Tag Archives: Ellis Black

Aquifer and well contamination miles from Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site

At the

Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site meeting,
caller Anthony Samsel said

(42 minutes and 10 seconds into the video)
of a site in Massachusetts:

I was the first person to track contamination of the ground to aquifers
that travel several miles; plastics, formaldehyde, from a plastics manufacturing plant,
and there was contamination of city wells
with a lot of cancer clusters
and a lot of sick, dead, and dying people.

He was talking about the Wells G & H Superfund Site in Woburn, MA, where,
according to EPA,



The groundwater was contaminated with industrial solvents, called
volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as trichloroethylene (TCE)
and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). Soil on the five properties was
contaminated with VOCs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs),
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides. Sediments in the
Aberjona River were contaminated with PAHs and heavy metals such as
chromium, zinc, mercury and arsenic.

Thirty years later,

that one is still toxic.

In a

29 September 2011 coment
Samsel said Continue reading →

Seven Out Superfund site in Waycross –Joan McNeal for Channel 22



People are still getting sick and dying in Waycross after
Chemical company Seven Out closed and left a toxic waste site.
It’s now a Superfund site, which doesn’t mean anything has
been cleaned up.
10 out of 30 City Hall employees have cancer and 8 have already died.
Many living around the site are sick, and teachers and school children.
What will Georgia Reps. Jason Spencer and Ellis Black who attended do after that 29 August 2013 meeting?
Will action wait until more people die?
And to which landfill were those precipitated solids taken?


GA Rep. Ellis Black District 177

State representative Jason Spencer District 180
said the state health report should be finished in October,
and was quick to point to

Rep. Ellis Black District 174 as representing the specific area.
Rep. Black said they’d just heard about this and would be looking into it, and:

I’m a farmer from Clyattville….
I spent some time in the farm-supply business
and I have messed with agricultural chemicals all my life and
I’ve got a lot of experience there.
And I can tell you that I know firsthand
something about the danger and the challenges of dealing with these
really sensitive products
and how minute amount can cause problems.
And it’s something that’s Continue reading →

Legislative Luncheon at Wiregrass Tech by Chamber and Rotaries @ VLCoC 2012-12-05



No questions and no mention of Moody AFB at the Legislative Luncheon at
the
Legislative Luncheon at Wiregrass Technical College Wednesday by
the Chamber of Commerce and the three

Rotary Clubs.

State Sen. Tim Golden R-08,
and

State Rep. Ellis Black R-174
plus
incoming

State Rep. Dexter Sharper D-177 spoke
(Reps. Amy Carter R-175 and Jason Shaw R-176 were not present).


But they didn’t answer any questions.
The organizers didn’t even
take questions on cards from the 75 or so people in the room.
It’s nice they’re going around to all the organizations and talking to them,
but it might be more helpful if they listened to the concerns of their
constituents all at once.
Lowndes County Commissioners Joyce Evans and Richard Raines were there,
but they did not speak,
and none of the state legislative delegation said anything
about Moody Air Force Base encroachment,
unlike

Houston County where their state rep. helped organize
“$7.5 million to
help resolve the encroachment issue affecting Robins Air Force Base.”

Ron Borders
on behalf of the Chamber’s
Governmental Affairs Council (GAC) did

invite people to a
Members to the Heard session
Monday 7 January 2012 at Valdosta City Hall Annex Multi-Purpose Room.
Waiting a month to provide feedback to legislators through the Chamber
does seem a tad indirect.
Overall, it would be nice if the legislators would at least actually listen to
(even if they don’t want to answer) questions and concerns from citizens without
those citizens having go go through some filtering system (ie chamber legislative affairs
or county commissioner).


With a room full of 75 or more people, wouldn’t it be refreshing for
elected officials to say “We can’t necessarily answer all your questions
today, but we would like to know what they are. Please come to the
microphone and ask your question or state your concern”.
Citizens Wishing to be Heard in the County Commission meetings
is not really the same as having a session dedicated to listening to citizens’ concerns.


The Chamber’s pre-announcment of this meeting said:

The Chamber’s Government Affairs Council will present its top
business issues to elected officials.

Yet though the GAC the previous day in a contentious meeting

voted to oppose encroachment on Moody Air Force Base,
he said not a word about that at the Legislative Luncheon.



