\n\n<\/a>\nYost engaged Dr. Noll (and was unpleasant about it) at one meeting that I attended, Mayor Fretti engages people sometimes, Attorney Talley engaged J. Smith last Thursday, and sometimes others at other meetings, myself included, and Vickers talks pretty much to whomever he wants whenever he wants. The whole CTBH policy is a smokescreen. The Council Comments period ought to be followed by adjournment and then the Councilmembers making their remarks from the dais during Council Comments ought to have to walk out into the audience and deal with the voters’ concerns directly.\n
\nWhen Jimmy Rainwater was Mayor, I may not always have agreed with him, or he with me, but he always came out into the audience and talked to us.\n
\nThis Council is not responsive to the concerns of its citizens,\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
\nand has basically disengaged from their duty to listen and respond to their constituents with appropriate due diligence and transparency.\n\nWhen I read the transcript of Mr. Carroll’s interview with Karen Noll, I was dismayed. After he has been educated on the health concerns associated with this biomass incinerator (each Councilmember was given a portfolio of health and medical studies from the nation’s most prestigious medical organizations, published in the nation’s most prestigious medical journals, and WACE spent a great deal of money to provide these resources to them)… after he’s been educated that there are 3 elementary schools, a HeadStart, and a nursing home in harm’s way, he still refuses to take a public position and says it’s up to the Industrial Authority.\n
\nMr. Carroll, you were elected to represent a residential district that has a lot of young families as well as retired folks in it, do you really think the needs of wealthy investors trump the needs of babies and children and senior citizens to live and breathe clean air? We have told you repeatedly that biomass incineration causes Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, asthma (which also kills), and respiratory arrest in older people or those with lung disease. I’ve been down there explaining that the black infant mortality rate in Valdosta is twice as high as the white infant mortality rate, and I showed Council the excellent study by Dr. Robert Bullard of Clark Atlanta University which clearly explains that the Valdosta Southside Community is an Environmental Justice community. I know Vickers and Wright don’t care about this, but can’t you find it in your heart to care about the sorrow of the mothers who live here who are losing babies to SIDS?\n
\nDoes this register with you, Mr. Carroll?\n
\nDeidra White told me it’s up to Henry Hicks, the Mayor told us it’s up to the Industrial Authority, Vickers and Wright say they want it for the jobs and don’t see the big deal about the health issues, and now Carroll says it’s up to the Industrial Authority. Carroll also stated that it was inappropriate for him to ever divulge his position on an issue, any issue, until the moment the vote was taken.\n
\nPayton and Norton are the only two who have not said something, anything, publicly at this point. I appreciate that Mr. Payton has attended many of the WACE public forums. I also see him at the Industrial Authority meetings because his Wiregrass Technical College is involved with development, etc, through IA. I hope this doesn’t mean he feels he cannot speak out on biomass or risk IA not approving something for Wiregrass Technical College.\n
\nMr. Quarterman, I emailed you the transcript of the Tim Carroll interview.\n
\n-Leigh Touchton\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This came in Sunday as a blog post on To Speak or Not to Speak. As a contrast, Lowndes County Commissioners do usually talk to people before and after their meetings, and sometimes they use that time to answer questions citizens asked during the meeting. -jsq Yost engaged Dr. Noll (and was unpleasant about it) […]","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":[97,120,2951,3,54,4596,700],"tags":[1875,8701,8699,7,8700,6],"class_list":["post-2118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-naacp","category-transparency","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vcc-21-april-2011","category-wace","tag-dialog","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-lowndes-county","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-ya","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118","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=2118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}