{"id":943,"date":"2012-04-07T12:30:16","date_gmt":"2012-04-07T16:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/lowndes-county-and-valdosta-history-origins-of-the-old-boys.html"},"modified":"2012-04-07T12:30:16","modified_gmt":"2012-04-07T16:30:16","slug":"lowndes-county-and-valdosta-history-origins-of-the-old-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/lowndes-county-and-valdosta-history-origins-of-the-old-boys.html","title":{"rendered":"Lowndes County and Valdosta history: origins of the old boys"},"content":{"rendered":"If we want good clean industry for jobs for local people, we need good clean local government, too.\nWhy do our local government bodies\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/04\/the-socialized-costs-and-privatized-profits-of-waste-disposal.html\">\nhide when they discuss public goods like waste disposal<\/a>,\ntry to\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/06\/the-council-of-hamlets-meets-tonight-in-valdosta.html\">\navoid stating public positions on issues<\/a>,\nand\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/01\/complaint-1-hahira-ethics-commission-12-january-2012.html\">\nfail to publish minutes of elected bodies?<\/a>\n<p>\nA little reading in local histories of the area or talking to people\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/valdosta-georgia-michael-o-holt\/1100185026?ean=9780738582115&#038;itm=2&#038;usri=valdosta\">\n<img style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   width=\"150\" height=\"215\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/img2.imagesbn.com\/images\/109030000\/109033791.jpg\"><\/a>\nwho were involved even a generation or two back indicates that Lowndes\nCounty has always been a cliquish sort of place, mostly run by old boys,\nfor reasons that made some sense in the early days (lack of resources,\nmainly), but doesn&#8217;t so much anymore in these days of I-75 and I-10,\nairport, railroads that still go everywhere, Moody AFB, VSU as a regional university, technical and community colleges,\ntwo hospitals and medical industry, TitleTown, Grand Bay WMA, Wild Adventures,\nand south Georgia sunshine we can export to Atlanta and points north.\n<p>\nHere are a few books about the old days, all available in local libraries\nand possibly in local bookstores:\n\n<!--more-->\n<ul>\n<li>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alibris.com\/search\/books\/qwork\/6986597\/used\/Valdosta%20%26%20Lowndes%20County%20%3A%20a%20ray%20in%20the%20Sunbelt\">\nValdosta and Lowndes County: A Ray in the Sunbelt<\/a>\nby Louis Schmier, Valdosta and Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce, 1988.\n<br>\nEasy read, lots of pictures, and much useful information.\nIf you want one book to read to get the picture, this is it,\nwith everything from the County Commission going into debt to feed people\nduring the Great Depression to the role of television in the local\ncivil rights movement.\nIt directly discusses the old boy networks of the old days.\nYes, I&#8217;m praising a Chamber of Commerce publication, because this one is good.\n<li>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/pines-and-pioneers-jane-t-shelton\/1005233724?ean=9780877970347\">\nPines and Pioneers: A History of Lowndes County, Georgia, 1825-1900,<\/a>\nJane Shelton, Cherokee Publishing Company, 5\/1\/1976, 308 pages, ISBN-13: 9780877970347\n<br>\nGone with the Wind it&#8217;s not, but lots of solid information in there.\n<li>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/lowndes-county-georgia-joseph-a-tomberlin\/1100569478?ean=9780738543765&#038;itm=1&#038;usri=images+of+america+lowndes\">\n<img style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   width=\"150\" height=\"215\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/img2.imagesbn.com\/images\/168280000\/168287753.JPG\"><\/a>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/valdosta-georgia-michael-o-holt\/1100185026?ean=9780738582115&#038;itm=2&#038;usri=valdosta\">\nValdosta, Georgia<\/a> (Images of America Series),\nby Michael O. Holt.\n<br>\nPictures with a little bit of text.\n<li>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/lowndes-county-georgia-joseph-a-tomberlin\/1100569478?ean=9780738543765&#038;itm=1&#038;usri=images+of+america+lowndes\">\nLowndes County, Georgia<\/a> (Images of America Series)\nby Joseph A. Tomberlin,\nLowndes County Historical Society Staff\n<br>\nPictures with a little bit of text.\n<\/ul>\nThose last two help show that the county is not the same as the city.\n<p>\nOnly a generation ago, the general understanding was that\na couple of local families said frog and all the local elected bodies hopped.\nNowadays I&#8217;m told by some in the know that it&#8217;s a bit more\nbroad-based than that.\n<p>\nUnfortunately, some of the slightly more broad-based old boys\nhave hooked up with\na source of top-down autocracy in DC: <a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/04\/4-down-and-counting-kraft-and-intuit-exit-alec.html\">\nALEC.<\/a>\nThat&#8217;s where\nthe pushes for private prisons, charter schools, school consolidation,\nand some other shadowy things\nwe&#8217;ve been shining a light on have been coming from,\nsprayed like pesticides around here and as far as the statehouse\nby certain of our state- and nationally-prominent newer old boys.\n<p>\nFortunately, as we&#8217;ve also seen recently, the old boys are no longer\nmonolithic, and have disagreed about matters including biomass,\nschool consolidation, and the private prison.\nMaybe diversity of opinion is gaining a foothold.\nMaybe local activism is having some effect\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2012\/02\/community-activism-had-nothing-to-do-with-biomass-plant-not-coming-here-andrea-schruijer-to-bobbi-a-.html\">\neven if some of our appointed bodies&#8217; employees deny it.<\/a>\n(Sorry; I&#8217;m still chuckling about that one.)\n<p>\nIf we want to attract knowledge-based jobs and workers and educate\nour own youth for such jobs, we also need more open government.\nNobody wants to locate a high-tech clean industry in a place\nwhere the old boys are likely to dump a private prison or a\nbiomass plant next to it.\nHow about solar panels at the exits from I-75, on Valdosta City Hall, on the county palace, and on the warehouses in Hahira?\n<p>\nPublic criticism of local government\nis a cost of being a place where good industry\nwants to be.\nThat&#8217;s one reason they call it public service.\n<p>\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If we want good clean industry for jobs for local people, we need good clean local government, too. Why do our local government bodies hide when they discuss public goods like waste disposal, try to avoid stating public positions on issues, and fail to publish minutes of elected bodies? A little reading in local histories [&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":[97,202,140,120,1113,40,601,14,15,16,70,8,2,602,19,72,603,88,570,571,469,21,22,604,24,1923,3,54,178,332],"tags":[8790,8705,8701,8699,2764,8791,8709,8702,8792,12,7,8734,8783,8784,2763,8793,6,8726],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-agriculture","category-alec","category-biomass","category-cca","category-community","category-dasher","category-economy","category-education","category-environment","category-ethics","category-georgia","category-government","category-hahira","category-history","category-incarceration","category-lake-park","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-military","category-moody-afb","category-naylor","category-planning","category-politics","category-remerton","category-solar","category-sports","category-transparency","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vlcia","category-vlcoc","tag-dasher","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-grand-bay-wma","tag-hahira","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-lake-park","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-military","tag-moody-afb","tag-public-service","tag-remerton","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-city-council"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-fd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943","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=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}