Category Archives: Transparency

Jack Kingston has a green tongue —Gretchen Quarterman

VDT LTE today. -jsq
Georgia has gained enough population in the past ten years to add a congressional seat. This means redrawing the Congressional district lines not only to balance population, but to also add another representative in Congress. Lowndes County has been split between the first and second districts, and all spring rumors of where we might end up were circulating. Eventually we saw a draft map that had Lowndes completely in the 8th District,

Before
along with other counties along Interstate 75. That map made some sense south of Macon. Some communities of interest were preserved (most of the Lowndes-Valdosta MPO was in the same district) and the hospitality corridor of I-75 was in one district, along with the rural farms that surround it. Valdosta to Macon is easier to traverse than Valdosta to Savannah, or Valdosta to Columbus.

But then Congressman Jack Kingston stuck out his green tongue.

Continue reading →

School Consolidation Public Forum tonight: VHS PAC 7-8:30 PM

The first Public Forum presented by Valdosta City Schools on the subject of School Consolidation is tonight at Valdosta High School’s Performing Arts Center (PAC), 7PM to 8:30 PM. That’s after the Valdosta City Council meeting, so you can even go to both.

The Valdosta Board of Education voted last week to oppose school consolidation. Note plenty of FVCS people there, many speaking against consolidation. If there were CUEE people present, they were awful silent.

If “unification” is about education, where was CUEE at that meeting or at the Lowndes County Board of Education meeting the following day when LCBOE unanimously passed a resolution supporting VBOE in opposition to consolidation? Maybe CUEE will show up tonight and say something. Unless VDT is right, and CUEE can’t answer the relevant questions.

-jsq

Public comment form on T-SPLOST Roundtable

Received today on T-SPLOST meeting in Waycross today. -jsq
The SGRC website has been updated to correct the error for the public comment form. Thank you for letting us know and helping to spread the word about these public meetings.

-Southern Georgia Regional Commission

The correction has this new link to the form. The form says:
Public Comment Form
Southern Georgia Regional Transportation Roundtable
and asks for your name, address, phone, email, and your comments. I bet you could email that information if you don’t want to print out the form and write on it. The public notice about the regional T-SPLOST meetings said:
Comments are being accepted by email at chull@sgrc.us, by fax at 229-333-5212, or by mailing them to SGRC, ATTN: SG RTR, 327 W Savannah Ave., Valdosta, GA 31601.

For more information please call Corey Hull at 229-333-5277.

-jsq

T-SPLOST meeting in Waycross today

Update 12:30 8 September 2011: SGRC provided a fixed link to the public comment form.

The first SGRC public meeting about the T-SPLOST Draft Constrained Investment List is today in Waycross:


View Larger Map
Wednesday, September 7, 2011; 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.; at the Southern Georgia Regional Commission Waycross Office; 1725 South Georgia Parkway West, Waycross, Georgia; presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m.
If you live near Waycross, you may want to compare your local projects in the Draft Constrained Investment List with the previous unconstrained list to see what’s still in there and if there are any 50% cost increases like the Old US 41 North widening.

The VLMPO SGRC web page includes a link to a Public Comment Form but as you can see that link gets “page cannot be found”. Doubtless that’s an accident, given that VLMPO is and SGRC are among the most devoted to transparency of local governmental organizations.

Fixed now, with this new link to the public comment form.

I’d like to point out VLMPO SGRC does T-SPLOST administration, but is not responsible for the content of the project lists; those come from your local governments and are selected by the T-SPLOST regional committee and the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Here’s the PDF public meeting notice received 30 August from VLMPO SGRC along with the cover letter already published. HTML version is appended below.

-jsq Continue reading →

Boston catches up with Atlanta: you can video police

Poilce are public employees, and the public has a right to video them doing their duty; so says a federal appeals court.

Pace Lattin wrote for Technorati, Federal Courts Rule it is Not Illegal to Film Police John S. Quarterman

The First Court of Appeals has reached a decision that would allow the general public to video-tape police officers while they are working. This decision comes right after several well-known public cases have come to light involving citizens being arrested for video-taping police.

