Category Archives: Transparency

Last call for Georgia redistricting comments

Jeanne Bonner wrote for GPB News 23 November 2011, Redistricting Map Review Underway
Georgians have until Dec. 23 to comment on new state and congressional district maps. The U.S. Department of Justice is in the midst of its 60 day-review of the maps. Voter advocate groups say this may be the last chance to comment before the maps go into effect for a decade.

…

Elizabeth Poythress, president of the League of Women Voters of Georgia, says the Justice Department is eager to receive citizen comment.

“We’re just encouraging people to take the advantage they have

Continue reading →

Valdosta water project on county land, with no city or county approval

It seems the City of Valdosta is installing a mile of water and sewwer pipe on county land without approval or prior knowledge of the Lowndes County government. Or, cats and dogs not playing well together. And, given that the Valdosta City Council apparently didn’t approve it either, cats not playing well together. Who is in charge of herding the cats?

David Rodock wrote in the VDT 23 November 2011, City project on county land

Without City Council approval, the installation of 5,600 linear feet of water/sewer pipe is being installed on Racetrack Road, at the very edge of annexed City property.
County says City didn’t notify. City says did.

This part is particularly interesting:

City Engineer Pat Collins said they had sent the county a letter and had not started on the project. He also said the city hoped to bring the project before council on Dec. 8, so they could make use of approximately 1,000 feet of 12 inch pipe leftover from a previous project.
So “not started” apparently includes digging ditches and installing 12 inch water mains. And “approval” means ask the Valdosta City Council after that’s already been done. And never ask the Lowndes County Commission, despite this project being on county land.

Not to worry, there’s a familiar excuse: blame the contractor! Continue reading →

SGMC Hospital Bonds go for sale this week

The bonds the Lowndes County Commission is guaranteeing for South Georgia Medical Center (SGMC) are up for public auction this week.

According to the NYTimes yesterday, Treasury Auctions Set for This Week

The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week:

…

ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK

…

Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County, Ga., $148.5 million of revenue anticipation certificates. Morgan Keegan

-gretchen

CUNY’s idea of a public meeting

City University of New York’s trustees were holding a public meeting, and some of the public, namely CUNY students, attempted to attend. CUNY police and NYPD staged a welcome for them:
Carlos Pazmino, 21, a City College student who helped organize the protest, said that after students began opening doors to the auditorium where the CUNY trustees were to hold a public hearing at 5 p.m., CUNY police officers surrounded the entrances and pushed back, using their batons, and that when students formed a line to push past, the officers began hitting the students with the batons.

“I saw two people knocked down by cops,” Mr. Pazmino said. “They were arrested and one guy’s head was bleeding.”

That’s in a NYTimes story by Alice Speri and Anna M. Phillips, CUNY Students Protesting Tuition Increase Clash With Police. Interesting title considering that the content says that the public went to a public meeting and were violently attacked by police.

And that’s the cleaned up version: Continue reading →

CCA charges inmates five days’ pay for one telephone minute

That’s $1 a day in pay and $5 a telephone minute. While CCA is collecting as much as $200 a day per inmate in your tax dollars and CCA’s CEO is compensated $3,266,387 from your tax dollars.

Amanda Peterson Beadle wrote for ThinkProgress 16 November 2011, Private Prison Charges Inmates $5 a Minute for Phone Calls While They Work for $1 a Day

Last year the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison company, received $74 million of taxpayers’ money to run immigration detention centers. Georgia, receives $200 a night for each of the 2,000 detainees it holds, and rakes in yearly profits between $35 million and $50 million.

Prisoners held in this remote facility depend on the prison’s phones to communicate with their lawyers and loved ones. Exploiting inmates’ need, CCA charges detainees here $5 per minute to make phone calls. Yet the prison only pays inmates who work at the facility $1 a day. At that rate, it would take five days to pay for just one minute.

They charge for food, too.

And remember, CCA profits from anti-immigration laws, at taxpayer expense:

Recent anti-immigration laws in Alabama (HB56) and Georgia (HB87) guarantee that neighbor facilities will have an influx of “product.” In the past few years, CCA has spent $14.8 million lobbying for anti-immigration laws to ensure they have continuous access to fresh inmates and keep their money racket going. In 2010 CCA CEO Damon T. Hininger received $3,266,387 in total compensation.
Private CEO profit for public injustice. Does that seem right to you?

We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.

