Tag Archives: Government

Valdosta Mayor and Council are implicated in the private prison —John S. Quarterman @ VCC 2012 02 23

Valdosta City Council and Mayor, who may not have been following the private prison issue, now know about it and are aware that they are all implicated in the private prison decision, due to events at the Industrial Authority board meeting and the Valdosta City Council meeting, both Thursday 23 February 2012.

After remarking that I’d rather be talking about the additional solar panels recently installed on my farm workshop up here in the north end of the county, I recapped the case against a private prison and referred the Valdosta City Council to my LTE in the VDT of that morning (Thursday 23 February 2012). I remarked that I was disappointed the Industrial Authority hadn’t done anything to stop the prison at its meeting earlier that same day. Since they might be wondering what all this had to do with them, I pointed out that, if I could use the word, they were all implicated as mayor and council in the private prison decision because Jay Hollis, CCA’s Manager of Site Acquisition, in his Valdosta-Lowndes County, GA / CCA Partnership: Prepared Remarks of August 2010, lavishly praised the Lowndes County Commission and Chairman and the Valdosta City Council and mayor. Although the mayor was different now, and maybe some of the council, nonetheless it was the same offices of council and mayor, still implicated. I asked for their opinions on that subject. Per their custom, they did not offer any at that time. So, maybe we’ll hear from them later. Or maybe the Industrial Authority board will hear from them….

Here’s the video:


Valdosta Mayor and Council are implicated in the private prison —John S. Quarterman @ VCC 2012 02 23
VSEB, employment,
Regular Session, Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 February 2012.
Videos by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I., the bostongbr on YouTube.

-jsq

Crickets, or what the Industrial Authority didn’t say about the private prison

Silence speaks volumes. Your tax-supported Industrial Authority wants a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.

After Tuesday’s conversation with VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer, I went to Thursday’s Industrial Authority board meeting expecting to hear something from the board about the private prison. What I heard:

Crickets.

The only thing a board member said about it was Chairman Roy Copeland reminding me that the board didn’t answer questions in Citizens Wishing to be Heard.

Earlier, Col. Rickets did say that the current contract with CCA for the private prison expires March 13th, and that meanwhile CCA can either request a third extension or CCA could send a Notice to Proceed (NTP) to VLCIA before March 13th. Remember, CCA has, according to the contract, CCA has

“absolute discretion”
for issuing that NTP.

Col. Ricketts added that in staff’s discussions with CCA, CCA had indicated they were mulling it over internally, and VLCIA should “stand by” for CCA’s next move.

That’s right, your local Industrial Authority, whose staff and land purchases are funded by your tax dollars, should stand by waiting for a private prison company to tell them what to do.

And the Industrial Authority board’s silence is an answer: they said nothing different from their previous vote for the contract to bring in this private prison; nothing different from their previous acceptance of the first and second option extensions; and nothing in objection to what Col. Ricketts said.

So your tax-supported Industrial Authority wants a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.

Do you want that? Do you want a private prison with fewer guards per prisoner Continue reading →

There are some things only government should do: FL Senate ends prison privatization

There are just some things that only government should do. And jailing for profit is not the public good. That’s what the Florida Senate decided Tuesday, ending an attempt to legislate privatization of prisons.

David Royse in wctv.tv yesterday, Florida Senate Kills Prison Privatization,

A bipartisan coalition of senators bucked the chamber’s Republican leadership Tuesday and rejected a proposal to privatize several prisons, but got warnings from leaders that it will have a cost in further budget cuts.

In a dramatic showdown with Senate President Mike Haridopolos and three other top leaders one of whom controls the Senate’s budget, one who controls the calendar and one who will be the next president opponents of the bill managed to kill it on a 19-21 vote.

The odd coalition that lined up against the bill included Republican populists who have become occasional mavericks, Democrats and some members of the GOP caucus that almost always vote with their party, but come from areas laden with corrections officers who opposed the idea.

Private prison proponents tried to sell it as cost savings. If prison privatization really does save money, why did the legislature previously try to hide it in a general budget bill, which was thrown out by a judge back in September?

