Category Archives: Florida

FL Gov. Scott doesn’t care what the FL Senate thinks about private prisons

Governor Scott doesn’t care what Florida legislature voted. Wonder if he owns CCA stock. -gretchen

David Royse wrote for the News Service of Florida yesterday, Scott Will Explore Ways to Privatize Prisons without Law Change,

Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday he will explore opportunities to privatize state prisons on his own following the Senate’s defeat of a bill that would have required some prisons be bid out to private companies.

Speaking to reporters Thursday morning after a public event on insurance fraud, Scott acknowledged that initially he didn’t consider privatizing prisons a priority, but was disappointed the Senate voted down a bill that would have done that, and said he’ll explore what many backers of the Senate plan said was a possibility that the governor could order privatization unilaterally.

The irony:

Scott pointed out that there are fewer inmates than anticipated and that it didn’t make sense to spend state dollars on half-full prisons.
Maybe nobody told Gov. Scott CCA wants guaranteed 90% occupancy.

More irony: Continue reading →

There are some things only government should do: FL Senate ends prison privatization

There are just some things that only government should do. And jailing for profit is not the public good. That’s what the Florida Senate decided Tuesday, ending an attempt to legislate privatization of prisons.

David Royse in wctv.tv yesterday, Florida Senate Kills Prison Privatization,

A bipartisan coalition of senators bucked the chamber’s Republican leadership Tuesday and rejected a proposal to privatize several prisons, but got warnings from leaders that it will have a cost in further budget cuts.

In a dramatic showdown with Senate President Mike Haridopolos and three other top leaders one of whom controls the Senate’s budget, one who controls the calendar and one who will be the next president opponents of the bill managed to kill it on a 19-21 vote.

The odd coalition that lined up against the bill included Republican populists who have become occasional mavericks, Democrats and some members of the GOP caucus that almost always vote with their party, but come from areas laden with corrections officers who opposed the idea.

Private prison proponents tried to sell it as cost savings. If prison privatization really does save money, why did the legislature previously try to hide it in a general budget bill, which was thrown out by a judge back in September?

This time, senators weren’t buying that baloney. Continue reading →

VLCIA and local counties

In which of these five, seven, eleven, or thirteen counties is Athens, Georgia?

According to Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), Regional Hub,

Valdosta is a regional hub for eleven Georgia counties and two Florida counties. Valdosta-Lowndes County acts not only as the regional hub for retail, medical, transportation and entertainment. Our community is also the regional hub for employment for five contiguous, predominantly rural Georgia counties and two Florida counties (as indicated in the chart to the right) and supports a thirteen county region referenced from the 2000 Census (see chart attached below).
The five Georgia counties are (alphabetically) Brooks, Cook, Echols, Lanier, and Lowndes, and the two Florida counties are Hamilton and Madison. In which of those seven counties is Athens, Georgia?

The thirteen counties, barely legible on VLCIA’s webpage, are: Berrien GA, Brooks GA, Clinch GA, Colquitt GA, Columbia FL, Cook GA, Dougherty GA, Duval FL, Echols GA, Fulton GA, Hamilton FL, Lanier GA, and Madison FL. Fulton County, Georgia? OK, that’s odd. Hm, the table is entitled

“Journeys To and From LOWNDES GA (Threshold = 50)”.
It’s about vehicles travelling in and out of Lowndes County. So Fulton makes some sense, due to people travelling between here and Atlanta. Local region, though? Not Fulton. Ditto Duval County, Florida. Jacksonville, local? I think not.

So maybe call it an eleven county region. In which of those eleven or thirteen counties is Athens, Georgia?

-jsq

Port St. Joe biomass developer gives up

Another biomass plant bites the dust, this time less than 200 miles southwest of here in Port St. Joe, Florida.

Tim Croft wrote for the Star Thursday, Developer pulls out of energy center project

Citing an inability to secure financing Rentech, Inc., the developer of the Northwest Florida Renewable Energy Center has pulled out of the project.
What project? Down at the fourth paragraph the article finally says:
…a 55 megawatt energy plant to be built in Port St. Joe.

The plant, as proposed, would produce steam to drive generators to produce electricity, the fuel source woody biomass, or forest residue. Progress Energy had an agreement in place to purchase electricity from the plant.

The article blames the economy, but that wasn’t all that did in Continue reading →

Valdosta absorbed into Florida truck-to-rail network

Sometimes it’s better to just connect south of the border with Florida rather than waiting for Atlanta to do something.

Mark B. Solomon wrote for DCVelocity today, Florida East Coast to add Valdosta, Ga., to relay rail network, Expansion will take place early next year.

Florida East Coast Railway Co. (FEC) said today it would add Valdosta, Ga., to its so-called relay rail network, which allows truckers to drop off trailerloads with the FEC and have the railroad, rather than the truckers, transport the freight down the Florida peninsula to Miami. The expansion will take place early next year, the railroad said.

