Category Archives: History

VDT gets feisty with VLCIA over biomass

After noting that the Industrial Authority still hasn’t resolved still hasn’t decided about Sterling Planet’s land purchase offer even though they had a meeting last week at which they could have, with their new executive director and their new chairman, the VDT editorialized today:
The IA promised a future of more open communication.

And yet Tuesday, the board’s attorney refused to answer any questions regarding the potential sale of the land to the company, citing a caveat in the Open Records Act that protects information involved in a current legal issue. The Times issued an Open Records request Tuesday to obtain the information requested or copies of the litigation documents, assuming that since the attorney cited this exemption, there is an active lawsuit over the land sale.

Good point!

The VDT acknowledged its own mistake and moved to correct it: Continue reading →

ALEC crafts state laws, including for private prisons and big oil

ALEC writes laws for big oil and for private prison companies. In the first LAKE post about the proposed private prison in Lowndes County, I pointed out that ALEC helped CCA lobby for that Arizona “anti-immigration” law that actually is stuffed with new jail, misdemeanor, and felony penalties that bring more “customers” to CCA private prisons. Georgia was just the first of 24 states lobbied by ALEC to pass such bogus bills for CCA’s private profit. Since then other people have dug into ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and found its tentacles everywhere, promoting profits for big business at taxpayer expense.

Alison Fitzgerald wrote for Bloomberg 21 July 2011, Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws:

Koch Industries Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) are among companies that would benefit from almost identical energy legislation introduced in state capitals from Oregon to New Mexico to New Hampshire — and that’s by design.

The energy companies helped write the legislation at a meeting organized by a group they finance, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Washington-based policy institute known as ALEC.

The corporations, both ALEC members, took a seat at the legislative drafting table beside elected officials and policy analysts by paying a fee between $3,000 and $10,000, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News.

The opportunity for corporations to become co-authors of state laws legally

Continue reading →

Prison slave labor

You, too, can end up as a 21st century slave in the U.S.A.! For drugs, or debt, or especially for being black.

Rania Khalek wrote for AlterNet 21 July 2011, 21st-Century Slaves: How Corporations Exploit Prison Labor: In the eyes of the corporation, inmate labor is a brilliant strategy in the eternal quest to maximize profit.

There is one group of American workers so disenfranchised that corporations are able to get away with paying them wages that rival those of third-world sweatshops. These laborers have been legally stripped of their political, economic and social rights and ultimately relegated to second-class citizens. They are banned from unionizing, violently silenced from speaking out and forced to work for little to no wages. This marginalization renders them practically invisible, as they are kept hidden from society with no available recourse to improve their circumstances or change their plight.

They are the 2.3 million American prisoners locked behind bars where we cannot see or hear them. And they are modern-day slaves of the 21st century.

And who are these prison slaves? Continue reading →

Traffic on Cat Creek Road at Nottinghill —Thomas E. Stalvey Jr. @ LCC 12 July 2011

Schoolchildren, safety, and farmland: three topics that often seem forgotten in discussions of development. Opposing the proposed rezoning for Notthinghill, neighbor Thomas E. Stalvey Jr. noted that traffic on Cat Creek Road is already a problem, and adding a subdivision would make it worse. He noted that it’s traffic routed down Cat Creek to Moody that accounts for a lot of it. He said school children stood out on the road and they were already in danger.
“If we put 49 more houses out there, it’s just going to up the risk.”

He explicitly linked road widening to development: Continue reading →

Three things to actually improve education —John S. Quarterman

People ask me why I oppose CUEE. It’s because I’d rather actually improve education instead.

It seems to me the burden of proof is on the people proposing to make massive changes in the local education system. And CUEE has not provided any evidence for their position. Sam Allen of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) pithily sums up CUEE:

“It’s not about the children. It’s about somebody’s ego.”
I don’t think the children should have to suffer for somebody’s ego.

CUEE’s unification push isn’t about education. It’s about a “unified platform” to attract industry. That alone is enough reason to oppose “unification”. It’s not about education!

As former Industrial Authority Chair Jerome Tucker has been heard to remark on numerous occassions, “nobody ever asked me how many school systems we had!” The only example in Georgia CUEE points to for this is the Kia plant that came to Troup County, Georgia. It’s funny how none of the locals seem to have mentioned any such connection in the numerous articles published about the Kia plant. Instead, the mayor of the town with the Kia plant complains that his town doesn’t have a high school. That’s right: he’s complaining that the school system is too consolidated! The only actual education between Kia and education in Troup County is with West Georgia Tech, the local technical college.

