Category Archives: VBOE

ESPLOST Election Today

If you’re not yet convinced to get out and vote today to continue the 1% ESPLOST local sales tax that pays for school buildings, books, band instruments, and sports equipment for the Valdosta and Lowndes County, Georgia school systems, here are two Facebook pages: And where you can vote. And here’s lots of detail on where the money goes. The two school boards are setting a standard for local government transparency in posting a detailed notice in the newspaper five times, holding information sessions, going to other people’s meetings and speaking, handing out flyers, etc.

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Precincts for ESPLOST election

Local precincts have been changed yet again since the last election. Here are the precincts for the ESPLOST election on March 15th. According to the Board of Elections, Lowndes County Polling Places:
To find your polling place go to Secretary of State Poll Locator

Click Precincts for Map Locator and Driving Directions provided by Google Maps.

The version of their precinct list below actually has map links for each precinct. I have omitted the photographs of the polling places.
Precinct 1 Newsome St. Church, 202 S. Newsome St., Hahira
Precinct 2 Old Pine Grove Elementary School Gym, 4023 Pine Grove Road, Valdosta
Precinct 3 Westminister Presbyterian Church, 3019 Country Club Road, Valdosta
Precinct 4 Northside Baptist Church Gym, 200 E. Park Avenue, Valdosta
Precinct 5 Jaycee Park Activities Building, 2306 Jaycee Shack Road, Valdosta
Precinct 6 Naylor City Hall, 8753 Georgia Highway 135, Naylor
Precinct 7 Wood Valley Community Center, 1907 Gornto Road, Valdosta
Precinct 8 Rainwater Conference Center, One Meeting Place, Valdosta
Precinct 9 New Clyattville Fire Station, 5080 Madison Highway, Clyattville
Precinct 10 Mildred Hunter Community Center, 509 S. Fry St., Valdosta
Precinct 11 Dasher City Hall, 3686 US Hwy 41 S. Dasher
Precinct 12 South Lowndes Recreation Center, 6440 Ocean Pond Ave, Lake Park

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ESPLOST election, now through 15 March 2011

Update 7 Mar 2011: election date fixed in this post title and text.
Here’s how to announce public finances:
To be published on February 11, 18, and 25, 2010 and March 4 and 11, 2010.
That’s five times the Lowndes County Board of Elections is publishing the details of the ESPLOST one percent sales and use tax for educational purposes. This is significant money: not more than $165 million dollars over five years, $94,875,000 for Lowndes County schools, and $70,125,000 for Valdosta schools. There are only two main ways of raising money for public schools: sales taxes, or property taxes. The local school boards use both. This is the sales tax part.

Well, there is a third way. Continue reading →

Precincts, Lowndes County, Georgia, January 2011

These are the precincts being used in the current ESPLOST election (more about that later). You don’t actually need these maps to see where to vote; for that, see Polling Places, by the Lowndes County Board of Elections. Also, early voting is always at the Board of Elections, 2808 N Oak St, Valdosta, GA.

Available on LAKE’s web pages are wall-sized precinct maps, actually two parts (left and right) of one big wall map, as two PDF files (each between 4 and 5 megabytes) and as a variety of JPEG image sizes in a flickr set.

Left SideRight Side
left side PDF right side PDF
These maps were obtained from Deb Cox, Elections Supervisor, Lowndes County Board of Elections, 4 March 2011 by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

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Municipal elections this year

City elections are this year in Lowndes County, Georgia. According to Deb Cox, Lowndes County Board of Elections, in the Sunday Valdosta Daily Times (30 Jan 2010), the following positions are up for election in 2011 (incumbent in parentheses):

City of Valdosta

Mayor (John Fretti)
City Council At Large (Ben Norton)
City Council Dist 1 (James Wright)
City Council Dist 3 (“Sonny” Vickers)
City Council Dist 5 (Tim Carroll)

City of Hahira

City Council District 2 (Allen Cain)
City Council District 3 (Ralph Clendenin)

City of Dasher

Continue reading →

Tom Call: New VLCIA Board Member

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) has a new board member, Tom Call, local realtor and pesticider:
Roy Copeland
Roy Copeland 		Tom Call
Tom Call 		Mary B. Gooding
Mary Gooding 		Norman Bennett
Norman Bennett 		Jerry Jennett
Jerry Jennett,
Chairman
Since VLCIA’s website has no picture for Tom Call, LAKE has used the one from his Plaxo page.

