Category Archives: Transparency

Land bank SB 284: multiple counties and eminent domain —Barbara Stratton

Received 5 March 2012 on Keep an eye on the Land Bank Authority. -jsq
There is no direct reference to a regional land bank authority. However, the bill [GA SB 284 -jsq] allows for “Intergovernmental contract” defined as “a contract as authorized pursuant to Article IX, Section III, Paragraph I of the Constitution of GA and paragraph (5) of Code Section 36-34-2 and entered into by counties, consolidated governments, and municipal corporations pursuant to this article.” Section 48-4-103 further lists that a land bank may be created by two or more counties, which spells regional to me. Therefore regional land bank authorities can be established if this bill is passed.

The bill also allows for public/private partnerships which co-mingle government and private enterprise. Under Section 48-4-106 which enumerates the powers of a land bank, Lines 307 – 315 state

Continue reading →

Why CWIP is a bad idea

Iowa is rejecting CWIP, and Georgia can, too. Here’s why.

Herman K. Trabish wrote for Green Tech Media 22 February 2012, The Nuclear Industry’s Answer to Its Marketplace Woes: Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) financing shifts the risks of nuclear energy to utility ratepayers,

A sign of the nuclear industry’s difficult situation in the aftermath of Fukushima is a proposal before the Iowa legislature
“Construction Work in Progress was intended to circumvent the core consumer protection of the regulatory decision-making process,”
that would allow utility MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, to build a new nuclear facility in the state using Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) financing (also called advanced cost recovery).

“Investment in nuclear power is the antithesis of the kind of investments you would want to make under the current uncertain conditions,” explained nuclear industry authority Mark Cooper, a senior fellow for economic analysis at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment. “They cannot raise the capital to build these plants in normal markets under the normal regulatory structures.”

CWIP would allow the utility to raise the money necessary to build a nuclear power plant by billing ratepayers in advance of and during construction.

“Construction Work in Progress was intended to circumvent the core consumer protection of the regulatory decision-making process,” Cooper explained. “It exposes ratepayers to all the risk.” The nuclear industry’s answer to its post-Fukushima challenges, he said, “is to simply rip out the heart of consumer protection and turn the logic of capital markets on their head.”

And the Iowa Utilities Board staff agreed with Cooper and recommended against CWIP.
His message to policymakers is simple, Cooper said. “This is an investment you would not make with your own money. Therefore, you should not make it with the ratepayers’ money.”
Meanwhile, in Georgia: Continue reading →

Private prison is like biomass —Ashley Paulk

A deep silence came from the Industrial Authority yesterday, but GDOC board member Ashley Paulk compared the private prison to the biomass project.

I asked Lowndes County Commission Chair and Georgia Department of Corrections (GDOC) board member Ashley Paulk if he had heard whether the private prison contract had been extended past yesterday’s deadline. He had not. However, he did volunteer that he had asked the GDOC board whether they had had any discussion about such a prison and they had not. Further, GDOC just last year approved a CCA prison in Jenkins County, Georgia, so why would another one be built here? Prison populations are decreasing in Georgia, Paulk said. He even said, “It’s like the biomass situation,” in that there’s no business model. It was Ashley Paulk who signaled the end of the biomass project. And he already signaled the end of the private prison project on the front page of the VDT and he told Eames Yates of WCTV 29 Feb 2012,

Until you have a customer, you won’t see a prison, and they don’t have a customer.
He said several times yesterday he did not expect the private prison to be built. And he went beyond what he had said before in explicitly likening the private prison project to the biomass project.

After last Thursday’s Valdosta City Council meeting, two different Valdosta City Council members and Mayor John Gayle all told me they had talked to various people and they didn’t expect CCA’s private prison to be built.

I hope they’re all correct about that.

But we all still wait for the Industrial Authority to tell us. They’re missing a huge potential positive PR opportunity by not holding a big press conference and taking credit for ending the private prison. They still could do that this morning.

Or they could keep claiming that community activism has no effect, even though it is activism that got both of those projects in the news and got people like Ashley Paulk to speak out. Maybe the Industrial Authority likes people to laugh at them. Me, I’d prefer an Industrial Authority that stood up for the people of this community.

