{"id":2363,"date":"2011-02-24T16:27:47","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T21:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/authority-should-listen-to-other-sources-john-s-quarterman.html"},"modified":"2011-02-24T16:27:47","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T21:27:47","slug":"authority-should-listen-to-other-sources-john-s-quarterman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/authority-should-listen-to-other-sources-john-s-quarterman.html","title":{"rendered":"Authority should listen to other sources –John S. Quarterman"},"content":{"rendered":"

This op-ed by me appeared in the VDT today, 24 Feb 2011.
\nOn 15 Feb 2011 I spoke directly to the VLCIA board about the main points
\nand the next day I sent them the longer version,
\n
\nWhy “jobs, jobs, jobs” isn’t good enough for the public good and the general welfare<\/a>,
\nwhich includes links to videos of the relevant speeches and to
\n
\nVLCIA’s charter.<\/a> -jsq<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nEveryone wants jobs for those who need them and jobs for
\nyoung people so they don’t have to go somewhere else to find one.
\nBut what good is that if those jobs suck up all the water those people
\nneed to drink?<\/p>\n

\nAt the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner Brad Lofton gave
\na speech which I liked, and I told him so afterwards, because it
\nwas mostly about real industry with real jobs that that the
\nValdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) has brought
\ninto the area.<\/p>\n

\nBut it had a problem:\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

\n“What I believe the three most important things are, …
\nfor our community, and our state, and our country, …
\nthat’s jobs number 1, jobs number 2, and jobs.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An executive director of an industrial authority should be all
\nabout jobs, as long as the industrial authority listens to other people or
\norganizations who have larger concerns for our community, our state,
\nand our country. But that isn’t what’s happening.<\/p>\n

\nSpeaking immediately before Lofton, Ben Copeland, former chairman
\nof the board of Wiregrass Technical College asked:<\/p>\n

\n“How much growth do we want?”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Copeland is on the regional state water board, and he also asked:<\/p>\n

\n“Do we want to be Jacksonville? Do we want to be Tallahassee? Do we
\nwant to be a large metropolitan region? …
\nWater is going to be very important as we expand our industrial
\nbase. Because we’re going to have folks who like to start up jobs here
\nbecause of the water we have. How much of that water can be used to
\nsustain jobs. Those are the questions….
\nPeople need to be informed; need to be aware; that we have to use
\nresources very very carefully; at the same time in a way that provides
\njobs to our citizens for prosperity.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lofton said nothing about those questions, but this is not about Brad
\nLofton. The VLCIA board does not address those questions. Instead, as
\nthey have stated in their meetings, they trust trust government agencies
\nto run down checklists. They systematically ignore evidence brought
\nto them by outside parties.<\/p>\n

\nVLCIA needs to take into account resource use, specifically water, but
\nalso air, forests, roads, and other resources, in ways that are verifiable by
\nindependent third parties. VLCIA needs to take into account existing
\ncommunities. Individually, VLCIA board members may be able to say,<\/p>\n

\n“I am not a scientist; I am a business man.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But as members of the VLCIA, and collectively as the VLCIA board,
\nthey are making decisions that affect not just their own individual
\nbusinesses. Decisions that affect not just the individual businesses
\nthey are evaluating. They are making decisions that affect the whole
\ncommunity. In their role as the VLCIA board, they are not just business
\npeople. They are policy makers for the whole community. Policy makers
\nwho need to be taking into account the health, safety, and livability
\nof the community.<\/p>\n

\nVLCIA’s own charter says:<\/p>\n

\n“This act, being for the purpose of developing and promoting the
\npublic good and the welfare of the County of Lowndes and the City
\nof Valdosta and their inhabitants, shall be liberally construed to
\neffect the purposes hereof.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not just promoting the bottom line of the companies coming here; not
\njust trusting government agencies to check boxes on checklists; not just
\nbragging about numbers of jobs brought into the community. To develop and
\npromote the public good and the welfare of the community. To do that job,
\nthey need to listen to the whole community, and take into account what
\npeople not in their club say.<\/p>\n

\nVLCIA needs to step up to its responsibility to the next generation.
\nIt’s not good enough to say,<\/p>\n

\n“You either trust them or you don’t. I happen to trust them.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trust isn’t enough. VLCIA needs to verify that a business is appropriate
\nfor the public good and the general welfare. If they’re not willing to
\ndo that in-house, they need to start listening to the numerous people
\nnot on their staff or board who are doing it for them.<\/p>\n

\nThe Valdosta City Council and the Lowndes County Commission need
\nto appoint people to the VLCIA board who will listen, and then watch
\nthem to be sure they do.<\/p>\n

\nVLCIA has a hard job. And they’re not used to all this citizen
\ninvolvement. But we who are interested, all of us, are not their enemies:
\nwe are their allies as part of the same community, state, and country.<\/p>\n

\nJohn S. Quarterman is a resident of Lowndes County.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This op-ed by me appeared in the VDT today, 24 Feb 2011. On 15 Feb 2011 I spoke directly to the VLCIA board about the main points and the next day I sent them the longer version, Why “jobs, jobs, jobs” isn’t good enough for the public good and the general welfare, which includes links […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,556,48,14,15,16,2,41,21,289,3,133,178,55,501],"tags":[193,1747,300,969,8701,793,189,186,847,548,8702,12,7,1169,185,181,183,182,6,180,8749],"class_list":["post-2363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-air","category-code-enforcement","category-economy","category-education","category-environment","category-government","category-health-care","category-planning","category-science","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-vlcia","category-water","category-wiregrass-tech","tag-allan-ricketts","tag-brad-lofton","tag-development","tag-economics","tag-georgia","tag-industry","tag-j-stephen-gupton","tag-jerry-jennett","tag-jobs","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-marketing","tag-mary-gooding","tag-norman-bennett","tag-roy-copeland","tag-tom-call","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vlcia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363","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=2363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}