Category Archives: Transparency

Library Architect RFP and “Bible” (part 2)

Here is the Request for Proposals and the “Bible” of related documents that served as background for the architect selection process for the new library at Five Points. These were received on a CD as part of the library architect selection documents in the very organized open records response from the South Georgia Regional Library; see the previous post for related agendas and minutes.

Included in the RFP (which was issued by the County, not by the Library Board), is a list of fourteen numbered submittal instructions that looks like it might have been the basis for the list of 90 items on the Library Scoring Worksheet.

The RFP also includes this interesting section:

RESERVATIONS

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners reserves the following rights:

Rejection of any and all submittals
Negotiate changes in the Scope of Work
Negotiate services to be provided
Negotiate fee proposal
Waive any and all technicalities

That last line basically seems like it could be interpreted to mean they could select whatever appealed to them no matter what the fit (or not) with what was asked for in the RFP.

The “Bible” includes a cover sheet that says:

Continue reading →

Library Architect Selection Documents (part 1)

Thanks to a very organized open records response from the South Georgia Regional Library, we have available agendas and minutes of the SGRL Board and other materials related to the selection of an architect for the new library at Five Points. Here is a first batch of those materials, which sheds a little light on the library architect selection process.

SGRL Minutes 2012-07-17 According to the SGRL Board minutes of 17 July 2012 as approved at the SGRL Board meeting of 18 September 2012,

SOUTH GEORGIA REGIONAL LIBRARY
BOARD MINUTES
July 17, 2012

…

V. Architectural (Building and Grounds Committee)

The Firm of Clemons, Rutherford and Associates (CRA) was approved as the architectural firm for construction of the Five Points Library.
Moved: Ray Devery Second: Wyn Miller
Ayes: All Nays: None

No further detail is provided in those minutes.

Library Scoring Worksheet A Library Scoring Worksheet for the design and construction of the “Lowndes County Library” was included in the materials received in response to the open records request (it’s the extra item in the left edge of the picture in the previous post). It lists 30 topics with a potential score of 3 points each for a total of 90 points, grouped in categories of “Responsiveness/Quality of Presentation/Capabilty”, “Experience, Design Concept and Creativity”, and “Personal Overall Impression of the architectural team”. However, no marked-up worksheets with scores for any architecture firm were included.

The complete agenda packets for the SGRL board meetings of 18 September 2012 and 17 July 2012 are available on the LAKE website where more will be added later.

Next: the RFP.

-jsq

Propaganda for charter school amendment 1 paid for by out-of-state donors

Who can afford to pay for these two glossy mailers pushing the charter school amendment? Who are GeorgiaHope2012.org and BrighterGeorgia.org, anyway? Recipients of millions from Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation to push a bill sponsored in the statehouse by ALEC’s “our state legislators”. Will we believe Alice Walton and ALEC, or will we believe our Georgia educators, who overwhelmingly oppose Amendment 1?

Two glossy mailers pushing the charter school amendment

GeorgiaHope2012.org’s mailer (the big one) says in really light grey type:

Paid for by Families for Better Public Schools Edward Lindsey Chairman

We’ve heard of them before. They raised $486,750 by September, about 96% from outside Georgia, including Alice Walton ($250,000), K12 Inc. of Virginia ($100,000), Charter Schools USA of Florida ($50,000), J.C. Huizenga and National Heritage Academies Inc. of Michigan ($25,000 each). Their spokesman Bert Brantley (who went to Lowndes County public schools) claims the bogus preamble to the charter school amendment, the one that uses ALEC Family Trigger jargon and asserts things that just aren’t in either of the authorizing bills; he claims that preamble is “factual”. His previous PR campaign was pushing the T-SPLOST transportation tax that failed by a landslide.

Families for Better Public Schools is still playing the charter school bait and switch in their mailer by pretending Amendment 1 is needed for charter schools:

EVERY CHILD DESERVES A CHANCE! VOTE YES! for Public Charter Schools on November 6th.

We don’t need this amendment to create charter schools. Any local school board can already do that.

