Prominently visible as you approach the terminal from Valdosta to catch a flight:
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange 2017-08-17
VRA’s web page
curiously includes no mention I can find of these solar panels,
which I would think would be great advertising for the airport. Continue reading
The
Tax Appraiser finally showed up, and got the longest discussion
at half an hour,
with
County Extension clocking in at 22 minutes,
Juvenile Court at 15, and the
Airport Authority at almost 13 minutes, in the last of three days
of budget requests to the Lowndes County Commission.
Here are links to each of the LAKE videos of this day 3 of 3 budget meeting,
followed by a video playlist. Continue reading
The
Airport Authority got inserted among the judges and lawyers,
and the
Coroner’s Office failed to turn in a budget.
The day was mostly sitting around waiting,
because most of the actual presentations were only a few minutes each,
yet were scheduled hours apart,
in the last day of the
three days of
“Budget Hearings” which aren’t really hearings because nobody from the
public can speak and they don’t have a budget to hear yet.
See the first day for
the agenda.
Here are links to videos of each item with some notes by Gretchen,
followed by a video playlist.
No video for the first item, EMS, due to camera failure; sorry.
For the rest,
as the Chairman said, referring to Gretchen and the LAKE camera:
We have our videographer back there, so we’re ready.
Hm, maybe LAKE should submit a budget request to the county…. Continue reading
Yesterday a Georgia House subcommittee did exactly what Valdosta
urged it not to do about distributing HB 170 funds.
Given that LMIG mismatch between cities and counties
to replace the previous mismatch of forced double taxation
on cities and counties, is the legislature trying to cause
dissension between counties and their cities, or is it just that inept?
We know Valdosta’s position.
What will the Lowndes County Commission do?
Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson
wrote to bill’s sponsor: Continue reading
How long will the Lowndes County government and ACCG wait to act,
while the Georgia legislature moves on
its stealth transportation
tax hike for Atlanta that would defund local school boards and city
and county governments?
A House subcommittee has made some changes to the bill,
but it would still force local governments to raise taxes,
and it adds an unrelated repeal of an electric vehicle tax credit
to its boondoggle for trucking companies and Atlanta.
Do we want our local public schools to be defunded like
wildlife programs were through the state’s wildlife license plate revenue
tax taking?
If not, now’s the time to lobby against HB 170, before
the full House Transportation Committee meets Thursday.
Yet there’s still nothing about HB 170
on the county’s agenda for this evening’s voting Regular Session.
Valdosta has already Continue reading
It looks like the “public” Pumpkin Farm Republican campaign rally headlined by Gov. Nathan Deal
not only caused a citizen journalist to be roughed up and
evicted, and her camera taken, apparently the local law edited
her video recording to remove the sound of her screams.
Jim Galloway wrote 22 September 2014,
The Case of the Six Missing Screams,
You’ll remember Tisdale as the citizen-journalist from Roswell who
was arrested in August at a GOP rally at a pumpkin farm in
Dawsonville for pointing a video recorder at candidates. Which is
what she does.In front of the top of the GOP ticket, including Gov. Nathan Deal,
Tisdale was grabbed — then roughed up. Her camera was Continue reading
Somebody wrote me a week or two ago:
I saw in todays paper Chip Rogers and other Senate leadership was changed yesterday.
Thank goodness!
Well, don't cheer too soon.
According to Jim Galloway in the AJC
15 November 2012,
"Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock withdrew his re-election
bid and endorsed Ronnie Chance of Tyrone, the governor's floor leader,
for the position."
Ronnie Chance is not only
also ALEC,
Chance is
the other ALEC state Senator
who put both the charter school amendment
and the multi-year amendment on the ballot.
Is this leadership "change" improvement?
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
Why must we get fooled again?
When will the people of the state of Georgia get tired of government
by astroturf and elect some legislators who will represent the people?
-jsq
Support for the charter school amendment,
previously falling, is now dropping like a rock.
Saba Long wrote the Saporta Report 15 October 2012,
Latest polls show the Charter School Amendment vote will be close,
but the actual poll results, when compared to previous polls,
including those before T-SPLOST lost by a landslide,
say Amendment 1 is going down in flames.
That poll conducted 4 and 5 October showed 34.2% saying they would definitely
vote no and 18.06% saying probably no.
That’s 52.26% No, which is far higher than
26.2% only a month before.
The pollsters, HEG-GPS, say,
Re: October 4-5 Charter School Amendment Survey,
15.35% responded Probably Yes and only 9.30% said Definitely Yes.
That’s 24.62% Yes,
far down from the 48.3% Yes of a month before.
Yet only 23.12% responded Unsure,
which is hardly changed from 25.5% a month before.
It sure looks to me like this is not just undecideds switching to No.
It looks like a lot of formerly Yes votes are switching to No.
It looks even worse compared to T-SPLOST.
Two weeks before the 31 July Primary election,
A recent poll shows markedly lower support
for the November charter school
referendum than polls in March and July, which were already down from January.
At this rate, the charter school referendum can lose as badly in November
as T-SPLOST did in July.
Maybe people are catching on that diverting local taxes to control by
a state appointed body is a bad idea,
especially this time when the money would end up going to private profit.
Georgia Family Council wrote, presumably in January,
Poll Shows Support for Charter School Changes,
On January 24, the Georgia Charter School Association and My School,
My Choice Georgia held a news conference on Capitol Hill to release
the results of a new study regarding public school choice….The new numbers showed that 52 percent of voters are dissatisfied
with the public system as it currently stands. A whopping 72 percent
feel that a group other than local school boards should be able to
authorize charter schools, the basis for HB 881. Moreover, Georgia
voters tend to support a “money follows the child” approach to
charter school funding.
So there’s a baseline for January for what proponents
of charter schools claimed: 72% support for something very like
the charter school referendum that ended up on the November ballot.
Or not.
That writeup includes a link to
georgiaschoolchoice.com,
but that domain is no longer registered.
This is probably it over on
the snazzy new gacharters.org website.
The gacharters.org writeup doesn’t mention 72%, and does say:
