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.
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Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday, SGMC acquisition of Smith Northview official:
Yeah, well, he’s paid to say that. I say it’s a sad day. First Smith Hospital moved from Hahira Continue readingBeginning today, Smith Northview is an official campus of South Georgia Medical Center.
Officials from the Hospital Authority of Valdosta-Lowndes County and Ameris Health Systems gathered Wednesday at SGMC to sign the paperwork together to finalize the sale.
SGMC purchased Smith Northview for $55 million, with no assumption of debt. Hospital Authority Attorney Walter H. New said the purchase was financed through an 18-month bridge loan, which is anticipated to be paid in full in December when SGMC is expected to have a $100 million bond issue to pay for current and future projects on the main hospital campus.
Interim CEO for Smith Northview, Shamb Purohit, said, “This is a wonderful moment and we need to celebrate it.”
This post includes an update on who has qualified for the end of the day Thursday September 1st from Deb Cox, Lowndes County Supervisor of Elections; * indicates incumbent. This is basically the same as the list I posted yesterday afternoon, with a few corrections: the Dasher candidates (except for Post 2) are now correctly marked as incumbents; Lake Park Mayor candidate Keith Sandlin is listed; Lake Park and Dasher Council At Large elections are described correctly; Paul Mulkey has also qualified for Lake Park; various names are filled out more completely. This morning’s post is taken from a text document sent by Deb Cox, so it’s probably more accurate than yesterday’s writing it down from her telling it to me on the telephone.
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| Mayor | John Gayle
Gary Minchew |
|---|---|
| At Large | Matt Flumerfelt
Ben Norton * |
| Council 1 | James R. Wright * |
| Council 3 | Joseph Sonny Vickers * |
| Council 5 | Tim Carroll* |
All of my children have fourished in the Valdosta School System.Then he got to the night’s topic:
…
The special ed program they have here is second to none.
When I look at these things when people talk about consolidation, I have to ask the question: why do they want to consolidate two school systems? The things that they say sound good. I think everything they say would be agreab What do they mean by them? And I have a little bit of a problem; whenever somebody wants to combine two groups together, it almost looks like they want to control the whole.And this little bombshell:
It seems like the group that is most pushing this thing is referring to the Tennessee Hamilton County system, which if you read their site, sounds like their statistics are good and everything’s working good. Except that there’s some data that came out a month ago that says that they are, the first time, the entire district is high priority.There’s more in the video:
…
That means they had two years of bad results.
Hamilton Co. TN is high priority school district @ 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.
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|
Gretchen Quarterman
3338 Country Club Road #L336 Valdosta GA 31605 26 August 2011 |
|
PDF
Hon. Jack Kingston Member of Congress First District of Georgia |
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.”It’s not just less staff, it’s less qualified staff: Continue reading
“When the Wolves Guard the Sheep,” by Mariah Adin in Kids and Crime, 28 March 2011
Maybe we’ll see CUEE at some of the three forums VBOE is organizing. Maybe they’ll address issues such as consolidation producing no improvement in academic achievement, consolidation causing increased taxpayer expense, and the need for any consolidation proposal to come from educators and parents, and to be voted on by all the citizens in the affected school districts; you know, the issues LCBOE just called them on.
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| Mayor | John Gayle
Gary Minchew |
|---|---|
| At Large | Matt Flumerfelt
Ben Norton * |
| Council 1 | James Wright * |
| Council 3 | Sonny Vickers * |
| Council 5 | Tim Carroll* |
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
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.
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The
public meetings for Transportation Sales Tax Project List
are coming up in a few weeks.
The one in Lowndes County is:
Monday, September 19, 2011; 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.; at the Valdosta City Hall Annex; 300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia; presentation will begin at 10:30 a.m.There’s a meeting in Fitzgerald later that same day, and an earlier meeting in Waycross on Wednesdday, September 7th.
If you’re interested in saying something about
the 50% increase in the Old US 41 North widening project
or about
some of the other projects still on the constrained list,
this would be the place to do it.
You can also send in written comments.
Here’s
contact information.
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