ESPLOST will win by 4 to 1. Going not very far out on a limb, with only 3 of 9 precincts reporting, but with 79+ yes to 20% no at 8:30 PM, I predict ESPLOST will win. Oops, make that 7 of 9 precincts; changed while I was writing this.
-jsq
Category Archives: Education
Videos: Day 3 of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-05
The
Airport Authority got inserted among the judges and lawyers,
and the
Coroner’s Office failed to turn in a budget.
The day was mostly sitting around waiting,
because most of the actual presentations were only a few minutes each,
yet were scheduled hours apart,
in the last day of the
three days of
“Budget Hearings” which aren’t really hearings because nobody from the
public can speak and they don’t have a budget to hear yet.
See the first day for
the agenda.
Here are links to videos of each item with some notes by Gretchen, followed by a video playlist. No video for the first item, EMS, due to camera failure; sorry. For the rest, as the Chairman said, referring to Gretchen and the LAKE camera:
We have our videographer back there, so we’re ready.
Hm, maybe LAKE should submit a budget request to the county…. Continue reading
Videos: Day 2 of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-04
Maybe Georgia should fund mental health facilities instead of
local jails having to act as mental hospitals.
On a positive note,
Agriculture is an $81M industry in Lowndes County.
Law, taxes, and education, in the second day which was only in the morning,
of the
three days of
“Budget Hearings” which aren’t really hearings because nobody from the
public can speak and they don’t have a budget to hear yet.
See yesterday for
the agenda.
Here are links to videos of each item with some notes by Gretchen,
followed by a video playlist.
And one more day to go today. Continue reading
Videos: ESPLOST V kickoff meeting @ ESPLOST 2015-02-24
Co-Chair Jerome Tucker emphasized that ESPLOST helping
public schools also helps economic development.
See below for who we now know are the
committee members for the Educational Special Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST).
It’s mysterious why that information wasn’t in
the PR before the meeting,
but now we know, since Gretchen went and took the videos
and collected the flyers you’ll find below.
Early voting already started that same day and continues through March 13th, with the final Election Day 17 March 2015.
Lowndes/Valdosta Citizens for Excellence in Education
Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax
For Lowndes County Schools and Valdosta City Schools Continue reading
ESPLOST V kickoff meeting today @ ESPLOST 2015-02-24
A committee of unknown members is holding a kickoff meeting today
for the Educational Special Local Option Sales Tax.
Various local news media carry the announcement below,
but none of them seem to have the names of the committee members
beyond one co-chair.
I guess we’ll find out from the videos Gretchen is going there now to take.
In the City of Valdosta’s In The City This Week, Feb. 23-28,
Feb. 24: ESPLOST V Campaign. The ESPLOST joint committee will host a campaign kickoff on Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 5 p.m., in the Valdosta City Hall Annex Multi-Purpose Room. At the meeting, committee members will share proposed projects for Lowndes County and Valdosta City Schools with citizens. Early voting runs Feb. 23 through March 13. The final opportunity to vote will be on the official Election Day, March 17. For more information, email Co-Chair John Eunice at jleunice@yahoo.com.
-jsq
HB 59 to waive sovereign immunity in certain cases
Sue the state? You’ll lose, because of sovereign immunity,
unless HB 59 passes.
Then you might be able to sue GA-DNR for circumventing permiting
in allowing construction on the Georgia Coast, or if it
should approve a compressor station in Albany, or if it
should issue any other permits for the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.
State agencies such as the Department of Natural Resources (GA-DNR),
can use “letters of permission” to do things like make alterations to
Georgia’s coast, and anyone suing to stop it runs up against sovereign immunity
unless the issuing agency has expressly waived it.
Now that may change with
HB 59,
“State tort claims; waiver of sovereign immunity for declatory judgment or injunctive relief; provide”.
It has six co-sponsors, including
Jay Powell, District 171, Camilla, Mitchell County, GA.
Here’s the key part: Continue reading
Pipelines are bad economics: invest in renewable energy instead –Harvard
Let’s stop wasting money on the slide-rule technology of Keystone XL or Sabal Trail: they’re both bad investments, either short-term or long-term.
Andrew Winston wrote for Harvard Business Review 30 January 2015, Why the Keystone Pipeline Is the Wrong U.S. Energy Debate,
In the short run, with oil at $50 per barrel, Keystone will connect refineries to oil that may be unprofitable to extract. In the long run, as the world turns away from fossil fuels aggressively, the pipeline will be moot — a relic of the past.
Either way it’s a poor investment.
What, then? Continue reading
MLK and pipeline opposition
The fossil fuel opposition is the child and grandchild of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
With their nonviolence, truth, and action as a model, we shall overcome.
Bill McKibben, The Guardian, 25 August 2011, Martin Luther King’s legacy and the power of nonviolent civil disobedience: In opposing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, demonstrators are getting a sense of the civil rights leader’s courage,
Preacher, speaker, writer under fire, but also tactician. He really understood the power of nonviolence, a power we’ve experienced in the last few days. When the police cracked down on us, the publicity it produced cemented two of the main purposes of our protest: First, it made Keystone XL “ the new, 1,700-mile-long pipeline we’re trying to block that will vastly increase the flow of “dirty” tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico “ into a national issue. A few months ago, it was mainly people along the route of the prospective pipeline who were organising against it. (And with good reason: Continue reading
South Georgia Growing Local at Pine Grove Middle School this Saturday
Update 2015-01-20: Actually that’s Wednesday 21 January 2015 for Gretchen on the Chris Beckham radio show, 105.9 FM, still at 8AM.
Gretchen Quarterman will be
on the radio
7:30 AM this morning on the Scott James show 92.1 FM and 8:00 AM tomorrow January 21st on the Chris Beckham show 105.9 FM,
talking about
South Georgia Growing Local 2015,
a full day of five parallel tracks of talks about soil, planting, fruits, vegetables, oils, permaculture, hydroponics, bees, bugs, invasive plants, citrus, chickens, goats, hams, cooking, water, and solar power, all here below the gnat line in our loamy soil and above our Floridan Aquifer.
The conference is 9AM to 5PM Saturday January 24th 2015 at Pine Grove Middle School, on River Road north of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
See you there!
-jsq
Housing, paving, appointments, solar, packets, wells, pipeline, and trash! @ Town Hall Meeting 2014-12-15
Very respectable turnout and impressive interaction
at the first-ever Town Hall by an individual Lowndes County Commissioner:
Demarcus Marshall, Super District 4, 15 December 2014.
See and read his
State of District 4 address.
You can read his
summary of issues and concerns,
and you can watch citizens express those concerns in
the
LAKE video playlist: Continue reading