) hereof shall be a general obligation of the County for which its full faith and credit is pledged, and shall be payable from any lafully available funds, subject to the Tax Funding Limit. In particular, the County agrees to levy an annual tax on all taxable property located within its boundaries, as now existent and as the same may be extended, at such rate or rates, as limited by the Tax Funding Limit, as and when it may be necessary to provide the County with sufficient revenues to make all payments required to be made by the County under this Contract.
The current VLCIA millage is one mil, or about $3 million a year, collected by the county in property taxes and handed over to VLCIA.

But VLCIA’s charter says (in Section 5): Continue reading →

Prisons bad for education budget

Building a prison is not just a bad business gamble now that crime rates are down and state budgets are tight. It’s bad for other things, too. As the reporter who originally broke the story about the empty new prison in Grayson County, VA noted 2 January 2011, Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a national group that promotes criminal justice reform, summed it up:
“Corrections over the past 25 years has become an increasingly big component of state budgets, to the point that it’s competing for funding with education and other core services,” Mauer said. “And you can’t have it both ways anymore.”

If we want knowledge-based jobs here, a private prison is not how to get them. Let’s not build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend those tax dollars on education instead.

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Former Bureau of Prisons chief quit after DUI

At 55, why would Harley G. Lappin retire from his former cushy job as Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons? It might have something to do with being charged with a crime.

According to Ryan J. Reilly at TMPMuckracker 30 March 2011,

Lappin was pulled over less than a half mile from his house at 3:59 a.m. on Feb. 26, the website reported. He’s been charged with driving while under the influence, reckless driving, negligent driving and failure to obey the instructions of a traffic-control device, according to the news website. A spokeswoman said that Lappin informed his staff of the arrest.

Lappin will be due in court on June 16, a little over a month after his resignation becomes effective on May 7.

Well, that will be interesting, to see if the new private prison czar gets off or ends up a felon.

CCA is the company that wants to build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on education, instead.

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New CCA CCO is former Director of Federal Bureau of Prisons

The largest private prison company in the U.S. has hired the former director of the world’s largest prison system, according to CCA’s own press release of 1 June 2011:
NASHVILLE, TN–(Marketwire – Jun 1, 2011) – CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) (NYSE: CXW), America’s leader in partnership corrections, announced that effective June 1, 2011, Harley G. Lappin, 55, shall serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Corrections Officer (CCO). In this role, Mr. Lappin will be responsible for the oversight of facility operations, health services, inmate rehabilitation programs, purchasing and TransCor, the Company’s wholly-owned transportation subsidiary. He succeeds Richard P. Seiter, who announced his decision to step down as CCO earlier this year, effective May 31, 2011.

Mr. Lappin, as a career correctional administrator, previously served as the Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) — the nation’s largest correctional system, a position he held since 2003, prior to retirement in May 2011. He served in a variety of roles with the Bureau of Prisons for more than 25 years, beginning in 1985, including Regional Director, Warden of the United States Penitentiary in Indiana, and Warden of the Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina, among other positions. As Director of the BOP, Lappin had oversight and management responsibility for 116 federal prisons, 14 large, private contract facilities and more than 250 contracts for community correction facilities, in total comprising more than 215,000 inmates managed by 38,000 employees, with a $6.4 billion budget.

How’s that for a revolving door?

CCA is the company that wants to build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on education, instead.

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Cat Creek Road closure has slipped a week

Cat Creek Road closure has slipped a week, although lots of people detouring around didn’t know that.

According to Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization:

Update: On Monday June 13, Cat Creek Rd will be closed at Beatty Mill Creek for bridge repairs. Repairs should take approximately 3 days, and a detour route will be established. Motorists are urged to use caution and to pay attention to all traffic control devices while traveling on Cat Creek Rd. If there are any questions or concerns please call the Lowndes Co. Engineering Dept. at 229-671-2424.
VLMPO had that on their facebook page hours before lowndescounty.com got around to posting it on their own website. And on lowndescounty.com it’s a a PDF, not a webpage. Maybe the county will get the hang of this web stuff eventually.

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“We really need it in the county really bad.” —Grayson County, VA

Is Lowndes County in such bad shape that we, too, want a private prison, no matter that there’s no business case for it? Or should we learn from one bad business bet and not double down on another?

Susan Kinzie wrote in the Washington Post 30 May 2011, New Virginia prison sits empty, at a cost of more than $700,000 a year

This is how bad the economy is in southwestern Virginia: People are wishing they had more criminals in town.

That’s because Grayson County has a brand-new state prison standing empty. No prisoners. And that means no guards, no administrators, no staff, no jobs.

“I wish they would go ahead and open it up,” said Rhonda James of Mouth of Wilson, echoing many residents there. “We really need it in the county really bad.”

Three hundred new jobs — maybe 350 — that’s what people were told when the prison was planned. With about 11 percent unemployment and no relief in sight, that sounded really good to an awful lot of people here.

But months after the commonwealth finished building the 1,024-bed medium-security prison for $105 million, it remains empty, coils of razor wire and red roofs shining in the sun, new parking lot all but deserted and a yawning warehouse waiting for supplies.

And it’s costing more than $700,000 a year to maintain.

Meanwhile, the story continued, Virginia has closed 10 prisons due to budget shortfalls and lack of prisoners. And it’s not just Virginia: Continue reading →

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days Grows 4 June 2011

Lots of people and vendors last Saturday, buying local food in downtown Valdosta!

Every other Saturday around the historic Lowndes County Courthouse is Downtown Valdosta Farm Days, 9AM to 1PM, May through September. It’s organized by Valdosta Main Street. Amanda Peacock and shy Mara Register explain what’s going on at the beginning of this playlist showing most of the vendors and the general atmosphere of community festival.


Downtown Valdosta Farm Days Grows 4 June 2011 Part 2 of 2:
, Downtown Valdosta Farm Days,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 June 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Still pictures in the flickr set.

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