Tag Archives: Andrea Schruijer

Videos @ VLCIA 2012 03 20

Likely new industry, private prison really cancelled, strategic planning, and trees in the median!

Here are videos of the entire March regular meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). Here’s the agenda.

It’s good that they approve minutes after emailing them to each other. Maybe someday we the taxpayers will get to see those minutes.

Did you know they had two executive sessions on 23 February 2012, at 10AM and 2:25 PM in addition to their retreat and regular meeting of that same day? If they’re having all these executive sessions, presumably all the material about personnel and real estate that needs to be kept confidential is in there, and the minutes of the regular meetings shouldn’t contain anything the public should not see.

For example, Continue reading →

Industrial Authority presentation @ LCC 2012 03 26

Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), made a presentation to the Lowndes County Commission at their Work Session 26 March 2012. VLCIA Board member G. Norman Bennett was also present. Congratulations to VLCIA on proactively getting the word out about what they are doing!

Here's a playlist:


Industrial Authority presentation
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 March 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

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Industrial Authority still pushing “benefits” of scrapped private prison

The Industrial Authority appears to have learned nothing from the reams of information about the CCA private prison found for them by members of the public. They’re still pushing the “benefits” while saying nothing about the numerous cons (pun intended), the biggest of which is that the state and federal prison population is already decreasing, meaning we don’t need any more prisons, and if we built one here, it would be likely to close. So it’s not just a bad idea, it’s bad business. But here they go again….

Eames Yates wrote for WCTV Friday, Plans For New Prison Scrapped,

Schruijer went on to say “It would have been a huge economic impact. There were about 400 jobs associated with the project with approximately $150 million dollars in capital investment.”

Those four hundred jobs that the prison would have created, on average, would have payed between $40,000 and $50,000 dollars eah.

To people who mostly don’t live here now and mostly wouldn’t want to live here then, while driving away better businesses; she didn’t mention any of that, or the other problems with the whole private prison bad business.

That picture of Ms. Schruijer is hosted on the LAKE website, by the way. The VLCIA website is still broken, a week after I first pointed it out. Is this how the Industrial Authority plans to do PR, still promoting yet another failed Brad Lofton boondoggle while not making anything positive available on their own website?

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Still time to contact VLCIA board before tomorrow’s private prison decision

We learned yesterday from Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) Executive Director Andrea Schruijer that we can expect an opinion from the VLCIA board at tomorrow’s 2PM board meeting about Project Excel, the CCA private prison whose contract expires March 13th unless VLCIA gives it a third extension, which they haven’t so far.

Roy Copeland
Roy Copeland
Chairman 		Tom Call
Tom Call 		Mary B. Gooding
Mary Gooding 		Norman Bennett
Norman Bennett 		Jerry Jennett
Jerry Jennett,

It’s not too late to express your opinion to this tax-funded (1 mil of your property taxes + SPLOST funds, for around $3 million a year) appointed board. Follow this link for contact information for the VLCIA board. Or sign the petition online and your signature gets emailed directly to VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer.

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My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011

In a refreshing changes from “jobs, jobs, jobs” as everything, Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), told the Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting, 5 December 2011, that it wasn’t her job to create jobs, jobs, jobs; it was her job to create an environment that let jobs be created. Towards that end, she announced several new jobs at VLCIA, including a PR and marketing position. VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland also spoke and helped answer questions from the audience, including about wages, workers, and green industries.

Perhaps not shown is her answer to my question about what does VLCIA do to promote new local industry. I believe she said VLCIA looks to the Chamber of Commerce for incubation, and helps once local businesses are established.

Here’s a playlist:


My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director of VLCIA,
Monthly Meeting, Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 December 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman.

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VLCIA pleads technical glitches on web page

Here’s something from the Industrial Authority that never happened before.

The first person I saw going into the State Legislative Luncheon yesterday was Andrea Schruijer, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). She spotted me inside, and said “I want to apologize”. Surprised, I asked for what? She said for the date of VLCIA’s Tuesday meeting being unclear. She said she had read about that in this blog that same morning.

She said they had recently changed the way they were handling their web pages and hadn’t yet figured out how to update it correctly. Since I was never very impressed with how it was handled before, I readily accepted that as a good excuse. I look forward to the updates. I’m guessing the new PR and marketing person they’re hiring will take care of this.

She also volunteered that they did inform the VDT and it was in the VDT’s calendar. I agreed that that was so; we had checked, and it appears the meeting was legal because of those notices.

She also said she thought she had said Monday evening, “see you tomorrow.” I allowed as how if she did, I missed it.

In any case, I have to say that her predecessor would never have made that much effort to make amends to a mere blogger. Once again, tiny LAKE is flattered by mighty VLCIA, although in a more positive way this time.

Congratulations on the new industries announced at VLCIA’s Tuesday meeting. Maybe more about those later.

Here’s looking forward to the Strategic Planning Process announced at that same meeting as coming up early next year.

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Industrial Authority held unannounced meeting last night

The VDT has a story this morning about an Industrial Authority meeting last night, Two new industries announced by Kay Harris. That’s a bit of a surprise, since they didn’t have that date on their own web page and they didn’t post an agenda. Also, I saw both VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer and their Chairman Roy Copeland speak Monday night, and neither of them said a word about their meeting date being changed to the next night.

Here’s some irony in the VDT’s story:

Schruijer also discussed the Authority’s plans to move ahead with the Strategic Planning Process right after the first of the year. Following the Community Assessment which was conducted over the summer, the next phase is a full fledged commitment to begin the planning process.

The intention, according to Schruijer and Copeland, is to include community partners in the process as the assessment showed that many in the community think that the various entities work at odds with each other, rather than on the same page, when it comes to economic development.

Why ever would people think that?

According to VLCIA’s website: Continue reading →

What a successful Chamber of Commerce looks like

Here’s what a successful Chamber of Commerce looks like:
State Sen. Bill Montford, right, congratulates Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director David Gardner on the National Solar Power’s massive solar farm project.

With the excitement of a massive solar-energy farm coming to the community still fresh on their minds, Gadsden County businesses are looking ahead to the potential such a project could have on the local economy.

Monday’s announcement by National Solar Power was a discussion topic Wednesday at the “Go Gadsden” breakfast of the Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce. The invited speaker, state Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, told the gathering the project’s impact will extend well beyond the county.

“This is good for Gadsden County, but it’s good for all of North Florida,” Montford said during the breakfast at the Florida Public Safety Institute in Midway. “We believe it’s just the beginning.”

I look forward to seeing Myrna Ballard in such a picture. Or Andrea Schruijer.

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An agenda! From the Industrial Authority!

Monday I remarked about the Industrial authority:
Here’s the agenda:

Just joking. They don’t publish their agendas!

Well, shiver me timbers and bless their little hearts! Their new executive director, Andrew Schruijer, remarked at Tuesday’s board meeting that the agenda for that meeting had indeed been posted since Friday. In Citizens to be Heard I readily admitted I didn’t look too hard for it, and expressed astonishment and pleasure at this positive development. Linked from their front page, there’s now an agenda page:
Agenda

Agendas will be posted one day prior to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority regular scheduled monthly meeting.

It has links to agendas for June, July, and August, each with an agenda in PDF. That seems a bit odd for some of those months, when there were several meetings. But, hey, it’s a start!

Here’s the aganda for yesterday’s meeting. That’s in PDF, so here’s a web-readable HTML version:

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Agenda Tuesday, August 16, 2011 5:30 p.m. Industrial Authority Conference Room 2110 N. Patterson Street
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 →