Unfortunately I missed this meeting as well, and not by choice.I vaguely remembered that Roy Copeland mentioned after the October
meeting that the December date might be changed to December 6. Thus, I called Tuesday shortly after 5pm to verify if a meeting was indeed scheduled. I only got the answering machine (indicating to me that the office was closed) and the IA website (as so often) was no help.
Thus I, too, was assuming the meeting would be later this month … only to find out the next day in the VDT that there had been a meeting after all.
Our community has gone through so much these past couple of months,
highlighting more than ever the need to communicate and cooperate. I was hoping after all this that we could finally start working together, despite any differences we might have. That would, however, not only require a certain amount of transparency but also communication of such simple matters as meeting agendas and calendars. How difficult can that be?
Communication is, and always will be, the key to success. Whether this is about your children’s education, such matters as energy efficiency and energy conservation, or a Strategic Planning Process which can only benefit the community … if that very community (not just the same old status quo) is actually included in the process.
Michael G. Noll, President
Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy (WACE)
Tag Archives: Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
CCA charges inmates five days’ pay for one telephone minute
Amanda Peterson Beadle wrote for ThinkProgress 16 November 2011, Private Prison Charges Inmates $5 a Minute for Phone Calls While They Work for $1 a Day
Last year the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’sThey charge for food, too.largest private prison company, received $74 million of taxpayers’ money to run immigration detention centers. Georgia, receives $200 a night for each of the 2,000 detainees it holds, and rakes in yearly profits between $35 million and $50 million.
Prisoners held in this remote facility depend on the prison’s phones to communicate with their lawyers and loved ones. Exploiting inmates’ need, CCA charges detainees here $5 per minute to make phone calls. Yet the prison only pays inmates who work at the facility $1 a day. At that rate, it would take five days to pay for just one minute.
And remember, CCA profits from anti-immigration laws, at taxpayer expense:
Recent anti-immigration laws in Alabama (HB56) and Georgia (HB87) guarantee that neighbor facilities will have an influx of “product.” In the past few years, CCA has spent $14.8 million lobbying for anti-immigration laws to ensure they have continuous access to fresh inmates and keep their money racket going. In 2010 CCA CEO Damon T. Hininger received $3,266,387 in total compensation.Private CEO profit for public injustice. Does that seem right to you?
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.
-jsq
No Private Prison Petition

Feel free to use any of this as pointers to research for writing your own letter, of course.
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.
-jsq
After the VLCIA meeting: brain storming sessions —Dr. Noll
I was approached after the meeting and informed that theIndustrial Authority intends to invite communal leaders like myself to brain storming sessions in the future, although I do not know yet the design for such a forum, nor have I received any invitations as of today. Still, if there is one thing that has again become clear in the context of the consolidation issue, our community desperately needs structures that a) allow for more transparency and b) forums in which we can take advantage of the creative energy that exist in our community, INSTEAD of trying to shut people out, to hide information from them, or to push through divisive agendas.
It is my hope that the leaders of the Industrial Authority, as well as the City Council, the Lowndes County Commission, and the Chamber of Commerce for that matter, understand the opportunity we have: to turn a weakness (as exposed by the way we handled biomass, and are currently handling the consolidation issue) into a strength … via communication and cooperation … as is appropriate for a true community.
-Michael.
Public Transportation recommended by Industrial Authority’s Community Assessment
There is a plan for a public transportation systemAlso on page 9 of the corresponding presentation slides under Product Recommendations: Continue readingin Valdosta-Lowndes County but it currently lacks funding for implementation. Under current budget constraints it will be difficult to implement such a project, but businesses in the industrial parks and outlying areas may want to implement a limited transportation system if they discover that employee attendance is an issue.
What can we do as a community to better cooperate? —Dr. Noll
Dr. Michael Noll, longtime opponent of the Industrial Authority’s formerly proposed biomass plant, asked that same board at their most recent meeting:

What can we do as a community to better cooperate, to better communicate?He also referred to the school consolidation issue and to the nuclear vs. renewable energy issue among the reasons he gave, along with some suggestions on how to proceed, and said he would take the same message to other bodies.
Here’s the video, and a transcript is appended.
What can we do as a community to better cooperate? –Dr. Noll
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Dr. Noll sent an edited transcript removing some of the repetition to clarify what he was trying to say: Continue reading
What a successful Chamber of Commerce looks like
State Sen. Bill Montford, right, congratulates Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director David Gardner on the National Solar Power’s massive solar farm project.
With the excitement of a massive solar-energy farm coming to the community still fresh on their minds, Gadsden County businesses are looking ahead to the potential such a project could have on the local economy.I look forward to seeing Myrna Ballard in such a picture. Or Andrea Schruijer.Monday’s announcement by National Solar Power was a discussion topic Wednesday at the “Go Gadsden” breakfast of the Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce. The invited speaker, state Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, told the gathering the project’s impact will extend well beyond the county.
“This is good for Gadsden County, but it’s good for all of North Florida,” Montford said during the breakfast at the Florida Public Safety Institute in Midway. “We believe it’s just the beginning.”
-jsq
An agenda! From the Industrial Authority!
Here’s the agenda:Well, shiver me timbers and bless their little hearts! Their new executive director, Andrew Schruijer, remarked at Tuesday’s board meeting that the agenda for that meeting had indeed been posted since Friday. In Citizens to be Heard I readily admitted I didn’t look too hard for it, and expressed astonishment and pleasure at this positive development. Linked from their front page, there’s now an agenda page:Just joking. They don’t publish their agendas!
It has links to agendas for June, July, and August, each with an agenda in PDF. That seems a bit odd for some of those months, when there were several meetings. But, hey, it’s a start!Agenda
Agendas will be posted one day prior to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority regular scheduled monthly meeting.
Here’s the aganda for yesterday’s meeting. That’s in PDF, so here’s a web-readable HTML version:
Continue readingValdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Agenda Tuesday, August 16, 2011 5:30 p.m. Industrial Authority Conference Room 2110 N. Patterson Street
I live in the shadow of … the biomass plant —protester @ VLCIA 19 July 2011

I live in the shadows of where they were talking about building it. So I’m a little sceptical when they tell me that, you know, it’s safe.He told me his name, but my memory for names is like, er, what was I saying? Somebody please help identify him.They told me the same about Agent Organge before I went to Vietnam. It turned out it was dangerous to us.
Here’s the video: Continue reading
Industrial Park Acreage —Andrea Schruijer @ VLCIA 19 July 2011

New Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said:
We’re looking at having prospects in, or existing industries are looking to come here, we don’t actually look like we have a 577 acre tract that we can market. It’s actually a lot smaller than that. So when a company comes in and wants 200 acres that’s something we have a gap in.She’s following up on former chairman Jerry Jennett’s request. Jennett remarked at this meeting Continue reading