Category Archives: Transparency

Free the Internet: stop SOPA and PIPA

If you don’t know what SOPA and PIPA are, Google, Wikipedia, reddit, and many other websites will tell you today that those are bills in Congress to censor the Internet.

If you like blogs, YouTube, facebook, and other social media, you won’t like SOPA and PIPA if they become law, because they will enable big copyright holders such as movie studios to force websites to remove links to entire domains on suspicion of copyright violation.

What you can do: contact your members of Congress today. You can do that through one of the many online tools Or call, email, or send a paper letter directly. Free the Internet!

-jsq

My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011

In a refreshing changes from “jobs, jobs, jobs” as everything, Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), told the Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting, 5 December 2011, that it wasn’t her job to create jobs, jobs, jobs; it was her job to create an environment that let jobs be created. Towards that end, she announced several new jobs at VLCIA, including a PR and marketing position. VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland also spoke and helped answer questions from the audience, including about wages, workers, and green industries.

Perhaps not shown is her answer to my question about what does VLCIA do to promote new local industry. I believe she said VLCIA looks to the Chamber of Commerce for incubation, and helps once local businesses are established.

Here’s a playlist:


My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director of VLCIA,
Monthly Meeting, Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 December 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman.

-jsq

“We’ve been chosen” —Barbara Stratton

Received Saturday on Public hearing doesn’t mean the public gets to know anything. -jsq
I’ve made these same comments before. It’s just part of the attitude that is popular with some elected & appointed officials “We’ve been chosen. Now go away & don’t ask any questions about what we are doing until it’s time to vote again.” I don’t think all the individuals share the attitude, but some do & over time it has become standard procedure. Hopefully, as more citizens pay attention & ask for more insight procedure will adjust. There is a reason for open meetings & sunshine laws & it’s not so citizens can listen to or read about decisions based on information they are not allowed to hear or observe.

-Barbara Stratton

Projects, PR, and Planning at Industrial Authority this evening

Today is the third Tuesday of the month, so the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Board of Directors meets tonight. A list of specific projects, a PR position, and a strategic planning presentation are on their agenda.

I see they held a special called meeting 16 December 2011, but at least they listed it on their web page. Maybe they’ve got control of their technical glitches.

Appended is the schedule for 2012, and the agenda for tonight’s meeting.

-jsq

Meeting Schedule

All Meetings will be held at 5:30pm in the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street, unless otherwise notified.

Special Called Meeting

**December 16, 2011**

Meeting Schedule for 2012

January 17, 2012
February 21, 2012
March 20, 2012
April 17, 2012
May 15, 2012
June 19, 2012
July 17, 2012
August 21, 2012
September 18, 2012
October 16, 2012
November 20, 2012
December 18, 2012
**Please note date change**
Here’s tonight’s agenda.
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Agenda
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Continue reading →

If Gov. Deal can investigate school elections, why not jail deaths? — George Rhynes

George Rhynes suggests that if Gov. Deal can investigate a school board election in Brooks County, he could also
issue another Executive Order and STOP the jail deaths in the Valdosta, Lowndes County Jail. (30 Jail deaths from 1994-2009) Today the general public is told that the public does not have a right to know under the law.
In this video George goes into many years of evidence regarding jail violations.

-jsq

Public hearing doesn’t mean the public gets to know anything

Jane Osborn wrote:
Requesting such a hearing before January 24 would give the opportunity to have all this information presented and for questions to be asked and answered.
Except that’s not the way it works around here. Public hearing locally means the chairman or mayor or whoever says “Who wants to speak for?” and maybe somebody speaks. And then “Who wants to speak against?” and maybe somebody speaks. It doesn’t mean that the Commission or the Council or the Authority presents anything for the public to consider.

Witness the hearing the Lowndes County Commission held in December on the documents related to the Comprehensive Plan. The only reason the public knew anything about what was in those documents was that Gretchen got them from somewhere else after the Commission refused to supply them in response to an open records request. The Commission never distributed any of the relevant documents to the public. Only one citizen spoke, perhaps because nobody else knew what to speak about.

