Category Archives: VLCIA

To the Armed Forces of Mexico —Javier Sicilia

50,000 people marched in Cuernavaca 6 April 2011 to the gates of a military base, where the usual military guards were nowhere to be seen. Then a poet, whose son had recently been killed by the drug war, climbed up and said:
To the Armed Forces of Mexico
You have always been the custodians of peace for our nation
That’s why we never want to see you again,
outside of your barracks,
except to defend us from foreign invasion,
or to help us, as you always have, during natural disasters.

What does this have to do with us? We don’t need a private prison; we need an end to the War on Drugs that fills our prisons with more prisoners total and per capita than any other nation on earth.

Todos somos Sicilia.

-jsq

No mas Guerra de las Drogas

The war on drugs is not a metaphor in Mexico: for four years the Mexican Army has fought drug traffickers in the streets. With no success and 40,000 dead, many of them collateral damage. The people have had it with that: No mas Guerra de las Drogas!

Al Giordano wrote 7 April 2011, And This Is What History Looks Like in Mexico

Yesterday, multitudes took to the streets in more than 40 Mexican cities – and in protests by Mexicans and their friends at consulates and embassies in Europe, North America and South America – to demand an end to the violence wrought by the US-imposed “war on drugs.”

What? You haven’t heard about this? Or if you have heard something about it, did you know that it is the biggest news story in the Mexican media, on the front page of virtually every daily newspaper in the country?

A sea change has occurred in Mexican public opinion. The people have turned definitively against the use of the Mexican Army to combat against drug traffickers. The cry from every city square yesterday was for the Army to return to its barracks and go back to doing the job it was formed to do; protect Mexico from foreign invasion and provide human aid relief in case of natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Since President Felipe Calderón unleashed the Armed Forces, four years ago, to combat drug trafficking organizations, the violence between it and the competing narco organizations has led to a daily body count, widespread human rights abuses against civilians, and more than 40,000 deaths, so many of them of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire and used by all sides in the armed conflict that still has no winners, that never will have any winner.

What woke up the people of Mexico, or, rather, who? Continue reading →

Five hours of staff time to copy agendas and minutes?

Why does it take someone paid $24.23 an hour to convert agendas and minutes to PDF?

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA, Open Records Request, Bobbi Anne Hancock asked Allan Ricketts why a bunch of agendas and minutes should cost $125.09? She received back this itemized invoice:


 

Apparently the lowest paid VLCIA employee who can convert documents to PDF is paid $24.23 an hour. According to Georgia Code 50-18-71: Continue reading →

Open Board Appointments

We need to watch local boards regardless of whatever else happens. But to ensure local boards and agencies become more responsive to the community, even better is to appoint people to them who want to be more responsive to the community. Many such appointments are available right now.

Valdosta’s list of open appointments, qualifications, etc. can be found here. There are 14 positions open on 8 boards, ranging from the Parks and Recreation Authority, which has its own dedicated tax millage larger than that of the Industrial Authority, to the Keep Lowndes-Valdosta Beautiful Board, which has a paid executive director. Here’s an excerpt: Continue reading →

Georgia following Florida down the private prison path

Florida is already forging down the path Georgia wants to follow on private prisons. Steve Bousquet writes in the Miami Herald:
The Florida Legislature’s push to privatize many more prisons, its most far-reaching cost-cutting plan in years, could open a lucrative door to politically connected vendors who stand to profit.

Senate and House budgets require the state to privatize prisons in South Florida, home to one-fifth of the statewide inmate population of 101,000. The region is the home of the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator, which currently runs two private prisons, including the largest private lockup, the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Milton.

Why is this path so popular with the Florida legislature? Continue reading →

Former Mexican president Vicente Fox urges drug legalization

Sandra Dibble writes in signonsandiego 6 April 2011 that Former Mexican president urges drug legalization

Photo by Omar Martinez — Frontera
Legalization of drugs in Mexico would not only lead to lowered violence and drug consumption but also boost its economy, former Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday during a speech to a convention of newspaper editors from the United States and Latin America.

“Things are going very badly for Mexico with the issues of organized crime and violence,” Fox said in Spanish. “We’re losing large volumes of tourists, if not in the interior, then at the border. We’re losing a great number of investments.”

And if there were more jobs in Mexico, from tourism and investments, there would be fewer Mexicans trying to sneak into the U.S. for jobs.

Will legalization cause more drug use? No:

On Wednesday, Fox cited the example of Portugal, where he said drugs use has fallen by 25 percent a decade after they were legalized there.

That would be better than locking up more people for private profit while not decreasing drug use, and that’s what we’re doing now.

-jsq

When the biomass plant is cancelled —John S. Quarterman

What will happen to the spirit of activism when the biomass plant is cancelled?

I applaud the activism of the many and varied biomass opponents! Let me repeat my prediction: the biomass plant will never be built. That’s no reason to stop doing what you’re doing. You know opposition is having an effect when VLCIA repeatedly denies it.

You might be surprised how many other people think this plant will never be built. Ashley Paulk told me Continue reading →

Let’s see these “many” biomass opponents

So what’s the evidence that these biomass opponents are many, as the VDT says? We could review letters to the editors in the VDT, but let’s look at the visual evidence LAKE has recorded. With no pro-biomass demonstrators anywhere to be seen. Sure, a few people show up at government meetings to speak for the biomass plant, but by my tally they are indeed very few, and most of them are either former employees or board members of the Industrial Authority. Yes, LAKE has posted videos of them, as well: Ken Garren, Nolen Cox. Crawford Powell. Or watch the people at the microphones during the 6 December 2011 VLCIA biomass “forum” and see what you think the ratio is.

My opinion is the same as I posted last month: “Black and white, young and old, conservative and liberal, college professors and unemployed”. Come see for yourself today outside Valdosta City Hall starting at 5PM.

-jsq

Far more citizens are concerned about the plant –VDT

In the VDT, Friday 25 March 2011:
“THUMBS DOWN: To area officials who continue to refer to the opponents of the biomass plant as a “fringe” group. Far more citizens are concerned about the plant than officials would like for the public to believe. Thankfully, the city council allowed them to speak at Thursday’s meeting, but the issue is not going away until their health concerns are addressed.”

A year ago the VDT was solidly in the pro biomass camp. Guess they didn’t like being fed misinformation, any more than the rest of us did. And that was before the VDT said VLCIA illegally made up a document.

Rumor has it that there’s going to be another demonstration today outside Valdosta City Hall starting at 5PM.

-jsq

Jails Reap Millions Off U.S. Illegal Alien Crackdown

Betty Liu reports for Bloomberg that Jails Reap Millions Off U.S. Illegal Alien Crackdown:
The big winner in the crackdown on the illegal immiggration has been the private prison industry. As Bloomberg Business Week reports in its latest issue, companies such as Corrections Corporation of America are making millions. In fact, CCA makes more money from detaining immigrants than it does from any single U.S. state.
She goes on to mention CCA’s stock price has gone up by a factor of ten since 9/11.


Bloomberg’s Betty Liu reports, 18 March 2011. (Source: Bloomberg)

The source of the money CCA and its investors and executives are making? Our tax dollars!

With all the additional jail time, misdemeanors, and felonies in new state laws such as Arizona’s, states could catch up with the feds in paying CCA through the nose!

-jsq