Category Archives: Law

Videos: Dollar General, Elections, and Human Resources @ LCC 2014-02-10

Fourteen (14) minutes. The most time was spent on the Wheeler rezoning, on yet another Dollar General, Elections Supervisor Deb Cox personally made her Board of Elections personnel request, which is to change five part-time positions for one full-time, and several Commissioners asked questions about the Human Resources service contract, which might result in educational requirements for positions, and is supposed to survey everybody paid by the county: but does that include employees of boards with their own millage, namely the Industrial Authority and Parks and Rec?

They vote tomorrow, Tuesday 11 Feb 2014 at 5:30 PM. Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Lowndes County attorney has been discussing the pipeline with other county attorneys

As usual, the citizens of Lowndes County are the last to know.

Alan Mauldin wrote for The Moultrie Observer 8 February 2014, County commission meetings to focus on Sabal Trail pipeline,

County Attorney Lester Castellow, who reently met with his counterparts from Brooks, Doughterty and Lowndes counties, is scheduled to address commissioners about the project during a Monday afternoon commission work session.

That would be the alleged Lowndes County attorney Walter G. Elliott.

Meanwhile, Colquitt County attorney Castellow is on the agenda for today’s noon Work Session in Moultrie, and again at 7PM Tuesday in the Colquitt County Commission Regular Session, with Sabal Trail pipeline reps in attendance. More here.

Which is something the Lowndes County Commission has never done. Sure, the Lowndes County Commissioners asked four questions and forwarded citizen questions in writing, which got cut-and-paste PR answers from Spectra. From one of the same Spectra reps who was “not familiar” with Spectra’s sorry rap sheet of corrosion, leaks, and fines.

-jsq

Dollar General, Elections, and Human Resources @ LCC 2014-02-10

Three water wells ( Wheeler, Brown, and Dollar General), a Board of Elections personnel request, and a Human Resources service contract, plus whatever the Chairman interjects off the agenda and whoever the County Manager has give reports.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Free speech for bloggers as journalists reaffirmed

This should have been obvious already from the Open Government Act of 2007, among other laws, but now a court has reaffirmed it.

Dan Levine wrote for Reuters 17 January 2014, Blogger gets same speech protections as traditional press: U.S. court,

A blogger is entitled to the same free speech protections as a traditional journalist and cannot be liable for defamation unless she acted negligently, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

Crystal Cox lost a defamation trial in 2011 over a blog post she wrote accusing a bankruptcy trustee and Obsidian Finance Group of tax fraud. A lower court judge had found that Obsidian did not have to prove that Cox acted negligently because Cox failed to submit evidence of her status as a journalist.

But in the ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Cox deserved a new trial, regardless of the fact that she is not a traditional reporter.

“As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable,” 9th Circuit Judge Andrew Hurwitz wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel.

Here’s the actual ruling: Obsidian Finance Group, LLC; Kevin D. Padrick v. Crystal Cox, United States Cour tof Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 17 January 2014, Continue reading →

Open Records, Open Meetings

LCC-open-records-request-form-7.2013 One effective way to keep an eye on what’s happening in our government is through open records and open meetings, and Georgia has pretty good laws for both of those.

Attending meetings generally requires only a small amount of time for any agency. Some government agencies meet only once per month and sometimes for less than one hour. Some may meet twice a month (work session and regular session) or some as frequently as four times (two work sessions and two regular sessions). Attending meetings is a good way to show the elected and appointed officials that you are interested in what they are doing as your representative. Making open records requests is a good way to get additional information about issues in which you are interested.

In Georgia, the Open Records Act is O.C.G.A. §50-18 and the Open Meeting Act is O.C.G.A. §50-14 . The official copies of these can be found online at http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/, however there are handy links on the State Attorney General’s site at http://law.ga.gov/law which provide easily readable PDF files.

The introduction of O.C.G.A. §50-18-70 says: Continue reading →

GA bill for solar financing

What electric utilities fear most: bipartisan support for distributed rooftop solar financing. You can call your legislator and support HB 874, the Solar Power Free-Market Financing and Property Rights Act of 2014.

Dave Williams wrote for the Atlanta Business Chronicle 28 January 2014, Ga. Republican unveils solar bill,

Georgia property owners would be able to contract directly with solar energy installers to finance the installation of solar panels under legislation introduced in the General Assembly Tuesday.

The bill would let property owners lease solar panels instead of having to buy them with cash up front, said Georgia Rep. Mike Dudgeon, R-Johns Creek, the bill’s sponsor.

“We want to make it clear Continue reading →

TPP Environment chapter released by Wikileaks

No penalties and no proposed criminal sanctions in TPP for environmental destruction, in sharp contrast to the U.S. proposal for new criminal penalties for “unintentional infringements” intellectual property.

Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) – Environment Consolidated Text

Today, 15 January 2014, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Environment Chapter and the corresponding Chairs’ Report. The TPP transnational legal regime would cover 12 countries initially and encompass 40 per cent of global GDP and one-third of world trade. The Environment Chapter has long been sought by journalists and environmental groups. The released text dates from the Chief Negotiators’ summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013.

The Environment Chapter covers what the Parties propose to be their positions on: environmental issues, including climate change, biodiversity and fishing stocks; and trade and investment in ‘environmental’ goods and services. It also outlines Continue reading →

Change orders in DeKalb County

Manipulating construction contracts landed two former DeKalb County school employees in prison.

Rhonda Cook wrote for the AJC 9 December 2013, Former DeKalb schools COO gets 15 years: Judge rejects former superintendent Crawford Lewis’ deal for no jail time,

Prosecutors allege Reid sent work to her husband by presenting new work at Columbia as an extension of what he was already contracted to do and then Pope allegedly overcharged the district.

Prosecutors also contend Continue reading →

Fossil fuels are a disaster: literally in WV

300,000 people have their drinking water poisoned by a coal chemical in a disaster declared by a state and the federal government. Do we know what’s in that coal ash coal ash in the Lowndes County landfill? Do we trust a pipeline company with a long list of safety violations to dig into our aquifer?

David Jackson wrote for USA Today yesterday, Obama sends disaster aid to West Virginia,

President Obama is sending federal assistance to West Virginia, where schools and businesses are closed after a chemical spill Thursday into a Charleston river.

“The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of West Virginia and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts,” said an administration statement on Friday morning.

Under the order, the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency will coordinate efforts with local officials.

Kiley Kroh wrote for Thinkprogress yesterday, West Virginia Declares State Of Emergency After Coal Chemical Contaminates Drinking Water, Continue reading →

Deep divisions between U.S. and Asian nations in TPP –Wikileaks

Do you want foreign corporations to be able to sue the U.S. because your county has implemented restrictions of pipelines feeding liquid natural gas exports? Or because your country hasn’t locked up enough people for unintentional infringement of copyright? Or because your state has implemented a GMO-labeling law? Then you oppose the TPP.

After the November release of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter, in December Wikileaks released two documents from the secret closed Salt Lake City TPP chief negotiators’ meeting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, showing deep divisions between the negotiating countries that have already caused a U.S.-imposed TPP deadline to be missed. These documents add potential international treaty enforcement of “mandates” against restrictions on trade to protect national products or environment or labor to all the reasons EFF gives for opposing this corporate-power-grab treaty and the LNG export pressures for TPP that would drive up the price of fracked “natural” gas and push pipelines through numerous states for the profit of a few fossil fuel and utility executives and investors.

The deep divisions among the negotiating countries exposed Continue reading →