{"id":1702,"date":"2011-07-27T11:02:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T15:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/vdt-gets-feisty-with-vlcia-over-biomass.html"},"modified":"2011-07-27T11:02:07","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T15:02:07","slug":"vdt-gets-feisty-with-vlcia-over-biomass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/vdt-gets-feisty-with-vlcia-over-biomass.html","title":{"rendered":"VDT gets feisty with VLCIA over biomass"},"content":{"rendered":"After noting that the Industrial Authority still hasn’t resolved\n\nstill hasn’t decided about Sterling Planet’s land purchase offer<\/a>\neven though\n\nthey had a meeting last week at which they could have,<\/a>\nwith their new executive director and their new chairman,\nthe VDT editorialized today:<\/a>\n
\nThe IA promised a future of more open communication.\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAnd yet Tuesday, the board’s attorney refused to answer any questions\nregarding the potential sale of the land to the company, citing a caveat\nin the Open Records Act that protects information involved in a current\nlegal issue. The Times issued an Open Records request Tuesday to obtain\nthe information requested or copies of the litigation documents, assuming\nthat since the attorney cited this exemption, there is an active lawsuit\nover the land sale.\n<\/blockquote>\nGood point!\n

\nThe VDT acknowledged its own mistake and moved to correct it:\n\n\n\n
\n\n\"Roy<\/a>\n
\n\n\"Tom<\/a>\n
\n\n\"Mary<\/a>\n
\n\n\"Norman<\/a>\n
\n\n\"Jerry<\/a>\n<\/td>\n<\/table>\n
\nThe Times was trying to help the Authority put the issue to rest once\nand for all, but the continued refusal to answer questions equates to a\ncontinued disdain of the right of the public to know what is happening\nwith land that was purchased with their tax dollars and a project that\nwould have used their tax dollars for years to come.\n

\nThe Authority’s all volunteer, appointed board doesn’t deserve to\ncontinue under a cloud of suspicion. Put the matter to rest. Either you\nare selling them the land or you are not. But don’t keep operating in\nthe dark.\n<\/blockquote>\nThis would be the Authority that, two weeks after the VDT\n\npublished a picture of new executive director Andrea Schruijer,<\/a>\ndoesn’t even have a picture or bio of her\n\n<\/a>\n\non its own website.<\/a>\n

\nIs this what Tom Call meant\n\nwhen he said<\/a>\n

\n“We need to get better at not letting the newspaper dictate our story and tell our own story.”\n<\/blockquote>\nGet puff pieces in the paper, yet never actually address the issues?\n

\nOr maybe the board just isn’t listening to him, since another of his\nsuggestions, to publish a timeline for executive director selection,\nnever seems to have happened.\nHe also said:\n\n<\/a>\n

\n“I volunteer my time to make this board better.”\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, let’s see Tom Call and the other board members make this\nAuthority better, by making it act less like an unaccountable\nAuthority and more like an organization\n
\n“for the purpose of developing and promoting the public good and the welfare of the County of Lowndes and the City of Valdosta and their inhabitants”\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s what\n\nVLCIA’s charter from the state<\/a>\nsays it is supposed to be for.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After noting that the Industrial Authority still hasn’t resolved still hasn’t decided about Sterling Planet’s land purchase offer even though they had a meeting last week at which they could have, with their new executive director and their new chairman,","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":[97,120,48,40,70,19,20,733,3,133,178,1811],"tags":[8738,4036,1877,8701,8710,2475,1241,7,730,8711,1876,4037,8840,182,8700,6,8742,8749],"class_list":["post-1702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-code-enforcement","category-community","category-ethics","category-history","category-law","category-media","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-vlcia","category-vlcia-19-july-2011","tag-biomass","tag-charter","tag-general-welfare","tag-georgia","tag-law","tag-lawsuit","tag-legal","tag-lowndes-county","tag-open-records","tag-planning","tag-public-good","tag-purpose","tag-sterling-planet","tag-tom-call","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-rs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702","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=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}