Category Archives: LAKE

Submissions Policy

LAKE welcomes submissions!

Submission Methods

Please send submissions for On the LAKE Front
the blog of LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange,
  • by email to lakesubmissions@gmail.com
    or to information@l-a-k-e.org (yes, the dashes are part of that address).
  • or as a comment on a recent LAKE blog post.
    LAKE may choose any comment to promote to a main post.
Feel free to comment on the LAKE facebook page, but we currently only promote blog comments to blog posts.

Submission Format

This is a blog posted in HTML on the web. Submissions should be plain text inline in the body of the email message or blog comment.

What Not to Submit

Our mail stacks are as big as your mail stacks, so help us out by sending us material close to ready to post.

No Word, please, unless it is an official government document.

No PDF unless it is an official government document or a published report.

Convert It

If you do send a non-text format, if at all possible also convert it to plain text and send us that, too. Always send a summary, plus what you think is interesting or important about the document.

You may use HTML markup to indicate emphasis, headers, images, videos, etc.

We like pictures and videos. Please put them on the web and send us links to them.

If you have pictures or videos you don’t know how to get on the web, please send us a note to information@l-a-k-e.org with a request to discuss.

There are no length limits on submissions, but we (and our readers) do get bored with wordiness and repetition.

Submission Content

Content relevant to Lowndes County, Georgia or the surrounding area is preferred.

We especially seek reports on government bodies and other meetings. There are five cities and the county government in Lowndes County, and two school systems plus at least twenty appointed boards, and of course similar organizations in the surrounding area. All of them are of interest. Go, take notes, take pictures, take videos, send us some!

Opinions are good; facts are better. This is a blog, so every post has opinions. But we try to back up opinions with evidence.

If you have documentation, please send a link to it online, or a citation for where to find it, or a description, or the name of someone or some organization that has it, or the document itself. If you send a non-text document, see Convert It. We’re all owls in this together.

Editorial Policy

LAKE reserves complete discretion to select, edit, and annotate submissions, and to delete blog or facebook comments that are spam or personal attacks, or for any other reason whatever.

Comments on the LAKE blog or facebook page are not necessarily endorsed by LAKE, even if we promote them to be main blog posts. Most blog posts by LAKE people are not necessarily endorsed by LAKE, either. Chronic readers will have noted that we don’t even agree among ourselves on a number of issues and often criticize each other. Remember, the purpose of LAKE is transparency and dialog. The only posts that are endorsed by LAKE as an organization are those few that say by someone “for LAKE”.

Remember LAKE’s motto:

Citizen dialog for transparent process
Comments and posts on this blog are part of that process.

We look forward to your comments and reports!

About On the LAKE Front

LAKE welcomes your submissions to its blog,
On the LAKE Front!

LAKE is the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange. Our motto:

Citizen dialog for transparent process

LAKE is just curious citizens; a small core group and a larger loosely connected group of associates. We are the media, and you can be, too!

See our submissions policy.

Industrial Authority Defensive about Minutes

Could the Industrial Authority try any harder to make it look like they’ve got something to hide? Of all things to go to the mattresses about: their board minutes?

The VDT picked up on our series about a local citizen being overcharged for an open records request for VLCIA agendas and minutes. In a front page Sunday VDT story, David Rodock reports:

In response, The Valdosta Daily Times submitted their own Open Records Request for the salaries of all Industrial Authority employees.

According to the information provided by the Authority, the lowest paid fulltime employee, the Operations Manager, is paid an annual salary of $46,526.

When this number is divided by 2080, (52 weeks multiplied by 40 hours per week) it shows that the lowest paid full-time employee is making $22.40 per hour.

The salary quoted on the invoice is not the same as either Continue reading →

How much does the owl weigh?

One of LAKE’s intrepid investigative teams managed to get an appointment to visit the Lowndes County Courthouse Owl. John S. Quarterman answers the question: how much does the owl weigh? Here’s the video.


