Category Archives: Law

You’re losing the democratic process –Gary Wright @ LCC 2013-06-11

“I hope you’ll consider a democratic process working into your rules,” remarked a military veteran at Tuesday night’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

After saying he was also concerned about how Deep South Sanitation is being treated, Gary Wright said:

There is a little bit of a lack of democratic process in your meeting groundrules. On your website I don’t know anything in there that said you have only thirty minute meetings for the entire thing. I don’t know if this happens whenever you have a meeting that’s only thirty minutes long; I’ve never been to one.

Their rules don’t say that, but it’s not surprising there is confusion, given Continue reading →

Do the right thing –Steve Parker @ LCC 2013-06-11

The right thing is not letting one company take all the money to New York while putting another out of business, said a local resident at Tuesday night’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

When you get a company like Veolia or Advanced that’s taking all the money to New York, and then they come to my house and they leave, I put garbage bags beside my can and they won’t pick it up.
And then my guy, Cary Scarborough, comes and picks up everything, and you know what else he does guys? Continue reading →

I want a choice in who I use –Jerome Tucker @ LCC 2013-06-11

“Let me decide who I want to haul my waste,” said a former Chairman of the Industrial Authority at Tuesday night’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

Jerome Tucker thanked Commissioner John Page for bringing up the topic of freedom, since that was his main topic, too.

I’m here to talk about… where I have a choice who handles my waste…
Cary didn’t come to me looking for business. I saw his truck come along and Continue reading →

Thanks to the community, and I don’t understand –Cary Scarborough @ LCC 2013-06-11

The owner of Deep South Sanitation thanked the community and his family and said he didn’t understand what was going on. The Commission offered no explanation.

Cary Scarborough handed in a petition and sat down. The crowd applauded.

That rapidly turned into a standing ovation. Continue reading →

What if we only had one hardware store –Duane Roark @ LCC 2013-06-11

Does the Commission already has reputation problems when it’s being compared unfavorably to Lester Maddox? A citizen canceled a business trip to ask “what if we only had one hardware store” at last night’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

Our prices we pay would be through the roof; we would not have a choice.

And you’re welcome, Duane Roark: it was LAKE who put you on YouTube last month.

He also quoted a headline from the Fayetteville Observer, Operation Tarnished Badge: Years later, tarnish remains.

A corruption investigation that sent the Sheriff and 21 others to prison still casts a shadow over law enforcement in Robeson County.

If we put Deep South Sanitation out of business, it’s gonna give Lowndes County a black eye. People are to say, Continue reading →

A few Citizens to be heard for a few minutes only @ LCC 2013-06-11

Only fifteen minutes on any topic, said Chairman Bill Slaughter, even though 8 people wanted to speak about trash at last night’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session. But there is no such rule in the county’s relevant ordinance.

He was enforcing an odd mashup of the county’s 25 January 2013 ordinance about Citizens Wishing to Be Heard. It does have these two rules: Continue reading →

Budget hearing public notices @ LCC 2013-06-05

Yesterday’s County Commission meeting was billed as a Budget Discussion Meeting, and apparently it was not a public hearing on the county’s budget, because state law requires such a hearing to be advertised in the newspaper or published as a news story, a week in advance. This is different from public notice for other Commission meetings: for budget hearings the notice has to be not just sent to the newspaper: it has to be published, and not in the legal notices section, and it has to appear at least a week before the hearing. It’s also illegal to refuse to provide a copy of the submitted draft budget to the public or the news media:

O.C.G.A. 36-81-5.(d) On the day that the proposed budget is submitted to the governing authority for consideration, a copy of the budget shall be placed in a public location which is convenient to the residents of the unit of local government. The governing authority shall make every effort to provide convenient access to the residents during reasonable business hours so as to accord every opportunity to the public to review the budget prior to adoption by the governing authority. A copy of the budget shall also be made available, upon request, to the news media.

LAKE is a news medium, according to federal law.

Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts has Georgia Law on Local Government Budgets: Continue reading →

Solid Waste Corruption in Gwinnett County?

A federal corruption probe and a developer charged with bribing a county commissioner, who already resigned, admitting it; all that plus drug dealing, nepotism, perjury, cronyism, and at least one prison term, in Gwinnett County. This AJC story has a quote by VSU alumnus and current ADS rep. Steve Edwards.

David Wickert wrote for the AJC 8 September 2012, Widening probe stains Gwinnett reputation,

New details of a federal investigation paint a troubling picture of corruption deeply embedded in Gwinnett County—allegations that may undermine the county’s previously sterling reputation as an economic dynamo.

Bribery allegations have now embroiled two county commissioners, a planning commissioner and a zoning board member….

One of Lasseter’s first acts upon taking office in January 2009 was to appoint Gary — a longtime friend — to the Municipal-Gwinnett County Planning Commission, which would pass judgment on his development plans, including the waste transfer station off Winder Highway.

More dominoes in the federal corruption probe began falling last week, when Continue reading →

GM Ag corporations thank Jack Kingston for Monsanto rider

A long list of agricultural corporations wrote a letter thanking Jack Kingson (R GA-01) for working to get the Monsanto rider into the 2013 Ag. bill:

Again, we commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston’s efforts and urge the support of Section 733 in the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

This letter is on Monsanto’s own website. It contains not one word about public health or quality of food or preservation of farmers who do not choose to poison people the Monsanto way. The glyphosate mentioned in the letter is the principal ingredient in Roundup, and

research shows it causes DNA damage even when vastly diluted. Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant crops are genetically modified to include a gene which produces a poison that other research indicates is toxic to humans. These poisons are what the Monsanto rider makes harder to get out of fields.

June 12, 2012
The Honorable Harold Rogers
Chairman
House Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
H‐307 U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515 The Honorable Norm Dicks
Ranking Member
House Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
1016 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Dicks:

Our organizations strongly support Section 733 of the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The provision will give growers assurance that crops developed through biotechnology that have already been approved by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) can be planted and harvested under temporary stewardship conditions in the event of litigation against the agency’s decision. We commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston for including Section 733 in the subcommittee bill and urge your support for this necessary provision when the Appropriations Committee considers this bill later this month. The provision addresses Continue reading →

How much will trash collection rates go up in Lowndes County? @ LCC 2012-10-09

Speaking of Veolia winning its high bid for garbage collection, here’s a clue to how much more its rates may go up.

Remember ~~ADS~~ Veolia was bought hardly a month later by ADS, owned by Highstar Capital of New York City? Look at ADS’s bid for Proposal D: $18.39.

That’s $220.68 a year. Which is even higher than Wakulla County, Florida’s $196 a year, which Gretchen warned us all about more than a year ago. And more than double the $100 a year for the former county waste collection sites.

Want to guess how much ADS’s monthly rates will rise? Maybe Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange