Tag Archives: Transparency

Citizens to be Heard will get moved back earlier —George B. Rhyne s

George Rhynes said he’s positive Citzens to be Heard will get moved back earlier in the agenda. The VDT quoted that part, in a story that doesn’t appear to be online yet. He also criticized the VDT for printing more about animals than about jail deaths.

Here’s the video:


Citizens to be Heard will get moved back earlier —George B. Rhynes
Regular Meeting, Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 June 2011.
Videos by Barbara Stratton for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Here’s George’s own video and writeup of what he said.

-jsq

Economic opportunity and cooperation —John Robinson @ VCC 9 June 2011

Discussing the VSEB program, John Robinson remarked:
We need the council up here to show us interest in this program.
He recommended everybody work together, including city and county.

Here’s the video:


Economic opportunity and cooperation —John Robinson @ VCC 9 June 2011
Regular Meeting, Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 June 2011.
Videos by Barbara Stratton for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Irregular VLCIA meeting Tuesday 14 June 2011

Industrial Authority changes “regular” meeting time to be same as Lowndes County Commission meeting.

Tucked away at the end of David Rodock’s 8 June 2011 article about a special called VLCIA meeting is this tidbit:

Board members changed the date of their next meeting to June 14 at 5:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend.
You wouldn’t know that by looking at VLCIA’s own meeting schedule web page, which shows no change from the regular schedule. That page also still says this:
All Meetings will be held at 5:30pm in the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street, unless otherwise notified.
So maybe that’s where it is, or maybe not. Maybe it’s possible to determine the time or the location, but not both. Valdosta-Lowndes County Heisenberg Authority.

I would post an agenda, if they made them publicly available before their meetings, which they still do not. They should have quite a collection of agendas and minutes to approve Tuesday, given how many special called meetings they’ve had lately.

-jsq

Quakers and others organized private prison hearings in Tucscon

Churches don’t always sit quietly on their hands when there is injustice impending for their communities. Sometimes they help organize hearings in which pro and con are discussed and recorded, as the American Friends Service Committee did in Tucson last year.

According to Mari Herreras in Tucson Weekly, 26 October 2010,

The American Friends Service Committee, Private Corrections Working Group, UA Latino Law Students Association, and St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church have organized a series of private prison hearings across the state that kick off tomorrow in Tucson at Pima Community College, Downtown Campus at 1255 N. Stone Ave., in the Amethyst Room from 6 to 8 p.m., moderated by yours truly, Mari Herreras.

The public is invited to present testimony, but the AFSC has also invited representatives from the Arizona Department of Corrections, Corrections Corporation of America (expected to build a new prison in Tucson) and Management and Training Corporation (which manages the Marana Community Correctional Treatment Facility). Word is no one has responded from those organizations, but AFSC organizers know the following presenters will be there to provide critical information on the private prison industry: Stephen Nathan, editor of Prison Privatization Report International; Joe Glen, spokesman for Maricopa and Pima Juvenile Corrections Associations; Brent White, UA law professor; Jim Sanders, real estate appraiser; Susan Maurer, retired corrections commissioner from New Jersey; and Victoria Lopez, from ACLU of Arizona.

The hearing will include the following community leaders who will hear testimony and ask questions: Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias; Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik; Assistant Tucson City Manager Richard Miranda; Representative Phil Lopes; and Mark Kimble, former associate editor of the Tucson Citizen.

They even made sure both the basic positions and the actual debate would be recorded: Continue reading →

VLCIA hires Andrea Schuijer from Albany

According to David Rodock in the VDT today:
…a unanimous decision by board members to submit a formal offer to Andrea Schruijer for the position of executive director.

Absent from the meeting was board member Roy Copeland.

According to Steve Gupton, authority attorney, the three-year contract will include a salary of $100,000 per year. As with all its employees, the authority will pay seven percent into a retirement fund and 75 percent of health care insurance.

Schruijer, pending acceptance of the offer, will officially start employment on July 8.

She’s a former hotel marketing person, according to her LinkedIn account: Continue reading →

Cat Creek Road closure has slipped a week

Cat Creek Road closure has slipped a week, although lots of people detouring around didn’t know that.