In his keynote,

Sen. Tim Golden said

Continue reading →

Challengers made statehouse incumbents work in south Georgia



Hardly-funded insurgents led by Haley Shank put a scare into turncoat south Georgia statehouse
incumbents.
What would happen with well-funded candidates?

As we’ve already seen,

in new district 177 Dexter Sharper (D)
won 2 to 1 over opponent J. Glenn Gregory (R).
(All election data in this post is from
GA Secretary of State.)

Conversely, Jason Shaw (R-176) ran unopposed, perhaps because
he is the least offensive of the incumbents (he voted
against HB 1162
that put

the Atlanta-power-grab “charter school” amendment on the ballot,
although

he did vote for HB 797
that will funnel more of your local tax dollars to charter schools
imposed by Atlanta even if your school board doesn’t want them).

Other south Georgia statehouse incumbents, all Republicans, had
challengers, all Democrats.
All the challengers opposed Amendment 1.
Haley Shank did best, in District 173 against Darlene K. Taylor,
8,324 to 12,048 (40.86% to 59.14%).

Next was

Continue reading →

The power of going solar —John S. Quarterman


Solar panels on farm workshop --John S. Quarterman
My op-ed in the VDT today. Remember
to vote today or Tuesday.
-jsq

This spring,

the University at Buffalo turned on 750 kilowatts of
solar electricity.

Rutgers U., in New Jersey, installed 1.4
megawatts in 2009 and started on 8 MW this summer. Down here with a
lot more sun, how about solar panels on VSU parking lots?

There’s

plenty of private solar financing available. Also in New
Jersey, a company installed 6 MW of solar on high school land and
leased the power to the school supplying most of its needs win-win.


You can go see a solar farm already working fine here,

200 kilowatts at Mud Creek Wastewater Plant.
Why not do the same


View Larger Map


at Lowndes High School, where all the world on I-75 could see,

attracting business to our community?

Why not?

Continue reading →

K12 CEO Packard: $5M in 2011, up 36%

Does your school superintendent get paid $5 million a year?
Ronald J. Packard, CEO of K12 Inc., the second biggest
donor to the pro-charter school amendment campaign, does.
Is that where you want your tax dollars to go?

According to Bloomberg Businessweek,

Executive Profile,
Ronald J. Packard CFA,
Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director, K12, Inc.


K12 CEO Packard made $551,539 in salary in 2011,
but was awarded other compensation totaling $5,002,933.
Which is even richer than the

approximately $3,266,387 total compensation
private prison company CCA’s CEO Damon Hininger got in 2010,
which, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, apparently only went up to

3,696,798 in 2011.

According to
Emma Brown for the Washington Post 9 December 2011,

K12 Inc. chief executive Ron Packard paid $5 million compensation package in 2011,

That’s nearly twice the $2.67 million Packard earned in 2010. It
includes $551,000 in cash, $4.2 million in stock awards and about
$290,000 in other compensation.

Packard’s pay reflects a new employment agreement negotiated in
September 2010 and good until 2014. The company had $522 million in
revenue in 2011, up nearly 36 percent percent from the year before.

“We determined that these awards were necessary and
appropriate to retain Mr. Packard as our Chief Executive Officer and
in recognition of Mr. Packard’s leadership and performance over the
term of his employment with the Company,” the filing said.

Do we want our tax revenue going to retain K12 Inc.’s CEO?
What if we retain our local schools instead?
After all, it’s dubious that charter schools would be any better

Continue reading →

Walton Family Foundation granted $1.05 million towards GA charter schools in 2011

The total amount of Walton family affiliate money backing the Georgia
charter school referendum is far larger than

Alice Walton’s $250,000.

In the Walton Family Foundation’s list of

2011 Education Reform Grants,
there are two Georgia organizations:


Georgia Charter Schools Association Inc. 700,000
Georgia Family Education and Research Council, Inc. 350,000

GCSA has

made the news quite a bit lately,


and its name makes its purpose pretty clear.
According to

the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA),
GCSA is a NACSA member.
You remember NACSA,

the organization that Zaid Jilani
discovered was an ALEC member, and that bailed out of
ALEC two days later.
That was in May 2012, after the Georgia legislature
passed the bill putting the charter school referendum on the ballot.

