As the Hog Show Weigh-In yesterday,
in addition to still pictures,
Gretchen took videos. Don’t miss the piggy kung fu!
Here’s
a playlist:
Weigh-In at the Hog Show
agriculture, hogs, pigs,
34th Annual Lowndes Area Market Show and Sale, 4H + FFA (Hog Show),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 31 October 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
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See also the statements against consolidation by
both school boards.
Many citizens spoke at the
29 August 2011 VBOE meeting
where all but one Valdosta School Board member
voted for the statement against consolidation.
VBOE then held three open forums:
Continue reading
This was the first of three forums on school consolidation
hosted by the Valdosta Board of Education.
It was at Valdosta High School on 8 September 2011.
Here’s a playlist:
VBOE School Consolidation Forum @ VHS 8 September 2011
education, schools, referendum, consolidation, unification,
Forum at Valdosta High School, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 9 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
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Commissioner Crawford Powell wanted exemptions or exceptions
to Lowndes County’s travel policy for
“department heads, elected officials, County Manager”.
Commissioner Richard Raines just wanted the limits raised.
Commissioner Joyce Evans preferred they
…make a statement that we should not exceed a certain amount per day.Chairman Ashley Paulk said exceptions were a problem and indicated they would be a bad idea. Powell and Raines are the same Commissioners who thought accepting a federal grant for NOAA Weather Radios would be “wasteful spending” of tax dollars and who refused a federal grant for an emergency vehicle. Spending local taxes seems fine with then when it comes to their travel expenses. They finally adopted a total of $75/day for meals. I hate to agree with Frank Barnas, but GSA standard for trips to Atlanta is $56/day.
At the Monday 24 October 2011 County Commission Work Session, County Manager Pritchard said the county’s travel policy had been discussed during their retreat and during budget preparations, with changes for mileage reimbursement, meal limitations, and use of tax forms. .
This is the policy we have been acting under since the adoption of the budget. I just wanted to bring it back before you to make this adoption public.Joyce Evans expressed a concern about it saying the County Manager or his designee could approve expenses. She seemed to want the designee part removed.
Crawford Powell said:
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
She also said: Continue readingHi, I’m a parent, and I have three kids in school right now; one just graduated.
First of all, CUEE sent me flyers… to insult my schools…. That was very hurtful for my children to read those flyers telling them how bad my schools are. My schools are not bad, and I’m very upset about that.
[applause]
Continue readingRight 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….
Lowndes County Board of Education will hold a
An Open Forum on Financial Issues Concerning Consolidation:
6PM, 1 November 2011All about the previous LCBOE Forum of 4 October 2011.
Lowndes High Cafeteria
1606 Norman Drive
Valdosta, GA
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The latest update, 26 October 2011, is online for the
community calendar
produced by
Jane F. Osborn
who organizes the
Valdosta Civic Roundtable.
She wrote:
…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don’t.
-jsq
and why I call on them to stand up and say whether they are for or against it:
the same old disproved disinformation sent again yesterday by a
CUEE board member from
the Chamber’s own email address to Chamber members.
If you support CUEE, you support this disinformation campaign
instead of real research that shows consolidation would do nothing
to improve education, it would raise everyone’s taxes, and
it would not help attract industry.
Instead, it would seriously damage public education.
This is not a time to be silent. Which side are you on? CUEE and the Chamber’s propaganda campaign? Or public education, and you will vote no?
CUEE Board Member “Jud Rackley, CPA” emailed yesterday from chamber@valdostachamber.com, subject “The Truth About School Taxes and Unification”, including:
I’ve heard several people say school unification will cause a significant tax increase. Yet, no one seems to know why this would happen. It appears this rumor is based on a document circulated by the Lowndes County Board of Education.
Dr. Troy Davis
spelled out why taxes would increase,
based on actual tax statements, plus information from the Lowndes County
Tax Assessors’ office and the actual budgets of the Valdosta and Lowndes
County School Systems.
See also former Valdosta
School Superintendent Sam Allen’s partial list
of massive layoffs, service cuts, and school closings
caused by reduced income because of less federal and state funding,
and increased costs due to bussing.
And the formal statements against consolidation approved overwhelmingly
by both school boards.
In addition to these statements by people with actual experience in school
administration, see also
the extensive statement against consolidation by the Valdosta City Council,
and
even the VDT turned against this consolidation effort.
If that’s not enough, David Mullis has compiled all the research
into a convenient
Grassroots Handbook Against School Consolidation.
Opposed to all this evidence, we have this undocumented letter Continue reading
