In Quitman, several people told LAKE about an extensive sewage problem
on the south side of town.
At one house we were told that she had been having problems for 13 years.
She said the city told her to lift up her pipes, which she did.
Yet sewage still makes a pit in her yard, which she has covered with tin;
you can see the pit under there.
When she uses her plumbing, sewage backs up inside the house. The city sent a jail inmate Continue reading
The big item at Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session
was, same as
at Monday’s Work Session,
the waste management railroad,
terminating in a decision.
Other topics included citizen Karen Noll speaking
against the charter school amendment.
Here’s the agenda with links to the videos and a few notes, or links to separate posts. Apologies for the poor sound on the first videos; we didn’t have the usual camera. Of course, if the Commission did its own videoing and posting, that problem would be unlikely to occur.
Call to Order
- Invocation
- Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
- Minutes for Approval
- Work Session — September 24, 2012
- Regular Session — September 25, 2012
Public Hearing — REZ-2012-15 Glenn O’Neal, Pecan Plantation Rd. & US Hwy 84 W E-A to C-H, County Water & Septic, ~4.5 acres
- For Consideration
- Bevel Creek Lift Station Pump Repair
- Alapaha Waterline size Increase
- Beer License — Naylor’s Pantry — 8777 E. Hwy 135
- Refunding Revenue Bonds
- Solid Waste Management Request for Proposal
- Reports
Chairman Ashley Paulk interjected not on the agenda
Community Planning Month Proclamation
Plus recognition of two planners from Moody AFB.- Employee Health Fair
some comments about recently deceased former VSU president Hugh C. Bailey,
- and noted the fire chief had a new fire truck, which was parked outside.
- Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address
Karen Noll spoke against the charter school amendment, saying it would implement taxation without representation Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09 and would take more tax dollars from our public schools to give twice as much money to special charter school students.
- Ken Klanicki never actually even approached the podium. After being asked by the chairman to come to the podium or leave the room, he wandered to the back of the room and was escorted out by a deputy sheriff. He called me by name as he left, but I have no idea what he was trying to accomplish. He called me later, but when I asked him that, he had no explanation.
Here’s a video playlist. It shifts from the first camera (good video, poor sound) to the second camera (video with no closeups, good sound) in the middle, when I arrived with the second camera. The rest of the first camera videos are tacked onto the end. Next time we’ll attempt to have the good camera.
Video Playlist
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 9 October 2012.
-jsq
Karen Noll spoke to the Lowndes County Commission Tuesday
about the charter school amendment,
saying it would implement taxation without representation
and would take more tax dollars from our public schools
to give twice as much money to special charter school students.
When you’re talking about my kids in the schools and you’re going to take their money and ship it to somebody else’s family and then there’s no accountability, that’s just unacceptable.
Here’s the video.
-jsq
Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission voted to abolish the current rural waste collection centers and to contract with Veolia for waste pickup like in urban areas. This decision on an essentially rural matter was made by three urban Commissioners without any public hearing on their current RFP.
Before deciding, County Manager Joe Pritchard gave the history of the county's waste management railroad. A curiously redacted history.
As y'all know, in FY 04 and 05, operating costs of the solid waste program was approximately $1.1 million increasing at a rate of approximately 10% a year. As a result the at-that-time recently passed service delivery […] act of General Assembly, the county and the cities of Lowndes County were forced to come to an agreement on the delivery of the vasrious services. As a result of that, solid waste came to be funded strictly on a user fee basis.
I'm guessing he's referring to HB 489, the Local government service delivery strategy agreement of 1997. As we learned from Richard Raines Monday, it's not clear HB 489 precluded a special tax district for waste disposal similar to the special tax lighting districts the county often sets up for streetlights in subdivisions. I've seen no indication the county ever seriously looked into that.
In April and May of 2008 the county advertised and conducted a series of eight public meetings in which we were asked by Commission to gather input from the public regarding the various options that were available. During those meetings it was obvious that there was not one clear option that was chosen by the public.
Obvious to whom? For that matter, Continue reading
Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV today,
Lowndes County Commission Chair Candidates Polar Opposites,
The Chairman of a County Commission can have great impact on the lives of residents. And in one local county, the candidates couldn’t be more different.
She wants to make it easier to see what the Commission is doing; he worries ordinances make it too difficult for business.
Here’s
the WCTV video,
which appears to start with outtakes from LAKE videos of Commission meetings.
LAKE videos that were taken by… Gretchen Quarterman.
The one of her speaking to the Commission? Camera on a tripod.