-jsq

VLCIA executive session on real estate transactions last Thursday noon

According to the VLCIA website, they had a special called meeting last Thursday, including apparently an executive session to discuss real estate transactions. One big real estate transaction with a deadline of today (13 March 2012) is the CCA private prison.

This is on the front page of the VLCIA website:

Notice:The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority will hold a Special Called Meeting on Thursday, March 8, 2012 at noon, for the purpose of reviewing bids and awarding a contract for the Miller Business Park Landscape/Irrigation Project and discuss real estate transactions.
Here’s the agenda. I congratulate the Industrial Authority for posting agendas!

Note the executive session. The agenda doesn’t say what the executive session is for (isn’t it supposed to, according to Georgia sunshine laws?). We can guess it’s for real estate transactions, as in the notice on the VLCIA front page.

Hm, what real estate transactions could that be? A contract for a landscaping and irrigation project isn’t a real estate transaction. Let me think… oh, the CCA private prison is a real estate transaction! Could that be what they were discussing?

The rest of VLCIA’s website is pretty thoroughly broken right now, as in

Warning: Parameter 3 to showItem() expected to be a reference, value given in /home/industri/public_html/includes/Cache/Lite/Function.php on line 100
None of the other links seem to work.

-jsq

Special Called Meeting of the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Thursday, March 8, 2012, 12 noon
Valdosta Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Conference Room
Valdosta, Georgia
  • Call to Order Special Called Meeting

  • Invocation

  • Welcome Guests

  • Westside Business Park

    • Reviewing bids and awarding a contract for the Miller Business Park Landscape and Irrigation Project
  • Adjourn Special Called Meeting into Executive Session
  • Adjourn Executive Session/Call to Order Special Called Meeting
  • Adjourn Special Called Meeting

Tornado report —Ashley Tye @ LCC 2012-03-12

No injuries or loss of life from the March 3rd tornado, but no disaster declaration and thus no government financial assistance, said Ashley Tye in a long report to the Lowndes County Commission this morning. Such reports are not normally repeated at the Tuesday evening regular sessions, so if you weren’t there, here is the only place you will see it.

Ashley Tye remarked:

The good news is that there were no reported injuries or no loss of life.
There was a lot of property damage. He said the National Weather Service determined it was an F2 tornado, and once it got to Walker’s Crossing it had winds of about 100 miles an hour. He said 34 homes were affected, of which 19 were destroyed, meaning uninhabitable.

He’s checking types of assistance that might be available.

Unfortunately, financial assistance is unavailable; it requires a federal declaration. And while the level of damage is obviously devastating to us in Lowndes County, it didn’t reach the level that would meet the threshold that would cause the governor to request a federal declaration.
He said there had been a tremendous outpouring of volunteer support. And insurance might pay off, although some people may not have enough insurance.

He added that the county’s code red emergency system worked well, and probably had something to do with there being no loss of life. I know I got at least six county code red messages that day before my message box filled up (I was in a building with no signal).

Commissioner Richard Raines asked if FEMA had to have a declaration for GEMA to respond. Ashley Tye answered: Continue reading →

Video of this morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session 2012-03-12

The Lowndes County Commission had its regular work session this morning. Apparently some assembly was required. Here’s the agenda.

Here’s a playlist:


Video of this morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session 2012-03-06
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 March 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Busy schedule at Lowndes County Commission 2012-03-12 2012-03-13

A retiree recognition, an appointment, 2 liquor licenses, 3 rezonings, 3 grant documents, and a beer license, discussed 8:30 AM Monday morning at the Work Session, to be voted on 5:30 PM Tuesday evening at the Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

Here’s the agenda.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Who are the members of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Land Bank Authority?

Inquiring minds want to know who is on the board of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Land Bank Authority (VLCLBA)?