This specific case in question was Simon Glik vs.The City of Boston (and several police officers), in which a teenage Simon Gilk was arrested after videotaping Boston Police abusing a homeless man. While Mr. Gilk was not interfering with the police, he was arrested on wiretapping charges.

The ACLU had sued on his behalf, even when the charges were dropped, noting that there was a growing epidemic of citizens in the United States being arrested by police for videotaping, even when documenting police brutality and abuse.

The First Court Agreed with the ACLU that this should be legal, and wrote that: “The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles [of protected First Amendment activity].

The Atlanta Police Department already avoided this problem by settling a previous case and making a policy that citizens can video police. This appeals court ruling now says anybody can, nationwide, because of the First Amendment.

Why has this become an issue lately? Continue reading →

“I have seen cameras here at this building when it concerns football” — George Boston Rhynes @ VBOE 29 August 2011

If TV cameras show up for football, why don’t they show up “when the people come together on issues such as this, not just black folk, not just white folk, but all Americans are here tonight because of our concern”?

George Boston Rhynes made three points: Continue reading →

Yield my 5 minutes to Sam Allen of FVCS —JC Cunningham @ VBOE 29 August 2011

This is an interesting way of dealing with arbitrary speaking time limits. Might be worth trying in other venues.

Here’s the video:


I yield my 5 minutes to Sam Allen of FVCS —JC Cunningham @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Private prisons considered harmful —Gretchen Quarterman to Jack Kingston

Gretchen Quarterman
3338 Country Club Road #L336
Valdosta GA 31605
26 August 2011
PDF
 
Hon. Jack Kingston
Member of Congress
First District of Georgia
 
Dear Mr. Kingston,

You asked me last week in Tifton to provide you with evidence that private prisons have fewer guards per prisoner than public prisons.

Here is an example:

“The largest juvenile prison in the nation, Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility houses 1,200 boys and young men, between the ages of 13 and 22, and is run by a private contractor, the GEO Group based in Boca Raton, FL. … State audits over the last several years had already indicated the burgeoning problem. While it is recommended at youth facilities to have an inmate-to-guard ratio of 10:1 or 12:1, Walnut Grove had a ratio of 60:1.”
“When the Wolves Guard the Sheep,” by Mariah Adin in Kids and Crime, 28 March 2011
It’s not just less staff, it’s less qualified staff: Continue reading →

What it takes to run for Mayor of Valdosta

People ask me: what does it take to run for mayor of Valdosta? A few qualifications, a few skills, and a vision would sure help.

Well, you have to qualify. That costs $750 down at the Board of Elections.

According to the City of Valdosta’s website, there are a few other requirements:

Qualification Mayor. To be eligible for election or appointment and service as Mayor, a person must be a minimum of 21 years of age, be a resident of the City of Valdosta for one year prior ro the date of qualifying, and a registered and qualified voter of the City of Valdosta at the time of qualifying.
Then you have to campaign and win. Some people will doubtless spend a lot of money running for mayor. However, some recent elections to Lowndes County Commission and Valdosta Board of Education indicate Continue reading →

John Fretti resigned as mayor Tuesday, or, Roy Taylor got his way

Doubtless everyone knows this already, since the VDT and others have covered it well, including his guilty plea, the VDT’s call for him to resign, and his resignation. Here is John Fretti’s press release announcing his resignation. It seems appropriate that he sent it to News Talk 105.9 FM, where he so frequently appeared.

Personally, I thought he was not all that bad as mayor, even though he never did anything I asked him to. Given that I don’t even live in Valdosta, there is of course no reason that he should have, and he was always courteous when I appeared before the Valdosta City Council or met him elsewhere. Yes, I am well aware of many of the downsides, many of which I have written about in this blog, and Valdosta can do better.

If Valdosta is going to do better, somebody better needs to run. That’s why at the moment I’d prefer to write about the open race for mayor: qualifying is still open today and tomorrow (see next post).

I will say that whoever wins I hope will have less of this attitude:

“If they don’t say they’re against it, they’re for it.”
I think all citizens, but especially elected officials, should be willing to say what they’re for.

If people around here are too frightened to do so, then we’ve got a much bigger problem than who is mayor of Valdosta.

-jsq