Category Archives: VLCIA

Private prisons illegal in Israel

I couldn’t find a U.S. Jewish statement on private prisons, but Tomer Zarchin published this in Haaretz in Israel 20 November 2009: International legal precedent: No private prisons in Israel
The High Court of Justice put an end to years of controversy Thursday by ruling that privately run prisons are unconstitutional.

Following the decision, the state is expected to have to pay hundreds of millions of shekels in compensation to a company that had already completed construction of the first private prison, near Be’er Sheva.

The panel of nine justices, presided over by Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, ruled that for the state to transfer authority for managing the prison to a private contractor whose aim is monetary profit would severely violate the prisoners’ basic human rights to dignity and freedom.

-jsq

Solar is better than biomass because it doesn’t pollute –Jack Pruden @ VCC 24 March 2011

Jack Pruden’s hand-lettered sign says:
Ban the burn
Go 100% solar
Gretchen asked him about that and he said:


Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Angela Manning and her extended ovation @ VCC 24 March 2011

It’s Sunday, so let’s see what a local preacher thinks about the biomass plant. Mayor Fretti asked if there were any Citizens Wishing to be Heard, and a preacher said, “yes”. No, not Rev. Rose. He last spoke to the Valdosta City Council back on 10 February, and left in disgust. Besides, the Council thinks people are frightened of little old him.

This time, 24 March 2011, Angela Manning, minister of the 1500-member New Life Ministries in Valdosta near the proposed site for the Wiregrass Power LLC biomass plant, read from the Valdosta City Council’s own mission statement and asked,

How do you adhere to your mission statement?
Here’s the video: Continue reading →

What do churches think of private prisons?

It’s Sunday, so let’s ask some churches what they think of private prisons.

Episcopal Church:

“The shipping of fathers and mothers to private prisons in far-flung states is guaranteeing a new generation of frightened, angry, disenfranchised children, who are future inmates,” she said, adding that “families who try to visit loved ones are treated as suspects in many prisons. The children cannot understand the lack of warmth and hospitality in the visiting rooms.”

The Episcopal Church’s General Convention is on record in opposition to private prisons.

Presbyterian Church: Continue reading →

Biomass protesters @ VCC 24 March 2011

Black and white, young and old, conservative and liberal, college professors and unemployed: dozens of them demonstrated against biomass outside the Valdosta City Council meeting, 24 March 2011:

As Dr. George said Continue reading →

Private prisons do not increase local employment

According to an empirical study, siting a private prison in a rural county does not increase employment. (Big Prisons, Small Towns: Prison Economics in Rural America by Ryan S. King, Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling, February 2003.)

Their Key Findings:

Overall, over the course of 25 years, we find no significant difference or discernible pattern of economic trends between the seven rural counties in New York that hosted a prison and the seven rural counties that did not host a prison. While prisons clearly create new jobs, these benefits do not aid the host county to any substantial degree since local residents are not necessarily in a position to be hired for these jobs. The most significant findings are as follows:
They go on to detail effects on unemployment during economic recovery, downturn, and boom, and in each period Continue reading →

Wiregrass Technical College @ VLCIA 15 March 2011

Wiregrass Technical College wants to expand onto some land owned by the Industrial Authority, using SPLOST funds.

Chairman Jerry Jennett:

The point is they’re landlocked.

And so what you want to do is you want to take what your tract is now and have the ability to expand your building in the future. You want to move your training facility now and….

More transcription after the video:


Regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA,
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Brad Lofton Executive Director,
Allan Ricketts Program Manager, 15 March 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Roy Copeland: Continue reading →

What’s the value of inmates?

Cheap labor. And not just unskilled labor. Brennan Leathers wrote in The Post-Searchlight on 18 February 2011, Inmate housing a hot topic about how overcrowded nearby prisons are and about haggling over what the local jail wants to charge to house prisoners, and ended with this:
“Working our inmates the way we do has greatly benefited the county,” [Warden Elijah] McCoy [of the Decatur County Jail] said. “We can construct buildings from the ground up and wire them. We perform all of the county’s maintenance and operate some of the equipment at the county’s landfill.”
One of the comments from Decatur County way back in July 2010 was:
Not only prison jobs, but it would also be a boost for many small businesses in the area. The construction part would also be a good shot in the arm.
Local construction people who think it will be a good deal to build a private prison maybe should think they may be putting themselves out of a lot of jobs after it’s built.

-jsq

What Are Our Priorities? –Dr. Noll @ LCC 22 March 2011

Dr. Noll raised a number of issues about community priorities at the Lowndes County Commission meeting of 22 March 2011 and asked what are our priorities?

The Sierra Club letter he mentions was posted last week. For NOAA Weather Radios see previous posts. Here is the video:


Regular meeting of the Lowndes County Commission, 22 March 2011.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Appended is the script Dr. Noll says he was reading. I’ve added a few links to relevant posts. -jsq Continue reading →

How can both Lowndes and Decatur Counties think they’re getting a private prison?

Because it’s not the same prison.

As we’ve seen, the Bainbridge-Decatur County Development Authority thinks it’s getting a private prison from CCA, and the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) thinks it’s got the primary site by contract.

Carol Heard explained in The Post-Searchlight on 20 August 2010 how that could be, in Building of prison is good bet:

Jay Hollis, project manager of site acquisition for Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), said the company goes to great lengths to be pre-emptive and be more competitive.

“We don’t go enter into agreements with a lot of different communities just on the outside chance that something will pop up,” Hollis said in an interview with The Post-Searchlight Wednesday. “When we go in sort of pre-emptively to get to this point, it’s because we really believe that we’re going to use that site.”

OK, that doesn’t quite explain it. But this does: Continue reading →