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.
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.
We can only prosper as a society if we work together. Despite the
differences we might have, we share so much more in common. Yet it seems
that we prefer to fall into separate camps, that we seek to view issues
in black and white, and that we like to belong to those who have “got
it all figured out”. Just pick your side (liberal, conservative)
and you “know” who got it all wrong.
I have been humbled by the wide-ranging support WACE received to stop
a biomass plant that was once considered a done deal. In the end what
mattered was the realization by people across all ages, racial and
ideological lines that we want to breathe clean air, and that we don’t
want to waste millions of tax dollars on a project that will lead to
increases in respiratory illnesses, heart diseases, and cancer. Thus
the people spoke up, and with the help of elected representatives and
the Industrial Authority “no biomass” became the consensus.
In the last couple of months I noticed another issue many agree on.
This is the clearest statement of the football argument I’ve heard.
This is the same speaker who already mentioned
quality of education, property taxes, and property values,
so this is just one argument among many.
The speaker is associated with FVCS, and if I went to VHS,
I’d know his name right away; I’m an LHS graduate.
The first thing they’ll do is sell that stadium.
They’d be crazy not to do….
They’re not going to pay upkeep on two stadiums.
Look at Tallahassee, Macon: all the schools play at one stadium….
…
Don’t let those people run the show.
Don’t let them take the power away from us.
…
If one day it makes good economic sense for y’all to
make the decision to sell that property to Valdosta State
and build another stadium and we can come out ahead,
I think that’s a great idea.
Like my granddaddy said, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
By “those people” I don’t think he means the Lowndes County Board
of Education; I think he was referring to CUEE.
Research quality of education, property taxes, and property values
after school consolidation, and you’ll find down, up, and down,
said this speaker.
Didn’t get his name; sorry.
I don’t have kids, but I have plenty of friends that do.
that are in Valdosta city school system,
and they like the direction that the school system is going.
They like the quality of education that their children are getting at this time.
My grandfather used to say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
It ain’t broke, so why are we going to let them try to fix it?
Do the research; I’ve done the research.
Do the research on other communities that have consolidated two systems.
When you get a big huge system, the quality of education goes down.
Check it out. Research it.
Property taxes go up.
Property values go down.
Do the research.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it @ 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.
This is the same method used in 2003 when former Mayor
James H. Rainwater died before the election.
Council appointed David Sumner interim mayor.
According to the VDT 31 August 2011:
At that time, Councilman David Sumner assumed the role of mayor, but had
to resign his council seat to do so. He had already qualified to rerun
for his seat in the November 2003 election, was re-elected to his seat
and stepped down as mayor at the end of 2003, re-assuming his duties as
a newly elected councilman at the beginning of 2004.
If they don’t appoint Vickers interim mayor tomorrow,
the Valdosta City Council will probably appoint somebody else.
According to the VDT today:
Vickers is among those being considered for appointment by council,
along with Dexter Sharper and David Sumner, who are also former council
members. Vickers pointed out that he did not submit his name for
consideration, but rather it was mentioned in conversations with other
council members.
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.
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.
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.
Classrooms are festooned with college pennants. Hallway placards proclaim:
“No Excuses!” Students win prizes for attendance. They start classes
earlier and end later than their neighbors; some return to school on
Saturdays. And they get to pore over math problems one-on-one with newly
hired tutors, many of them former accountants and engineers.
If these new mores at Lee High School, long one of Houston’s most
troubled campuses, make it seem like one of those intense charter schools,
that is no accident.
In the first experiment of its kind in the country, the Houston
public schools are testing whether techniques proven successful in
high-performing urban charters can also help raise achievement in regular
public schools. Working with Roland G. Fryer, a researcher at Harvard who
studies the racial achievement gap, Houston officials last year embraced
five key tenets of such charters at nine district secondary schools;
this fall, they are expanding the program to 11 elementary schools. A
similar effort is beginning in Denver.
Charter schools were supposed to be pilot projects, so why not
adopt what works there in public schools?
However, this still seems to be all about test scores.
Maybe some public schools could look farther afield,
Continue reading →
“Georgia is shackled to the 20th century,” Peterson says.
“If all
I did was look at Georgia, I’d think we were doing well. But I work
all over the country, and I’m not kidding when I say we’re dealing
with $500-million solar projects that have no chance of coming here
because of systemic problems that keep Georgia from participating in
the 21st-century economy, which has renewable energy as a major component.
“It’s disgusting, considering our potential, how much opportunity
is lost, how much capital investment is passed up.”
All it would take to fix this is the political will.
Maybe if the people and elected and appointed officials look at the
handwriting on the wall:
Continue reading →
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].
Private prison company CCA, which in conjunction with ALEC promotes laws in dozens of states and nationally that lock up more people for CCA’s private profit at taxpayer expense, really doesn’t like
community opposition to siting private prisons in their communities.
Hm, why would CCA hate community opposition so much, unless it works?
Question:
There are Web sites and blogs that are adamantly opposed to your company
and industry, and they provide negative information about you. Why?
Hm, you mean like some of the material on this blog?
Answer:
CCA and all corrections companies recognize the ongoing efforts
of local, loosely formed grassroots groups and national, well-funded
associations that jointly oppose the establishment of partnership
prisons, many for self-serving reasons. Such groups go to great lengths
to attack, criticize and misrepresent the entire industry. They make false
allegations and often rely on hearsay and unreliable sources. Regrettably,
these biased groups often resort to misinformation and inflammatory
rhetoric to turn isolated incidents into broad generalizations about
the corrections industry as a whole.
Well-funded? Har! OK, not this blog.
That plus we provide evidence, like
Continue reading →
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.