Visiting the Lowndes County Courthouse Owl, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 April 2011. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Open Board Appointments

We need to watch local boards regardless of whatever else happens. But to ensure local boards and agencies become more responsive to the community, even better is to appoint people to them who want to be more responsive to the community. Many such appointments are available right now.

Valdosta’s list of open appointments, qualifications, etc. can be found here. There are 14 positions open on 8 boards, ranging from the Parks and Recreation Authority, which has its own dedicated tax millage larger than that of the Industrial Authority, to the Keep Lowndes-Valdosta Beautiful Board, which has a paid executive director. Here’s an excerpt: Continue reading →

Biomass protesters @ VCC 7 April 2011

You’ve seen them before and here they are again: biomass protesters, this time outside Valdosta City Hall, 7 April 2011.

Old and young, Continue reading →

Concerned for the community and get up and leave in the middle of the meeting? –Scott Orenstein

Scott Orenstein made a very good point at the end of the 7 March 2011 Valdosta City Council meeting:
…spirit of concern and participation in the community. I’d just like the videographer to pan around and see how many people are still here at the conclusion of the meeting. And then talk about their true concern for the community. Are they really concerned when they get up and leave in the middle of the meeting?
There’s more, but I’m not going to transcribe it all; listen for yourself:


Regular monthly meeting of the Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 April 2011,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

The mayor re-opened Citizens to Be Heard at the end of the meeting so Continue reading →

VDT says VLCIA illegally made up a document

Today’s editorial in the VDT is Another Industrial Authority misstep refers to the VDT article and editorial of Sunday, and continues:
The reporter who conducted the interview with Industrial Authority Project Manager Allen Ricketts has been subsequently repeatedly contacted by Ricketts for what he deems “false reporting.” According to Ricketts, the timeline was never official and was only something the Industrial Authority threw together to appease the Times when given an official Open Records Request. Ricketts is apparently unaware that legally he cannot produce a document that does not exist to comply with said request. If he knowingly did so, as he now claims, that is a clear violation of the Open Records Act.
Presumably that would be the “Project Critical Path time-line is attached” that wasn’t actually attached to documents returned for an open records request of 17 February 2011. Hm, since VLCIA did supply such a document to the VDT, presumably it is now a VLCIA document subject to open records request, even though it was not what VLCIA told VDT it was.

Back to the VDT editorial: Continue reading →

Commissioning ceremony cancelled for Wiregrass Solar plant

Yesterday I heard that the commissioning ceremony for the Wiregrass Solar plant was cancelled by VLCIA due to impending weather. Perhaps you didn’t know it was scheduled; I didn’t. Back at the March VLCIA board meeting, they said they would discuss that “later”.

So I called Col. Ricketts this morning to see if it was back on for today, considering that the weather had already passed by. He said no, they had cancelled it, not wanting to chance having people in a tent in bad weather. He also said the press release had gone out yesterday.

I asked him to let me know when it was rescheduled, reminding him that LAKE likes to take videos of VLCIA events, and we like the Wiregrass Solar plant, so it would be a bit of free publicity for them. He said he would, and he expected it to be probably within the next couple of weeks. I asked him to send LAKE a copy of the new press release when it was sent out. He said he would.

We’ll be happy to post such a press release.

-jsq

More about Open Records Requests

How do we know what agreements the Industrial Authority has with Wiregrass Power LLC? Open records requests!

Some local councils don’t even have open records request forms, and many don’t have them posted online. But that doesn’t have to stop you!

As mentioned, there are plenty of open records requests still to be filed. If you want suggestions, inquire at information at l-a-k-e.org (the dashes are part of the address). For how, see the previous post on the Open Records Act. Send LAKE the results of your request and we may publish them. If you want your name mentioned in a LAKE post as the open records requestor, please say so.

Also remember that any communications you may receive from an elected Continue reading →