Category Archives: Elections

You can apply to serve on a board or commission

You can apply to be appointed by Valdosta to a local board or authority that decides or recommends on issues that affect everyone: do interesting work and serve your community. Dealine: April 30th. You don’t even have to live in Valdosta: anybody in Lowndes County can apply. If you want to run for a city council or county commission seat someday, this is a good way to start. And if you want to run for the state legislature or higher office, that’s the most common path to get there.

Update: 4:30 PM 24 April 2014: And there’s the Board of Elections which is decided by a completely different process with a quicker deadline of 28 April 2014.

Winnie Wright wrote for WCTV 23 April 2014, City Of Valdosta Looking To Fill 15 Vacancies In Boards, Authorities, and Commissions, Continue reading →

Second mistrial of Lula Smart of the Quitman 10 + 2

How many mistrials does it take before the whole Quitman 10 +2 case gets thrown out of court? Two and counting, as of Friday.

George Boston Rhynes interviewed Brooks County Commissioner James Maxwell outside the courthouse in Quitman on a rainy day:

Mistrial! Another mistrial.

And the prosecutor wants to schedule another trial. George asked the Commissioner how much another trial would cost Brooks County.

It will cost quit a bit of money. We could use that money on a day like today to repair roads. People can’t get in and out and here we are wasting the taxpayers on another mistrial.

No evidence! No evidence! And another mistrial.

Here’s Part 1 of 2: Continue reading →

The Quitman 10 retrial prosecution reads this blog

George Boston Rhynes is reporting the retrial of Lula Smart of the Quitman 10+2 in Brooks County, Georgia, and its serious issues of voting rights, justice, and education; his first three videos are linked in below. First an amusing observation from yesterday, posted here with permission.

I am lounging outside the Brooks County Courthouse and this is just what I was thinking. We have been here since 8 AM and jury selection is ongoing. To actually eyeball perceived enemies is an humbling experience. How pitiful you have to be to live your life consumed with hatred, venom, bigotry, and a multitude of demonic spirits! Anyway, the greatest take away from day one of the Lula Smart retrial aka the Quitman 10 + 2 is the prosecuting attorney’s question to potential jurors: “have you read or talked to or followed a blog called “On the Lake Front?” Hilarious for those of us who knows what that means!! This kind of evil does kill, but I refuse to allow it to rob me of my joy! Blessed nite. Nite!

-Fannie MJ Gibbs

I’ve always said we had a reader. I just didn’t know it was the Quitman 10+2 prosecution.

Here are George’s first three videos:

Continue reading →

Dexter Sharper Town Hall this morning

Breakfast right now, meeting 10AM.

VDT, 11 April 2014, Sharper hosts town hall meeting,

State Rep. Dexter Sharper hosts a town hall meeting this Saturday to discuss the past General Assembly session and the upcoming Let Us Make Man event.

Let Us Make Man 2014 is a train-the-trainer, community-oriented event designed for everyone: parents, non-profit administrators, entrepreneurs, college students, churches, teachers and most importantly teenagers. A full day of workshops include: Continue reading →

Videos: Candidates, Landowners, Methane and Solar Power @ SpectraBusters 2014-03-29

Candidates for Lowndes County Commission went on the record ( Mark Wisenbaker and Tom Hochschild both running for District 3, and Norman Bennett and Gretchen Quarterman both running for District 5), plus a statement by County Chairman Bill Slaughter, in addition to essential background information from directly affected landowners in the audience and from the panelists on why the proposed Sabal Trail methane pipeline is bad for property values, is hazardous here and elsewhere, and will be obsolete in a few decades, all at a SpectraBusters panel on the Sabal Trail pipeline at VSU, Saturday 29 March 2014.

The panelists were Continue reading →

Annexation and watershed monitoring @ Hahira 2014-04-03

The rezoning and annexation previously recommended by the Planning Commission and discussed by the Lowndes County Commission.

And there’s a Proposal for Long-term Watershed Monitoring from TTL, which may or may not be related to the flood risk management study or flood mapping previously discussed by the city of Valdosta and the Lowndes County Commission.

Curiously, both Wikipedia and the Hahira City Council’s own web page seem to think Wayne Bullard is still mayor. I read in the VDT that Bruce Cain was sworn in as mayor in January.

Thanks to City Manager Jonathan Sumner for the agenda.

Hahira City Council
April 3, 2014
Agenda
7:30 pm-Hahira Courthouse
Continue reading →

Videos of Day 1 @ LCC-Budget 2014-03-10

It’s a good thing the county held these first-ever (as far as I know) comprehensive budget sessions. Here are videos of the first day. Most of the departments are asking for more money, due to increased population and increased demand for services during a period of economic downturn. Something needs to be done, and these sessions are one step in getting to doing something.

Here’s the agenda.

Whom do you serve? A question for local government

A question asked about big oil and Mobile is just as relevant to every local and state government along the proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, and Transco and Florida Southeast Connection, too. A couple of local elected officials and several candidates did make public statements Saturday (stay tuned), so maybe we’re starting to get some answers to this question in Lowndes County, Georgia. Some other locations have already been getting answers.

Brad Nolen wrote for New American Journal 28 March 2014, How Big Oil Controls Local Governments: Whom Do You Serve? Thoughts on Local Government and Dirty Industries,

Now, it should go without saying that the purpose of councils, commissions and public office in general is to represent the varied interests of the citizens, and hopefully through consensus- seeking achieve some semblance of collective wisdom; and then, if we’re really lucky to apply said wisdom in charting our course toward a Mobile our great grandchildren will be proud to inherit.

Yet, when it came to finding a voice to protect our drinking water from Big Oil, we heard nothing substantive from our local leaders, even though we marched on their doorsteps in boots that are still wet with BP oil.

And now, Continue reading →

How to invite toxic industries to your county

Maybe we should stop inviting toxic industries to Lowndes County. We’ve been doing that with coal ash, PCBs, superfund wastewater, used diapers in recycling, and suing local businesses while not terminating an exclusive franchise with a company that is involved in all of that. Not to mention Sterling Chemical.

Here in Lowndes County we have TVA coal ash and Florida coal ash in our landfill, and the landfill operator spreads the coal ash on roads on the site, which is just uphill from the Withlacoochee River. GA EPD fined that landfill operator $27,500 in January 2013 for accepting PCBs into that same Pecan Row Landfill. The same landfill that accepted 196,500 gallons of wastewater from the Seven Out Superfund site in Waycross, GA.

A landfill that is in an aquifer recharge zone. Continue reading →

District 3 down to two candidates for Lowndes County Commission

The southern District 3 for Lowndes County Commission is down to only two candidates, one Democrat and one Republican, so there will be no primary races and Tom Hochschild (D) and Mark Wisenbaker (R) will face each other in the general election in November. Retiring candidate Don Thieme (D) throws his support behind Hochschild. District 3 is mostly the south half of the county, but it also wraps around Valdosta to incorporate Remerton and VSU. See detail map or PDF of district 1,2,3 as found on lowndescounty.com.

And Crawford Powell has withdrawn from the race for House District 174, so that leaves only two candidates there, too: Jessie Smith (D) and John L. Corbett (R), with no primary races, to face each other in November.

Continue reading →