Tag Archives: Valdosta

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 →

“I’m not a director to sit behind my desk and wait for them to come to us.” —George Page of VLCPRA @ LCDP 2012 01 09

George Page, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority (VLCPRA), said at the 9 January 2012 meeting of the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP), that amateur baseball tournaments were coming in April 2012, bringing 1200 room nights to Valdosta. That caused applause. He said the Black Softball Association is coming in February, with 80-100 teams, and more room nights. Local players won’t have to go to Atlanta for tournaments anymore.

Ed Hooper wrote for the VDT 1 Dec 2011, Baseball tournaments coming to Lowndes County

At its monthly meeting on Wednesday, the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority announced the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA) is set to bring its highly-respected baseball tournament to Valdosta and Lowndes County in April.

The tournament features 24 teams from the state of Florida and 24 from Georgia, and consists of teams from ages 9-14 years old. The tournament will run from April 22-24, and will be played at Freedom Park, Vallotton Park, South Lowndes Park, Lowndes and Valdosta High Schools and possibly Valdosta State University.

“It will be the absolute best 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14-year-old teams coming out of the state of Georgia to face Florida,” Bubba Smith, Director of Tournament Operations for the USSSA said. “Obviously, it is a real competitive tournament that we put together, but it is real exciting to give the teams opportunities to mingle with each other.”

…

VLPRA director George Page also announced the Black Softball Association Tournament, which features 80-100 teams, will be played in Valdosta this upcoming February. The tournament will bring in around $200,000 to the local community.

At LCDP, he said all those tournaments would bring close to half a million dollars into the economy. More applause.

“I’m not a director to sit behind my desk and wait for them to come to us.”
Apparently he’d modest, as well, because even more tournaments are coming, and the expected economic benefit of all those tournaments is actually larger. Continue reading →

So much for CUEE and the Chamber being separate organizations

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce chose to pour more money into CUEE, purchasing CUEE’s only concrete work product.

According to the Minutes of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber Board of Directors meeting held Tuesday, January 17, 2012, 8 – 9:30 a.m. at Country Inn & Suites:

Consider Finance Committee recommendation regarding acquisition of Education Framework: Clinton Beeland made a motion that the Chamber Board provide $30,000 towards the repayment of debt incurred by the Committee for a Referendum on School System Unification with local business vendors. In return for this consideration, the Chamber is to receive the ownership rights to and the future use of the professional publication entitled “An Education Framework”. Carl Holley seconded. After a thorough discussion, motion carried unanimously.
I wonder what was said in that “thorough discussion”? Maybe which local vendors Chamber members’ dues are subsidizing by paying off CUEE’s debts? Maybe who owns those vendors, and what their relations might be to the CUEE or Chamber boards?

Anything more substantial than Chamber or CUEE people said in the meeting at VSU 20 October 2011 in which that “framework” was never actually presented to a group invited in the middle of the night?

“Future use”, eh? So outspending 10 to 1 yet losing the school consolidation election 4 to 1 didn’t give the Chamber pause, any more than the Chamber paid any attention to the copious evidence that consolidation is a bad idea that makes education worse.

Instead of pouring more money down the CUEE rathole, I think Jim Parker had a good idea for the Chamber:

How about as a first step the Chamber pledge an equivalent amount of money it and its members have spent on CUEE to the Boards of Education yearly, to be used as the teachers see fit?
I’m sure the two school boards could use $150,000 each for their teachers.

How about it, Chamber? Want to show some leadership?

-jsq

VLCIA and local counties

In which of these five, seven, eleven, or thirteen counties is Athens, Georgia?

According to Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), Regional Hub,

Valdosta is a regional hub for eleven Georgia counties and two Florida counties. Valdosta-Lowndes County acts not only as the regional hub for retail, medical, transportation and entertainment. Our community is also the regional hub for employment for five contiguous, predominantly rural Georgia counties and two Florida counties (as indicated in the chart to the right) and supports a thirteen county region referenced from the 2000 Census (see chart attached below).
The five Georgia counties are (alphabetically) Brooks, Cook, Echols, Lanier, and Lowndes, and the two Florida counties are Hamilton and Madison. In which of those seven counties is Athens, Georgia?

The thirteen counties, barely legible on VLCIA’s webpage, are: Berrien GA, Brooks GA, Clinch GA, Colquitt GA, Columbia FL, Cook GA, Dougherty GA, Duval FL, Echols GA, Fulton GA, Hamilton FL, Lanier GA, and Madison FL. Fulton County, Georgia? OK, that’s odd. Hm, the table is entitled

“Journeys To and From LOWNDES GA (Threshold = 50)”.
It’s about vehicles travelling in and out of Lowndes County. So Fulton makes some sense, due to people travelling between here and Atlanta. Local region, though? Not Fulton. Ditto Duval County, Florida. Jacksonville, local? I think not.

So maybe call it an eleven county region. In which of those eleven or thirteen counties is Athens, Georgia?

-jsq