Tag Archives: Law

Why are we running a family owned business out of business? –Steve Parker @ LCC 2013-05-28



Private citizen Steve Parker spoke up as a satisfied customer
of Deep South Sanitation, and a dissatisfied former customer of the
other trash company,
wondering “What’s wrong with competition?” in yesterday’s

Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.


Steve Parker
Mr. Raines said it beautifully,

wanting freedom in his prayer.
I agree with him, wanting the freedom to make a choice,
so I hired Deep South.
Now I’m told that it’s been the position of the board to dismantle
Deep South, to tell him to cease and desist, and to take away his
business license which he got from the previous board.
I know a lot of you inherited this issue, by the way.
But at the same time, what is the greater good being served to the county?
Why are we taking a family owned business and running them out of business
in effect?

What’s wrong with competition?
I’m in the financial business
and if somebody would give me an exclusive
to every client in Lowndes County that would be a pretty good day for me.

He continued Continue reading →

Judging appointments, grants, and bids @ LCC 2013-05-28



Fast as a speeding “next” until the juvenile court judge
showed up and asked for help getting a grant to save money
by putting fewer children in jail.
One candidate for a board showed up (late) to speak,
and I continue to predict

he’ll be reappointed tonight:
that’s when they vote:
tonight at 5:30PM in the Regular Session.
Meanwhile, here are videos of this morning’s
Lowndes County Commission Work Session.

Here’s

the agenda, with a few notes and links to the videos.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Juvenile Justice grant would reduce costs more than the grant –Judge Council @ LCC 2013-05-28



Would you rather spend upwards of $91,000 a year to lock up
a juvenile offender or spend less money to prevent that?
Juvenile Court Judge Council advocated the former at this morning’s

Lowndes County Commission Work Session.



6.a. 2013 Juvenile Justice Incentive Grant Program Application

This is about a potential new grant Emergency Director Ashley Tye said
he had been working on with Judge Council, applying to the

Juvenile Justice Incentive Grant Program
which was approved by the legislator and governor this year.
(Governor’s Executive Order of 16 April 2013
directing the assembly of the Juvenile Justice Incentive Grant Funding
Committee to allocate to counties the
funding of $5 million approved by the legislature.)
Lowndes County would act as the applicant agent or grant administrator
on behalf of the juvenile justice department,
and Judge Council would serve as the implementing agency,
working with several groups such as LODAC
(
Lowndes Drug Action Council, Inc.).
If the grant is accepted, it will be awarded quickly, running
from June to June.
It’s a reimbursement grant: make the expenses, submit a report, and
get reimbursed from the grant.


Judge James F. Council, Jr.
(who Continue reading →

China carbon cap and Georgia Power



If China implements a carbon tax, will Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers
change his recent answer to a question about a carbon tax,
which was “why would anyone want that?”


Paul Bowers speaking
In February

the Chinese Ministry of Finance (MoF) said China would soon tax
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,
and that’s getting closer in

the country whose capital Beijing has smog bad it’s literally off the charts.
Katie Valentine wrote for ThinkProgress 22 May 2013,

Bombshell: China May Be Close To Implementing A Cap On Carbon Pollution,

China is taking steps to tackle its huge
carbon output. Today, the country announced the
details of its first carbon trading program, which will begin
in the city of Shenzhen next month. The southern city is one of seven
cities and provinces, including Beijing, which will take part in
the pilot program, set to be completely implemented by 2014.



And according to one local news source, China could
implement an absolute, nation-wide cap on its carbon
emissions by 2016. China’s 21st Century Business Herald
reported this week that the country’s State Council still needs to
approve the carbon cap proposal submitted by the National Development
and Reform Commission, a government entity that controls much of the
Chinese economy. The proposal, which the State Council is reportedly likely
to support, would ensure China’s emissions would
not increase past the country’s target cap, regardless
of economic growth — though it’s still unclear what
that cap would be. The paper reported that the NDRC also predicts
China’s greenhouse gas emissions will peak in 2025, rather than 2030,
as earlier predictions stated.

If the cap is adopted,

Continue reading →

Monsanto rider came from south Georgia: Jack Kingston GA-01

Jack Kingston (GA-01) slipped the Monsanto rider into a recent law,
requiring “the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for
the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a
federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental
Impact Statement is completed”.

Alexis Baden-Mayer wrote for AlterNet 8 July 2012,

The “Monsanto Rider”: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity From Federal Law?



Whom do we have to thank for this sneak attack on USDA safeguards?
The agricultural sub-committee chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) —
who not coincidentally was voted “legislator of the year for
2011-2012” by none other than the Biotechnology Industry
Organization, whose members include Monsanto and DuPont.

As reported by Mother Jones,
the Biotechnology Industry Organization

declared Kingston a “champion of America’s biotechnology industry”
who has
“helped to protect funding for programs essential to the survival of
biotechnology companies across the United States.”

The Biotechnology Industry Organization’s

PR about that award of 24 April 2012 says down at the bottom:

Photos of the award presentation are available upon request.



If that award is such an honor,
why are they hiding the pictures of Jack Kingston receiving it?
If Monsanto’s products are so great, why don’t they label them
so we can tell which they are?
Why did a French court

just uphold a conviction of Monsanto
for poisoning a French farmer?
Why does Monsanto

oppose independent GMO research?
And why did

hundreds of thousands of people just march against Monsanto?



Could it be because of

liver and kidney damage, cancer and birth defects, pollution of water and air,
systematic gaming of the patent system,
perversion of the regulatory system,
and corruption of the legislative system?

Speaking of corruption,
Kingston has put the survival of biotechnology companies above
the survival of farmers and the health of the American people.




