Tag Archives: Lowndes County

AAUW Candidates’ Forum 15 October 2013

This one will include questions from the audience (here are videos of last year’s AAUW forum.) This announcement received yesterday. -jsq

The American Association for University Women is hosting a Candidates’ Forum on Oct. 15 (please see the announcement below), and we are hoping to let everyone in the area know about it. I am contacting various media in the hope that a public service announcement can be made. I would much appreciate your help!

The AAUW (American Association of University Women) will sponsor a Candidates’ Forum on Tuesday, Oct. 15th, at 7 p.m. in the VSU Continuing Education Building Auditorium, located at 903 N Patterson St. Candidates for the upcoming Municipal Elections will give brief presentations and the audience will be invited to ask moderated questions. For further information, contact Dr. Diane Holliman (229-560-8645) and visit the AAUW website at http://valdosta-ga.aauw.net.

Thank you so much.

Dr. Patricia Marks
Professor Emerita, Dept. of English
Valdosta State University
******
AAUW Corresponding Secretary

Corrupt cocaine cops in Florida

This could never happen in Georgia, right? Right?

Matt Gutman, Erin Brady, Seni Tienabeso and Candace Smith wrote for abc News 9 October 2013, How Undercover Cops in a Florida City Make Millions Selling Cocaine,

Police in a Southern Florida community outside of Fort Lauderdale have been using a controversial tactic to conduct cocaine sting operations and have been raking in millions of dollars in the process.

For years, the Sunrise, Fla., police have been conducting what are called “reverse stings.” Undercover police detectives play the role of cocaine dealers and try to lure in potential buyers who drive or fly in from all over the country with wads of cash. If the stings are successful, informants can receive large payouts and police can seize cash, cars and other non-monetary assets. The busts have Continue reading

County lost LOST; now has 120 days to negotiate with cities

So all our tax money the county spent on the alleged county attorney arguing before the state Supreme Court was wasted. The remaining law seems to say by 120 days from Monday the cities and the county need to come to an agreement.

Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday, Lowndes LOST in limbo: Supreme Court tosses key amendment,

In a ruling issued Monday, Oct. 7, the Supreme Court of Georgia declared a 2010 amendment to the Local Option Sales Tax Act unconstitutional, reasoning that the amendment would delegate a legislative function of allocating tax proceeds to the judicial branch of government, a violation of the Separation of Powers clause of the Georgia Constitution.

For Lowndes County, the ruling effectively renders the lawsuit moot that was filed by the five cities against the county in September 2012.

The Supreme Court’s ruling came in the case of Turner County vs. the City of Ashburn over a dispute in splitting the proceeds from the one cent sales tax, the same issue in the Lowndes lawsuit. By declaring the portion unconstitutional that would allow a judge to decide how to allocate the tax dollars between the entities, the issue is now in limbo for several counties in Georgia.

You may recall that former Chairman Ashley Paulk wasn’t interested in discussing proposals from the cities, and said from before the LOST negotiations began that he expected it to go to arbitration.

This was the same Chairman Ashley Paulk who put SPLOST VII on the ballot a year early and lost it. I wonder how much input County Manager Joe Pritchard had into these two losing decisions?

At least SPLOST VI hasn’t expired yet and there’s time for the voters to go again on SPLOST VII in November.

What happens now with LOST? Continue reading

Our investments are political –Divest Harvard to Drew Faust

Divest Harvard summed it up:

Our investments ARE political.

And that’s just as true at VSU.

Not even Tim DeChristopher put it more pithily than that. Samantha Caravello wrote in the Harvard Law Record 7 October 2013, Pres. Faust, There’s Nothing Neutral About Investing in Climate Wreckage, noting that Pres. Faust’s excuses were actually in response to “an invitation from undergraduates to participate in an open forum on divesting Harvard’s $32 billion endowment from the top 200 fossil fuel companies.”

President Faust warned against using the endowment in ways that would position the university as a political actor, claiming Continue reading

U.S. adults fail math, reading, and problem-solving

Then adults fail to provide sufficient education for U.S. children to succeed in an educated world. But we can change that. Korea and Finland did, and we can, too.

Kimberly Hefling wrote for AP Tuesday, American adults score poorly on global test,

U.S. In math, reading and problem-solving using technology—all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength—American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.

Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.

Too bad they didn’t test picking political candidates to elect. Apparently at least a minority of U.S. adults failed that, too. I would quote from the actual test, but this is what we find at ncs.ed.gov today: Continue reading

Natural gas pipeline exploded in Oklahoma; seen in two other states

The most obvious risk of that proposed natural gas pipeline was seen in another one Monday through today in Oklahoma (and Texas and Kansas): explosion and fire. The pipeline proposed for here would be 44% bigger; maybe we could have an explosion seen from Florida and Alabama!