BrighterGeorgia.org’s mailer (the smaller one) says in grey on grey type:

Paid for by Georgia Charter Schools Association

GCSA got $700,000 from the Walton Family Foundation last year, and is a member of Continue reading →

WALB on Lowndes County Commission Chair candidates

Gretchen Quarterman billboard

WALB says we have a choice for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission.

Lydia Jennings wrote for WALB yesterday, Meet candidates vying for Lowndes Co. Commission Chairman,

Gretchen Quarterman Bill Slaughter and Gretchen Quarterman are two very different candidates. Both are running for Lowndes County Commission Chairman. Slaughter is the CEO of Waller Heating and Air Conditioning and Quarterman is a farmer and owner of Okra Paradise Farms.

“I’m very curious, I have a math and science background so I’m always asking why do we do it this way, not just what do we do, but why do we do it, what problem are we solving,” said Quarterman.

Continue reading →

Agenda @ GLPC 2012-10-29

GLPC Agenda 2012-10-29 The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) meets tonight. Here’s the agenda.

The agenda was faxed by GLPC Chairman Bill Slaughter to Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, at her request; GLPC itself still doesn’t have agendas online, fifteen months after SGRC stopped posting them.

In his fax cover letter of 23 October 2012, Bill Slaughter noted:

Videos of 30 Club Candidates Forum 2012-10-22

Great Job Last Night!

See You Wed. Evening!

Videos of AAUW Candidates Forum 2012-10-24 Presumably he was referring to her appearance at the 22 October Candidates Forum 30 Club at Serenity Church and the then-upcoming 24 October Candidates Forum by AAUW at Valdosta High School. Gretchen Quarterman and Bill Slaughter are the two candidates for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission. You can see LAKE videos of all four Candidate Forums online.

There is one Valdosta permit case on tonight’s GLPC agenda, and three rezoning cases, one from Hahira, and two from the county. I have been transcribing these faxes, but I don’t have time today, so here’s a brief summary table.

Valdosta,
Final action
Thursday
8 Nov 2012 		2. CU-2012-07 Stafford Properties
1609 Norman Drive, Valdosta
Request for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP for a Car Wash in a Community Commercial C-C zoning district.
Hahira,
Final action
Thursday
1 Nov 2012 		3. HA-2012-01 Gateway Pines
1022 W. Stanfill Street, Hahira
Request for a Variance to Parking Requirement prescribed by Section 7-1.1, 7-4, and 9-3.2 of the Hahira Zoning Ordinance
Lowndes County,
Final action
Tuesday
13 Nov 2012 		4. REZ-2012-16 Cook County Land Ventures
SW corner of Georgia Highway 122 East and Cat Creek Road, Hahira
Request to rezone ~2 acres from E-A (Estate Agriculture) to C-C (Crossroads Commercial)
5. REZ-2012-17 John Henry Davis dba Lowndes Development, LLC
Davidson Road, Valdosta
Request to rezone 23.49 acres from MAZ-II and MAZ-III (Moody Activity Zone) to R-10 (Suburban Density Residential)

-jsq

Vote No on the charter school amendment —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175 @ 30Club 2012-10-22

J.C. Cunningham for Georgia House district 175 @ 30 Club 2012-10-22 J.C. Cunningham, running for statehouse district 175, says vote No on the charter school amendment. At the 30 Club Political Forum at Serenity Church School Monday, he was asked about differences from his opponent, and he answered:

Vote No on the charter school amendment —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175
Political Forum, 30 Club
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 October 2012.

This amendment was put on for one reason and one reason only, because there are powers that did not get their way and it was strictly for money-grubbing, for-profit charter corporations that would further take money away from our Department of Education.

J.C. Cunningham’s opponent, the incumbent Amy Carter, only showed up at one of the four local candidate forums in Lowndes County. However, she voted both for HR 1162 that put the referendum on the ballot and for HB 797 that will suck up more money per pupil for charter schools than for public schools, taking the extra out of our local tax dollars.

We know where J.C. Cunningham for district 175 stands: against the charter school amendment.

