Category Archives: Transparency

I would certainly encourage you to speak your mind —VSU Pres. Levy

Henry Calhoun asked VSU Interim President Louis Levy where are the free areas on campus? Dr. Levy answered:
Right outside of Palms Quad there’s a free speech thing, but, as you can see, uh…. [gestures around]
[laughter]
You know, like I said. If someone’s violating the law here, and creating a dangerous situation by, uh, physically disrupting the students or faculty, that’s one thing, we deal with that….

But if it’s, even this gnat, we will allow this gnat to….

Continue reading →

An Open Forum on Financial Issues Concerning Consolidation —LCBOE 1 November 2011

Last chance for an open forum about school consolidation issues.

Lowndes County Board of Education will hold a An Open Forum on Financial Issues Concerning Consolidation:

6PM, 1 November 2011
Lowndes High Cafeteria
1606 Norman Drive
Valdosta, GA
All about the previous LCBOE Forum of 4 October 2011.

-jsq

We tend to promote free speech —VSU President Levy

Henry Calhoun found VSU Interim President Dr. Louis Levy, who came over to the Occupy Valdosta meeting 27 October. Erin Hurley invited him to come to the mid-November Teach-In. He replied:
…as long as it’s legal and non-obstructive in terms of people getting in and out of buildings. We tend to promote free speech. And if we don’t, we’ll pay the price for it later.

…

We actually encourage free discussion and debate. Besides, I’m a sociologist. We can take what everyone knows and put them into four different kinds of perspectives and lenses just to do battle with each other.

He thanked Erin for the invitation.

VSU students, staff, and faculty who want their next president to hold positions like that on free speech might want to get involved with selection of the next VSU president.

Here’s the video:


We tend to promote free speech.
Information and Organization,
General Assembly, Occupy Valdosta (OV),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Same old “unification” disinformation from the Chamber and CUEE

This is what CUEE Referendum Supporters apparently support, and why I call on them to stand up and say whether they are for or against it: the same old disproved disinformation sent again yesterday by a CUEE board member from the Chamber’s own email address to Chamber members. If you support CUEE, you support this disinformation campaign instead of real research that shows consolidation would do nothing to improve education, it would raise everyone’s taxes, and it would not help attract industry. Instead, it would seriously damage public education.

This is not a time to be silent. Which side are you on? CUEE and the Chamber’s propaganda campaign? Or public education, and you will vote no?

CUEE Board Member “Jud Rackley, CPA” emailed yesterday from chamber@valdostachamber.com, subject “The Truth About School Taxes and Unification”, including:

I’ve heard several people say school unification will cause a significant tax increase. Yet, no one seems to know why this would happen. It appears this rumor is based on a document circulated by the Lowndes County Board of Education.
Dr. Troy Davis spelled out why taxes would increase, based on actual tax statements, plus information from the Lowndes County Tax Assessors’ office and the actual budgets of the Valdosta and Lowndes County School Systems. See also former Valdosta School Superintendent Sam Allen’s partial list of massive layoffs, service cuts, and school closings caused by reduced income because of less federal and state funding, and increased costs due to bussing. And the formal statements against consolidation approved overwhelmingly by both school boards. In addition to these statements by people with actual experience in school administration, see also the extensive statement against consolidation by the Valdosta City Council, and even the VDT turned against this consolidation effort. If that’s not enough, David Mullis has compiled all the research into a convenient Grassroots Handbook Against School Consolidation.

Opposed to all this evidence, we have this undocumented letter Continue reading →

The missing Lowndes County public hearing for Comprehensive Plan Updates

Four local governments followed the rules, one appears to have left citizens out of the process.

According to their letters of transmission to the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) Valdosta, Hahira, Remerton, and Lake Park all held public hearings on the Short Term Work Programs and Report of Accomplishment documents.

Here is video of the Valdosta Public Hearing.

The Lowndes County resolution does not say that a public hearing was held. That’s because no public hearing was held, as you can see in the video below.

A public hearing was listed in the agenda of the 11 October 2011 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

7. Public Hearing
a. REZ-2011-13, Fred’s Dept. Store, 4401 Bemiss Rd., 145c-90a, 2.0 ac., water/sewer, C-H(c) & C- G(c) to C-G
b. Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan Updates – Lowndes County Report of Accomplishments (ROA) and Short Term Work Program (STWP)

However, citizens were not invited to speak for or against the document. In fact, the document was not provided to the citizens for comment and an open records request for the document has not been satisfied by the county. Here is video of items 7a and 7b.

The County’s Resolution to Transmit says in part: Continue reading →

The Comprehensive Plan updates Lowndes County refused to provide

LAKE has obtained the planning revision documents Lowndes County refused, in violation of the law, to return in response to an open records request. Here they are for all to see.

The Standards and Procedures for Local Comprehensive Planning, established by the Georgia Planning Act of 1989, require updates to the Short Term Work Projects (STWP) list and the Report of Accomplishments (ROA) every 5 years. Lowndes County and the cities in Lowndes County have submitted the documents to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA)

An open records request to Lowndes County for the documents was not satisfied. However other government agencies were willing to abide by the Georgia Open Records Law ocga 50-18-70.

