Tag Archives: protest

Spectra opens Valdosta office next to Industrial Authority, scene of 2011 anti-biomass protests



VP of Stakeholder Outreach Susan Waller doesn’t want visitors
at Spectra’s new office in Valdosta.
Which is in the same building as the Industrial Authority,
which also didn’t really want some visitors it got during
the biomass controversy.

Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT yesterday,

Sabal Trail opens Valdosta office,

Susan Waller, vice president of stakeholder outreach and
sustainability said, “That is our right-of-way office. It has
about 30 right-of-way agents, survey crews, our files and documents,
and a few meeting rooms.”

The office houses agents for three counties and will be open in
Valdosta for approximately five years, Waller said.

Sabal Trail has eight offices along the pipeline’s route, she said.

“These are not really the facilities for residents to drop by
to express concerns because all of the agents will be in and out of
the office constantly; however, they could call and make an
appointment.”

The VDT didn’t mention that Continue reading →

Drive Away CCA Today!

Today at 5PM, help Drive Away CCA!


Join the motorcade from the private prison site to honk at Valdosta City Hall
and march at the Industrial Authority office.

I’ll be on Chris Beckham’s show on WVGA 105.9 FM this morning at 7:30 AM
to talk about it.



Update: audio of the interview.

Update 2: Here’s video of the interview.

Here’s
the case against a private prison:

Continue reading →

Faith groups urge state governors not to sell prisons to CCA

From

Quakers
to
Catholics,

“Our
organizations advocate for a criminal justice system that brings
healing for victims of crime, restoration for those who commit
crimes, and to maintain public safety.”

religious groups oppose privatization of prisons.
Here is

the text of a letter
many of them sent to all 50 state governors,

joining the ACLU in opposing
CCA’s recent

offer to 48 states to buy their prisons.



You can help

drive away CCA, 5PM this Tuesday, March 6th.
Or sign the

petition to the Industrial Authority
to reject the private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.

-jsq

March 1, 2012

Dear Governor:

We the undersigned faith organizations represent different


traditions from across the religious and political spectrum. Our
organizations advocate for a criminal justice system that brings
healing for victims of crime, restoration for those who commit
crimes, and to maintain public safety.

We write in reference to a letter you recently received from Harley
Lappin, Chief Corrections Officer at Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA), announcing the Corrections Investment Initiative –
the corporation’s plan to spend up to $250 million buying prisons
from state, local, and federal government entities, and then
managing the facilities. The letter from Mr. Lappin states that CCA
is only interested in buying prisons if the state selling the prison
agrees to pay CCA to operate the prison for 20 years — at minimum.
Mr. Lappin further notes that any prison to be sold must have at
least 1,000 beds, and that the state must agree to keep the prison
at least 90% full during the length of the contract.

The undersigned faith organizations urge you to decline this
dangerous and costly invitation. CCA’s initiative would be costly

Continue reading →

Motorcade against CCA, 5PM Tuesday March 6th

Do you want to live in a prison colony?
Help us say, CCA Go Away!

Join us 5PM Tuesday March 6th 2012 at the private prison site (Dasher-Johnson
Road off US 84 at Inner Perimeter) for a motorcade by Valdosta City
Hall to the Industrial Authority offices: for education and against the
private prison.

When: 5PM (rush hour) Tuesday March 6th
How: Cars, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles
Who: Everybody is invited
What: Oppose the Private Prison
From: Proposed Private Prison Site

US 84 @ Inner Perimeter Road

(Staging on Dasher-Johnson Road next to US 84)
By way of: Valdosta City Hall

Valdosta City Council Work Session

Honk to say No CCA!
To: Industrial Authority Office

2110 N. Patterson Street

(Patterson at Park Avenue)

Bring a sign: No Private Prisons!
Contact:
noprivateprisons@gmail.com

Winn Roberson, 229-630-2339, winnroberson@bellsouth.net

John S. Quarterman, 229-242-0102, politics@quarterman.org





on the web


View Larger Map





Petition

Winn Roberson read the newspaper Friday (February 24th)
and realized the prison site
was down the street from him, so the news finally sunk in.
This motorcade was his idea to drive the point across to the
Industrial Authority: we don’t want a private prison!

