Category Archives: Planning

Opposed to a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. —John S. Quarterman, et al.

A private prison in Lowndes County would be a bad business decision: it would not increase employment, it would be likely to close because of lack of “customers”, and it would drive away knowledge-based workers. The letter I read to the Industrial Authority Board and Staff Tuesday on behalf of some members of the community sumarizes appended documentation of all those and other points.

If you’d also like to sign, I’m still collecting signatures, and will periodically drop off more signed copies. Or, even better, write your own letter and send it to the Industrial Authority. Submit it to this blog and we’ll probably publish it.

Here’s the video:


Opposed to a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. —John S. Quarterman
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 October 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Text of the letter is appended; follow the link for the documentation. Continue reading →

CUEE turns shy?

Does CUEE have defectors?

On CUEE’s board web page there’s a link,

See a list of community supporters
which we cited back in August. It now gets 404 “No Such URL at This Domain”.

However, we know who they used to be, because that list got copied by Vote No for the Children to the two very interesting charts below, which show real estate and Valwood connections with CUEE.

So what’s going on? Did CUEE’s website get termites, and we should trust the public schools to a group that can’t keep track of its own supporters? Or have some of CUEE’s supporters defected Continue reading →

Update: The Grassroots Handbook Against School Consolidation —David Mullis

Received today. -jsq
Dear Media:

I am sure you are aware that the vote of whether or not to consolidate the Valdosta City Schools into the Lowndes County School System will be held November 8, 2011. The City only is being asked to vote on whether to dissolve the Valdosta City School charter. The proponents of the referendum had a choice between putting the referendum in front of the county and city or the city alone. The Lowndes County Board of Education asked

Continue reading →

Who to contact about nuclear vs. solar

Somebody asked who to write about the nuclear costs Georgia Power is passing through to customers. Here’s the contact page for the Georgia Public Service Commission.

PSC Commissioner Lauren McDonald has been the most vocal about wanting Georgia Power to do solar. Commissioner Chuck Eaton and Tim Echols have both said in public they want more solar. PSC staff member Tom Newsome tried to get gapower to accept a better nuclear profit deal.

Don Parsons, chair of the energy committee of the Georgia House of Representatives, wants to write an energy plan for Georgia. A real one; not that bogus one from 2006 that nobody followed anyway.

Doug Stoner, Georgia State Senator, has said that Georgia Power wasn’t building nuclear plants with private money; they were using public money, and that even a public utility is a subsidy. So it appears he gets it.

Scott Holcomb, Georgia State Representative, wants a state energy policy, and has said:

Our lack of an energy policy is an absolute Achilles heel of our national policy.
So we should get on with a real energy strategy for Georgia.

Click on the pictures of each of the legislature members for their contact information. Even better, contact your state representative or senator. Or federal, since I think the new Plant Vogtle construction gets federal subsidies, too. Or write your local newspaper, or your local TV station, or the AJC.

-jsq

Vote No March —Floyd E Rose

Seen yesterday. -jsq
Never before in the history of Valdosta have its citizens been met with a greater challenge. The most powerful business interests in our city have conspired to deceive us with a scheme to dilute the black vote, and thereby rob our community of the political and economic benefits to which we are rightly entitled.

We make up 55 percent of the city’s population. However, we are only 34 percent of the county’s population. If the city and county governments are consolidated, which is the real goal of the Committee for Educational Excellence (CUEE), we will lose forever the opportunity to have access to the millions of federal dollars that will come to Valdosta, with which we can rebuild our community; monies that we are now going to the North side.

This is, and never has been, about school unification. However, legally

Continue reading →

WCTV says Occupy Valdosta made No Consolidation impossible to ignore

WCTV gets it right in most of the story:
A familiar scene from the Big Apple reaches Southern Georgia. It’s called “Occupy Valdosta.” More than 100 protesters take to the streets to fight corporate greed and social injustice.

Greg Gullberg wrote Friday for WCTV, Occupy Wall Street Comes To Valdosta,

Chanting before banks, monuments and courthouses, the rally reached its summit at the Chamber of Commerce.

There the crowd cried two familiar words: ‘No Consolidation’.

In a demonstration designed to fight corporate greed and social inequality, the protest ultimately turned to the fate of the school systems and the children of Valdosta.

“My children go to city schools. I live in the county. I can’t vote. That’s not right,” said Susan Smith.

WCTV’s low estimate of 100 who chanted “no consolidation” on the Chamber’s doorstep is several times Continue reading →

Yes, I do have solar

Here’s my LTE in the VDT today. -jsq
A letter last week asked, “Do you have solar energy yourself?” Why yes, I do. When we installed solar panels on our farm workshop in 2009, the closest certified solar installer was in Marietta. There were only four in the state. Now there are forty. Georgia may yet catch up with North Carolina and even New Jersey!

Hannah Solar had all the paperwork ready when Okra Paradise Farms applied for a USDA REAP grant for more solar panels a few weeks ago. Much to our surprise,

Continue reading →

Hazard mitigation public hearing 6PM today

Found on the Lowndes County government website:
Hazard Mitigation Public Hearing (10/17/2011)
PUBLIC HEARING ON
HAZARD MITIGATION
MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2011
6:00 P.M.
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
327 N. ASHLEY STREET
COMMISSION CHAMBERS – 2ND FLOOR
For more information please contact EMA Director, Ashley Tye, at 671-2790.
SO I called Ashley Tye, who said: Continue reading →

WALB links corporate greed to school consolidation @ Occupy Valdosta

Jade Bulecza reported for WALB yesterday, Occupy Valdosta protests issues,
The occupy wall street movement that’s spreading around the country arrived in south Georgia.
That’s her with the big camera in front of the palm tree, come to see what democracy looks like.

More than 100 demonstrators marched through the streets of Valdosta Friday.

They’re protesting issues from corporate greed to unemployment all the way down to local issues including school consolidation.

There you have it: WALB links school consolidation to corporate greed.

How’s this for an ad linked to Martin Luther King Jr.?


Sam Allen says Vote No School Consolidation at the Martin Luther King Monument
Videos and pictures of Occupy Valdosta by John S. Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange

Back to Jade Bulecza: Continue reading →

To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia —Occupy Valdosta

Posted today in Occupy Valdosta’s facebook page:
To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia

We, the local citizens occupying Valdosta, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; to nonviolently occupy public space; to create an open process to address the problems we face, and to generate solutions accessible to everyone.

Our issues are varied, yet related.

We seek

Continue reading →