Tag Archives: Valdosta

Alcohol ordinance and license plus two road abandonments @ LCC 2012 02 13-14

What does a Community Corrections Director do? What is the proposed modification to the alcohol ordinance? We don’t know, because the county doesn’t post the details of agenda items, just cryptic shorthand that may mean something to Commissioners or staff, but that means nothing to the public.

At this morning’s work session and tomorrow evening’s regular session, the Lowndes County Commission has a brief but eventful agenda, including a modification to the alcohol ordinance, an alcohol license, a DHS grant a GDOT grant for a road project on Davidson Road (presumably related to the new Moody AFB gate), two road abandonments, and this interesting item:

6.h. Request from Superior Court to establish salary of the Community Corrections Director
Your guess is as good as mine.

Here’s the agenda.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Media flap over Lowndes grading

Interesting timing, the Chamber deciding to pay off CUEE’s debts from pushing school consolidation, followed shortly by a media campaign to discredit the Lowndes School System.
17 January 2012:
Chamber of Commerce board decides to repay CUEE’s outstanding vendor debts in exchange for owning CUEE’s education document.
3 February 2012:
Maureen Downey blogged for the AJC, No zeros in school any longer. But aren’t there well deserved zeros? Despite admitting that the Lowndes school grading policy is a common practice in many systems and is intended to make sure students actually learn, she ends with this spin:
But aren’t there well deserved zeros?

I would argue that middle school teachers have some students who simply don’t do the work. They get it; they just don’t do it. The Lowndes policy calls for multiple interventions for obdurate students, but wouldn’t a zero make an important statement?

How else do adolescents learn that there are consequences for failure to comply with assignments? In the classroom, it is a zero. In the workplace, it is termination.

3 February 2012:
Lowndes School System Superintendent Dr. Steve Smith explained Lowndes grading policies, including this bit:
The Lowndes County Schools recently released grading guidelines for parents to clarify what has been our current practice on reporting of grades and to reaffirm our commitment to mastery learning by all students. For the past year and a half, our practice in grades 3-8 has been….
The point being that this is not a new policy.
Continue reading →

Development Schedule for CCA and VLCIA private prison

In her recent response about the Notice to Proceed (NTP), VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer cited and paraphrased paragraph 1.6.2 of the Purchase and Development Agreement. The same paragraph points out the Development Schedule is already in the Agreement, as Schedule 1.6.2.
The Development Schedule contains, among other things, milestones for the work and assignments of responsibility to the Parties for the attainment of certain milestones.
Here it is:

So it’s not clear why she said CCA hadn’t provided a Development Schedule.

-jsq

Musical Theatre Emphasis tonight at VSU

Received today. -jsq
Tonight you could be part of a delightful evening of theatre that will likely not occur again in Valdosta for some time. If you are a theater fan, do not miss the second and last performance tonight of a musical written by a VSU faculty member and performed by VSU students and a guest artist. In the tradition of play reading, The Pier is performed on a bare stage with six chairs, mikes and a keyboard accompaniment. Mostly music, the production is fresh and the students enthusiastic in their parts in this musical. We saw it last night and thoroughly enjoyed being at the beginning of an amazing creative process.

-Jane Osborn

Be among the first to hear an exciting new musical!

…attend a reading of this new musical theatre work featuring
students in the Musical Theatre Emphasis
Saturday, February 11, 7:30 PM
Saturday, February 11 at 7:30 PM
Sawyer Theatre, VSU Fine Arts Building, First Floor
Free admission, general seating.

VLCIA has not received a Notice to Proceed from CCA for the private prison

Received Wednesday. -jsq
From: Andrea Schruijer
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 3:38 PM
To: ‘Matt Flumerfelt’
Cc: ‘Steve Gupton’
Subject: RE: Notice to Proceed and Preliminary Specifications

Dear Mr. Flumerfelt,

In regards to your email of February 6, 2012, CCA has not given to the Authority a “Development Schedule” and has not received from CCA a “Notice to Proceed.” Under paragraph 1.6.2, except for some due diligence provided for in the agreement, the Parties have no obligation to proceed with design, permitting, installation or construction of the Project, prior to receiving a NTP from CCA. CCA has absolute discretion in issuing or withholding the NTP. After the issuance of the NTP the parties shall proceed with the development of the project in accordance with the Development Schedule.

Sincerely,
Andrea Schruijer

Continue reading →

Save money by streamlining the state penal code

Even the Bainbridge and Decatur County Post-Searchlight publishes news about their very own state legislator explaining one of the biggest reasont why prisons are a bad bet for a local economy: because we can’t afford to lock up so many people anymore.

