Tag Archives: LAKE

October LAKE meeting: the owl at Bojangles

Last month, we said this month we would get organized. Like what we’re doing? Come help.
Monthly LAKE Meeting
When: 5:30 – 6:30 PM,
Tuesday 4 October 2011
Where: Bojangles
1725 West Hill Avenue
(Highway 84)
Valdosta, GA 31601-5147
229-242-4202
This will be a brisk meeting due to the immediately-following LCBOE Why We Oppose Consolidation meeting at LHS.

If you follow the LAKE blog, On the LAKE Front, which you can also see through the LAKE facebook page, you know what we cover, from protesters to private prisons to gardening to schools, all of which turn out to be related. What else do you want to investigate? You can be LAKE, too!

If you’re on Facebook, please sign up for the event there.

Or just come as you are.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

-jsq

…to give to somebody who didn’t work —Nolen Cox @ LCC 27 Sep 2011

Nolen Cox seems to think CHIP grant recipients don’t work.

Chairman Paulk declined to let Mrs. Cox speak because he said in a letter to the Commission she called them idiots. When he let Nolen Cox speak, Cox said:

I think it’s interesting that the comments about the CHIP grant comes after the vote. Y’all must be an all-wise group.
Chairman Paulk referred to that as sarcastic. Cox disagreed. Paulk said it was in his opinion and he decided such things there.

Cox asserted that:

to get a $300,000 grant it takes about $420,000 of tax money accumulated from citizens.
He didn’t cite any source for those figures. He did claim the Commission was luring people into homebuying while home prices are going down.
Somebody had to work for the money that they didn’t get to give to somebody who didn’t work.
Sounds like he was saying CHIP grant recipients don’t work. I wonder how they pay their mortgages then, since CHIP grants as near as I can tell only help with down payments?

I guess he didn’t hear Carolyn Selby’s point that CHIP grants turn renters into property tax-paying owners. Seems like that would help keep Nolen Cox’s property taxes low.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Thanks for accepting the CHIP grant —Carolyn Selby @ LCC 27 Sep 2011

Carolyn Selby stood up to thank the Commission for accepting the Community HOME Investment Program (CHIP) grant.
This grant will serve people who are in the 80% or below median income bracket. These people probably would not be able to afford purchasing a house without down payment assistance. And especially in today’s economic times these people need a hand up. Instead of renters, they become taxpayers, and that certainly helps our economy.

Here’s the video:


Thanks for accepting the CHIP grant –Carolyn Selby @ LCC 27 Sep 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Stray dogs and the law @ LCC 27 Sep 2011

A citizen (didn’t get his name; sorry) stood up to remark on the stray dogs that kept getting loose in his neighborhood, and how when animal control came they just took the dogs back to their owners, who let them loose again. Chairman Ashley Paulk had no hesitation in saying the sheriff should be called on the owners.

Here’s the video:


Stray dogs and the law @ LCC 27 Sep 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

CHIP Grant: Twice Ashley Paulk Broke the Tie @ LCC 27 September 2011

Twice Tuesday Ashley Paulk broke a tie to vote for assistance state-funded assistance for poor people for affordable housing. Joyce Evans made the motion, Crawford Powell said nothing, Richard Raines was absent, and Paulk seconded and broke the tie for.

Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission considered a routine acceptance of a Community HOME Investment Program (CHIP) grant. The previous morning at the work session, Commissioner Raines had (according to the VDT) said he was against it. (This is the same Richard Raines who thought NOAA Weather Radios were “wasteful spending” back in March.) However, Raines was not at the regular session Tuesday; presumably he was on one of his many sales trips. Twice, Commissioner Evans made a motion related to CHIP, and Commissioner Powell did nothing. Twice, Chairman Paulk exercised his privilege in such a case and broke the tie, seconding and voting for the CHIP grant.

The first CHIP vote was 9.a. Resolution of Intent to Submit a 2012 CHIP Grant Application and Commitment Letter

Here’s Part 1 of 2: Continue reading →

Commission votes to subsidize saddle club

Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission voted to renew a land lease contract with a saddle club for I’m pretty sure they said $100 a year. Commissioner Powell made the motion. Yet he said nothing at all a few minutes before and after when two votes came up about routine acceptance of a Community HOME Investment Program (CHIP) grant to help relatively less affluent people afford housing. Commissioner Raines, who grandstanded about CHIP the previous morning at the work session, apparently had no problem with the saddle club subsidy. He didn’t show up Tuesday to vote for or against either.

Now I have nothing against the saddle club; I know little about it. It’s the double standard that bothers me.

If you have trouble hearing what is said in this video, thank the Commissioners for the award they gave LAKE.

Here’s the video:


Commission votes to subsidize saddle club
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

News so good, there’s a law against it!

I’d like to thank the Commission for the award!

Louis XIV handing down an award
at Versailles
I and LAKE will wear it proudly. The VDT doesn’t have one of these. WCTV doesn’t have one; WALB doesn’t have one. Only LAKE posts news so good, there’s a law against it!

It’s now been a week since the Lowndes County Commission passed an ordinance for no stated reason, not on the agenda, and not read to the public. It’s still not on the county’s online list of ordinances. Gretchen was covering an event Friday at which she saw Commissioner Crawford Powell; she asked him to send her a copy of the ordinance. Five days later, nothing has arrived.

So, our only clues are Commissioner Raines’ remarks that it had something to do with videoing and photographing. And his remarks that he believed that the Chairman could do it on his own, but he’d like to make a motion for the Commission to approve it.

So we have to guess it had something to do with Ashley Paulk’s outburst of the previous morning, in which he flattered me by addressing me and only me by name, even though there were at least two video cameras recording the meeting. This is what he was going on about:

The County Commission wishes from this day forward that any filming be done from the media area in the back corner of the room.
He didn’t say anything about still photography, or for that matter about digital videoing, so I don’t know whether what he said had anything to do with whatever it was that Commissioner Raines moved Tuesday and the Commission approved. Nor does anybody else know.

Now a cynic might say, Continue reading →

What about VSU President selection? —Bobbi Anne Hancock to Nathan Deal @ VSU 16 September 2011

VSU student Bobbi Anne Hancock asked Gov. Nathan Deal what was going on with the selection process for a new president for Valdosta State University. He went on at some length but I can’t quite make out whether he answered the question.

Here’s the video:


What about VSU President selection? —Bobbi Anne Hancock to Nathan Deal @ VSU 16 September 2011
Student protesters,
Press Conference, Gov. Nathan Deal (VSU),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 16 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

What about Phil Kent? — Kathryn Grant to Gov. Deal @ VSU 16 Sep 2011

VSU student Kathryn Grant asked Gov. Nathan Deal about his Immigration Enforcement Review Board appointee Phil Kent. The governor responded at length.

Here’s the video:


What about Phil Kent? — Kathryn Grant to Gov. Deal @ VSU 16 Sep 2011
Student protesters,
Press Conference, Gov. Nathan Deal (VSU),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 16 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Student protesters greet GA Gov. Nathan Deal @ VSU 16 Sep 2011

Possibly the last thing Gov. Nathan Deal expected to find at Valdosta State University greeted him: student protesters!

Their main question was about the impending Sept. 21st execution of Troy Anthony Davis, about whom Amnesty International says there is too much doubt.


Student protesters greet Governor Nathan Deal at Valdosta State University, 16 Sep 2011.
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

The press had already noticed: Continue reading →