{"id":1603,"date":"2011-08-24T10:42:53","date_gmt":"2011-08-24T14:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/qualifying-for-local-city-elections-is-next-week.html"},"modified":"2011-08-24T10:42:53","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T14:42:53","slug":"qualifying-for-local-city-elections-is-next-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/qualifying-for-local-city-elections-is-next-week.html","title":{"rendered":"Qualifying for local city elections is next week"},"content":{"rendered":"

The VDT
\n
\neditorialized yesterday<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nOn Monday, qualifying week begins for candidates interested in running
\nin the November election for
\nValdosta<\/a> Mayor, City Council At Large and
\nCouncil Districts 1, 3, and 5;
\n
\nHahira<\/a> City Council Districts 2 and 3;
\n
\nCity of Dasher<\/a>
\nPost 3 and 4;
\n
\nCity of Lake Park<\/a> Mayor and four council
\npositions;
\n
\nRemerton<\/a> Mayor and five council seats;
\n
\nValdosta School Board<\/a>
\nDistricts 4, 5, and 6.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The VDT points out that city elections usually don’t get much turnout,
\nbut this year there are two referendum questions on the ballot that
\nmay cause record turnout.
\nThey are:<\/p>\n


\n


\nSunday alcohol sales<\/a><\/H3>
\n
\n<\/a>
\nOn 21 July 2011 the Valdosta City Council voted to put a referendum
\non the ballot for
\n
\npermitting sales of alcohol on Sunday<\/a>.
\nThat’s something that could get even students out to vote.
\nIt was students such as
\n
\nJordan Leman<\/a> and
\n
\nAlexander Abell<\/a>
\nwho lobbied the heaviest to get the City Council to do that.
\nNow, can they turn out the vote?
\n

School consolidation<\/H3>
\n
\n<\/a>
\n
\nCUEE<\/a> managed to get its school unification (or consolidation or desegregation)
\nreferendum on the ballot with
\n
\n0.33% more than the 25% of registered voters required<\/a>.
\nHow many of those petition signers believed CUEE’s rhetoric that
\nsigning the petition wasn’t a vote for consolidation?
\nIf a lot of them did, they might just turn out to vote no.
\nCan FVCS<\/a> get them out to vote do that?
\nOr will FVCS get an injunction to stop that referendum
\nbecause according to the Georgia Constitution:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n“no such consolidation shall become effective until approved by a majority
\nof the qualified voters voting thereon in each separate school system
\nproposed to be consolidated”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even if the Valdosta school consolidation referendum passes,
\na county-wide referendum may be necessary to decide the issue.
\n

Get out and vote<\/H3>
\nIf you don’t, don’t whine about the result.
\nPlus there are plenty of things to do in addition to voting:
\nregister people to vote, make telephone calls, take leaflets door to door,
\ncarry people to the polls, etc.
\n

Who’s running?<\/H3>
\nSuccessful local candidates have filed at the last minute with almost
\nno campaign funds and won. Joyce Evans’ most recent campaign for
\nCounty Commission, for example.
\nIf I recall correctly, Annie Fisher’s recent run for Valdosta School Board
\nis another example.
\nIf you live in one of the local cities, it’s not too late to run.<\/p>\n

\nHere is the
\n
\nlist of positions up for election and the qualifying fees<\/a>
\naccording to Deb Cox, Lowndes County Supervisor of Elections.<\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The VDT editorialized yesterday: On Monday, qualifying week begins for candidates interested in running in the November election for Valdosta Mayor, City Council At Large and Council Districts 1, 3, and 5; Hahira City Council Districts 2 and 3; City of Dasher Post 3 and 4; City of Lake Park Mayor and four council positions; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,87,40,1376,601,15,49,3305,2,602,603,22,604,54],"tags":[8733,1636,8790,1565,3472,8721,8791,8792,3854,1486,8793,2877,1635,6],"class_list":["post-1603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-alcohol","category-community","category-cuee","category-dasher","category-education","category-elections","category-fvcs","category-government","category-hahira","category-lake-park","category-politics","category-remerton","category-valdosta-city-council","tag-alcohol","tag-consolidation","tag-dasher","tag-deb-cox","tag-desegregation","tag-elections","tag-hahira","tag-lake-park","tag-qualifying","tag-referendum","tag-remerton","tag-school","tag-unification","tag-valdosta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603","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=1603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}