Tag Archives: John S. Quarterman

Timing confusion —John S. Quarterman

Sent to all four Commissioners and the County Clerk Sunday evening:
Dear Commissioners,

There seems to be confusion as to how long citizens get to be heard. The policy says five minutes. Yet in at least a couple of recent examples, citizens were cut off at less than that,

4 and a half minutes for me on 28 June 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJseMtJvJE8

4 minutes 39 seconds for Jessica Bryan Hughes on 24 May 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZxieSV6Yz8

You can see the times on the YouTube videos.

This timing confusion may be because

Continue reading →

“It’s not about the children. It’s about somebody’s ego.” —Sam Allen, FVCS, 7 July 2011

Sam Allen asked in various ways:
“What about the children?”
He made it clear he doesn’t think school consolidation will help the children, and it will definitely hurt current Valdosta teachers and staff, so he says don’t do it.

Continuing the FVCS press conference, Sam Allen asked some good questions,

“If the school system was good enough for them, why isn’t it good enough for us?”
and
“If there’s not going to be any change, why are we doing it?”

Here’s Part 1 of 9: Continue reading →

We’re here to save our schools —Sam Allen, FVCS, 7 July 2011

Sam Allen, former chair of the Valdosta school board and head of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) held a press conference to announce opposition after CUEE announced 9,000 petitions for a referendum to combine the Valdosta and Lowndes County school systems.. Why so late with the opposition?

Sam Allen explained:

“We were scared. We were intimidated because we had heard about all these consultants coming down, and all these studies being done. So we just thought that we would just sit back and watch and this thing would eventually go away like a bad dream. But folks I want you to know it’s not going away like a bad dream. It’s becoming a nightmare.

Now we stand before you with one purpose in mind: do not sign any petitions. … If it comes to a vote, we want you to vote no.”

Guess they’re not scared any more.

He added: Continue reading →

Lowndes County has transparency issues —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 28 June 2011

No unfinished drafts will be published while Ashley Paulk is chairman, or so he told us.

I asked him how he recommended citizens provide input to the budget process? He said at every meeting.

So I said I wondered why the county attorney seemed to be overbudget. No response.

Then I got to my main point, which was that the county seems to have a number of transparency issues, such as the missing ordinances he’d just heard about, or Vince Schneider’s Foxborough McDonald’s issues, or the animal shelter issues, or the T-SPLOST list that the Commission approved on the basis of a one page list of one-liner with no details that turns out to include things like $10 million to widen New Bethel Road to Lanier County.

I said I would like to compare the county’s submissions for T-SPLOST funding to the county’s Thoroughfare Plan and the Comprehensive Plan; if I could find those plans online. The Chairman said my five minutes were up. I said “Alrighty” and moseyed back to my seat. As you can see for yourself, it was actually 4 and a half minutes.

-jsq

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Keep the business of our county in order —Gretchen Quarterman @ LCC 28 June 2011

Should it take more than six months to find the county ordinances that code enforcement needs?

Gretchen Quarterman thanked County Clerk Paige Dukes for helping her in the “neverending answering to my list of questions.” She noted that:

The chairman thinks I’m badgering, but really I’m not. This body makes ordinances, and some of the ordinances are on the website. If you go to the state website, and find out where all the laws of the state are; go to the city of Valdosta’s website, and find out where all the laws of Valdosta are. Go to our website and only find out some of the ordinances.

Paige says she has been diligently working on this and I absolutely positively believe her. And I know it’s very complicated But I really encourage y’all as a body — I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job — but to keep the business of our county in order. Thank you.

She’s been trying to get public access to all the ordinances since December. The county doesn’t even have a list of all the ordinances.

Should it take more than six months to find the local laws that code enforcement needs? Chairman Ashley Paulk and 2 of 3 voting Commissioners, Crawford Powell and Richard Raines, are businessmen. Could they run a business when resolutions of the board were nowhere to be found?