-jsq

Vote No on Amendment 2 —Charlie in Peach Pundit

Let's cut to the chase on what Charlie wrote for Peach Pundit 18 Oct 2012:

Georgia needs significant ethics reforms. There needs to be greater transparency for those who do business with the state. Trust must be restored. Good governance must be demonstrated.

Paying slightly higher rates for a few more years is a small price to pay to avoid giving away 20 year favors to today's patronage class. Vote no on this amendment. That is the best way to save Georgians money.

Georgia is the worst state for legislative corruption. Do we want those legislators committing us financially for 10 or 20 years? If knowing it's an ALEC bill wasn't enough for you, maybe this will be. Vote No on amendment 2.

-jsq

Vote No on the charter school amendment —Teresa Lawrence for GA House District 174 @ AAUW 2012-10-24

Teresa Lawrence for Georgia House district 174 @ AAUW 2012-10-24 Teresa Lawrence, running for statehouse district 174, says vote No on the charter school amendment. She was asked about it at the AAUW Political Forum at Valdosta High School Wednesday, and answered:

Vote No on the charter school amendment —Teresa Lawrence for GA House District 174
Political Forum, Deborah Van Petten, President (AAUW), Dr. Jim Peterson, Moderator
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta High School, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 24 October 2012.

I believe we should vote no for the charter school amendment. We have a means of passing it at the local level to approve charter schools now, and I don’t believe we need to give that decision over to the state level.

Ellis Black Teresa Lawrence’s opponent, the incumbent Ellis Black, did not show up at any of the four local candidate forums in Lowndes County. However, he voted both for HR 1162 that put the referendum on the ballog and for HB 797 that will suck up more money per pupil for charter schools than for public schools, taking the extra out of our local tax dollars.

We know where Teresa Lawrence for district 174 stands: against the charter school amendment.

-jsq

Library open records request 2012-10-26

The most-organized open records response ever! Well, that we’ve asked for, anyway. Sure, sometimes local government bodies deliver a three-ring binder of papers. Sometimes they deliver a CD. Sometimes they deliver on a USB stick. Nobody ever delivered all of the above. OK, I brought the USB stick and the scanner (not pictured), but look at that CD lying on top of the really thick binder: the CD contains everything that’s in the binder, and that saved us a lot of scanning time.

Thank you, Kelly Lenz, Patrick Spurlock, and Tom Gooding!

It will take a bit of time to process all this information; stay tuned.

Kelly Lenz, Library Director, Tom Gooding, Attorney

Kelly Lenz, Library Director, Tom Gooding, Attorney
Left to right: an extra item, the four architect presentations, the “bible” of what the new library should be (the thick binder and the CD), and agendas, minutes, and board packets (the other two binders).
Picture by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
at South Georgia Regional Library, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 October 2012.

I know of at least one open records request somewhere else that, two years later and counting, Continue reading →

Videos of candidates @ AAUW 2012-10-24

Welcome After the fourth and final candidates forum, moderated for AAUW by Dr. Jim Peterson last night at VHS, the statehouse candidate attendance report card is:
Incumbents: Ellis Black (R 174) 0 of 4, Amy Carter (R 175) 1 of 4, and Tim Golden (R Sen-8) 1 of 4.
Challengers: Teresa Lawrence (D 174) 4 of 4, JC Cunningham (D 175) 4 of 4, and Bikram Mohanty (D Sen-8) 4 of 4.
Open seat 177: J. Glenn Gregory (R) 4 of 4, Dexter Sharper (D) 4 of 4.
Local candidates: 4 of 4 for every one of them,
Gretchen Quarterman (D) and Bill Slaughter (R) for Lowndes County Chairman,
Chris Prine (D) and J.D. Yeager (R) for Lowndes County Sheriff,
John Gates (R) and Demarcus Marshall (D) for Lowndes County Commission District 4,
Justin Cabral (R) and Jason Cain (D) for Solicitor General.

Here are videos of the entire forum.

Candidates Forum at VHS by AAUW, Deb Van Petten President,
Videos by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 24 October 2012.

Videos of the previous 3 forums:

Continue reading →