Tag Archives: Transparency

Transparent government is totally what my heart is about. —Gretchen Quarterman

I repeatedly apologized to County Planner Jason Davenport about an earlier misunderstanding about the “public hearing” agenda item, which the Chairman stated was not really a public hearing and for which no citizens were allowed to speak:
7.b. Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan Updates – Lowndes County Report of Accomplishments (ROA) and Short Term Work Program (STWP)
Then I said:
Transparent government is totally what my heart is about. And I think that people trust the government more when we can see the business done in public. And I really appreciate when you do things in public and you ask questions in the work sessions so everybody can hear.
The VDT’s version was:
The lone citizen to be heard, Gretchen Quarterman, thanked commissioners for their observance of open government and apologized to County Planner Jason Davenport for things she said to him prior to the meeting, due to a “misunderstanding,” she said.

After the meeting adjourned, Chairman Ashley Paulk apologized to me in public Continue reading →

GLPC: Greater Lowndes Planning Commission, 28 November 2011

There’s a meeting of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission tonight. They discuss rezoning requests relevant to the City of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Dasher, Hahira, and Lake Park. We don’t know which rezoning requests they will consider tonight, because they no longer post agendas.

The City of Valdosta’s writeup about GLPC still links to the Southern Georgia Regional Commission pages about GLPC, which is where GLPC agendas used to be, but no longer:

As of July 1, 2011 there will be no more updates to this site. For question contact:

Jason Davenport – Lowndes County
Alexandra Arzayus – City of Valdosta

The Lowndes County government’s website has nothing listed for GLPC, and when you search for it you get:

Search Results: planning commission
No Results Found

Sad, really, considering that GLPC used to be a good example of local government transparency.

Maybe they’ll have an agenda at the door tonight.

-jsq

Citizens at Lowndes County Commission 7 November 2011

Five citizens spoke up at the 7 November 2011 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session. Some got answers, some got excuses, and some got fingerpointing. And one illustrated how the Commission doesn’t follow its own rules.

  • George Boston Rhynes asked about Open record requests and jail deaths and got the same excuses he’s heard elsewhere: nobody seems to be responsible for supplying information to the public about what’s going on in the Lowndes County Jail.

  • John Robinson asked about Contracts on the south side related to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to Title III Section 3 of the HUD program and got a clarification from the Chairman that the county has no Title III projects.

  • John S. Quarterman asked the Commission to video meetings like the Lowndes Board of Education does, and got a slightly different excuse this time than the many previous times he’s made similar requests.

  • Matt Portwood asked the Commission or the individual Commissioners to state a position on school consolidation and was told they weren’t going to. The VDT printed that much the next morning, the morning of the election with the referendum on school consolidation. They did not print Chairman Paulk’s allusion to his already-known support for FVCS in opposing consolidation, but LAKE published a video with that on Election Day, and you can see it here.

  • Tony Daniels wanted to know How can we pursue happiness when we don’t even have a job? and had several recommendations for how the various local elected and appointed bodies could go about getting us more jobs. He also illustrated that the Commissions ordinance on Citizens Wishing to Be Heard is, as we’ve discovered on many previous occasions, merely guidelines at the whim of the Chairman.

Citizen participation!

-jsq

Video meetings like Lowndes Board of Education? —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 7 November 2011

After apologizing for setting off a flash earlier, I recommended the county video their own meetings, so they wouldn’t have to depend on amateurs.
Lowndes County Board of Education had an open forum about school consolidation. and they had their own person videoing the whole thing, and it ended up on the web in a day or two, which means that everyone in the county could see what was going on….
Chairman Paulk:
We get enough of that for free.

jsq:

I’ll send you a bill!
The Chairman nodded, so I’ll take that for approval of billing by LAKE.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

And I feel like there’s somebody meddling in their affairs; I wish they wouldn’t have. —Ashley Paulk @ LCC 7 November 2011

As previously noted, Chairman Ashley Paulk last night told Matt Portwood he didn’t think the Lowndes County Commission should be meddling in school affairs. Here’s the part the VDT didn’t quote:
And I feel like there’s somebody meddling in their affairs; I wish they wouldn’t have.
That’s pretty interesting considering that Brittany D. McClure reported for the VDT 4 November 2011 that FVCS makes campaign contributions public:
Ashley Paulk, Lowndes County Commission chairman contributed $200
So it’s not like the public doesn’t already know Ashley Paulk’s opinion on this subject, and it seems he was reminding us of it: he contributed money to FVCS, a group actively lobbying to prevent the school consolidation promoted by CUEE.

