{"id":1142,"date":"2012-01-30T12:14:17","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T17:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/why-doesnt-vlcia-buy-locally.html"},"modified":"2012-01-30T12:14:17","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T17:14:17","slug":"why-doesnt-vlcia-buy-locally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/why-doesnt-vlcia-buy-locally.html","title":{"rendered":"Why doesn&#8217;t VLCIA buy locally?"},"content":{"rendered":"Col. Ricketts reminded VLCIA board members at their most recent\nregular meeting (2012 01 17) that he had asked\nthem for input about trees for Miller and Westside Business Parks.\n<blockquote>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/98706376@N00\/6771546137\/in\/photostream\/\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7019\/6771546137_e66c0a380f_m.jpg\"><\/a>\nWe have identified trees from a nursery,\nSelect Trees, in\nAthens, Georgia,\nwith a special five year warranty on those trees,\nthat meet our landscape plans for both Miller and Westside Business Park.\nAs we discussed in our last board meeting, there is some cost savings\navailable to us, and the ability for us to\nselect trees now and hold them if we make a deposit.\n<\/blockquote>\nOK, I commend VLCIA staff and board for trying to save we the taxpayers money.\n<p>\nBut isn&#8217;t VLCIA supposed to be promoting local business and agriculture?\nWhy is our Industrial Authority outsourcing to a company halfway across\nthe state?\nWhy doesn&#8217;t it buy locally, even if it costs a little more?\n<p>\nFor that matter, aren&#8217;t there plenty of local trees, like sycamores,\nmagnolias, and even longleaf pines that would cost very little to\ntransplant to a local business park?\nMaybe those are the types of trees they&#8217;re buying.\nWe don&#8217;t know, because only the board got the list of trees.\n<p>\nFor that matter, why didn&#8217;t VLCIA put out a public request for bids for the trees?\n<p>\nHere&#8217;s\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FoKXA2ptLLE&#038;list=PLD29284E9C24F496D&#038;index=9&#038;feature=plpp_video\">\nthe video:<\/a>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"480\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FoKXA2ptLLE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<br>\n<small>\nWhy doesn&#8217;t VLCIA buy locally?\n<br>\nRegular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),\n<br>Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,\n<br>Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,\n<br>\nValdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 January 2012.\n<br>\nVideos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.\n<\/small>\n<p>\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Col. Ricketts reminded VLCIA board members at their most recent regular meeting (2012 01 17) that he had asked them for input about trees for Miller and Westside Business Parks. We have identified trees from a nursery, Select Trees, in Athens, Georgia, with a special five year warranty on those trees, that meet our landscape [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[202,14,740,2,3,178,3124],"tags":[3125,8750,2298,2140,8801,8701,1814,186,548,8702,12,7,185,181,769,502,2139,182,8700,155,6,180,8749],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-economy","category-forestry","category-government","category-transparency","category-vlcia","category-vlcia-2012-01-17","tag-17-january-2012","tag-agriculture","tag-allan-ricketts-project-manager","tag-andrea-schruijer-executive-director","tag-forestry","tag-georgia","tag-j-stephen-gupton-attorney","tag-jerry-jennett","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mary-gooding","tag-norman-bennett","tag-nursery","tag-regular-meeting","tag-roy-copeland-chairman","tag-tom-call","tag-transparency","tag-trees","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-iq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}