He’s on the board of Homeland Defense Corp., which does “Custom Automated Mosquito and Insect Misting Systems” and says this:

Thomas B. Call graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. After a career in the agricultural chemicals industry, Tom branched out into real estate. Today, he is the owner of Coldwell Banker Premier Real Estate, and owns a number of successful businesses specializing in residential and commercial real estate development. www.Valdostarealtors.com
(Also on that board are Continue reading →

Brad Lofton’s memory fails him again

On 28 Dec 2010 Brad Lofton wrote:
No one but WACE has made any claims about our efforts to substantiate this project.
Who are all these people, then, asking questions at the VLCIA’s 6 Dec 2010 event?

For example, this one, following up about the Environmental Impact Study he requested back at the EPD air quality hearing (see video of that event). He didn’t get an answer then, and at VLCIA’s 6 Dec event he still only got allusions to studies and standards that were not produced.

You can see Brad Lofton in that video, listening. Did he forget so quickly?

What about SAVE’s event at VSU at which Dr. Sammons spoke? What about the well-attended Biomass Town Hall that Pastor Angela Manning organized? And other events.

What about my question at the 6 Dec 2010 VLCIA board meeting? Continue reading →

Brad Lofton’s Selective Memory

I see by yesterday’s VDT story about the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) meeting that Brad Lofton, executive directory of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), is reported as saying:
The people … that are opposing the plant … have yet to agree to sit down and talk with the authority directly about the plant.
He said somehing similar at the 29 Sep 2010 meeting of the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE). Except then he at least admitted that I had gotten the VLCIA presentation. Yet even then he forgot about the other people in this picture of that 10 June 2010 meeting at the VLCIA offices:


Pictured: Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Even earlier, Dr. Brad Bergstrom and Seth Gunning got a presentation from the VLCIA.

I pointed all this out a month ago, after the VBOE incident.

Why does Brad Lofton, a public employee, keep standing up before elected bodies and saying something that is not true?

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VDT on DoJ at SCLC

Reading the VDT’s editorial yesterday morning, DOJ’s lack of Judgment, I noticed this:
Given this era of YouTube, Internet blogs, and citizen journalists, we have to ask why only credentialed members of the media were asked to leave?

Some of the people in attendance during Sunday’s meeting have openly identified themselves in the past as active Internet bloggers.

For example when I stood up in the row behind the VDT reporter and identified myself as taking videos for LAKE for posting on the web? The editorial continues:
Any one of the people in attendance could have recorded the DOJ’s responses and posted them, but the DOJ didn’t ask to collect people’s cell phones.
I also said that due to the sensitive nature of the subject, instead of LAKE’s usual policy of videoing and posting everything that seemed interesting at a public meeting, at this meeting I was only videoing people who asked to be videoed. It wasn’t the DoJ’s responses that were sensitive (they said hardly anything after their introduction): it was what the people in the audience had to say.

I asked “the female DOJ attorney”, as the VDT calls her, Continue reading →

Michael Noll: precious gifts to all of us

Dr. Michael Noll sent the appended message to all members of the Valdosta Board of Education yesterday, 13 Oct 2010.

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Dear VBOE members.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share some important documents with you last night. As we recognized during the invocation, our children (and grandchildren) are precious gifts to all of us, and those of us who have healthy children (and grandchildren) can count their blessings every single day.

As a parent of two school-aged children and member of the community, I feel it is my responsibility to bring the issue of our children’s health into a clearer focus. It is my sincere hope that once you have had the chance to reflect on the materials I handed out last night, you will realize just how serious the issue is. As a responsible parent I am compelled to advocate for my childrens’ health.

All of us, whether we are parents, educators or members of the VLCIA,

Continue reading →