Chairman Paulk also noted:

We do have county residents who live in the city.
Seems like he’s confusing two excuses for the Commissioners not speaking about school consolidation: Continue reading →

CUEE Campaign Disclosure Report Completed

Received yesterday.
From: Sam Allen
Date: November 6, 2011 5:26:15 PM EST
Subject: CUEE Campaign Disclosure Report Completed

Friends,
Attached is a copy of the CUEE Disclosure Report. How many children could this have help!!!!! How many teachers and support staff could we have saved? Are we in still in a recession?

Thanks,
Sam Allen
—
Samuel Allen, Superintendent Emeritus

Videos of VBOE Education Open Forum 25 October 2011

Here are videos of the entire Open Forum on education held by the Valdosta Board of Education at JL Lomax Elementary School 25 October 2011. This forum was advertised starting 29 August 2011, almost two months in advance, and was the third of three forums held by VBOE. As I asked back back on 1 September, Where was CUEE at the school board meetings? One or two showed up at each of the VBOE forums. Where were the rest of them?

Oh, that’s right! CUEE’s idea of a forum is to phone up selected people in the middle of the night to come to a meeting when both school superintendents are out of town, oh, and not invite the newspaper of record.

If you still haven’t been to a real open forum, the Lowndes Continue reading →

I would certainly encourage you to speak your mind —VSU Pres. Levy

Henry Calhoun asked VSU Interim President Louis Levy where are the free areas on campus? Dr. Levy answered:
Right outside of Palms Quad there’s a free speech thing, but, as you can see, uh…. [gestures around]
[laughter]
You know, like I said. If someone’s violating the law here, and creating a dangerous situation by, uh, physically disrupting the students or faculty, that’s one thing, we deal with that….

But if it’s, even this gnat, we will allow this gnat to….

Continue reading →

We tend to promote free speech —VSU President Levy

Henry Calhoun found VSU Interim President Dr. Louis Levy, who came over to the Occupy Valdosta meeting 27 October. Erin Hurley invited him to come to the mid-November Teach-In. He replied:
…as long as it’s legal and non-obstructive in terms of people getting in and out of buildings. We tend to promote free speech. And if we don’t, we’ll pay the price for it later.

…

We actually encourage free discussion and debate. Besides, I’m a sociologist. We can take what everyone knows and put them into four different kinds of perspectives and lenses just to do battle with each other.

He thanked Erin for the invitation.

VSU students, staff, and faculty who want their next president to hold positions like that on free speech might want to get involved with selection of the next VSU president.

Here’s the video:


We tend to promote free speech.
Information and Organization,
General Assembly, Occupy Valdosta (OV),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

The missing Lowndes County public hearing for Comprehensive Plan Updates

Four local governments followed the rules, one appears to have left citizens out of the process.

According to their letters of transmission to the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) Valdosta, Hahira, Remerton, and Lake Park all held public hearings on the Short Term Work Programs and Report of Accomplishment documents.

Here is video of the Valdosta Public Hearing.

The Lowndes County resolution does not say that a public hearing was held. That’s because no public hearing was held, as you can see in the video below.

A public hearing was listed in the agenda of the 11 October 2011 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

7. Public Hearing
a. REZ-2011-13, Fred’s Dept. Store, 4401 Bemiss Rd., 145c-90a, 2.0 ac., water/sewer, C-H(c) & C- G(c) to C-G
b. Greater Lowndes 2030 Comprehensive Plan Updates – Lowndes County Report of Accomplishments (ROA) and Short Term Work Program (STWP)

However, citizens were not invited to speak for or against the document. In fact, the document was not provided to the citizens for comment and an open records request for the document has not been satisfied by the county. Here is video of items 7a and 7b.

The County’s Resolution to Transmit says in part: Continue reading →