Last week, the ACLU of Georgia submitted comments to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to ask that the agency not renew its contract with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for operation of the McRae Correctional Facility.Why? Lack of medical treatment for prisoners, among other reasons. For example: Continue reading
McRae is located in Telfair County, Georgia. The prison is owned by CCA, which purchased it in 2000. McRae currently houses a population of low security, adult male, primarily non-citizen prisoners. The contract between CCA and the BOP is set to expire in November 2012.
Category Archives: Transparency
Snake Nation Decision, Lowndes County Commission, Tonight 5:30PM
Here are videos of yesterday’s Lowndes County Commission work session.
Tonight, come see the local government decide about
a change order for routing around the sinkhole at Snake Nation Road.
Agenda after the videos.
Here’s a playlist:
Snake Nation Decision, Lowndes County Commission, Tonight 5:30PM
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 August 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Here’s the agenda.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2011, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
- Call to Order
- Invocation
- Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
- Minutes for Approval
- Work Session — August 8, 2011
- Regular Session — August 9, 2011
- For Consideration
- Change Order to Snake Nation Road Contract
- Assistance to Firefighters Grant
- James Road Water Main Repair
- Capacity Fee Waiver for Country View Mobile Home Park
- SCADA Upgrade
- USGS Funding Agreement for Hwy 122 Stream Gauge
- Declaration of Merchandise as Surplus — Fire Department and Public Works
- Approval of TAN and Resolution
- Bids
- Training Tower for the Fire Department
- Asphalt Surfacing at Naylor and Clyattville Parks
- Striping and Signage on 29.34 Miles of Roadway
- Reports-County Manager
- Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address
-jsq
Coal-planning Cobb EMC board to meet
Kim Isaza wrote for MDJonline.com today, Sides set for first EMC meeting: Date set for Sept. 17, but Cobb Superior court judge must first grant approval
And look which one the directors really don’t like: Continue readingPending approval from Judge Stephen Schuster, the first meeting of Cobb EMC members in nearly three years will convene at 10:15 a.m. Sept. 17.
At that meeting, members will decide two issues: whether to allow voting by mail-in ballots at future elections, and whether to amend the electric cooperative’s bylaws to limit director compensation to a daily rate while also prohibiting future directors from being paid retirement benefits. Previously vested benefits would not be affected.
Private prisons unaccountable —ACLU
Azadeh Shahshahani wrote for the AJC 11 June 2009, Private prisons for immigrants lack accountability, oversight
That’s in Lumpkin, west of Americus, south of Columbus.On March 11, a 39-year-old man held in detention at the Stewart Detention Center, a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in southwest Georgia, died at a hospital in Columbus.
To this day, the immediate cause of Roberto Martinez Medina’s death remains unclear (a press release pronounced the cause of death as “apparent natural causes”).That’s in Alamo, GA, between Macon, Tifton, and Savannah.
Last month, Leonard Odom, 37, died at the Wheeler County Correctional Facility in south-central Georgia.
Both facilities are operated by Corrections Corp. of America, which has a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to operate the Stewart center and one with the Georgia Department of Corrections to operate the one in Wheeler County.So, what happened? Continue reading
30 jail deaths since 1994 to 2009 —George Boston Rhynes
Churches and pastors need to view this video and see about these animals. That is since we read so much information about the Animal Shelter in our area about abused animals. What about these animals and the thirty deaths that no elected official, church, human being or orgnzations seem to care about.Continue reading
Did you know that Valdosta-Lowndes County Jail is leading the State of Georgia in Jail Deaths for whatever reason. Yet, no one is talking about these people many of whom are military veterans that served their nation. So where is the humanity to man?
Yes, we have had 30 jail deaths since 1994 to 2009 and not the Lowndes County Attorney has put it in a letter in so many words
T-SPLOST projects as of 15 August 2011
Most of Lowndes County’s boondoggle road widening
projects seem to have been bounced off the list.
This one is still on there:
$8 million to widen old US 41 North.
Some of the other projects may also be boondoggles for all I know,
but at least all the ones to widen roads right to the north edge
of the county and thus drive development all the way into
agricultural and forest areas are gone.
Here’s the list:
Continue reading
Animal issues on facebook
For those who miss their regular daily diet of animal shelter issues,
Susan Leavens has started a facebook group called
Georgia’s Regulatory Animal Protection Division the truth behind them.
And who knows? Maybe soon we’ll hear results of that investigation down at the sheriff’s office. Or maybe Gary Black will live up to his campaign promises. Or maybe Lowndes County will let the Humane Society train animal control officers. The more people ask for these things to happen, the more likely they will happen.
-jsq
Growing talent instead of population
Richard Florida wrote in the Atlantic in December 2009,
How the Crash Will Reshape America:
Big, talent-attracting places benefit from accelerated rates of “urban metabolism,”The question we need to address is how to be a small talent-attracting place, and even more a smallish place that grows its own talent and jobs.
This part is especially relevant: Continue reading
Slides from LCC Lunch and Learn 11 August 2011
Lowndes County Clerk, Paige Dukes, provided a PDF of the slides from
the presentation.
They are available
on the LAKE website.
-gretchen
“about as fruitful as trying to squeeze information out of the Kremlin”
No, not that city council! No, not that county commission! Not even the state board of corrections. (Although some of them might want to try that bureaucratic shoe on to see if it fits.) Here’s who: Continue readingSchuster told the directors that he thought [that organization] was supplying “vague” information and he directed that henceforth the sides meet monthly in his office for updates on the liquidation process. In short, Schuster is learning first hand — just like members, the media and the public at large have learned — that prying information out of [that organization] is usually about as fruitful as trying to squeeze information out of the Kremlin.




