Category Archives: History

Lowndes County: commuter rail hub

Look at all those other railroads converging on Valdosta in that GFRR project proposal map. Valdosta is a historical rail hub for passenger traffic to Atlanta, Savannah, Jacksonville, Orlando, Thomasville, Tallahasssee, and beyond. All the tracks are still in place and still in use for freight. With some rolling stock and a few deals with the railroads, Valdosta and Lowndes County could become again a passenger rail hub with a mass transit system for local commuting to jobs and for long distance travel.

Add a bus system and local commuting becomes very practical. People could take the train to town and catch a bus to work. Many people could walk or take a bicycle to their work from the train station. This could work the other way around, too. People could live in Valdosta and work in Ray City or Lakeland or Hahira or Lake Park or Clyattville and not have to drive to get there. That would save a lot of wasted time and wasted fuel.

This kind of mass transit would attract the knowledge-based workers we supposedly want around here. Including jobs our high school and college graduates could take, so they wouldn’t have to move elsewhere.

And upgrading the railroads, building stations, building and refurbishing houses and apartments near the stations, etc., would employ a lot of construction workers; probably as many as road projects and sprawling subdivision projects, but without the sprawl.

-jsq

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 →

Sonny Vickers, Mayor of Valdosta?

A usually-reliable source says Sonny Vickers will be appointed interim Mayor of Valdosta tomorrow by the Valdosta City Council at its 5:30 PM 8 September meeting.

Since he’s running unopposed for City Council District 3, Sonny Vickers can resign from that post, get appointed mayor, and get re-elected as Council 3 in November.

This is the same method used in 2003 when former Mayor James H. Rainwater died before the election. Council appointed David Sumner interim mayor. According to the VDT 31 August 2011:

At that time, Councilman David Sumner assumed the role of mayor, but had to resign his council seat to do so. He had already qualified to rerun for his seat in the November 2003 election, was re-elected to his seat and stepped down as mayor at the end of 2003, re-assuming his duties as a newly elected councilman at the beginning of 2004.

If they don’t appoint Vickers interim mayor tomorrow, the Valdosta City Council will probably appoint somebody else. According to the VDT today:

Vickers is among those being considered for appointment by council, along with Dexter Sharper and David Sumner, who are also former council members. Vickers pointed out that he did not submit his name for consideration, but rather it was mentioned in conversations with other council members.
We’ll see.

In the November election, one of Brooks D. Bivins, John Gayle, or Gary Minchew will be elected mayor (unless of course there’s a runoff).

-jsq

Georgia still in the solar shade

The 20th century with its coal and oil and nuclear was more than a decade ago now. It’s time for Georgia to see the 21st sunshine.

Jerry Grillo wrote for the July 2011 Georgia Trend, Partly Sunny In Georgia: The state’s solar industry is growing steadily, but slowly, as the national industry explodes

“Georgia is shackled to the 20th century,” Peterson says. “If all I did was look at Georgia, I’d think we were doing well. But I work all over the country, and I’m not kidding when I say we’re dealing with $500-million solar projects that have no chance of coming here because of systemic problems that keep Georgia from participating in the 21st-century economy, which has renewable energy as a major component.

“It’s disgusting, considering our potential, how much opportunity is lost, how much capital investment is passed up.”

All it would take to fix this is the political will.

Maybe if the people and elected and appointed officials look at the handwriting on the wall: Continue reading →

CCA really doesn’t like community opposition, so apparently it works

Private prison company CCA, which in conjunction with ALEC promotes laws in dozens of states and nationally that lock up more people for CCA’s private profit at taxpayer expense, really doesn’t like community opposition to siting private prisons in their communities. Hm, why would CCA hate community opposition so much, unless it works?

Not quite rolling his eyes when she mentions visiting communities, CCA’s video pair disparage community opposition to private prisons on their own web page, When Corrections Meets Communities:

Question: There are Web sites and blogs that are adamantly opposed to your company and industry, and they provide negative information about you. Why?
Hm, you mean like some of the material on this blog?
Answer: CCA and all corrections companies recognize the ongoing efforts of local, loosely formed grassroots groups and national, well-funded associations that jointly oppose the establishment of partnership prisons, many for self-serving reasons. Such groups go to great lengths to attack, criticize and misrepresent the entire industry. They make false allegations and often rely on hearsay and unreliable sources. Regrettably, these biased groups often resort to misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric to turn isolated incidents into broad generalizations about the corrections industry as a whole.
Well-funded? Har! OK, not this blog. That plus we provide evidence, like Continue reading →

“I have seen cameras here at this building when it concerns football” — George Boston Rhynes @ VBOE 29 August 2011

If TV cameras show up for football, why don’t they show up “when the people come together on issues such as this, not just black folk, not just white folk, but all Americans are here tonight because of our concern”?