CBS News reported today, Okla. pipeline blast sparks huge blaze, spurs evacuations,

Deputy Cliff Brinson, of the Harper County Sheriff’s Department, says the fire sounded like four roaring jet engines and had flames reaching two football fields high.

He says no injuries were reported, and residents within two miles of the blast were evacuated.

A family of three living in a home about 200 yards away escaped unharmed, authorities say.

By the time the pipeline company, Northern Natural Gas, released a statement they called it “a flicker”.

Video by Spencer Albracht: Continue reading

Nuclear power like burning $20 bills to generate electricity –Bill McKibben

Nukes cost too much and are too centralized; sun and wind are the power we need and can afford.

Andrew Sullivan on the Dish 8 December 2012, Ask McKibben Anything: What About Nuclear Energy?

In October, Bill spoke to Marlene Spoerri of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs about his views on nuclear power:

I don’t foresee, especially post-Fukushima, a kind of political system in most of the world that would let it happen. Even before Fukushima, it wasn’t happening. The reason basically had to do with cost. Environmentalists helped shut down nuclear power, but really it was Wall Street that pulled the plug on it. It’s too expensive. It’s like burning $20 bills to generate electricity. It requires, if you’re going to do it, massive government subsidy. If you’re going to apply that subsidy, you’re better off doing it with other things that will generate more kilowatt hours per buck.

Now, that said, we should keep trying to figure out if there are some ways to do it that are more acceptable than the ones we’ve got now. You read about developments on the fringes, Thorium reactors and so on and so forth. But my guess is that in the timeframe we’ve got this is not going to be the place we go.

Kevin J. Kelley wrote for Seven Days 10 August 2011, Author-Activist Bill McKibben Gets “Disobedient” About Climate Change, Continue reading

No contracts for tenants of Leila Ellis Building @ LCC 2013-10-07

Two, four, six, many: that’s how Lowndes County counts tenants. It’s great the county is providing space for organizations that help the needy, but it’s kind of curious that the county didn’t seem to know who or how many organizations were using the Leila Ellis building, and had no lease agreement with them. Not to mention it took twenty questions from Commissioners to get staff to admit that lack of contracts, at Monday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session.

6.b. Leila Ellis Building-Available Space

Kind of like they have no contract with the alleged county attorney.

Chad McCleod at one point said two organizations are currently in the building, LAMP and Cash Prosperity. He said the County let LAMP use it, and LAMP let Cash Prosperity use it.

In response to a question from Commissioner DeMarcus Marshall, County Manager Joe Pritchard said under normal circumstances any organization would need to come to the Commission to ask for space. They currently have more applicants than space.

Commissioner Crawford Powell wanted to know if the county was going to set up guidelines for who could lease. Pritchard said they could, and they couldn’t lease to a private business.

Commissioner Richard Raines wanted to know if annual leases were the practice of this board. Pritchard, not actually answering the question asked, said “That would be my suggestion.”

JoTaryla Thomas came up to speak for Continue reading

Rotating vice chairmanship @ LCC 2013-10-07

Six minutes on who will be Vice Chairman and when, a ceremonial position, as far as I know. 13 minutes on a parade of organizations that want to rent space in the Leila Ellis. They vote tonight at 5:30 PM.

The storm that wasn’t was the subject of Ashley Tye’s report. They tabled Nottinghill like the Planning Commission did. They vote tonight on letting Barrington subdivision sprawl into the county. Did Commissioners ever get that list of roads for striping? Do we have enough evidence yet for juvenile justice? Or will we continue to concentrate on fining people coming off of I-75? All that and a group photo. At least the Work Session yesterday morning had some actual discussion in it for a change.

Here’s the agenda with links to the videos and a few notes.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading

Divestment is about undermining the political power of the fossil fuel industry –Tim DeChristopher

Answering Harvard President Drew Faust’s excuses,

Tim DeChristopher, who went to jail for directly opposing gas and oil drilling and is now a student at Harvard Divinity School,

To seriously suggest that any research will solve the climate crisis while we continue to allow the fossil fuel industry to maintain a stranglehold on our democracy is profoundly naive.

Wen Stephenson wrote for the Nation 4 October 2013, Tim DeChristopher: There Is No ‘Neutral’ in the Climate Fight, including DeChristopher’s statement:

Drew Faust seeks a position of neutrality in a struggle where the powerful only ask that people like her remain neutral. She says that Harvard’s endowment shouldn’t take a political position, and yet it invests in an industry that spends countless millions on corrupting our political system. In a world of corporate personhood, if she doesn’t want that money to be political, she should put it under her mattress. She has clearly forgotten the words of Paolo Freire: “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and powerless means to side with the powerful, not to remain neutral.” Or as Howard Zinn put succinctly, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”

She touts Continue reading