The documents are available for review on the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange website for Valdosta, Lake Park, Remerton, Hahira and Lowndes County.

I encourage you to read carefully what our elected officials see as the future of our community.

-gretchen

Which side are they on? The deleted CUEE Referendum Supporters

The people who were on that list of referendum supporters that CUEE deleted from its website:

Referendum Supporters

Mrs. Julia Ariall
John and Helen Bennett
Mr. James Bridges
The Honorable Tim [Golden? Carroll?]
Mr. Kevin Conrad
Mr. & Mrs. Joe Cordova
Mr. Ed Crane
Mr. Curtis Fowler
Mr. Jeff Hanson
Mr. Lee Henderson
Mr. Ryan Holmes
Mr. Jerry Jennett
Mr. Joe Johnson
Greg and Nancy Justice
Mr. Matthew Lawrence
Mr. Richard Lee
Mr. James McGahee
Mr. Dutton Miller
Mr. John Peeples
Mrs. Jennifer Powell
Mr. Donald (Butch) Williams
  • Were they put there without their permission?
  • Or did they change their minds?
Here’s the list. Let’s hear from them. Do they still support CUEE’s completely disproven bad case for a bad “unification” referendum exercise in disaster capitalism that would greatly damage the public schools, and that has already cost the community huge amounts of time and effort? Did they ever? But more importantly, do they now?

Time to stand up and be counted. There are two sides to this issue. There’s the truth, and there’s a lie.

Which side are you on?

They say they have to guard us to educate their child.
Their children live in luxury, our children almost wild.
Which side are you on, which side are you on?
— Florence Reese
And what about the Chamber board, which apparently is no longer unanimous?

How about Chamber members? Those signs out front of the Chamber: do they represent you?

Which side are you on?

-jsq

The local “unification” attack on public schools is part of a nationwide assault

The “unification” attack on the public schools in Valdosta and Lowndes County, Georgia is part of a nationwide assault on public schools, which has nothing to do with improving public education, and everything to do with private profit and private schools: disaster capitalism right here at home. And it’s not government causing our local disaster: it’s local business interests. What should we do about that?

Jeff Bryant wrote for Campaign for America’s Future 13 October 2011, Starving America’s Public Schools: How Budget Cuts and Policy Mandates Are Hurting Our Nation’s Students

Critics of America’s public schools always seem to start from the premise that the pre-kindergarten-through-12th-grade public education system in this country is failing or in crisis.

This crisis mentality is in stark contrast to years of survey research showing that Americans generally give high marks to their local schools. Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup surveys have found that the populace holds their neighborhood schools in high regard; in fact, this year’s survey found that “Americans, and parents in particular, evaluate their community schools more positively than in any year since” the survey started.

The first factor: New austerity budgets passed by state legislatures are starting to have a huge influence on direct services to children, youth, and families.
Well, we don’t have that problem in Valdosta City and Lowndes Schools. For example, graduation rates in Valdosta schools have been improving year over year, and both school systems are solvent.

So what happened instead? Why, they made up a crisis instead!

A local business group convinced enough registered voters to sign a petition to get a referendum on the November 8th ballot to decide whether to abolish the Valdosta City School System, which would force the Lowndes County School System to take it over, and also would result in massively raised taxes, which still wouldn’t be enough, so services would have to be cut. Voila! Forced budget crisis! Fortunately, the two school systems have seen through it, and Continue reading →

The Real Truth About School Consolidation by Supt. Smith to Lowndes County Schools

Received today. -jsq
Sent: Tue, October 25, 2011 7:55:07 AM
Subject: Letter to the Staff
Friends,
Attached is a copy a document that was sent to all Lowndes County teachers and staff from Dr. Steve Smith.
Thanks,
Sam Allen
Samuel Allen, Superintendent Emeritus [Valdosta City Schools]
The letter is on the LAKE website. Here are a few excerpts:
REAL TRUTH: Continuing all of the current programs the Valdosta City School System and the Lowndes County School System have would require a millage rate of approximately 24 mills. Considering state law limits us to 21 mills, some programs will be eliminated. The decision to eliminate such programs will be recommended by the Lowndes County Superintendent, subject to final approval by the Lowndes County Board of Education. There will be winners and losers in consolidation and several current successful programs will likely have to go.
Continue reading →

SGMC asks Lowndes County Commission to guarantee $100 M in bonds 10 October 2011

Commissioners asked some perceptive questions two weeks ago at their work session, as well they should, when South Georgia Medical Center was asking the county to guarantee a hundred million dollars in bonds. Some questions may remain.

Representatives from SGMC gave a two part presentation about expansion of SGMC facilities, to include 96 new private rooms in the Dasher Heart Center, the 5 story parking deck, now under construction and due to be completed in early 2012, and Life Safety and Generator Equipment updates.

Additionally, they spoke briefly on the acquisition of Smith Northview Hospital on September 1, 2011. Smith Northview operates as a campus of SGMC and all Smith Northview employees are now SGMC employees.

The second part of the presentation was about the financial Continue reading →