{"id":439,"date":"2012-10-05T18:23:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T22:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/new-library-kay-harris-lcdp-2012-10-01.html"},"modified":"2012-10-05T18:23:19","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T22:23:19","slug":"new-library-kay-harris-lcdp-2012-10-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/new-library-kay-harris-lcdp-2012-10-01.html","title":{"rendered":"New Library &mdash;Kay Harris @ LCDP 2012-10-01"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nAt Monday&#8217;s Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting,\nLCDP Chair\nGretchen Quarterman introduced Kay Harris as chairman of the Library Board.\nYou can see that board in action a few weeks ago\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/10\/south-georgia-library-board-sglb-2012-09-18.html\">\nin these previous videos.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mg12OYq8jsY\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/i2.ytimg.com\/vi\/Mg12OYq8jsY\/default.jpg\"><\/a>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mg12OYq8jsY\">\nKay Harris<\/a> said she was not there as editor of the newspaper,\nsince as such she wouldn&#8217;t be allowed (presumably by the newspaper)\nat a partisan meeting.\nShe was there as chair of the library board.\nShe said this is her fifth year on that board, and\nher second year as chairman.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nHere&#8217;s\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PL5eRMknAZ0hS7e8LFf-nH-eboRX_PT0Gh\">\na video playlist.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/videoseries?list=PL5eRMknAZ0hS7e8LFf-nH-eboRX_PT0Gh&amp;hl=en_US\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>\nShe said the county put her on that board to move along the\nlibrary project, which had been in process for some time.\nShe said she had led negotiations with the City of Valdosta\nfor the Five Points process.\nShe mentioned the\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/08\/five-points-steering-committee-presentation-by-mara-register-lcdp-1-august-2011.html\">\nFive Points Steering Committee<\/a>,\nof which she is also a member.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAbout the current library building and how the new one would be better,\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JJl_2kdyBow\">\nshe said<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n\n<!--more-->\n<blockquote>\nThe 62,000 square feet that the building is going to be is the\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JJl_2kdyBow\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/i3.ytimg.com\/vi\/JJl_2kdyBow\/default.jpg\"><\/a>\nminimum that meets current state standards.\nWe are less than half that now.\nSo we don&#8217;t anywhere near closely meet the current state standards\nfor what this community is supposed to have.\nWe don&#8217;t have the number of books; we don&#8217;t have the number of computers;\nwe are seriously seriously behind just what the current standards are.\nThe community put that library up about 50 years ago; it&#8217;s about 45 years old,\nand they just haven&#8217;t really done a whole lot to it since, folks.\nThey added some on in the early 90s.\nThe roof leaks, there&#8217;s mold, there&#8217;s two HVAC systems that don&#8217;t work together.\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nShe said the plan included a separate space for African-American history,\nand also a temperature-controlled genealogy collection area,\nplus a coffee shop.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nShe said the state estimated $21 million, but the\ncounty and &#8220;the architect we&#8217;ve selected&#8221;\nthink it can come in at $16 million.\nOf that $13 million is to come from SPLOST VII (<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/10\/kickoff-speeches-splost-2012-09-28.html\">\non the ballot in November<\/a>).\nThe rest must come from the state, if the legislature\nchooses to fund it, and they usually only fund one\nlibrary project a year, maybe two or three.\nThat would be only $1 million.\nThe rest will come from the sale of the property\nto South Georgia Medical Center.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nShe said the computers are packed now with students doing homework,\npeople filling out job applications,\nfilling out college applications&#8230;\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\nAnd everything else that&#8217;s currently online that you don&#8217;t have\naccess to if you don&#8217;t have a computer.\nAnd unfortunately it&#8217;s hard to convince some folks in this town\nthat every person in this county doesn&#8217;t have a computer at home.\nIt&#8217;s amazing to me how many people think, &#8220;just tell them to\ngo buy one for themselves.&#8221;\nWell, sure, that&#8217;s real easy, isn&#8217;t it?\nEverybody&#8217;s got a couple thousand dollars sitting around.\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nWould that be the sort of people who think\n<a href=\"\/blog\/category\/noaa-weather-radios\">\nanyone can afford $21 for a NOAA weather radio<\/a>\nso the county shouldn&#8217;t accept a grant to buy them,\nyet it can\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/10\/75day-lowndes-county-travel-policy-lcc-24-25-october-2011.html\">\naward the Commissioners $75\/day for travel<\/a>\nand\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/12\/lowndes-county-priorities-tanks-and-lunches-for-commissioners-but-no-lunches-for-seniors.html\">\nbuy a tank?<\/a>\nI&#8217;m just guessing; she didn&#8217;t say.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nKay Harris said the library is currently 60 computers\nbelow the state requirement,\nand the new facility needs at least 150.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThis is all great stuff.\nStill, putting the library in the soon-to-be-vacant federal building\nwould probably cost even less.\nAnd she had no explanation for why the library board selected\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/07\/library-board-selects-out-of-state-architect-for-local-library-lcc-2012-07-24.html\">\nan out-of-state architect.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Monday&#8217;s Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting, LCDP Chair Gretchen Quarterman introduced Kay Harris as chairman of the Library Board. You can see that board in action a few weeks ago in these previous videos. Kay Harris said she was not there as editor of the newspaper, since as such she wouldn&#8217;t be allowed (presumably [&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":[40,49,1148,322,22,52],"tags":[1599,8721,8820,8701,10,135,8762,405,7,938,1313,8712,8724,1157,6],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-elections","category-fpsc","category-lcdp","category-politics","category-splost","tag-1-october-2012","tag-elections","tag-fpsc","tag-georgia","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-kay-harris","tag-lcdp","tag-library","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-democratic-party","tag-monthly-meeting","tag-politics","tag-splost","tag-splost-vii","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-75","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439","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=439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}