Category Archives: History

Valdosta’s Ultramodern Masterpiece: The Nichols House on Baytree —Alfred Willis Lecture 2014-10-01

Received yesterday in PDF. This is the historic structure where Turner Brooks wants to build a subdivision. -jsq

300x232 Talk Flyer, in Valdosta's Ultramodern Masterpiece: The Nichols House on Baytree, by Alfred Willis, 1 October 2014 7:00pm – Wednesday, October 1st, 2014
Valdosta State University
Bailey Science Center, Room 1011

This event is FREE and open to all.
Parking is also free in the Georgia Avenue Parking lots.
* For more information please contact Colleen McDonough,
229-333-5759 or cmcdonou@valdosta.edu

The Nichols house is a replete instance of the diffusion of Californian on the Nichols House & Valdosta Architecture design ideals in the postwar decade, the work that brought architect Lloyd Greer’s career to its culmination, and the starting point for the careers of several leading Valdosta architects of the next generation. Continue reading →

Lula Smart acquitted on all counts: Quitman 10 vindicated

Lula Smart cleared by a jury in third trial. Third strike by the prosecutors: they’re out! Will they stop wasting our taxpayer dollars now?

Katheryn Hayes Tucker, Daily Report, 17 September 2014, Acquittal in Trial Over Absentee Ballots,

Lula Mary Smart was acquitted on 19 felony charges of voting irregularities Wednesday following a month-long trial in Brooks County Superior Court in South Georgia.

Continue reading →

Fracking panel report –Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia

A reader wondered how Nova Scotia’s fracking ban would result in safer oil and gas company drilling operations instead of just balkanizing the world into fracking permitted and prohibited zones. Actually, Energy Minister Andrew Younger said:

“This way, people will know before it’s allowed — if it’s ever allowed — there will be a full debate in the Legislature.”

And the panel report that was the proximate cause of the ban, by the Nova Scotia Hydraulic Fracturing review, led by President Dr. David Wheeler, explicitly is for: Continue reading →

Why open government matters –VDT

Maybe the Lowndes County Commission should have read these quotes before it approved that unbudgeted no-bid not-discussed-in-the-retreat second water treatment system purchase.

Update 17 October 2014: Fix date of editorial. -jsq

VDT editorial 12 April August 2014, Why open government matters,

“The same prudence, which, in private life, would forbid our paying our money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the disposition of public moneys.” — Thomas Jefferson.

Continue reading →

Quitman 10+2 third trial set for 19 August 2014

Will three strikes against the prosecution make it give up on trying to convict the Quitman 10+2? Dear prosecutor, we know you read this blog, because you asked potential jurors at Lula Smart’s second trial,

Have you read or talked to or followed a blog called “On the Lake Front?”

So, dear prosecutor, when is enough enough?

Fannie MJ Gibs notes that Quitman Free press posted on facebook yesterday:

The retrial voter fraud case has been set for August 19 at Brooks County Courthouse. See this week’s issue for details.

So far as I know, Quitman Free Press only prints on paper and does not post any articles online, so we have to guess they’re referring to the Quitman 10.

When George Rhynes first posted about the arrests of the Quitman 10 in December 2010, he remarked:

Today’s arrest will surely end up in the courts.

Who would have expected it to be in the courts three times?

In July 2012, the Chair of the Brooks County Board of Elections tried to throw George Boston Rhynes out of her board’s meeting Continue reading →

Brad Lofton leaving Myrtle Beach, SC

Looks like Horry County, SC stuck to its initial three-year offer, both for Lofton, and for millage to fund his development authority there. There are things the newly-renamed Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority could do to let sunshine turn Lofton’s local land legacy green.

Jason M. Rodriguez and Amanda Kelley wrote for Myrtle Beach Online yesterday, Brad Lofton leaving Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation,

Membership to the EDC increased earlier this year, but revenue from the membership decreased by nearly $60,000, impacting the organization’s marketing services and more.

Loton has had many projects succeed, and met some challenges during his time in Horry County.

Earlier this month Continue reading →

Videos: Courthouse Preservation Committee Hearing #1 @ Courthouse 2014-06-09

SCAD or VSU? Historical Society or Public Defender? Business incubator or state offices? Outside and inside. These and other ideas were brought up in the first of three Courthouse Preservation Committee meetings, 9 June 2014.

Baha Zeidan and Varian Brown wanted a business incubator. Judge Ellerbee said the way the courthouse got into a mess in the first place was people wanting to use it for many things in addition to courtrooms, and he suggested not going the same route again. Pat Sullivan suggested bringing in SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and having them design the building before renting it as a local campus. Stanley Cox seconded that. Sullivan even volunteered his oldest downtown Valdosta building, home of ClientTell, for planning meetings. Gretchen Quarterman said to be sure Valdosta Farm Days, Juneteenth, and all the other courthouse lawn events still can happen in conjunction with whatever happens inside, G. Norman Bennett said it would be a natural location for the Historical Society. Glenn Gregory told stories of historic preservation and suggested VSU, state offices, or the Public Defender, plus he noted there’s another courthouse by the same architect, in Abbeville, GA. They even let somebody speak who hadn’t signed up: Valdosta Mayor John Gayle, who cautioned that the longer it sits, the more it deteriorates.

Here are links to each video, followed by a playlist. Continue reading →

About 90% of U.S. wiretaps are for drug deals

Yet another reason to end the failed War on Drugs: by far most U.S. wiretaps are for that one reason. Sure, a wiretap helped catch a Mexican drug lord. But without the War on Drugs, there would be no drug lords, just like alcohol bootleggers vanished after Prohibition ended.

Brian Anderson wrote for Motherboard 15 July 2014, Almost 90 Percent of All US Wiretaps Listen for Suspected Drug Deals,

Earlier this year, Continue reading →

Board of Elections listened

One precinct off the list for closing, but what about others? And what’s this about an unannounced change to the date of a publicly-announced meeting of the Board of Elections?

After several people went to the 8 July 2014 Special Called Board of Elections Meeting that I found in the VDT Public Notice listings, and some of them talked to that board and to Lowndes County Commissioners, apparently somebody listened. According to Lowndes County Elections Supervisor Deb Cox to Lowndes County Democratic Party Elections Chair Dennis Marks 13 July 2014:

Mildred Hunter is not being considered for consolidation. Deb

However, she did not say what other precincts might still be slated for consolidation.

Rumor has it that Continue reading →

Solar Power Hot Topic on LAKE blog

Some like pithy posts, and others like long historical summaries: see the Solar Hot Topic for the latter. I’ve just added links about solar parking lots, Oakland, CA, Dublin, GA and Lowndes High Schools, and super-lobbying group ALEC’s efforts in every state legislature to oppose solar power.

Solar will win, simply because it’s already cheaper than anything else and the prices keep going down. The fossil industry will delay as long as possible to suck up more profit, but even Wall Street has turned against fossilized utilities that aren’t doing renewables yet. We the people will win. We just need to stop the fossil junkies from doing more damage before they lose. The sun is already rising.

-jsq