CUEE has finally cobbled together an education committee, but it won’t even report back before the proposed ballot referendum vote. CUEE has no plan to improve education.

If CUEE actually did want to help the disadvantaged in the Valdosta City schools, Continue reading →

Arrests for speaking in an Arizona town

Something seems familiar about this story of a couple of people being arrested at small town council meetings for speaking up.

Ben Popken wrote for the Consumerist 15 July 2011, Small Arizona Town In Furor After 2nd Citizen Arrested For Speaking At Town Meeting:

The town of Quartzsite, AZ, population 3,466, is in disarray after a video showing police hauling away a citizen for speaking at the town meeting podium went viral. The woman was saying that the town council had been violating open meeting laws.

It was the second citizen arrested at a Quartzsite town meeting in two weeks.

What’s all this about? Continue reading →

an End to ICE/Local Police Collaboration

Another Sunday, more church people against private prisons.

A year ago, on 29 July 2010, Letter to Secretary Napolitano Calling for an End to ICE/Local Police Collaboration and a Halt to Expansion of Immigration Detention System:

On the occasion of the scheduled implementation of Arizona’s racial profiling law, SB 1070, veterans of the civil rights movement and representatives of social justice and faith-based community organizations in Georgia today issued a letter to the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, calling on her to put an end to 287(g) and other ICE-local police collaborations which lead to racial profiling and separation of families, and halt the expansion of the inhumane, profit-driven immigration detention system.

“As veterans of the civil rights movement and representatives of social-justice and faith-based organizations in Georgia, we urge you to take the bold steps necessary to end this unjust system that creates divided families and improbable prisoners,” says the letter. Signatories of the letter include: Constance Curry, a veteran of the civil rights movement and Atlanta-based writer and activist; Edward Dubose, President of the Georgia State Conference NAACP; Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director of the U.S. Human Rights Network; Jerome Scott, Founder and Board Chair of Project South; Reverend Gregory Williams, President of Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment (ABLE); and many others.

Only seven months later Rev. Gregory Williams and others got to speak against the all-too-similar Georgia law, HB 87. Jeremy Redmon wrote for the AJC 3 March 2011, House passes Arizona-style bill aimed at illegal immigration: Continue reading →

Portugal ends drug prohibition and addiction declines

According to AFP 1 July 2011, Portugal drug law show results ten years on, experts say
Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal’s decision 10 years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked.

“There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,” said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.

The number of addicts considered “problematic” — those who repeatedly use “hard” drugs and intravenous users — had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said.

Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor added.

“This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies.”

Portugal’s holistic approach had also led to a “spectacular” reduction in the number of infections among intravenous users and a significant drop in drug-related crimes, he added.

So what did they do? Continue reading →

Harrisburg prepares to file bankruptcy

After defaulting on its incinerator bonds and preparing to sell off pieces of itself, Harrisburg, PA, is preparing to file bankruptcy.

Laura Vecsey wrote in Pennlive 16 June 2011, Harrisburg City Council looks to introduce resolution that would allow bankruptcy paperwork to be prepared:

Harrisburg City Council member Brad Koplinski is seeking to introduce a resolution that will allow the council to prepare paper work that might become necessary should a majority of the council decide to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

Koplinski said the urgency of being prepared escalated Thursday when state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola introduced legislation that called for a state takeover of Harrisburg should the distressed city fail to adopt the Act 47 plan it was presented Monday.

It seems Harrisburg applied for Act 47, which is apparently a state bankruptcy protection plan last October, but now: Continue reading →

Private prisons spend millions lobbying to lock people up —Justice Policy Institute

Andrea Nill Sanchez wrote 23 June 2011 in ThinkProgress, Private Prisons Spend Millions On Lobbying To Put More People In Jail:
Yesterday, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report chronicling the political strategies of private prison companies “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” The report’s authors note that while the total number of people in prison increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, correspondingly. Government spending on corrections has soared since 1997 by 72 percent, up to $74 billion in 2007. And the private prison industry has raked in tremendous profits. Last year the two largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group — made over $2.9 billion in revenue.

JPI claims the private industry hasn’t merely responded to the nation’s incarceration woes, it has actively sought to create the market conditions (ie. more prisoners) necessary to expand its business.

We already knew that, but JPI has quantified it: Continue reading →