Someone pointed me to your blog on the Biomass issue, and I came across
your recent post on the school unification issue.
Just curious… have your ever examined the testing data for both school
systems? A quick look at the last report card, and you will see why most
people in this community believe our public education system is broken
and does not adequately prepare our children to either attend college
or enter the workforce.
In three years, a private-prison construction and management company, the
Corrections Corporation of America, has seen the value of its contracts
with the state soar from nearly $23 million in 2006 to about $700 million
three months ago – all without competitive bidding. Even in a state
accustomed to high-dollar contracts, the 31-fold increase over three
years is dramatic.
During the same period, the company’s campaign donations rose
exponentially, from $36,750 in 2006, of which $25,000 went to the state
Republican Party, to $233,500 in 2007-08 and nearly $139,000 in 2009.
The donations have gone to Democrats, Republicans and ballot measures. The
company’s largest single contribution, $100,000, went to an unsuccessful
budget-reform package pushed last year by Gov. Schwarzenegger.
CCA contributed to cutting funding for other services while
getting more contracts for itself.
Is that what we want in Georgia?
Cut education funding while paying private prison companies?
Is that what we want in Lowndes County?
Costs vary, but CCA receives about $63 per day per inmate, or about
$23,000 annually.
That would pay for a lot of rehabilitation and education.
How about we do that instead?
Gov. Nathan Deal signed legislation Friday [House Bill 265] that would create a panel to
study Georgia’s criminal justice system with an eye toward overhauling
the state’s tough sentencing laws.
The laws have left the state with overcrowded prisons and taxpayers with
an annual corrections bill that tops $1 million.
The legislation creates a 13-member commission that would study
sentencing reforms in hopes of offering alternative sentences for some
drug addicts and other nonviolent offenders. The panel would have to
report its findings by early 2012, in time for lawmakers to act on them
in the next legislative session.
That annual bill has to be more than $1 million;
maybe $1 billion.
Anyway, Georgia seems to be discovering what Texas already
did some
years ago: we can’t afford to lock up so many people.
The high incarceration rate comes with high costs. Georgia pays $3,800
each year to educate a child in public schools, and $18,000 every year
to keep each inmate behind bars, Deal said.
What will we do with them instead?
Hall County is one of several counties that have adopted drug
courts, which aim to provide alternative sentences for low-level drug
offenders. At the ceremony, drug court graduation Mike Wilcoxson said
the program changed his life.
“One thing drug court has done for me is give me a sense of purpose
in my life, to set goals for myself, to be accountable for my actions,
and to break the cycle of addiction I had,” Wilcoxson said.
That’s one solution.
And if we’re not going to lock up so many people,
why do we need to build a private prison in Lowndes County?
Private companies can build prisons faster and operate them for
slightly less than the state, said Michael Nail, deputy director of the
department’s corrections division.
Slightly cheaper.
Which we already learned is by having
fewer guards per prisoner.
Risking public safety for small dollar savings:
does that sound like a good idea to you?.
What can get Grover Norquist and the President of the NAACP on the same stage?
A new
report from NAACP:
Misplaced Priorities tracks the steady shift of state funds away from
education and toward the criminal justice system. Researchers have
found that over-incarceration most often impacts vulnerable and minority
populations, and that it destabilizes communities.
And this is not just finger-pointing; it includes pointers on
how to get out of this mess:
The report is part of the NAACP’s “Smart and Safe Campaign,” and
offers a set of recommendations that will help policymakers in all 50
states downsize prison populations and shift the savings to education
budgets.
Protestors wearing respirator masks held signs reading “Biomass? No!”
in front of the Valdosta City Hall building on Thursday. Members of
the Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy, the VSU student organization
Students Against Violating the Environment, and other concerned Valdosta
citizens showed up to protest the construction of the Wiregrass Power:
Biomass Electric Generating Plant.
“We already have solar power resources in place that we could be using
and I feel like money should be directed towards that,” Ivey Roubique,
vice-president of the Student Geological Society, said. “It wouldn’t
be good for the community and even though I’m in college here it
still matters.”
The Spectator article quotes from two speakers for whom LAKE
happens to have video, linked below.
Continue reading →
When public officials ignore objections for long enough, eventually
people start speculating as to their motives, in this case about the proposed biomass plant.
Here’s
the video:
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 February 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Erin Hurley provided the very model of how to give a speech:
I’m the president of
Students Against Violating the Environment at VSU.
I’m here representing
200+ members of SAVE, that consists of students, faculty, community members.
We are deeply concerned with environmental issues and
we are networking together to make this city a more humane and
sustainable community
for future generations.
As a student, I feel I have the right to be able to breathe clean air
at the college I attend.
With this biomass plant possibly being built here,
the future for generations to come are in jeopardy, and we want to protect our fellow and future students’ health.
Please take into consideration the future health of this university
and its community,
and don’t sell grey water to the proposed biomass plant.
Erin Hurley, President of
SAVE, Students Against Violating the Environment, speaking at
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
She said who she was, who she represented, how many, what they were for, what they wanted, quickly enough that attention didn’t waver, slowly and loudly enough to be heard, and briefly enough to transcribe, with pathos, logic, and politic. Even the mayor looked up at “As a student….”