According to Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization:

Update: On Monday June 13, Cat Creek Rd will be closed at Beatty Mill Creek for bridge repairs. Repairs should take approximately 3 days, and a detour route will be established. Motorists are urged to use caution and to pay attention to all traffic control devices while traveling on Cat Creek Rd. If there are any questions or concerns please call the Lowndes Co. Engineering Dept. at 229-671-2424.
VLMPO had that on their facebook page hours before lowndescounty.com got around to posting it on their own website. And on lowndescounty.com it’s a a PDF, not a webpage. Maybe the county will get the hang of this web stuff eventually.

-jsq

June LAKE meeting: The owl in Valdosta

The owl lights in Valdosta Tuesday evening.
What: Monthly LAKE Meeting
When: 5:30 PM, Tuesday 7 May 2011
Where: El Cazador
1600 North Ashley Street
Valdosta, GA 31602
(229) 333-0554
That’s the old Margarita’s at the corner of College Street. They’re open until 10PM.

Help cover animals, food, water, transportation, incarceration, solar energy, biomass, and regular local government meetings: you never know when news will be made!

If you follow the LAKE blog, On the LAKE Front, which you can also see through the LAKE facebook page, you know what we cover, from the animal shelter to private prisons to gardening to schools, all of which turn out to be related. What else do you want to investigate? You can be LAKE, too! Continue reading →

Electing Local Councils

Recently, there has been more interest and observation of some parts of local government by active citizens, on topics ranging from the animal shelter to biomass to education to farmers markets to fast food vs. neighborhoods to private prisons to the Quitman 10 to solar power to T-SPLOST, all in aid of transparency. Engaging elected and appointed officials in dialog about the concerns and best interests of the community has been challenging. Yet we can see the sun a little clearer through the smoke.

Ensuring that people who will engage in dialog and seek the benefit of the entire community are appointed to boards lies in the hands of the elected officials. Electing people who engage in dialog and seek the benefit of the Continue reading →

VSU study and videos of Economic Summit on VLCoC website

The Chamber has put videos of its Economic Summit along with the VSU report it commissioned up on its website. The videos are on vimeo, because they’re a tad lengthy. However, they are conveniently linked in by subject.

Here’s a quote from Chamber president Myrna Ballard:

Particularly our average weekly wage rates, which we started becoming very concerned about around 2004. My first human inclination was to go into denial. I spent several months deciding whether I should even mention this in our community or not. But the bottom line on it is, when you have a challenge, when you have a problem, you can’t fix it until you come to grips with the fact that you do have an issue that you need to deal with.
There’s part of the problem around here: nobody wants to talk about problems. That needs to change.

However, I don’t like her next point quite as much, which was that they already have a plan and were presenting it. That’s part of the reason people don’t want to speak up about problems: because so often nobody is listening.

She did go on about Opportunity Central, though. And the Chamber did put up videos of the whole thing on the web. Bravo, Chamber and ReKasa!

-jsq

PS: Rekasa told me they were going to do that, and Jim Parker noted that they had done it.

2011 Economic Summit by VLCoC

Myrna Ballard (President, Chamber of Commerce), Michael Jetter (Interim Executive Director for the Valdosta-Lowndes Conference Center and Tourism Authority), Amanda Peacock (Valdosta Main Street Manager), Allan Ricketts (Valdosta-Lowndes Industrial Authority Project Manager), Jane Shelton (Valdosta-Lowndes Airport Authority Member)
“Transforming our local economy”
“It’s the Mix that Matters”

Amber Eady wrote for WALB 18 May 2011 about Economic Summit meets to discuss economic health:
Community leaders in the Valdosta area came together at the 2011 Economic Summit to discuss the economic health of Valdosta-Lowndes County.

Economic Summit participants raised substantive questions for the panel and shared ideas for moving forward during the facilitated discussion portion of the Summit led by VSU Center for Business and Economic Research Director, Scott Manley.

WALB then quotes the Chamber’s press release.
Dr. Cynthia R. Tori presented the VSU Center for Business and Economic Research study, Lowndes County by the Numbers: How Do We Compare With Peer and Aspirant Communities?
That study sounds very interesting. Can we see a copy? Continue reading →