One of LAKE’s intrepid investigative teams managed to get an appointment
to visit the Lowndes County Courthouse Owl.
John S. Quarterman answers the question: how much does the owl weigh?
Here’s
the video.
-jsq
Roy Taylor spoke first at Citizens to be Heard,
Valdosta City Council, 7 April 2011.
He didn’t stay to hear the rest of the meeting, though.
Could he be one of the people
Scott Orenstein was referring to?
Here’s
the video.
Regular Meeting, Valdosta City Council, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 April 2011
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
PS: Sorry for not transcribing, Roy, but we have so many videos lately that we’re going to have to rush a bunch of them out without that.
-jsq
On the Alyona Show,
Grover Norquist: Prison Reform NOW:
A long prison sentence might be justified, but it also might be very expensive, and maybe it’s not the best way to deal with people with drug problems.He even recommends trying rehabilitation and drug treatment.…
People do want to know that violent criminals are locked up for a good length of time. They’re not particularly interested in locking up in prison for $20,000 a year or in some places in California, $50,000 a year…. It’s not free to put someone in prison.
Texas is the state that’s moved out there, done some very serious analysis.Drug rehabilitiation, lower recidivism, lower costs.
In Lowndes County, Georgia, we have two hospitals, a drug treatment center, and many doctors and nurses. What if we invested in them instead of in a money-losing private prison?
-jsq
Mayor Fretti presented a check for $200 to Randall Jones,
who gets his name inscribed on a plaque inside
the front door of City Hall.
Jones is a maintenance supervisor at the water plant.
The mayor said he identified that the
January water outage
involved damage to switch gear and dealt with the problem.
Here’s
the video.
Regular Meeting, Lowndes County Commission, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 April 2011
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
-jsq
Mara Register came to the Lowndes County Commission regular meeting
to talk about Downtown Valdosta Farm Days,
following up from the
Farm Days organizational meeting Monday.
I think her main points were:
Where? The parking spaces around the historic courthouse.
No livestock. Local produce. Here’s video of the first part of what she said.
Regular Meeting, Lowndes County Commission, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 April 2011
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Logistics, such as no cooking, because Continue reading
I’m not going to attempt to name all of them, because the ones I missed would be miffed. I will say that’s Gretchen Quarterman on the right. And that these are people from all over the area, city and country, Democrat and Republican. Growing food is the universal community builder.
GBMG is “organized as a cohesive working group in Lowndes, Brooks, Echols, and Lanier Counties”. They’ll be holding more classes, so you, too, can become a master gardener.
-jsq
How much should it cost for a citizen to get access to agendas
and minutes of a tax-funded board?
How does about $2 per meeting strike you?
Bobbi Anne Hancock filed an open records request for the agendas and minutes of all regularly scheduled and called meetings of the VLCIA letter asking $125.09 for copies of agendas and minutes of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) from 2006 to the present, and got this letter back:
So at 12 meetings per year for five years plus another 3 months, that would be about 63 meetings, divided into $125.09 gets about $1.99 per meeting.
Is this normal practice? Let’s compare. Continue reading
First, an excerpt from the paper paper story by David Rodock, “Farmers market proposal discussed by commission”, Tuesday, April 12, 2011, page 3A (it’s not online): Continue reading
Their board is considering passing an open records policy to match the Georgia state law, but doesn’t like it much:Boland had also been working to gain more information on the possible expansion of the Humpty Dumpty Hotel owned by Foodonics, however, she came under fire for holding private meetings with the company without the knowledge of the rest of the authority which has caused some in the community to cry foul.
But after the allegations arose, Boland maintained that the meetings were for gathering information only and that she was merely waiting to get all the facts before presenting them to the board.
“They can ask you until you’re blue in the face and they don’t have to explain what they’re going to do with them,” he said. “But I know there’s nothing you can do about it.”They also want to change their financial audit cycle from annually to every three years.
-jsq
| At the Lowndes County Commission work session on Monday morning, County Manager Joe Pritchard distributed a map to the Commissioners from the Valdosta Main Street Manager, Amanda Peacock, detailing a proposal for a Farmer’s Market on the sidewalk of the old County Courthouse. |
proactive: serving to prepare for, intervene in, or control an expected occurrence or situation; anticipatory |
Lowndes County Commission work session, 12 April 2011, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
While apparently supportive of the initiative, the process could have Continue reading