U.S. Senate finds drug war failed

When it’s so obvious even the U.S. Senate can find it, after the rest of the world points it out, maybe there’s something to it.

Eyder Peralta wrote for NPR yesterday, Report: U.S. Drug War Spending Is Unjustifiable

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said that after a year-long investigation by a Senate subcommittee, “it’s becoming increasingly clear that our efforts to rein in the narcotics trade in Latin America, especially as it relates to the government’s use of contractors, have largely failed.”

The report comes a week after a high-powered commission of former world leaders came to the conclusion that the global war on drugs had “failed.” Mark wrote about that report, last week.

That would be Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy that recommended start legalizing drugs with marijuana?

And what happens to what little there is of a business plan for private prisons when the U.S. and Georgia wise up and legalize marijuana and other drugs?

We don’t need another bad business boondoggle in Lowndes County. Spend that tax money on education instead.

-jsq

Lowndes County is disaster area —Gov. Deal

Climate change makes Lowndes County a disaster area.

Amber Eady wrote for WALB, Deal requests disaster designation for Lowndes County:

Gov. Deal sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asking that 22 Georgia counties be declared disaster areas because of Georgia’s ongoing drought.

Lowndes County was on that list of 22 counties that Deal wants to be declared as disaster areas.

-gretchen

The Council of Hamlets meets tonight in Valdosta!

The Valdosta City Council regular meeting is tonight. You remember them, the council that may or may not be able to say whether or not they can or cannot speak during, at the end of, or after their council meetings. Tonight they appoint people to boards that decide who can put up how big a sign, and that spend millions in your tax money.

I want to see if Mayor Fretti will keep to his word to expand the Wiregrass Solar plant.

Also, maybe now this city council can do what Gretna, Florida, did: put out a proclamation saying there will be no biomass plant. Or they could sit on their hands some more and wait until some Sonny finds a way to do it anyway.

They have lots of other stuff on their agenda for tonight, including an appointment to the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA), and an appointment to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks & Recreation Authority.

ZBOA decides on variances to Valdosta’s LDR and Lowndes County’s ULDC, including sign variances, much to the annoyance of some local entitled rich people and of McDonald’s.

Parks & Rec receives 1.5 mil of tax money, about $4.5 million dollars a year, more than the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). Parks and Rec board members get to spend that tax money that you pay.

AGENDA
REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL
5:30 PM Thursday, June 9, 2011
COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL
Continue reading →

Industrial Authority debts could force Lowndes County to raise taxes

A mil here, a mil there; soon we’re into real money! Can the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) commit we the local taxpayers to a $150 million bond issue for a private company like the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority just did? Maybe.

VLCIA has already issued $15 million in bonds for which apparently the Lowndes County Commission has committed the county, that is, we the taxpayers, to pay the debt service. That comes out of VLCIA’s one mil of dedicated tax income. But according to the intergovernmental contract, it’s actually not even just from VLCIA’s current millage:

Section 4.4 Security for Contract Payments and for Bonds.

(a) The obligation of the County to make the payments required pursuant to Section 4.1(a) hereof shall be a general obligation of the County for which its full faith and credit is pledged, and shall be payable from any lafully available funds, subject to the Tax Funding Limit. In particular, the County agrees to levy an annual tax on all taxable property located within its boundaries, as now existent and as the same may be extended, at such rate or rates, as limited by the Tax Funding Limit, as and when it may be necessary to provide the County with sufficient revenues to make all payments required to be made by the County under this Contract.
The current VLCIA millage is one mil, or about $3 million a year, collected by the county in property taxes and handed over to VLCIA.

But VLCIA’s charter says (in Section 5): Continue reading →

Biomass plant approved for Macon-Bibb County

How to get a biomass plant approved in Georgia: tack it onto an existing business. Remember to get an industrial authority to use a public bond issue to expand the private business.

Carla Caldwell wrote in the Atlanta Business Chronicle 7 June 2011, Graphic Packaging gets $140M bond deal

A deal OK’d by the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority provides revenue bonds for a $140 million expansion of Marietta, Ga.-based Graphic Packaging International’s Macon, Ga. mill. Improvements will include the addition of a biomass boiler and a 40-megawatt turbine generator geared to reduce emergency cost and improve profitability, reports Macon Telegraph website macon.com.

The authority approved the deal on Monday for the provider of packaging for food, beverage and consumer products. The biomass system, which is scheduled for operation by mid-2013, is expected to generate power from about 400,000 tons of logging materials, mostly the tops of trees, the Macon newspaper reports. Graphic Packaging’s (NYSE: GPK) Macon mill makes an estimated 1,600 tons of paperboard daily.

Maybe we should put some parameters on the types of industry we want around here to avoid this happening with the bonds the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (and the Lowndes County Commission) floats.

This rationalization is precious: Continue reading →

VLCIA hires Andrea Schuijer from Albany

According to David Rodock in the VDT today:
…a unanimous decision by board members to submit a formal offer to Andrea Schruijer for the position of executive director.

Absent from the meeting was board member Roy Copeland.

According to Steve Gupton, authority attorney, the three-year contract will include a salary of $100,000 per year. As with all its employees, the authority will pay seven percent into a retirement fund and 75 percent of health care insurance.

Schruijer, pending acceptance of the offer, will officially start employment on July 8.

She’s a former hotel marketing person, according to her LinkedIn account: Continue reading →

Sterling Planet wants to buy biomass site

Why would Sterling Planet want to buy the biomass site, unless they want to come back later and propose to build a biomass plant on it? Funny how the Industrial Authority didn’t mention this when they said Sterling Planet missed the June 1 deadline for building the biomass plant.

Here’s the relevant part of this morning’s VDT story by David Rodock:

The other major announcement at the meeting was the possibility of Wiregrass LLC exercising the option to purchase the 22.2-acre tract of land that was originally planned to be used for the biomass facility.

“We gave them the option to purchase the land based on certain terms and conditions,” said Gupton. “They basically sent us a certified letter prior to June 1 stating they wished to exercise their option to purchase the 22.2-acre tract of land within 60 days.”

“We are currently looking at the letter to understand if we agree if they have that option and will continue our due diligence,” said Allan Ricketts, project manager, via conference call. “We don’t know anything other than they have sent us a certified letter indicating that they would like to pursue that option.”

And why don’t you know anything other? Can nobody pick up the phone and call Sonny Murphy and ask him? You remember him, the Chairman of Sterling Planet who recently said:
It’s not over until it’s over.

-jsq

Skipper Bridge Road bridge, Withlacoochee River

The old bridge got condemned during the great flood of April 2009.

Lowndes County is rebuilding the bridge over Skipper Bridge Road near the new school site. I think this is using FEMA funds.

It’s not clear that the new Staten Road bridge is high enough Continue reading →

Prisons bad for education budget

Building a prison is not just a bad business gamble now that crime rates are down and state budgets are tight. It’s bad for other things, too. As the reporter who originally broke the story about the empty new prison in Grayson County, VA noted 2 January 2011, Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a national group that promotes criminal justice reform, summed it up:
“Corrections over the past 25 years has become an increasingly big component of state budgets, to the point that it’s competing for funding with education and other core services,” Mauer said. “And you can’t have it both ways anymore.”

If we want knowledge-based jobs here, a private prison is not how to get them. Let’s not build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend those tax dollars on education instead.

-jsq