John S. Quarterman lives about as far away from the prison site
as you can get in Lowndes County, but realizes it will affect
everybody for many counties around.
So let’s say CCA Go Away!

-jsq

PS: If you can’t come, you can still sign the

petition to the Industrial Authority, or write a letter to the editor, or…

CUNY’s idea of a public meeting

City University of New York’s trustees were holding a public meeting,
and some of the public, namely CUNY students, attempted to attend.
CUNY police and NYPD staged a welcome for them:



Carlos Pazmino, 21, a City College student who helped organize
the protest, said that after students began opening doors to the
auditorium where the CUNY trustees were to hold a public hearing at 5
p.m., CUNY police officers surrounded the entrances and pushed back,
using their batons, and that when students formed a line to push past,
the officers began hitting the students with the batons.

“I saw two people knocked down by cops,” Mr. Pazmino said.
“They were arrested and one guy’s head was bleeding.”

That’s in a NYTimes story by Alice Speri and Anna M. Phillips,

CUNY Students Protesting Tuition Increase Clash With Police.
Interesting title considering that the content says that the public
went to a public meeting and were violently attacked by police.

And that’s the cleaned up version:

Continue reading →

Mic check stops a police riot at UC Davis



By now you’ve probably seen the video of UC Davis police pepper spraying peaceful protesters who were simply sitting on the gorund.
But have you seen what happened next?
Police were forming up with weapons raised surrounded on three sides by protesters, when someone yelled “Mic check!”
Follow

this link.
Or, if you want to see it starting with the pepper spraying:

The one with the two pepper spray cans appears to be the same police
lieutenant who pepper sprayed the protesters.
As the protesters say through the human microphone that they are
willing to let the police just walk away, even after the police
had assaulted them with pepper spray,
that same lieutenant motions to the police, who lower their weapons
and back away.

Here’s

the police version of the incident:

Continue reading →

Atlanta police use 5 to 1 odds to arrest peaceful protesters in middle of night

CBS News wrote
26 October 2011

“Occupy Atlanta” camp cleared, dozens arrested,



With helicopters hovering overhead, police moved into a downtown Atlanta
park and arrested around 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters who had been
encamped there for about two weeks early Wednesday….

Organizers had instructed participants to be peaceful if arrests came,
and most were. Many gathered in the center of the park, locking arms,
and sang “We Shall Overcome,” until police led them out, one-by-one
to waiting buses. Some were dragged out while others left on foot,
handcuffed with plastic ties.

Police included SWAT teams in riot gear, dozens of officers on motorcycles
and several on horseback. By about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday the park was
mostly cleared of protesters….

Hundreds of others stood on Atlanta’s famous Peachtree Street, booing
police. They shouted “Shame!” and “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?”

And according to

Occupy Atlanta this morning:

Continue reading →

WALB on protesters and Gov. Deal at VSU

Jade Bulecza wrote for WALB today,

Protesters approach governor on Troy Davis

South Georgia death penalty opponents took their protest to the governor
while he was in Valdosta.

Governor Deal was in Valdosta to tour VSU’s nursing college but death
penalty opponents confronted him about the upcoming execution of cop
killer Troy Davis.



A small group of demonstrators gathered a VSU to plead for clemency for
Troy Davis.

“We hope he uses his influence to the pardons and parole board to get
out get rid of this execution,” said Deandre Jones, the president of
the VSU’s NAACP college chapter.



Protesters approached the governor as he left the university center.

“The committee has followed the legal process and has gone through the
appellate court,” said Deal.

Davis’ execution is set for Wednesday for killing an off duty Savannah
police officer in 1989.

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 →