This time, senators weren’t buying that baloney. Continue reading →

Private prison profits buying more laws to lock people up

Another report about money and private prisons (in addition to the ACLU’s Banking on Bondage), this one Public Campaign and PICO National Network, Unholy Alliance: How the Private Prison Industry is Corrupting Our Democracy and Promoting Mass Incarceration. It establishes that the “kids for cash” scandal, in which two judges accepted kickbacks in exchange for locking up juveniles, was just the tip of the iceberg.
Yet the reality is that private prison lobbyists regularly buy influence with state and federal officials, not only to win lucrative contracts, but also to change or preserve policies that increase the number of people behind bars. Private companies have made huge profits off the mass incarceration of non-violent drug offenders, and are now turning their attention to increasing the detention of Latino immigrants—the newest profit center for the prison industrial complex. Ultimately there is no way to reverse the costly trend toward mass incarceration without reducing the influence of these companies and their money in our democracy.
Here’s another example David Donnelly wrote for Huffpo 17 Nov 2011, Private Prisons Industry: Increasing Incarcerations, Maximizing Profits and Corrupting Our Democracy,
Earlier this year in Louisiana, a plan by Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) to privatize prisons narrowly failed in a legislative committee by a vote of 13 to 12. The 12 members of the House Appropriations Committee who voted to approve the prison privatization plan have received more than three times more money from private prison donors than the 13 members who voted against the plan, according to an analysis of data from the Louisiana Ethics Administration and the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Gov. Jindal himself has taken nearly $30,000 from the private prison industry.
And of course in Georgia there’s HB 87, which isn’t really about excluding immigrants; Continue reading →

GLPC: Greater Lowndes Planning Commission, 28 November 2011

There’s a meeting of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission tonight. They discuss rezoning requests relevant to the City of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Dasher, Hahira, and Lake Park. We don’t know which rezoning requests they will consider tonight, because they no longer post agendas.

The City of Valdosta’s writeup about GLPC still links to the Southern Georgia Regional Commission pages about GLPC, which is where GLPC agendas used to be, but no longer:

As of July 1, 2011 there will be no more updates to this site. For question contact:

Jason Davenport – Lowndes County
Alexandra Arzayus – City of Valdosta

The Lowndes County government’s website has nothing listed for GLPC, and when you search for it you get:

Search Results: planning commission
No Results Found

Sad, really, considering that GLPC used to be a good example of local government transparency.

Maybe they’ll have an agenda at the door tonight.

-jsq

Video meetings like Lowndes Board of Education? —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 7 November 2011

After apologizing for setting off a flash earlier, I recommended the county video their own meetings, so they wouldn’t have to depend on amateurs.
Lowndes County Board of Education had an open forum about school consolidation. and they had their own person videoing the whole thing, and it ended up on the web in a day or two, which means that everyone in the county could see what was going on….
Chairman Paulk:
We get enough of that for free.

jsq:

I’ll send you a bill!
The Chairman nodded, so I’ll take that for approval of billing by LAKE.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia —Occupy Valdosta

Posted today in Occupy Valdosta’s facebook page:
To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia

We, the local citizens occupying Valdosta, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; to nonviolently occupy public space; to create an open process to address the problems we face, and to generate solutions accessible to everyone.

Our issues are varied, yet related.

We seek

Continue reading →

“We may face community opposition to facility location” —CCA

Look who cares about community opposition!

In CCA’s 2010 Annual Report to the SEC:

We may face community opposition to facility location, which may adversely affect our ability to obtain new contracts. Our success in obtaining new awards and contracts sometimes depends, in part, upon our ability to locate land that can be leased or acquired, on economically favorable terms, by us or other entities working with us in conjunction with our proposal to construct and/or manage a facility. Some locations may be in or near populous areas and, therefore, may generate legal action or other forms of opposition from residents in areas surrounding a proposed site. When we select the intended project site, we attempt to conduct business in communities where local leaders and residents generally support the establishment of a privatized correctional or detention facility. Future efforts to find suitable host communities may not be successful. We may incur substantial costs in evaluating the feasibility of the development of a correctional or detention facility. As a result, we may report significant charges if we decide to abandon efforts to develop a correctional or detention facility on a particular site. In many cases, the site selection is made by the contracting governmental entity. In such cases, site selection may be made for reasons related to political and/or economic development interests and may lead to the selection of sites that have less favorable environments.
CCA doesn’t like community opposition, because it reduces CCA’s ability to site prisons, which adversely affects their bottom line. Funny how that happens because a private prison company’s main goal is profit, not rehabilitation, public safety, or justice.

We don’t have to accept a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. If we tell the Industrial Authority and CCA no, CCA will probably go away.

And the more communities that tell CCA no, the less profitable they will be.

-jsq

Locals speaks to Senators

Two local Lowndes County people spoke to Georgia’s Senators at their town hall meeting in Fitzgerald about the recent debt ceiling legislation.

J.D. Sumner wrote for the Albany Herald 9 August 2011, U.S. senators meet with public about concerns:

Gretchen Quarterman, a Lowndes County Democrat who drove from Valdosta to participate in the meeting, asked both senators if they were committed to bringing U.S. armed forces abroad home, thereby saving money; money, she said, that could be spent on much-needed domestic programs like infrastructure improvements here.

“Everything has got to be on the table, and yes, defense has got to be on the table as well,” Isakson said. “But we have to make sure that we don’t slight the veterans who are coming home and will need proper care.”

Then he grossly underestimated the military budget and said Congress wouldn’t tell the Pentagon what to do.

George Boston Rhynes spoke: Continue reading →