Jacksonville, Fla.-based FEC already operates such a service at Savannah, where truckers delivering loads originating in the Midwest and Southeast drop their loads with FEC at the Georgia city. FEC then trucks the trailer to its railhead in Jacksonville, where it is transloaded onto one of its trains for the 350-mile overnight trip to Miami. The trucker can then pick up a trailer in Savannah, a major manufacturing and distribution center, for the westbound return trip. Once the trailer is offloaded in Miami, FEC returns the empty equipment to Savannah.

Hm, you’d think the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) would be announcing something like this….

-jsq

Thanks for CHIP and lower monitors; also solar just to the south —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 27 Sep 2011

I thanked the Commission for doing the right thing about the CHIP grant. And for at least three people sitting up front (Evans, Paulk, and Pritchard) lowering their monitors so citizens (and even cameras) could see their faces.

Then I relayed the news about the $1.5 billion investment in Gadsden County, Florida for a 400 MW solar project. Plus ongoing jobs, expanded education, private sources of investment, and customers for the electricity. Unlike the failed local biomass project, National Solar Power’s Gadsden County project already has Progress Energy signed up as a customer for its electricity. I recommended that the Commission go on record as being in favor of such projects locally.

Here’s the video:


Thanks for CHIP and lower monitors; also solar –John S. Quarterman @ LCC 27 Sep 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Judge rules against Florida prison privatization

Judge Jackie Fulford ruled yesterday for the Second Circuit Court of Florida
that the prison privatization plan the Florida legislature added to the state budget is unconstitutional on a key point of all prison privatization schemes. Her ruling agreed with the Florida Police Benevolent Association, which is a union of correctional workers.

Judge rules prison privatization plan unconstitutional Dara Kam wrote for Post on Politics yesterday, Judge Rules Florida Prison Privatization Unconstitutional,

The privatization of 29 prisons in the southern portion of the state from Manatee County to Indian River County to the Florida Keys should have been mandated in a separate bill and not in proviso language in the budget, as lawmakers did in the must-pass budget approved in May and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, Fulford ruled.

“This Court concludes that if it is the will of the Legislature to itself initiate privatization of Florida prisons, as opposed to DOC, the Legislature must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act,’” Fulford wrote in her order issued Friday morning.

The order doesn’t say Florida can’t privatize prisons, rather that it can’t do it by hiding it in the budget process. But alleged budget savings are the only reason privatization backers are willing to admit to, so that’s no small matter.

And if prison privatization is such a money-saver, why did the prison companies’ cronies in the statehouse try to do it like this: Continue reading →

Local leadership nets $1.5 billion solar project

That’s 400 MW of solar power in twenty 20 MW PV plants, just across the state line in Gadsden County, Florida. Plus ongoing jobs, expanded education, private sources of investment, and customers for the electricity.

According to SolarServer quoting a National Solar press release yesterday, National Solar Power chooses Gadsden County, Florida for 400 MW PV project

The company estimates that the 400 MW project will create 400 jobs during the five-year construction phase and up to 120 permanent operations jobs.
And that’s not all. According to Solar Energy News today, Plan to build $1.5bn solar farm in Florida, Continue reading →

Georgia and Florida Railway (GFRR) – Valdosta to Willacoochee Rehabilitation $6.25 million T-SPLOST

Now here’s a T-SPLOST project I like: upgrading the railroad that runs from Valdosta to Moody AFB and on to Ray City and Nashville in Berrien County, and Willacoochee in Atkinson County. This proposal is to aid freight, but with this upgrade to the track, the same track would be even more readily usable for passenger rail. That same track was used for passenger travel up into the 1950s. My mother used to catch the train at Barretts (just north of Moody) to go visit her relatives in Pearson (a bit east of Willacoochee).

It’s true the project sheet talks about “potential customers in the region”:

This project will provide for more efficient train operations along the rail corridor to accommodate the increase rail traffic serving the existing and potential customers in the region.
However, rail promotes development in existing population centers and at stations, unlike all along automobile roadways.

This project is also another example of how the economic area of Moody AFB includes Continue reading →

Georgia following Florida down the private prison path

Florida is already forging down the path Georgia wants to follow on private prisons. Steve Bousquet writes in the Miami Herald:
The Florida Legislature’s push to privatize many more prisons, its most far-reaching cost-cutting plan in years, could open a lucrative door to politically connected vendors who stand to profit.

Senate and House budgets require the state to privatize prisons in South Florida, home to one-fifth of the statewide inmate population of 101,000. The region is the home of the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator, which currently runs two private prisons, including the largest private lockup, the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Milton.

Why is this path so popular with the Florida legislature? Continue reading →