-jsq

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Animal cruelty does not require malicious intent to be illegal

A blog called Rattlin’ Georgia’s Cages wrote at some unspecified date recently:
I beg to differ with Mr. Pritchard’s opinion regarding “malicious intent”.

Lowndes County Manager Joe Pritchard says, “I don’t believe through our investigation, nor through any info we received from the Department of Ag, are able to indicate any malicious intent.”

Mr. Pritchard should understand that it matters not if this was done with “malicious intent” or not. “Malicous intent” should be determined by the investigating criminal agency, not a county manager. “Malicious Intent” is only important in determining whether the crime should be filed as a felony, or a misdemeanor.

The law is crystal clear regarding the denial of necessary medical care, and/or humane euthanasia, for any animal deemed to be in need of such. Any time a shelter impounds/houses a live animal, the shelter is required, by law, to afford that animal with humane care – to include necessary medical care or treatment.

The blogger then goes on to quote Georgia Code, which only brings in the word “maliciously” for higher fines or imprisonment for aggravated cruelty to animals.

The blogger summarizes: Continue reading →

“I’m obviously here on one issue.” —Karen Noll @ VLCIA 14 June 2011

Karen Noll asked the VLCIA board to put a no-biomass clause in any purchase agreement regarding the proposed biomass site.

She began with these words:

I’m Karen Noll. I hope some of you already have seen my writing and have read my letters to you in the past. I’m obviously here on one issue. I hope that in the future I can be talking to you about other issues. But right now I’m talking to you about biomass. And we celebrated that it was dead and it was gone and now it’s not. Because we really don’t know … what the plan is.
By “we” I’m guessing she meant WACE. Some of us who are not members of WACE warned that it ain’t over until it’s over, and it only took a week to discover that VLCIA already knew Sterling Planet wanted to buy the proposed biomass site.

Karen Noll made a pitch based partly on saving taxpayer money. In addressing health concerns, she handed the board a letter from local doctor Craig Bishop. She handed the board a petition with “at least 700 signatures” and she said for each signature there was probably at least one more that didn’t sign. Some of what she said appeared to be drawn from a letter that is appended in this post after the video.

Here’s Part 1 of 2: Continue reading →

How does the hierarchy work? —Mario Bartoletti

Mario Bartoletti, the first to carry a protest sign into a VLCIA board meeting, said that as a member of WACE he wants to know the hierarchy and to whom does VLCIA report.

Sticking to their current policy of never answering directly anything said in Citizens to be Heard, the board did not answer. (My opinion follows in a separate post.)

More about Dr. Bartoletti in this writeup in the VDT by David Rodock of 25 April 2011.

Here’s the video:


How does the hierarchy work? —Mario Bartoletti
Irregular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 June 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

For the children —Matt Flumerfelt @ VLCIA 14 June 2011

Matt Flumerfelt put down his trumpet to speak for the biomass protesters. He recommended responsibility on behalf of the children and grandchildren. He also said he looks forward to the new VLCIA executive director, since her background in hotel marketing fits with his vision of the area as a retirement community.

Here’s the video:


For the children —Matt Flumerfelt
Irregular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 June 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Nominated VLCIA Officers for FYE 2012

Chairman Jerry Jennett asked Tom Call for a report from the officer nominating committee, which was that the nominated officers for FYE 2012 are: Roy Copeland Chairman, Mary Gooding Vice-Chairman, and Norman Bennett Secretary/Treasurer.

Roy Copeland pulled a very sour face at the news. Mary Gooding asked Roy Copeland if he was willing to do it, and he said,

I’ll let you know next meeting.

They clarified that they elect officers next meeting. I don’t know when the next meeting is, but since their fiscal year ends 30 June 2011, presumably some time before then. Given that nobody else seems to want especially the hot potato of the Chairman’s job, it seems a safe bet that Roy Copeland is it. Continue reading →