According to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs 2010 Directory of Registered Local Government Authorities:

Creation Date 6/24/1999
Method of Creation General Statute
Official Citation O.C.G.A. 48-4-61
Dependency Independent
Single or Multi Jurisdictional Multi-Jurisdictional
Members Lowndes County
City of Valdosta
Contact Mara S. Register, Assistant to the City Manager
Post Office Box 1125
216 E. Central Avenue
Valdosta, Georgia 31603
229-259-3571
Board Members Burke Sherwood, Frank Morman, James Wright, Joyce Evans,



Now we know.

How hard would it be for the City of Valdosta or the County of Lowndes to keep such information on their own web pages? They could include pictures better than the ones I found lying about on the web. Maybe even add agendas and minutes while they’re at it?

-jsq

Industrial Authority got wetlands easement from Lowndes County for private prison site

Before selling it off to a private landowner who who two years later got a contract with private prison company CCA to resell it for almost 100% profit, the Industrial Authority acquired a road easement through county-owned wetlands from Lowndes County:
Further, Grantor hereby conveys a Non-Exclusive Ingress and Egress Easement in that certain 0.685 acre tract or parcel of land situate, lying and being in Land Lot 153 of th 11th Land District of Lowndes County, Georgia. Said 0.685 acre tract being designated as “0.685 acres — Ingress/Egress Easement reserved for future right-of-way extension” as depicted on that certain map or survey “Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority” dated September 8, 2004 and recorded September 9, 2004 in Plat Cabinet A, Page 2659, Lowndes County records, to which map and survey is hereby referred in further aid of description.
An easement that a private landowner might have more difficulty getting from the county. Isn’t that convenient?

This is the wetland that has not yet been approved for that purpose by the Army Corps of Engineers, according to Ashley Paulk.

By the way, that wetland easement in 2004 was before Brad Lofton was hired in 2006 to be executive director of VLCIA, so the very peculiar history of this bit of land can’t all be blamed on him. The appointed Industrial Authority board and the elected Lowndes County Commission and Valdosta City Council are all also involved.

-jsq

Crony capitalism corruption, a non-partisan enemy —Barbara Stratton

Received yesterday on VSU Health Sciences: much better than a private prison. -jsq
You know my main argument against the private prison is I don’t like public/private partnerships and the sweetheart deals they encourage. Also, when I requested CCA to provide me with information that supports private prisons so I could research both sides they did not respond. This led me to believe they have no concern for community opinion even when citizens are open minded and seeking honest information. They seem to prefer back room deals with local politicians that escape community detection unless citizens are aggressively observant like LAKE members.

However, we are not on the same page about what I consider simplistic solutions for reducing the prison population. Education and good drug treatment programs are definitely positives, but they are not the silver bullet liberals proclaim them to be. Criminals evolve from complex heredity and environmental mediums that don’t magically dissolve via education or intervention protocols. Certainly these are to be encouraged because they do help some, but they will never totally replace the need for legal intervention and penal institutions. In addition to educational and medical institutions not being a magical replacement solution for crime, these very institutions often encourage crony capitalism corruption, which we agree to be a non-partisan enemy.

In summary, I support our criminal justice system which includes prisons, but I do not support any mixing of government and business. Public/private partnerships are crony capitalism playgrounds that undermine free enterprise and citizen control. Unfortunately our trusted elected legislators have already filled our GA Codes and State Constitution with government consolidation and multi county regional partnership initiatives. At present, they are pushing SB 284, already passed by the senate, and in the house, which will further enhance Land Bank Authority powers and partnerships. As citizens we all need to remember that increasing unelected bureaucratic authorities equals minimized citizen control. We also need to ask our local, state and federal elected representatives why they are listening to special interest groups that encourage authorities and public/private partnerships instead of protecting their constituents.

-Barbara Stratton Commenter

We don’t have to agree on every point to oppose (private prison) or support (government transparency) the same things. Indeed, there will always be criminals, but we don’t need to lock up more than any other country on the planet. The big change in the environment that has produced seven times more criminals now than in the 1960s is the War on Drugs. Time to end that failed experiment in prohibition. Meanwhile, indeed crony capitalism corruption is our non-partisan enemy.

-jsq