Tag Archives: Lowndes County

Qualifying is finished: here’s the list

A few people qualified on the last day. They’re marked ! below, in this latest information from Deb Cox, Lowndes County Supervisor of Elections; * indicates incumbent.

-jsq

Valdosta

Mayor Brooks D. Bivins !
John Gayle
Gary Minchew
At Large Matt Flumerfelt
Ben Norton *
Council 1 James R. Wright *
Council 3 Joseph Sonny Vickers *
Council 5 Tim Carroll*

Hahira

Council 2 Bruce Cain *
Council 3 Ralph Clendenin *
Sherry Parham Brown

Dasher

Post 2
special election		 Donald J. Bryan
James (Jim) Dew !
Becky Rogers
(was held by Rodney Lieupo)
Post 3 Albert Hall !
Edwin R. Smith *
Post 4 Anita Armstrong *

Lake Park

Walker Keith Sandlin *
Mayor
City Council At Large (Vote for 4) Eric Schindler *
Ronald Carter *
Paul Mulkey *
Cathi Brown !
Russell Lane !
Sandy Sherrill !
Special election
voting now 		Cathy Brown
Sandy Sherrill
Whoever wins will also have to run again in November.

Remerton

Mayor Cornelius Holsendolph *!
City Council At Large (Vote for 5) Alexander Abell !
Sam P. Flemming, Jr. !
Steven Koffler !
Jasen L. Tatum *
Bill Wetherington *

Valdosta Board of Education

District 4 Dean R. Rexroth *
District 5 Julian Carol Sherwood III *
District 6 Bill Love *

Qualifying is finished: here’s the list

A few people qualified on the last day. They’re marked ! below, in this latest information from Deb Cox, Lowndes County Supervisor of Elections; * indicates incumbent.

-jsq

Valdosta

Mayor Brooks D. Bivins !
John Gayle
Gary Minchew
At Large Matt Flumerfelt
Ben Norton *
Council 1 James R. Wright *
Council 3 Joseph Sonny Vickers *
Council 5 Tim Carroll*

Hahira

Council 2 Bruce Cain *
Council 3 Ralph Clendenin *
Sherry Parham Brown

Dasher

Post 2
special election		 Donald J. Bryan
James (Jim) Dew !
Becky Rogers
(was held by Rodney Lieupo)
Post 3 Albert Hall !
Edwin R. Smith *
Post 4 Anita Armstrong *

Lake Park

Walker Keith Sandlin *
Mayor
City Council At Large (Vote for 4) Eric Schindler *
Ronald Carter *
Paul Mulkey *
Cathi Brown !
Russell Lane !
Sandy Sherrill !
Special election
voting now 		Cathy Brown
Sandy Sherrill
Whoever wins will also have to run again in November.

Remerton

Mayor Cornelius Holsendolph *!
City Council At Large (Vote for 5) Alexander Abell !
Sam P. Flemming, Jr. !
Steven Koffler !
Jasen L. Tatum *
Bill Wetherington *

Valdosta Board of Education

District 4 Dean R. Rexroth *
District 5 Julian Carol Sherwood III *
District 6 Bill Love *

Why can’t Winnersville have two great school systems? —Sam Allen @ VBOE 29 August 2011

CUEE has lost its framing. Nobody calls it “unification” but CUEE. Everybody else calls it consolidation, same as for the last thirty years. And Sam Allen is turning the tide against it.

Sam Allen, president of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) and former Valdosta School Superintendent said:

I promised myself three years ago when I left this place, that one thing I would never do, and that would come and attend another board meeting.
He said he came for a good cause this time.
The CUEE group is calling this unification all of a sudden. And I think that’s just a play on words, and a play on our intelligence. Because for thirty years we’ve called this process consolidation. Now all of a sudden we’re calling it unification.

We’re calling it unification because the only thing that we want to change is the central office. We want all the schools to remain the same. The only thing we want to change is what goes on right here at 1204 Williams Street.

Well if you’re going to unify a community, something has to change. This group has failed to put together a plan that we can follow.

And that’s the point, isn’t it? Continue reading →

Yield my 5 minutes to Sam Allen of FVCS —JC Cunningham @ VBOE 29 August 2011

This is an interesting way of dealing with arbitrary speaking time limits. Might be worth trying in other venues.

Here’s the video:


I yield my 5 minutes to Sam Allen of FVCS —JC Cunningham @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Who qualified by the end of Thursday, per Deb Cox

There’s one new qualifier since the last post. If you want to run, you’ve got you’ve got today to qualify.

This post includes an update on who has qualified for the end of the day Thursday September 1st from Deb Cox, Lowndes County Supervisor of Elections; * indicates incumbent. This is basically the same as the list I posted yesterday afternoon, with a few corrections: the Dasher candidates (except for Post 2) are now correctly marked as incumbents; Lake Park Mayor candidate Keith Sandlin is listed; Lake Park and Dasher Council At Large elections are described correctly; Paul Mulkey has also qualified for Lake Park; various names are filled out more completely. This morning’s post is taken from a text document sent by Deb Cox, so it’s probably more accurate than yesterday’s writing it down from her telling it to me on the telephone.