Jack Kingston, voted Biotech “Legislator of the Year.” Responsible for adding the Monsanto Immunity Rider to the farm bill (H.R. 5973, Section 733). Tell him what you think!


www.facebook.coim/jackkingston/, 202-225-5821, 912-352-0101

-jsq

Religious freedom and the neighbors @ LCC 2013-05-14

Apparently concern about a different religion is what it takes
to get a Lowndes County Commissioner to speak up for the majority
of the neighbors.


Mike Allen, Utilities Director
After Utilities Director Mike Allen outlined the case again
at the

Lowndes County Commission Regular Session 14 May 2013
Commissioner John Page
elaborated on his question of

the previous morning:


Subdivision? --John Page
But the trust deed that we have in our notebook
says it’s for the Valdosta Islamic Center Corporation,
so this is a, uh,
I know they’re calling it the Mercy Community Center,
but isn’t this going to be a Muslim worship center
instead of a subdivision?

County Planner Jason Davenport responded:

Continue reading →

If Wal-Mart fires for not following procedures…



George Rhynes asks if Wal-Mart can fire employees who disarmed
an armed robber for not following procedures,
why can’t the manager he says didn’t follow procedures when
the manager fired him be fired in return?
I wonder why Wal-Mart procedures and profit are more important
than employee safety, well-being, or the drain on public resources
to cover what Wal-Mart does not?

George Boston Rhynes wrote to Wal-Mart CEO and President Mike Duke and Board of Directors 20 February 2011,

Wal-Mart Store 899 and 2615, Valdosta, Georgia and China Workers!

Continue reading →

How can we get Georgia to move ahead in solar power?



If we

can’t expect Georgia Power or Southern Company to change their tune about solar power,
what can we do?
Legislate and raise public pressure, while getting on with installing what
solar power we can.



Maybe it’s time to pass something like

HB 267 that would limit Georgia Power’s profits on

that 19-month-late and $1 billion over budget nuclear boondoggle at Plant Vogtle.
Instead of pouring more money down that broken concrete pit on the Savannah River,
we need something like

GA SB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act,
to fix

Georgia’s special solar financing problem,
the antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act.
That’s the 40-year-old antiquated law that SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning says
“we need to protect”.
Maybe SO does, for Fanning’s
huge raises in compensation.
Georgia Power and SO are not only defending that antique law,
they’re preventing
a Georgia Renewable Portfolio Standard (REPS) by stopping passage of bills like
HB 503.
Georgia Power, SO, and super-lobby ALEC

systematically oppose renewable energy standards.


They do this so successfully there are no REPS in Southern Company (SO)’s
service territory, nor in most of SO’s surrounding
“Competitive Generation Opportunities” states.
One of the few exceptions is North Carolina, and

a bill was introduced there to eliminate NC’s REPS.

Maybe it’s even time to do something about

Georgia Power’s 11% guaranteed profit.
Isn’t Georgia Power supposed to be a utility operating for the good of
Georgians?
Why does it get a guaranteed profit to pass on to Southern Company
shareholder dividends and SO executive bonuses?



Georgia Power and even Southern Company could suddenly flip for solar power
like
Austin Energy did in 2003
and Cobb EMC did in 2012.
But that probably won’t happen without a lot of public pressure,
legal requirements by the Georgia legislature or PSC,
or a shareholder revolt.
So let’s start with

the public pressure….

-jsq

Gulf 3 years ago; Caspian 5 years ago: BP oil well blowouts



Two years before

BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig poisoned the Gulf of Mexico
(Saturday was the third anniversary),
apparently BP had a very similar disaster in the Caspian Sea
and covered it up.
Is this a company or this the

13 spills in 30 days
industry we want piping tar sands crude across
America to the Gulf

for all of 35 permanent jobs and CO2 emissions like 51 coal plants?
There’s a cleaner, cheaper, and more energy-independent way:

solar
and

wind power can power the U.S. and the world.

Greg Palast wrote for EcoWatch 19 April 2013,

BP Covered Up Blow-out Two Years Prior to Deadly Deepwater Horizon Spill,

Two years before the Deepwater Horizon blow-out in the Gulf of
Mexico, another BP off-shore rig suffered a nearly identical
blow-out, but BP concealed the first one from the U.S. regulators
and Congress.

This week, EcoWatch.org located an eyewitness with devastating new
information about the Caspian Sea oil-rig blow-out which BP had
concealed from government and the industry.

The witness, whose story is backed up by rig workers who were
evacuated from BP’s Caspian platform, said that had BP revealed the
full story as required by industry practice, the eleven Gulf of
Mexico workers “could have had a chance” of survival.
But BP’s insistence on using methods proven faulty sealed their
fate.

One cause of the blow-outs was the same in both cases: the use of a
money-saving technique—plugging holes with
“quick-dry” cement.

By hiding the disastrous failure of its penny-pinching cement
process in 2008, BP was able to continue to use the dangerous
methods in the Gulf of Mexico—causing the worst oil spill in
U.S. history. April 20 marks the second anniversary of the Gulf oil
disaster.

There’s more in

the article, such as this:

Continue reading →

Kendrick Johnson inquest and protests


The death of Kendrick Johnson at Lowndes High School in January
is still considered suspicious by many, and protests continue,
with increasing news coverage.
I hear there’s going to be a vigil at the Lowndes County palace
tomorrow evening.

WCTV posted a compendium 16 January 2013,

Father Speaks Out at Prayer Vigil for Lowndes High Student,
including statements from the Lowndes County Schools Superintendent
and from the Sheriff’s Department.



George Boston Rhynes of course

has been on the case from the beginning,
including

videoing the protests
and

interviewing protesters.
As he says,

it’s a human rights issue.

Quinten Plummer wrote for the VDT 11 April 2013,

Family wants answers in LHS student’s death

Continue reading →