John, this is the first open records reguest I did with GDA. The rest will be in order of date of the request.The document Shirley King attached for Item #2 was this PDF of a letter from Joe Pritchard of 27 August 2010 telling
Documents about the animal shelter are appearing here on the LAKE web pages. Here are the messages Susan Leavens forwarded along with this particular letter.
-jsq Continue reading
Concerned Citizen,Continue readingPlease understand that there are state laws that people get arrested for each day also; the county ordiance mirrors the state law(s) however if you have not read the statements no one was arrested either. And do you think the bulldog was the first incident? Keep reading!! Below are some other things which have occured in the shelter.
Page 3 #15 Cruelty,
Page 5 #23 hoplesly disable animal,
page 5 #26 humane care,
page 7 #36 records,
Section 5 page 10 Emergencies involving animals,
to name a few of the Lowndes County Ordinance.So when you say why didn’t I(Officer Leavens)end
…the Humane Society provided two county employees with undercover cameras as a gratuity.The picture shows Ashley Paulk (center) motioning to VDT reporter David Rodock (foreground) as he directs the VDT to publish what he just said. Mechelle Sullivan is on the right, and County Manager Joe Pritchard looks on from left. Voting Commissioners Evans, Raines, and Powell are just visible between Paulk and Sullivan.
…
I want those two undercover cameras returned by my two employees, or there will be some administrative action.
…
I’m making this a public record.
…
If I don’t get those cameras back and the gratuity I’m going to pursue it through the Sheriff’s office.
…
Needs to be public record in the VDT.
The VDT did take dictation and publish that this morning, adding this quote from Chairman Paulk:
“It’s a gratuity. You can’t give a government employee something in order to get something in return. It’s not legal.”Other things are also not legal, yet never seem to be pursued.
Speaking of pursued, Chairman Paulk encountered a group of Continue reading
She gave some examples.However, the most frustrating to me was the lack of enforcement of animal…. You know, this went on for a long time time and we were all very frustrated. And so we finally decided that the only way to improve enforcement was to strengthen animal control laws…. So the Human Society was very interested in strenghtening those laws. And I think the animal control ordinances now are [better]. However, enforcement is still an issue.
Here’s the video:
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 June 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Continued in next post.
-jsq
Sheriff Prine was at last night’s
budget hearing (his office accounts for more of the county
budget than anything else).
Afterwards I asked him how matters such as the complaints about
the animal shelter could be brought to the attention of his office.
He said that was a code enforcement matter, and if code enforcement
thought it rose to a criminal matter, they would take it to Magistrate
Court, which would issue a warrant, which would go to the Sheriff’s office,
where it would be pursued.
Remember who code enforcement is in Lowndes County. Continue reading
budget hearing today, 28 June 2011 at 5PM.
The county didn’t publish the proposed budbget, but
LAKE did.
Maybe you’d like to come ask some questions, like
these by Jessica Bryan Hughes.
Then there’s the regular session of the County Commission; agenda appended. They plan to vote tonight to approve the budget they never published.
-jsq
Continue reading
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2011, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
These are the open records that me and another animal control officer sent to GDA and I also have Amanda Jordans Statement if you would like that. Please excuse some of the language in my statement she (pat smith GDA inspector) told me to write it like it was said….Here they are on the LAKE web pages.
These records include much more detail than what we’ve heard before.
After reading them, do you think installing a few cameras is adequate to deal with this situation?
-jsq
This is ridiculous.This comment came in yesterday on Proposed Lowndes County Budget published by LAKE.
- Why make it hard to obtain the budget?
- What is the “Bird Supper”?
- Why is the County Attorney $100k over budget?
- Why don’t I see those cameras listed for the Animal Shelter?
-Jessica Bryan Hughes
The blogger then goes on to quote Georgia Code, which only brings in the word “maliciously” for higher fines or imprisonment for aggravated cruelty to animals.I beg to differ with Mr. Pritchard’s opinion regarding “malicious intent”.
Lowndes County Manager Joe Pritchard says, “I don’t believe through our investigation, nor through any info we received from the Department of Ag, are able to indicate any malicious intent.”
Mr. Pritchard should understand that it matters not if this was done with “malicious intent” or not. “Malicous intent” should be determined by the investigating criminal agency, not a county manager. “Malicious Intent” is only important in determining whether the crime should be filed as a felony, or a misdemeanor.
The law is crystal clear regarding the denial of necessary medical care, and/or humane euthanasia, for any animal deemed to be in need of such. Any time a shelter impounds/houses a live animal, the shelter is required, by law, to afford that animal with humane care – to include necessary medical care or treatment.
The blogger summarizes: Continue reading
This fits right in with Joe Pritchard’s rumored suggestion to replace animal shelter employees with interns.With the recent exodus of undocumented Hispanic migrant workers leaving Georgia to avoid the consequences of House Bill 87, Gov. Nathan Deal made a statement on Tuesday suggesting that probationers could potentially fill the approximately 11,000 open jobs in the state’s agricultural economy.
“Specifically, I asked Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens and (Department of Agriculture) Commissioner Gary Black to review the current situation and offer possible options,” said Deal in his statement. “Commissioner Owens has indicated that there are 100,000 probationers statewide, 8,000 of which are in the Southwest region of the state and 25 percent of which are unemployed … I believe this would be a great partial solution to our current status as we continue to move towards sustainable results with the legal options available.”
The potential move would allow probationers who are unable to find work to have a source of income, provided they are able to meet employer standards. Income can then be used to pay probation fines, along with other state fines that are a requirement of their probation sentence.
Hey, if there’s one thing Georgia is good at, it’s locking up more people even while other states realize they can’t afford to do that anymore.
So if probationers don’t want to pick onions, lock ’em up again, in the new private prison VLCIA wants to build in Lowndes County! That will benefit private prison executives and investors and not us in Lowndes County, but hey, that will serve those immigrants right!
-jsq