-jsq

Valdosta

Mayor John Gayle
Gary Minchew
At Large Matt Flumerfelt
Ben Norton *
Council 1 James R. Wright *
Council 3 Joseph Sonny Vickers *
Council 5 Tim Carroll*

Hahira

Continue reading →

Hamilton Co. TN is high priority school district —David Mullis @ VBOE 29 August 2011

I didn’t catch his name, but he David Mullis talked about his children and said:
All of my children have fourished in the Valdosta School System.
…
The special ed program they have here is second to none.
Then he got to the night’s topic:
When I look at these things when people talk about consolidation, I have to ask the question: why do they want to consolidate two school systems? The things that they say sound good. I think everything they say would be agreab What do they mean by them? And I have a little bit of a problem; whenever somebody wants to combine two groups together, it almost looks like they want to control the whole.
And this little bombshell:
It seems like the group that is most pushing this thing is referring to the Tennessee Hamilton County system, which if you read their site, sounds like their statistics are good and everything’s working good. Except that there’s some data that came out a month ago that says that they are, the first time, the entire district is high priority.
…
That means they had two years of bad results.
There’s more in the video:


Hamilton Co. TN is high priority school district @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Private prisons considered harmful —Gretchen Quarterman to Jack Kingston

Gretchen Quarterman
3338 Country Club Road #L336
Valdosta GA 31605
26 August 2011
PDF
 
Hon. Jack Kingston
Member of Congress
First District of Georgia
 
Dear Mr. Kingston,

You asked me last week in Tifton to provide you with evidence that private prisons have fewer guards per prisoner than public prisons.

Here is an example:

“The largest juvenile prison in the nation, Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility houses 1,200 boys and young men, between the ages of 13 and 22, and is run by a private contractor, the GEO Group based in Boca Raton, FL. … State audits over the last several years had already indicated the burgeoning problem. While it is recommended at youth facilities to have an inmate-to-guard ratio of 10:1 or 12:1, Walnut Grove had a ratio of 60:1.”
“When the Wolves Guard the Sheep,” by Mariah Adin in Kids and Crime, 28 March 2011
It’s not just less staff, it’s less qualified staff: Continue reading →

Who’s qualified so far, according to Deb Cox

I called Deb Cox, Lowndes County Supervisor of Elections, and asked her who has qualified so far. Here’s the answer, where * indicates incumbent. This data also pretty much answers the question of why we keep seeing the same people in office: because hardly anybody else runs. If you want to run, you’ve got the rest of today and tomorrow to do qualify. -jsq

Valdosta

Mayor John Gayle
Gary Minchew
At Large Matt Flumerfelt
Ben Norton *
Council 1 James Wright *
Council 3 Sonny Vickers *
Council 5 Tim Carroll*

Hahira

Continue reading →

What it takes to run for Mayor of Valdosta

People ask me: what does it take to run for mayor of Valdosta? A few qualifications, a few skills, and a vision would sure help.

Well, you have to qualify. That costs $750 down at the Board of Elections.

According to the City of Valdosta’s website, there are a few other requirements:

Qualification Mayor. To be eligible for election or appointment and service as Mayor, a person must be a minimum of 21 years of age, be a resident of the City of Valdosta for one year prior ro the date of qualifying, and a registered and qualified voter of the City of Valdosta at the time of qualifying.
Then you have to campaign and win. Some people will doubtless spend a lot of money running for mayor. However, some recent elections to Lowndes County Commission and Valdosta Board of Education indicate Continue reading →

50% increase for Old US 41 North widening: now $12 million T-SPLOST

In addition to the Draft Constrained List for T-SPLOST draft constrained list of T-SPLOST projects, which doesn’t even include dollar estimates, this longer report contains details for each project. And the cost to widen Old US 41 North from North Valdosta Road to Union Road has gone up from the previous estimate in June of $8 million to $12 million in August, for a 50% increase! I wonder if the County Commissioners know about this rapid cost inflation.
PreviousCurrentDifferenceIncrease%
PE $650,000 $800,000 $150,000 23%
ROW $850,000 $1,200,000 $350,000 41%
CST $6,500,000 $10,000,000 $3,500,000 54%
Total $8,000,000 $12,000,000 $4,000,000 50%
Curious how when the components went up by odd amounts, the total went up by exactly 50%. It’s almost like the total was increased and then the components were arranged to add up to that.

Also curious how the biggest increase, percentage (54%) and total ($3,500,000) is for construction. I could see how Rights of Way (ROW) acquisition costs might go up because people might not want this boondoggle in their front yards, but why was it so hard to estimate construction costs the first time?

And curious how that construction increase is a bit more than Continue reading →