-jsq
So if Southern Company is a “great, big company” similar to Australia,
why did Australia just deploy a solar farm ten times the size of
the biggest one SO has in Georgia?
Back in May, Southern Company (SO) CEO Thomas A. Fanning said:
From an energy standpoint, Southern Company is a little bit smaller, but similar to, the energy production profile of the nation of Australia. We are a great, big company from an energy production standpoint.
Meanwhile in Australia, Giles Parkinson wrote for Clean Technica 10 October 2012, Australia’s 1st Utility-Scale Solar Farm Now On!
At about 11am local time near the Western Australian town of Geraldton this morning, Australia’s first-utility scale solar farm was officially switched on.
It was a suitably sunny day (blighted by three million flies) and although just 10MW in size, and built courtesy of funding from the local government, a state-owned utility and by one of the wealthiest companies on the planet, it may presage a dramatic change in the way this country produces energy.
So what’s SO or Georgia Power’s biggest solar plant in Georgia? You remember, 1 MW in Upson.
OK, to be fair, that’s just Georgia Power. SO does have larger solar farms elsewhere, including
Now I know Georgia Power’s party line is that solar is only good in the U.S. southwest. But I don’t know how that explains Continue reading
Let's look at Georgia's non-unionized public schools. So far as I know, Georgia does not have teachers' unions. But there's still no reason to believe charter schools in Georgia would be any more magic than in Chicago.
According to CREDO at Stanford University,
which has done
state-by-state charter school studies,
they find
CHARTER SCHOOLS IN GEORGIA PERFORM
SIGNIFICANTLY BELOW THEIR TRADITIONAL
PUBLIC SCHOOL PEERS IN MATH:
No Difference Found in Reading Performance.
That's their press release.
Here's
the detailed study.
So if someone has a charter school idea that they think will perform
better than public schools,
they can talk to their local school board about that, and maybe
that local board will agree.
There's no need to authorize an unelected Atlanta board to force that charter
school on us.
Vote No on the charter school amendment in November.
-jsq
The item with 9 conditions, VA-2012-14,
is at a rather vague location,
“the southeast corner of West Brookwood Drive, North Oak Street,
North Toombs Street, and West Jane Street”
which presumably means
200 W Jane St, as shown in the map here.
That’s directly across W. Toombs Street from 1302 N Patterson Street,
which is part of VSU.
Here’s the agenda.
-jsq
AGENDAContinue reading
REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL
5:30 PM Thursday, October 11, 2012
COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL
The Georgia “charter school” amendment isn’t really about charter schools (which any school district in Georgia can already approve, and many have): it’s about giving an unelected committee in Atlanta power to force us to pay extra local taxes to fund charter schools we don’t want. However, since the pushers of that amendment say it’s about charter schools, it’s worth reviewing that charter schools actually on average perform no better or even worse than traditional public schools. Let’s look at what the pushers hate most, unionized public schools in Chicago. and then let’s look at Georgia’s non-unionized public schools.
Ben Joravsky wrote for chichagoreader.com 3 October 2012, Today’s lesson: charters do not outperform unionized schools: Confronting the anti-teachers’ union myth with, you know, facts
But as I was saying, the foes of the teachers’ union declare that we should pay close attention to the all-important standardized test scores. So let’s take a look.
There are 541 elementary schools in Chicago. Based on the composite ISAT scores for 2011—the last full set available—none of the top ten are charters. None of the top 20, 30, or 40 either.
In fact, you’ve got to go to 41 to find a charter. Take a bow, CICS Irving Park!
Most of the 49 charters on the list are clustered near the great middle, alongside most of their unionized neighborhood schools.
The top scorers are public schools with unionized teachers who are members of the Chicago Teachers Union.
UNO is a charter school operator. Joravsky compares one of its schools side-by-side with a unionized public school.
Continue reading
It’s good to see that someone responsible for allocating millions of dollars
of taxpayer money is willing to answer questions about related decisions,
as
Kay Harris is doing!
It would be even better if there were a regular process by which the taxpaying
and voting and library-using public could ask such questions and get answers.
If there were such a process, it’s pretty likely Ms. Harris or the Library Board or the County Commission would have been asked about the architect selection, considering I wasn’t even involved in that selection and my ear was scorched with complaints as soon as it was announced. Maybe Ms. Harris can suggest a way to produce such a process.
Let me take Ms. Harris’ points in order.
“First, they were the only one of the four finalists who did a full cost evaluation of the project, estimating $16 million while others were more than content to use the state’s estimate of $21 million.”
That’s very interesting news, which clarifies for me what she was getting at in the VDT writeup on that selection:
Continue reading