Category Archives: Lowndes County Commission

The owl in Hahira: March 2011 LAKE meeting



The owl in Hahira:

Monthly LAKE Meeting

When: 5:30-6:45 PM, Tuesday 1 March 2011

Updated meeting location

Where: home of Thomas Ieracitano

414 East Main Street, Hahira

229-251-2462

That’s on US 122, just east of the Masonic Lodge.

Thomas says:

“Bring a lawn chair, laptop (I will have Mediacom wireless)
and your own food and drink.”

If it rains or there are too many bugs or something,
we will move to:

Down Home Pizza

103 South Webb Street, Hahira

229-794-1888

Help cover food, water, transportation, incarceration, solar energy,
biomass, and regular local government meetings: you never know when
news will be made!

Popular topics lately on the LAKE blog,

On the LAKE Front, include

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Lowndes County Commission meets tonight


County Commission Chairman - Ashley Paulk

District 1 Commissioner - Joyce Evans

District 2 Commissioner - Richard Raines

District 3 Commissioner - Crawford Powell


Lowndes County Commission meets tonight, 5:30 PM,
at 327 N. Ashley Street, Valdosta, GA 31601.
Here’s
the agenda:
appointement to SRJDA (what’s that? come and see!),
Hump Road abandonment, landfill permit modification,
$800,000 DHS grant application,
purchase of wetland credits for old Clyattville Road,
Gateway Grants, and other items.
Some of them may affect you.

Meetings start on time, and remember if you want to speak you have
to

sign up before the meeting, so come early.

-jsq

Citizens and Sheriff Prine recognized @LCC, 8 Feb 2011



The Lowndes County Commission seems to have suddenly gone from
lecturing citizens about how it’s a waste of tax money for
people to speak too often to inviting all sorts of citizen
groups to show up and speak or be recognized.
I call that a good thing.
We’ll see if this
era of good feelings lasts.
In addition to
the many students speaking about Tranqulity Trail,
at the same meeting the Chairman recognized

a Boy Scout troop


(at least I think that’s what that one was)
and

Boy Scout Troop 418
(I’m pretty sure about that one).
Also the



Chidren’s Advocacy Center
(more about that one later).
And



Sheriff Prine thanked the Commission for their support
in

searching Ocean Pond for seventeen days.





Regular meeting of the Lowndes County Commission, 8 February 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Tranquility Trail –James Wright and students @LCC, 8 Feb 2011



Valdosta City Council member James Wright and students speak
to the County Commission about

Tranquility Trail.
The students have a number of good points, such as

“It’s not about me but our community”
and

“Don’t Litter, Make Our Trail Glitter”,
and

trees have educational and recreational benefits,
and

“We need our community to come in with us…
how our community can get involved.”
James Wright wraps up with

“Development of our community and our citizens.”
There’s more. Here’s the whole thing:





Regular meeting of the Lowndes County Commission, 8 February 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Are all these medical associations and doctors lying? –Dr. Noll



In the new

era of good feelings,
Dr. Noll asked the Lowndes County Commission
whether they thought all the medical associations
and doctors who oppose biomass plants are lying,
same as he later
asked the Valdosta City Council.
He also offered to

discuss with biomass proponent Nolen Cox,
who spoke immediately before.
Here’s

the video.





Regular meeting of the Lowndes County Commission, 8 February 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Era of good feelings at County Commission




Shutting down debate didn’t work,
so now we have the era of good feelings at the County Commission.
Here

Chairman Ashley Paulk thanks Dr. Michael Noll for a previous meeting:





Regular meeting of the Lowndes County Commission, 8 February 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Some of us did wonder when next thing was

Noll’s microphone went off.
But that was apparently just a technical failure, which continued
for a while during the meeting.

I commend Chairman Paulk for his recent civil and,
as Commissioner Lee used to say,
“adult-like manner.”

However, as County Manager Joe Pritchard reminded everyone later at the
County Commission retreat,
the county government is still having a bit
of difficulty adjusting to all this recent transparency.
Let’s help them by showing them by example on many topics that
the road of respect goes both ways.

-jsq

Say no to grants and shut off debate on biomass –Nolen Cox, LCC, 8 Feb 2011



Local resident Nolen Cox says government grants are more addictive than drugs,
and “all the federal money is my tax money.”
He mentions federal debt, and lists only social programs.
Regarding grants, he’s specifically referring to a proposal to
accept a grant for NOAA weather radios, which we’ll come back to later.

His other topic is that he thinks we need more oil, more nuclear, and
biomass.
His recommendation:
“I would stop discusssing it.”
He thinks it’s like global warming, which he thinks is a lie.
He sums up:

Build the plant, employ people, get on with the program.

It’s interesting that these are about the best arguments biomass proponents have.
Perhaps he’s not aware that shutting off the debate was tried recently
and doesn’t seem to be working too well.
Here’s

the video.





Regular meeting of the Lowndes County Commission, 8 February 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Georgia native helps inspire Egyptian revolution: MLK in Arabic



Georgia native son Martin Luther King continues to inspire
non-violent resistance to oppression,

now in Arabic comic book form in Egypt.
Egyptian activist Dalia Ziada obtained rights to translate

The Montgomery Story from 1958 into Arabic.

She says:

When, at first, we went to print the comic book, a security officer
blocked publication. So we called him and demanded a meeting. He agreed,
and we read through the comic book over coffee to address his concerns. At
the end, he granted permission to print and then asked: “Could I have
a few extra copies for my kids?”

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“we can limit them to one area” –Joe Pritchard



On the front page of the paper VDT today County Manager Joe Pritchard
proposes further restrictions on citizens in public County Commission
meetings:

“We cannot stop anybody from taking video of a session;
but we can limit them to one area;
it’s distracting to us and to citizens
to have somebody running around the session trying to get different angles,”
said Joe Pritchard, county manager.

The only person I’ve seen running around the session trying to get
different angles is Paige Dukes, County Clerk.
Will she now be prohibited from coming out from behind the bar
to take pictures of awards and such?

Why they can’t stop anybody from taking video,
according to Georgia law,

O.C.G.A. § 50-14-1-c.:

“Visual, sound, and visual and sound recording during open meetings shall be permitted.”

Some courts do put some restrictions on visual recordings, such as
prohibiting pictures of jurors.
But the Lowndes County Commission is not a court.
It is the only elected body for the entire county,
and thus the only public forum at which citizens can peacefully assemble
to petition their local government for redress of county-wide grievances.



Does the Commission really want to put more restrictions on citizens in its meetings,
even though a constitutional scholar is questioning
the constitutionality of

the rules they recently passed?
Rules which limit the number of speakers in Citizens Wishing to be Heard to 10
and

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Prior restraint –Prof. Jane Elza

This LTE appeared in the VDT today. Here is
context in case you haven’t been following this subject.
-jsq

Dear Sir,

The County Commission has recently passed a resolution that will
prohibit discussion of issues the commissioners consider closed by
citizens in the “citizens will be heard” section of the Commission
meetings. While apparently reasonable on its face, the restriction is
designed specifically to prevent any more discussion of the Biomass
plant. Commissioners have been quoted in the paper as saying they
just don’t want to hear anymore about it. A law designed to prevent a
citizen from discussing a particular subject is prior restraint. I taught
Constitutional law at VSU for 28 years and I think this resolution is
unconstitutional for that reason. One cannot separate the intent from
the prohibition.

I can also argue that the restriction itself is unreasonable because

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