Almost none of the local municipalities or boards or authorities routinely present to the public the information that is in the packets they see before the discuss or vote. There are rare exceptions, such as the VLMPO and other organizations or projects administered by the Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC). SGRC is a state agency, not a local agency. Why does Lowndes County and all its municipalities and boards avoid transparency?

Why can’t you, the public, see what’s in a rezoning request before Continue reading →

Prisoner call centers

Prisoners answering the telephone for your government? Yes, apparently.

M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com and Bill Lambdin of WNYT-TV wrote yesterday for MSNBC, Inside the secret industry of inmate-staffed call centers,

When you call a company or government agency for help, there’s a good chance the person on the other end of the line is a prison inmate.

The federal government calls it “the best-kept secret in outsourcing” — providing inmates to staff call centers and other services in both the private and public sectors.

The U.S. government, through a 75-year-old program called Federal Prison Industries, makes about $750 million a year providing prison labor, federal records show. The great majority of those contracts are with other federal agencies for services as diverse as laundry, construction, data conversion and manufacture of emergency equipment.

We’ve heard of Prison Industries before. The Georgia prisoners who struck back in January 2011 work for Prison Industries, allegedly for no pay.
But the program also markets itself to businesses under a different name, Unicor, providing commercial market and product-related services. Unicor made about $10 million from “other agencies and customers” in the first six months of fiscal year 2011 (the most recent period for which official figures are available), according to an msnbc.com analysis of its sales records.

The Justice Department and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons don’t

Continue reading →

Who gets to serve on the Brooks County School Board —VDT

The VDT caught up with the TV stations today on the Quitman 10 story, and provided updates and context they did not.

David Rodock wrote on the front page of the VDT today, Gov. suspends `Quitman Ten’ officials,

On Tuesday, Deal issued his order prior to the Brooks County Board of Education’s first meeting of 2012. Dr. Nancy Whitfield-Dennard, Elizabeth Diane Thomas and Linda Faye Troutman were notified of this suspension at approximately 4:30 p.m., according to sources.
That’s a bit more context than the TV stations provided.

The VDT also says who gets to serve instead:

Following the governor’s suspension this week, Brooks County school board member Brad Shealy, who is also an assistant Southern district attorney, was appointed to serve as president of the board with board member Larry Cunningham serving as vice president. Shealy served many years as the school board president prior to Whitfield-Dennard being named president last year.
That seems to be the same Brad Shealy who used to be chairman until the recent election.

The VDT adds this context: Continue reading →

No public hearing unless someone asks for it —Jane Osborn

Received yesterday on Public transportation and public records in Lowndes County,
Another issue here is that there will be no public hearing on this issue unless someone ASKS for it. Without a hearing, it just goes forward with no other public information about being presented. Anyone may ask for a hearing, but I would especially think that there are people who really need a functional system that is not just focused on people who have access to Medicaid as a payment source due to illness or disability. Requesting such a hearing before January 24 would give the opportunity to have all this information presented and for questions to be asked and answered.

-Jane Osborn

Gov. Deal suspended 3 Brooks Co. School Board members

The two local TV stations have an update on the Quitman 10: the governor has suspended the three who were elected to the Brooks County School Board. If the VDT has covered this, I must have missed it. (OK, I should look at today’s paper….) There’s also nothing about this on the Brooks County School Board website.

Jade Bulecza wrote for WALB yesterday, Governor orders Brooks Co. School Bd. suspensions

Superintendent Debra Folsom got the governor’s order Tuesday suspending the three board members.

“This is all new territory for us,” said Folsom. “We’re consulting our attorney to see what the next steps we will take to fill the positions.”

December 20 a review commission made up of the attorney general and two school board members from across Georgia were appointed by the governor to review the case.

“They heard evidence from the prosecution and from the accused and the conclusion of that they made a determination and forwarded that to the governor’s office whether to suspend or not to suspend the three school board members,” said South Georgia District Attorney Joe Mulholland.

December 30, the review panel unanimously made their decision.

That would be the same Joe Mulholland who’s been on TV saying things like Continue reading →