Perusing the
Community Assessment for Lowndes County
sponsored by Georgia Power and prepared by Janus Economics
for the Industrial Authority, I noticed on page 28 under Recommendations:
There is a plan for a public transportation system
in Valdosta-Lowndes
County but it currently lacks funding for implementation. Under current
budget constraints it will be difficult to implement such a project,
but businesses in the industrial parks and outlying areas may want to
implement a limited transportation system if they discover that employee
attendance is an issue.
Update 3:45 PM 3 November 2011: Better transcript and pictures. See also what happened after the meeting.
Dr. Michael Noll, longtime opponent of the Industrial Authority’s formerly
proposed biomass plant, asked that same board at their most recent meeting:
What can we do as a community to better cooperate, to better communicate?
What can we do as a community to better cooperate? –Dr. Noll
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Dr. Noll sent an edited transcript removing some of the repetition
to clarify what he was trying to say:
Continue reading →
Here’s yet another reason the 1% owning and controling everything is
bad for everyone.
Guess which country is the most unequal in income of big countries?
That’s right, the one with by far the most prisoners: the U.S.A.
Prisoners are shown on a log scale, so that’s not just a little bit higher,
it’s about three times higher than Canada or UK.
Why is the USA so high?
It’s not more crime, of the violent homicide and robbery variety.
It’s harsher sentencing, especially for drug-related crimes.
That’s one of many points Richard Wilkinson makes in this
TED Talk from July 2011,
in which he uses hard data to tie income inequality not only to imprisonment,
also to child conflict, drug abuse, infant mortality,
life expectancy, mental illness, obesity, high school dropouts,
teenage births, and social mobility.
The most socially mobile country? Denmark.
The least?
The USA.
Oh yes: we don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia
to make a few CCA executives and shareholders richer at the expense
of the rest of us.
Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.
For the first time ever, a majority of Americans favor legalizing marijuana use,
which is one of the major dangers to CCA’s private prison business plan,
according to CCA itself.
The latest Gallup poll shows a record high of 50 percent of Americans
in favor of legalizing marijuana use. This follows a consistent upward
trend, picking up speed in 2006 when 36 percent of Americans favored
marijuana legalization.
Yes, it’s CCA, the same company that wants to build a private prison in
Lowndes County, Georgia, sued for sexual abuse at its immigration
detention center in Taylor, Texas.
CCA runs the ICE center in Georgia, too.
More than 180 sexual abuse complaints have been reported in immigration
detention centers since 2007, according to government documents obtained
by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a class-action suit
filed this week….
All three women in the ACLU lawsuit were held for a time in the T. Don
Hutto Residiental Center in Taylor, Texas, a 512-bed detention center
privately run on a government contract by private prison giant Corrections
Corporation of America.
The suit targets Corrections Corporation of America along with three
ICE officials, a former facility manager of the Hutto facility, and a
former Hutto guard named Donald Dunn, who was charged last year with
assaulting five women and has been accused of abusing more.
This is also the same CCA that runs a prison in Idaho
commonly known as
Gladiator School because it has twice the rate of assaults
as other prisons in that state.
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.
Dear Andrea, We spoke not long ago by phone. I just want to let you know
that plans to bring in a private prison here are not going to sit well with
many of us. In fact, it will most likely bring about a repeat of the recent
Biomass issue. I don’t mean we are opposed to it. I mean we are vehemently
opposed to it. It seems that Allen Ricketts and the other Board members
don’t understand that Valdosta’s citizens don’t want to be informed of, for
example, what finished products and raw materials will be stored in the
distribution center slated to locate in Valdosta AFTER the contract has been
signed. We have a right to know beforehand what kind of facility it is and
what will be stored there. Informing us after the fact is not transparency.
This is an issue that will continue to be revisited as long as the VLCIA
continues to act unilaterally without considering the wishes of those who
live here. We don’t want to be presented with a fait accompli. Also, the
VLCIA is really not doing due diligence when it continues to court
businesses that raise concerns over the ethical standards of the Board
itself. Thanks. Matt Flumerfelt
A private prison in Lowndes County would be a bad business decision: it would not increase employment, it would be likely to close because of lack of “customers”, and it would drive away knowledge-based workers. The letter I read to the Industrial Authority Board and Staff Tuesday on behalf of some members of the community sumarizes
appended documentation of all those and other points.
If you’d also like to sign, I’m still collecting signatures,
and will periodically drop off more signed copies.
Or, even better, write your own letter and send it to the Industrial Authority.
Submit it to this blog and we’ll probably publish it.
Opposed to a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. —John S. Quarterman
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 18 October 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
No Private Prison —John S. Quarterman
We are the 99%,
Marching to Occupy Valdosta, Occupy Valdosta,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 October 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Make the Industrial Authority be accounted —Tony Daniels at MLK Occupy Valdosta
We are the 99%,
Marching to Occupy Valdosta, Occupy Valdosta,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 October 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
in Valdosta-Lowndes County but it currently lacks funding for implementation. Under current budget constraints it will be difficult to implement such a project, but businesses in the industrial parks and outlying areas may want to implement a limited transportation system if they discover that employee attendance is an issue.
