Tag Archives: Law

County Planning Commission arrests citizen for speaking in public hearing

The Payette County, Idaho Planning and Zoning Commission
accused somebody of having previously provided false information
and had her arrested for responding in a public hearing to
a direct accusation by name.


It appears that it was a Commissioner’s information that
was misleading, and the same Commission has a history of not
revealing relevant information even in response to an open records request.
There is video of the Thursday event.
She is still being held in jail, and permitted no outside communication.

Jerry Nelson wrote for Epoch Times 12 October 2014,

Alma Hasse, Idaho Fractivist, Arrested in Public Meeting, Continue reading →

Another Planning Commission appointment, plus abandonment, septic, pump, and VOCA @ LCC 2014-10-13

This morning: another

Planning Commission appointment with no previous
advertisement that there was an opening,


yet another

road abandonment,
yet another

water pump replacement,
a

well and septic rezoning on Madison Highway,
and a

legal grant,
on the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

GA Supreme Court rules against Deep South Sanitation: DSS vows to keep going



Lowndes County suing a local business with our tax dollars
has produced a preliminary Georgia Supreme
Court ruling overturning the appeals court and favoring
the county’s “exclusive franchise” with ADS, a company owned
by New York City investors.
Local company Deep South Sanitation vows to keep going.

Do you think this lawsuit is a good use of your tax dollars?
What will you think if ADS’ rates go up from Veolia’s bid of $13.05/month
($156.60/year) just before ADS bought Veolia,
to ADS’s bid of $13.39/month ($220.68/year)? Continue reading →

Videos of Dougherty County citizens opposing Sabal Trail pipeline @ DCC 2014-09-15



As a Commissioner said,

“It don’t pass the smell test”
that Sabal Trail already bought land for a compressor station
before they even filed for a formal permit.
A Commissioner said

“We have to be more aggressive.”
Well, then, time to

pass a land-user ordinance against pipelines!
Thanks to Jennifer Maloney, you can see for yourself Albany and
Dougherty County citizens and Commissioners
opposing the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline
in

a community effort
at a Dougherty County Commission meeting 15 September 2014. Continue reading →

Lula Smart acquitted on all counts: Quitman 10 vindicated



Lula Smart cleared by a jury in third trial.
Third strike by the prosecutors: they’re out!
Will they stop wasting our taxpayer dollars now?

Katheryn Hayes Tucker, Daily Report, 17 September 2014,

Acquittal in Trial Over Absentee Ballots,

Lula Mary Smart was acquitted on 19 felony charges of voting
irregularities Wednesday following a month-long trial in Brooks
County Superior Court in South Georgia.

Continue reading →

Demanding the state PUC get a friendly judge: a best practice for utilities?


300x225 Title page, in A Best Practices Leadership Forum for Small Utilities, by Carol A. Brown, Chief of Staff to President Michael R. Peevey, 2 April 2013
A utility didn’t stop at blowing up a Calfornia neighborhood,
it also demanded the Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) get a favorable judge
for that 2010 San Bruno natural gas pipe explosion.
The CPUC president’s chief of staff just last year wrote slides
praising his Legacy as Best Practices.
Does that legacy include suborning justice?
He’s still there, although she was fired, and three PG&E executives
“ended their employment”.
How many other PG&E and other utility executives and CPUC and other
state regulators follow those same Best Practices?

Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press, 15 September 2014,
PG&E Officials Removed for Improper Communications,



Four senior officials with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and the state
commission regulating it were removed or resigned over emails
released Monday showing the utility and state regulators appeared to
negotiate which judge would be assigned to hear one of the utility’s
rate cases.

The emails show the commission ultimately assigned to the case a
judge for whom PG&E had expressed a preference, rather than another
judge who PG&E said “has a history of being very hard on us.”



Also Monday, California Public Utilities Commission president
Michael Peevey, who was included Continue reading →

Resignation, subpoenas, criminal charges: DeKalb County Commission corruption

Sometimes it doesn’t just look like they have something to hide:
the FBI found some of what the DeKalb County Commmission was hiding,
and one criminally-charged Commissioner promises to sing about the others,
while 62 vendors and all the other sitting Commissioners are being
investigated.
No local elected body around here could have such problems, right?

The DeKalb FBI corruption investigation apparently started with
news stories in the AJC.
Coincidentally, here’s
the board packet for tonight’s Lowndes County Commission meeting
that it took an open records request for LAKE to get so you can see it.

20 February 2013,

Fireworks erupt in court over DeKalb corruption case,
by Jodie Fleischer for WSB-TV,



Only Channel 2’s Jodie Fleischer was there as a judge lashed out at
prosecutors who want the public to see a secret corruption report.

The special grand jury investigating DeKalb County corruption Continue reading →

FCC net neutrality written comment period closes Tuesday



Want to continue to see this and other blogs, local newspapers, YouTube, and all the other Internet sources of information that are not owned by the six companies that own 90% of U.S. media?
Then you want the FCC to continue net neutrality,
and you have until Tuesday to send written comments.

EFF has provided this handy form:
Dear FCC.
Please go there and comment.
You’ll thank yourself later.

-jsq

PS: This is what I wrote. Continue reading →

Fracking panel report –Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia


A reader wondered how

Nova Scotia’s fracking ban would result in
safer oil and gas company drilling operations instead of just
balkanizing the world into fracking permitted and prohibited zones.
Actually, Energy Minister Andrew Younger said:

“This way, people will know before it’s allowed — if it’s ever
allowed — there will be a full debate in the Legislature.”

And the panel report that was the proximate cause of the ban,
by the
Nova Scotia Hydraulic Fracturing review,
led by

President Dr. David Wheeler,
explicitly is for: Continue reading →

Nova Scotia banned fracking; will southeast U.S. ban fracked methane pipelines?



Yesterday
Nova Scotia announced a ban on fracking.
Will local or state governments in the southeast, now threatened
by the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline,
ban such pipelines?
Especially since FERC has now directed Sabal Trail to examine
routes through Americus, Cordele, Ashburn, Tifton, Adel, Valdosta, and even Thomasville,
in addition
to the ones it already proposed through Dougherty, Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes Counties?

Sierra Club Canada wrote about public meetings
in its Media Release of 28 August 2014,

Government of Nova Scotia Needs to Ban Fracking,

“Public meetings held by the panel were attended by an
overwhelming majority of well-informed citizens who had deep
concerns about fracking,” according to [Gretchen] Fitzgerald,
“Those concerns should be met with the type of leadership they
deserve: an immediate, legally binding ban.”

And the Nova Scotia government listened.
Bruce Erskine wrote for The Herald Business 3 September 2014,

Nova Scotia to ban fracking,
posting a video in which you can hear
Energy Minister Andrew Younger say: Continue reading →