Georgia Family Education and Research Council, Inc. (GFERC)
is slightly less obvious. According

Continue reading →

Class action lawsuit against second largest donor to GA charter school referendum

K12 Inc. of Virginia has a class action lawsuit against it,
as well as allegations of lack of effectiveness of its courses.
K12 is the

second biggest contributor to the Georgia charter school
referendum which would privatize Georgia’s public schools.
Shades of

CCA desperately offering 48 states to privatize their prisons!
And we know there’s a connection:

ALEC helps push both private prisons and privatization of public schools.
We didn’t fall for ALEC’s privatized prisons:
let’s not fall for ALEC’s privatized schools.

Emma Brown wrote for the Washington Post 31 January 2012,

Shareholder lawsuit accuses K12 Inc. of misleading investors,

A shareholder in Virginia-based K12 Inc. has filed a lawsuit against

K12 Inc. CEO and Founder Ronald J. Packard, named in class action lawsuit
the virtual-schools operator in federal court, alleging that the
firm violated securities law by making false statements to investors
about students’ poor performance on standardized tests.

The class-action complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in
Alexandria, also accuses K12 of boosting its enrollment and revenues
through “deceptive recruiting” practices.

Herndon-based K12 is the country’s largest operator of full-time
public virtual schools, a growing sector in which students as young
as five learn at home via computer.

The lawsuit comes after a spate of national news stories —
including in The Washington Post — raised questions about the
effectiveness of virtual schools, K12’s in particular. The firm’s
stock has since plummeted.

There’s more in the article, and in the actual

Harry T. Hawks, K12 Inc. executive vice president and chief financial officer, named in class action lawsuit

Class action suit against K12 Inc.
Named in the suit are

Ronald J. Packard (K12 Inc’s CEO and Founder) and

Harry T. Hawks, executive vice president and chief financial officer,
both pictured here.

-jsq

Outside money fueling charter school amendment referendum

Why does Alice Walton want, to the tune of $250,000, for Atlanta
to be able to force charter schools on local areas that don't want them?

Wayne Washington wrote for the AJC 14 September 2012,

Outside money pours into Georgia for charter amendment fight,

Out-of-state money is fueling the campaign of a group trying to
convince Georgia voters to change the state constitution so more
charter schools can be approved.



Families for Better Public Schools has raised $486,750, campaign
disclosure forms show. About 96 percent of that money has come from
donors outside of Georgia.

Donors include Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, politically
well-connected law firms and for-profit companies that are operating
charter schools in Georgia.

Here's

the Georgia campaign finance report for Families for Better Public Schools,
which shows Alice Walton of Bentonville AR in for $250,000, K12 Inc. of Herndon VA in for $100,000,
Charter Schools USA of Ft. Lauderdale FL in for $50,000,
also J.C. Huizenga and National Heritage Academies, both of Grand Rapids MI,
each in for $25,000.
That's $450,000 from those five biggest donors, all out of state.

What about opposition money; where's it coming from?

A coalition of groups opposing the amendment, Vote Smart, has raised
$80,951, mostly from traditional school officials like teachers,
principals and superintendents who say more charter schools and more
state money for them would threaten the funding of already
cash-strapped traditional public schools.

So we have big out-of-state money funding demolishing our public schools,
and public school people spending some of what little money they have
defending them.
I know which side I choose.
Which side are you on?

Do we want to turn our public schools into private corporate fiefdoms?
If not, vote No on the charter school amendment in November.

-jsq

Q: Why are so many states pushing charter schools now? A: ALEC


Michigan, Massachusetts,
and


New Jersey,
plus Georgia.
Why are so many states attempting pro or con charter school referendums
this year?
Because many states have a push for charter schools,
especially

Louisiana.
Where’s that coming from, at the same time in so many states?
ALEC, that’s where.

Ed Anderson wrote for The Times-Picayune 12 January 2011,

Gov. Bobby Jindal says charter school proposal is based on Florida initiative,

Jindal said his proposal will be fashioned on

a Florida law known as
“Charter-Schools-in-the-Workplace Initiative” which also has been
introduced in 14 other states.

Excuse me?
Which “also has been introduced in 14 other states”?
Then it’s not just a Florida law, is it?
And who introduced it?

Mattreichel wrote for FireDogLake 5 April 2012,

Jindal Puts Louisiana’s Schools Up for Sale: ALEC’s Education Reforms Rammed Through

Continue reading →