After reading this post, a question came to mind. Have we the
citizens of Lowndes County
actually been encouraging our elected
officials to be fiscally irresponsible with public funds by allowing
SPLOST to continue? if elected officials had to allocate resources
in a yearly budget, we may actually encourage our officials to
allocate resources towards public projects that would be desirable
by the public rather than a priority in pthe minds of our elected
officials.
And it wasn’t even close:
2,152,091 to 1,526,959 (58.50% to 41.50%).
Lowndes County went for the Atlanta-power-grab “charter school” amendment
18,606 to 17,619 (51.36% to 48.64%).
The voters of Georgia just sold their children’s educational
birthright for a mess of slick brochures.
Apparently Georgia voters will vote for any old thing that’s
submitted to them as a constitutional amendment.
Congratulations, ALEC and Wal-Mart!
You’ve demonstrated money talks and
slick brochures sell.
This was even better for you than
ALEC’s so-called anti-immigration law which the legislature passed
and
that actually devastates Georgia agriculture for
the profit of private prison company CCA.
This time you got the people of Georgia to vote directly against
their own best interests to the benefit of school privatizing
corporations in Virginia and Michigan!
Speaking of
transparency,
Lowndes County voters defeated SPLOST VII 18,864 to 17,923 (51.28% to 48.72%).
Kay Harris in the VDT today quoted Ashley Paulk with this reason:
The defeat came as a surprise to Mayor John Gayle but not to Lowndes
County Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk, who said he warned the
mayors of the five municipalities that if they continued to argue
over
LOST, the local option sales tax, that voters would turn
against SPLOST in retaliation.
“I told them at the beginning if they didn’t stop arguing over
a few percent of the LOST and refused to leave the numbers as is by
taking the county’s offer, that taxpayers were going to turn against
the SPLOST,” said Paulk.
“Voters are disenchanted with the way their local governments
have gotten greedy and they’re tired of the arguments over money.
They voted SPLOST down because they don’t trust us with their tax
dollars, and it’s a real shame.”
I would agree
bickering over the
LOST pie was one of the reasons
SPLOST lost, and add to that the opaque back-room processes by which
the SPLOST VII projects were selected.
While the library needs updated and expanded facilities,
the lack of documented decision process
for the architect
and lack of adequate explanation for that
probably didn’t help, either,
nor did
the county’s puzzling lumping of the library in with Parks and Rec.
which they later tried to clarify.
Perhaps the voters are
tired of seeing transparency be a constant source of tension.
And I’m using the library as just one example. I could equally cite the
project for a farmers market under the overpass, which I think is a bad idea
because the farmers market already has a fabulous location at the historic
Lowndes County Courthouse, and so far as I know none of the vendors who sell there
were even asked if they wanted a new location, much less the public who buy there.
There’s an election going on!
Here are some pictures of precincts around Lowndes County today.
I’ve seen no lines, and everything seems to be flowing smoothly.
Except there are multiple reports that when people call the Board of Elections
to ask where they vote they’re getting a “this number disconnected” message.
Apparently there are ten phone lines down there but only three people
answering them, and the phone is not rolling over properly.
Given all the recent changes in precincts, this is a problem.
Around 1PM Sara Crow said she heard at Pine Grove that about 900 people had
already voted there today.
More people have now voted early in Lowndes County than any time in
history. Sherrie Luther was voter 22,00[0]…
making her ballot the one
that broke the previous record set four years ago.
In the 2008 presidential election, there were 45 days of early
voting in Lowndes County. In this year’s election there were just 16
days. Nevertheless the record was broken.
Yet another example of government contracting not following the fair
bidding practices or allowing community public input. Even if you
attend government meetings no bid information is made public & even
if bids are referred to the amounts are always in those elusive
"packets before you" that only the members have access to.
In a recent Hahira City Council meeting the city attorney ruled that
the city council did not have to put out the garbage service for
bids & that it did not even have to have a contract. As of December
31, 2012 the city collection services will not be under contract at
all so who knows what the rates may be or if a lower bid would have
saved citizens money?
I've been involved in government contracting for years & I can tell
you that the recent path government bodies have endorsed is leading
further & further away from the bidding procedures that were enacted
to prevent good old boy politics & kick backs & is opening the door
wide for public/private partnerships that never answer to the
citizens.
The state attorney general's office which should regulate bidding
practices will not interfere with county or municipal issues unless
a citizen is willing to pay $500 to a lawyer to present the case to
them. They justify this as catering to "home rule" but in actuality
they are turning a blind eye because it is within their jurisdiction
to rule on non-adherence to proper bidding practices.
If the state believes in "home rule" why is Governor Deal pushing a
state charter school board amendment that will take away local rule?
The state seems to pick & choose its standards.
The
WCTV news report
didn’t mention something else LAKE has done about
the Tim Golden use of a LAKE video without the required attribution:
LAKE paid for
a TV ad on the same WALB market as Golden’s ad.
That
LAKE ad
is still playing today: watch the news and football on WALB
in Valdosta and Hahira.
Bikram Mohanty is a man of integrity running for Georgia state Senate.
The incumbent Tim Golden’s attack ad misuses a video I took
of Bikram Mohanty, without the credit its YouTube license requires.
Tim Golden voted to put on the ballot an amendment that could siphon off
your local tax dollars for charter schools,
even if your school board doesn’t want them.
Vote for integrity;
vote for Bikram Mohanty for Georgia state Senate,
and vote No for Amendment 1.
This WALB ad, like
the WCTV news interview,
is another rare instance of the LAKE politburo deciding LAKE would
go on record as an organization, so I was speaking for LAKE.
TL;DR: If you want to use LAKE materials, cite the source.
2,151 Friday and 23,324 Total voted early in Lowndes County Georgia
thru 2 November 2012.
I hear (unconfirmed) that those are both records, and you can see for yourself
in the table below that Friday’s count was the highest for any early voting day this election.
About half of active voters in the county voted early.
That leaves another half to vote Tuesday.
And there are more registered voters than typically active voters,
so we could break a record for active voters Tuesday!
Date
Daily
Total
Monday October 15
1,636
1,636
Tuesday October 16
1,225
2,861
Wednesday October 17
956
3,817
Thursday October 18
643
4,460
Friday October 19
1,433
5,893
Monday October 22
1,289
7,724
Tuesday October 23
1,449
9,173
Wednesday October 24
1,363
10,536
Thursday October 25
1,408
11,944
Friday October 26
1,783
13,727
Saturday October 27
1,279
15,003
Monday October 29
1,707
16,713
Tuesday October 30
1,533
18,246
Wednesday October 31
1,386
19,632
Thursday November 1
1,541
21,173
Friday November 2
2,151
23,324
Data courtesy of Lowndes County Board of Elections.
My op-ed in the VDT today. Remember
to vote today or Tuesday.
-jsq
This spring,
the University at Buffalo turned on 750 kilowatts of
solar electricity.
Rutgers U., in New Jersey, installed 1.4
megawatts in 2009 and started on 8 MW this summer. Down here with a
lot more sun, how about solar panels on VSU parking lots?
actually been encouraging our elected officials to be fiscally irresponsible with public funds by allowing SPLOST to continue? if elected officials had to allocate resources in a yearly budget, we may actually encourage our officials to allocate resources towards public projects that would be desirable by the public rather than a priority in pthe minds of our elected officials.