Brennan Leathers wrote 6 January 2012, Georgia legislature going back to work State Senator John Bulloch (R-Ochlocknee):

“We’re still struggling to find revenue to pay for operation of the state government and its services,” Bulloch said. “We’re going to have to fill holes that we filled during worse economic times using federal stimulus money and other temporary money.”

Bulloch said he also understands Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has instructed Georgia’s department heads to include 2-percent cuts in their budget requests for this year.

One way in which legislators might opt to save money is by streamlining its criminal penal code. According to Bulloch, Georgia has a very high number of people serving supervised probation or parole.

“A lot of those people who are in prison or under close supervision by state officers are serving sentences for non-violent offenses or minor felonies,” Bulloch said. “We may look at alternative means for dealing with them, such as creating drug courts or setting up drug-testing centers that would monitor drug offenders without imprisoning them.”

Which would mean fewer people in prison. Which would mean no need for new prisons. And some existing prisons might close.

Do we want a private prison in Lowndes County so more prisoners can compete with local workers here, too? If you don’t think so, remember CCA says community opposition can impede private prison site selection. Here’s a petition urging the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authorithy to stop the CCA private prison. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.

-jsq

Decatur County newspaper wants more prisoners who compete with local wo rkers

The Decatur County newspaper brags about prisoners competing with free labor, while helping try to attract another prison.

Brennan Leathers wrote for the Post-Searchlight 3 January 2010, Walls going up at new ag building,

Work on Decatur County’s new agricultural office building is quickly progressing, with interior walls being put up and the installation of a roof soon to follow.

Decatur County Prison inmates with carpentry and construction experience were working hard last Friday, putting up the interior walls inside the 9,724-square-foot building under construction near the Cloud Agricultural Building off Vada Road.

Which means some local workers with carpentry and construction experience were not working on that project.

Do we want a private prison in Lowndes County so more prisoners can compete with local workers here, too? If you don’t think so, remember CCA says community opposition can impede private prison site selection. Here’s a petition urging the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority to stop the CCA private prison.

-jsq

Quartzite Council cited by Arizona Attorney General

We haven’t looked in on the little town of 3,000 odd people of Quartzsite, Arizona, lately. Its goings-on continue to seem eerily applicable to our own county of 100,000 odd people.

On 9 December 2011, the Attorney General of Arizona, Tom Horne, issued a statement Re: Open Meeting Law Complaint against Town of Quartzsite Common Council (the “Council”), saying that the town Council had violated the state Open Meetings Law (OML) four times:

  1. by not warning Jennifer Jones before removing her on 28 June 2011;
  2. by holding a Council meeting on 10 July 2011 in which they excluded the public by actually locking the doors of their meeting room;
  3. by failing to post minutes of the emergency meeting on its website as required by Arizona Law (yes, Arizona law, like Texas law, requires posting minutes on the web) and by not including a required statement of the emergency requiring the meeting;
  4. and by failing to post withing the required three working days minutes for the 10 July 2011 emergency meeting, nor for seven of its work sessions, nor for its 14 June 2011 regular session.
This one wasn’t a violation, but may be at least as important:
The purpose of the OML is to require public bodies to meet publicly and openly so that al persons so desiring may attend and listen to the deliberations and proceedings.
Why, I believe that’s the same in Georgia!

It seems back-room meetings are bad: Continue reading →

Prison and retirement? —Jane Osborn

Received Friday on Who are the “local leadership” who approved CCA’s private prison? -jsq
I wonder how the news of a private prison with its lowered expectations, minimal guarding procedures and its adding to the prison population we already have will sit with the folks being courted by the Chamber to move here when they retire?

-Jane Osborn

Georgia legislature giving unelected bodies bond-issuing privatizing power

The Georgia House has just passed a bill authorizing local development authorities to form public-private partnerships as they see fit and to issue bonds to pay for them, putting we the taxpayers on the hook. If this bill passes, VLCIA could issue bonds for a private prison, a biomass plant, a coal plant (apparently not a coincindence; see below), a toll road, a private railroad, or whatever it felt like. It wouldn’t even need cooperation by elected officials. It wouldn’t have to go to the Lowndes County Commission for permission, like VLCIA did for $15 million in bonds to buy real estate. The Industrial Authority could just issue the bonds itself! And we the taxpayers who would have to pay for it? We’ll just get to pay, that’s all. There’s still time to stop it in the Georgia Senate.

Maybe HB 475 should be called the “Easy Jobs for Cronies Act”. It adds various definitions of public-private partnership, and then throws in a wild card: Continue reading →