George Boston Rhynes made three points: Continue reading →

We still believe in school unification, but we can no longer support the current effort. —VDT

The VDT can read the handwriting on the wall, at least when it’s in the form of resolutions from both school boards.

After dancing around the issue and muttering about “ugly turns”, the VDT finally gets to the point in its editorial of today:

We still believe in school unification, but we can no longer support the current effort.

For the past several weeks, readers have asked us how unification would work. Would it change millage rates? Would students be bussed cross-county? Who would lose or keep their jobs? When would Valdosta City Schools dissolve its charter and the Lowndes County School System take over? What are the estimates on cost savings? Would it be more efficient? What happens Nov. 9, the day after the election?

We’ve asked these questions, too. No one can answer them.

The organization that worked to place the issue on the ballot has not offered satisfactory answers. Community Unification for Educational Excellence has admirably spent time proposing ways to increase academic performance if the systems are unified. But CUEE has yet to present a recommended plan for how the merger would work.

If the referendum passes, the school boards will decide how unification would proceed. And both school boards are opposed to unification.

It is this prevailing sense of the unknown that has spurred The Times to oppose the Nov. 8 referendum.

There are too many unanswered questions. There are too many uncertainties at this point. There has to be a better way to present this to the voters.

A vote for unification in this climate is a vote for chaos.

Most of those questions do have answers: Continue reading →

Time to divest from private prison companies

It’s time to stop private prison profiteering by refusing to take their profit: divest private prison company stock from personal, pension, and church funds.

There’s no need to speculate that private prison companies have incentive to keep more people locked up: CCA says so. Kanya D’Almeida wrote for IPS 24 August 2011, ‘Profiteers of Misery’: The U.S. Private Prison Industrial Complex:

CCA’s 2010 annual report states categorically that, “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws — for instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”

CCA continues, “Legislation has been proposed in numerous jurisdictions that could lower minimum sentences for some non-violent crimes and make more inmates eligible for early release based on good behaviour, (while) sentencing alternatives under consideration could put some offenders on probation who would otherwise be incarcerated. Similarly, reductions in crime rates or resources dedicated to prevent and enforce crime could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities.”

What’s this got to do with Georgia? Continue reading →

NAACP on MLK on War on Drugs

I hate to repeat a preacher, but it’s Sunday, and Robert Rooks wrote for NAACP 24 August 2011 U.S. Approach to War on Drugs Ignores Dr. King’s Lessons on Justice, Compassion.
After forty years of the war on drugs, America continues to have laws that stratify society based on race and class and continues to ignore Dr. King’s lessons on justice, compassion and love.

My favorite quote from Dr. King speaks to the heart of the problem with America’s criminal justice system. “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

America’s criminal justice system is reckless and discriminate. America has five percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Blacks are incarcerated at four to five times the rate of whites for drug crimes, even though the majority of those who use and sell drugs are white. The majority of those incarcerated are people who have a history with mental health and substance abuse.

Not only does incarceration impact individuals but it undermines families,

Continue reading →

Earthquakes at GA nukes?

There are no earthquakes in Georgia, right? Well, Charleston is close enough for the Savannah River.

According to Southern Company, which is building two new reactors at Plant Vogtle:

Among the largest known regional earthquakes was an 1886 earthquake that struck Charleston, S.C., about 85 miles from the Plant Vogtle site….
1886 was more than 100 years ago! Probably a 500 year event. Oh, wait, we had a 700 year flood here a few years ago. And those earthquakes in Colorado and Virginia were 100 year events….

Well, if it was near Charleston it must have been minor, less than that 6.8 quake in Virginia just now (within a few dozen miles of a nuke). Except USGS says the Charleston quake was 7.3 magnitude:

This is the most damaging earthquake to occur in the Southeast United States and one of the largest historic shocks in Eastern North America. It damaged or destroyed many buildings in the old city of Charleston and killed 60 people. Hardly a structure there was undamaged, and only a few escaped serious damage. Property damage was estimated at $5-$6 million. Structural damage was reported several hundred kilometers from Charleston (including central Alabama, central Ohio, eastern Kentucky, southern Virginia, and western West Virginia), and long-period effects were observed at distances exceeding 1,000 kilometers.
So let’s see, 86 miles is 137 kilometers.

The most recent San Francisco earthquake, the Little Big One of 1989, was a 7.1. That’s the one that turned the 880 freeway into the 440 by collapsing the upper deck and closing the Bay Bridge.

Well, at least they’re not building a solar power plant on the Savannah River. If those things break in a quake you get… sunshine.

-jsq