-jsq

Citizens at Lowndes County Commission 7 November 2011

Five citizens spoke up at the 7 November 2011 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session. Some got answers, some got excuses, and some got fingerpointing. And one illustrated how the Commission doesn’t follow its own rules.

  • George Boston Rhynes asked about Open record requests and jail deaths and got the same excuses he’s heard elsewhere: nobody seems to be responsible for supplying information to the public about what’s going on in the Lowndes County Jail.

  • John Robinson asked about Contracts on the south side related to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to Title III Section 3 of the HUD program and got a clarification from the Chairman that the county has no Title III projects.

  • John S. Quarterman asked the Commission to video meetings like the Lowndes Board of Education does, and got a slightly different excuse this time than the many previous times he’s made similar requests.

  • Matt Portwood asked the Commission or the individual Commissioners to state a position on school consolidation and was told they weren’t going to. The VDT printed that much the next morning, the morning of the election with the referendum on school consolidation. They did not print Chairman Paulk’s allusion to his already-known support for FVCS in opposing consolidation, but LAKE published a video with that on Election Day, and you can see it here.

  • Tony Daniels wanted to know How can we pursue happiness when we don’t even have a job? and had several recommendations for how the various local elected and appointed bodies could go about getting us more jobs. He also illustrated that the Commissions ordinance on Citizens Wishing to Be Heard is, as we’ve discovered on many previous occasions, merely guidelines at the whim of the Chairman.

Citizen participation!

-jsq

How can we pursue happiness when we don’t even have a job? —Tony Daniels @ LCC 7 November 2011

George Rhynes’ video of the last two citizens speaking at the 7 November 2011 County Commission meeting has interesting closeups on the county staff while the Chairman was answering Matt Portwood. Then at 1:35 Tony Daniels answered the request for “any other business” by walking up to the podium and talking.

He cited life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence:

How can we pursue happiness when we don’t even have a job? I believe the city and county and Industrial Authority and the Chamber of Commerce need to work more together to create an atmosphere of trying to bring more industry inside the city. We have highways coming through Valdosta. I hope to see in the near future that the county and the city and the Industrial Authority and the Chamber of Commerce work like brothers and sisters. Because you know and I know that you are elected by the people of the people and for the people, and I’d like to see that…. Because we need more entrepeneurs, we need to see all governments in this area promote that….
I suspect the Chairman was asking the Commissioners whether they had any other business, but he wasn’t clear about that. I think what Tony Daniels had to say was important, and citizens should be able to say they have other business. However, since he had not signed up to speak before the meeting started, he was in violation of Rule #1 from the Commission’s hastilly adopted Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to Be Heard:: Continue reading →

Video meetings like Lowndes Board of Education? —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 7 November 2011

After apologizing for setting off a flash earlier, I recommended the county video their own meetings, so they wouldn’t have to depend on amateurs.
Lowndes County Board of Education had an open forum about school consolidation. and they had their own person videoing the whole thing, and it ended up on the web in a day or two, which means that everyone in the county could see what was going on….
Chairman Paulk:
We get enough of that for free.

jsq:

I’ll send you a bill!
The Chairman nodded, so I’ll take that for approval of billing by LAKE.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Contracts on the south side —John Robinson @ LCC 7 November 2011

John Robinson addressed the Lowndes County Commission about Title III Section 3 of the HUD program, also Title VI of the Civil Rights Act:
No person in the United States on the grounds of race or color or national origin shall be excluded….
He said he has filed a federal complaint against the city of Valdosta, and he wants the County Commission to know that.
….scrutinized for these special groups of people, people of power, instead of the people that’s needing the money.

Chairman Paulk clarified that the Martin Luther King project is totally a city project, and that the county has no Title III projects.

Here’s the video:



Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 November 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Community’s need for public transportation, bike lanes, and walking —Heather Evans @ LCC 10 November 2011

Heather Evans provided a petition with more than 200 signatures, and told Thursday’s Valdosta City Council meeting she got requests frequently while working in community service for something to be done about non-automobile transportation. She presented a variety of evidence.
Ideally, I’d like to see bike lanes all over town. But if I had to pick one to start with, St. Augustine would be my choice. I choose this road because it also needs to have a completed sidewalk segment. I can’t tell you how many people including myself have been endangered while using this portion of road.

George Rhynes took this video and remarked:

WOW! Valdosta-Lowndes County is now being seen as a real metro city and citizens are asking questions to their elected officials. WOW! The old control, suppress, and abate is apparently unacceptable in 2011 as we get ready for the 2012 Presidential election.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →