Category Archives: VLCIA

Medical issues at McRae warrant closing CCA private prison —ACLU

Azadeh Shahshahani wrote for Huffpost 18 August 2011, License to Abuse? Time for Bureau of Prisons to Sever Ties With CCA

Last week, the ACLU of Georgia submitted comments to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to ask that the agency not renew its contract with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for operation of the McRae Correctional Facility.
McRae is located in Telfair County, Georgia. The prison is owned by CCA, which purchased it in 2000. McRae currently houses a population of low security, adult male, primarily non-citizen prisoners. The contract between CCA and the BOP is set to expire in November 2012.

Why? Lack of medical treatment for prisoners, among other reasons. For example: Continue reading →

Private prisons unaccountable —ACLU

Found on the ACLU blog of rights.

Azadeh Shahshahani wrote for the AJC 11 June 2009, Private prisons for immigrants lack accountability, oversight

On March 11, a 39-year-old man held in detention at the Stewart Detention Center, a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in southwest Georgia, died at a hospital in Columbus.

That’s in Lumpkin, west of Americus, south of Columbus.

To this day, the immediate cause of Roberto Martinez Medina’s death remains unclear (a press release pronounced the cause of death as “apparent natural causes”).
Last month, Leonard Odom, 37, died at the Wheeler County Correctional Facility in south-central Georgia.

That’s in Alamo, GA, between Macon, Tifton, and Savannah.

Both facilities are operated by Corrections Corp. of America, which has a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to operate the Stewart center and one with the Georgia Department of Corrections to operate the one in Wheeler County.

So, what happened? Continue reading →

Alabama bishops criticize ALEC’s immigration law

Some churches actually speak in public on what they profess to believe.

Campbell Robertson wrote for the New York Times 13 August 2011, Bishops Criticize Tough Alabama Immigration Law

Josh Anderson for the New York Times
CULLMAN, Ala. —On a sofa in the hallway of his office here, Mitchell Williams, the pastor of First United Methodist Church, announced that he was going to break the law. He is not the only church leader making such a declaration these days.
Since June, when Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, signed an immigration enforcement law called the toughest in the country by critics and supporters alike, the opposition has been vocal and unceasing.
Thousands of protesters have marched. Anxious farmers

Continue reading →

NAACP paradigm shift

Why does it matter that the NAACP wants an end to the War on Drugs?

Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote for the Miami Herald 30 July 2011, NAACP’s paradigm shift on ending the Drug War

Here’s why this matters. Or, more to the point, why it matters more than if such a statement came from Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. The NAACP is not just the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. It is also its most conservative.

Conservative as in:

…denoting a propensity toward caution and a distrust of the bold, the risky, the new. And that’s the NAACP all over.
…there has always been something determinedly middle class and cautious about the NAACP. This is the group whose then-leader, Roy Wilkins, famously detested Martin Luther King for his street theatrics.
For that group, then, to demand an end to the Drug War represents a monumental sea change.

How monumental? Continue reading →

NAACP calls for end to War on Drugs

Nafari Vanaski, wrote for Gateway newspapers 18 August 2011, NAACP calling for truce in nation’s drug war

If you grew up at the same time that I did, you’ll remember the “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign that became popular in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
It manifested itself in many ways, from the posters and talks in class to the “very special episodes” of shows such as “Blossom” and “The Facts of Life,” where a character encounters a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who is pressuring him or her to try drugs. Inevitably, good prevailed and the druggie turned out to be from a broken family and needed only a good face-to-face with Nancy Reagan, the driving force behind the campaign, to overcome his addiction. (She appeared on “Diff’rent Strokes,” and considering the real-life histories of Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges and Dana Plato, she probably should have stuck around for a five-episode story arc.)
“Just Say No” was part of the larger war on drugs the Nixon administration declared in 1971. For grown-ups, that war symbolized a lot more than sappy primetime television. Especially for black adults. For them, it meant stricter laws for those found buying, selling and distributing illegal drugs.
To that end, the NAACP took an interesting step at its national convention last month. It approved a resolution to end the war on drugs because of its devastating effect on the black community.

Interesting how the headline writer watered that down: NAACP called Continue reading →

“about as fruitful as trying to squeeze information out of the Kremlin”

Which organization was this judge referring to?

Schuster told the directors that he thought [that organization] was supplying “vague” information and he directed that henceforth the sides meet monthly in his office for updates on the liquidation process. In short, Schuster is learning first hand — just like members, the media and the public at large have learned — that prying information out of [that organization] is usually about as fruitful as trying to squeeze information out of the Kremlin.

No, not that city council! No, not that county commission! Not even the state board of corrections. (Although some of them might want to try that bureaucratic shoe on to see if it fits.) Here’s who: Continue reading →

An agenda! From the Industrial Authority!

Monday I remarked about the Industrial authority:

Here’s the agenda:
Just joking. They don’t publish their agendas!

Well, shiver me timbers and bless their little hearts! Their new executive director, Andrew Schruijer, remarked at Tuesday’s board meeting that the agenda for that meeting had indeed been posted since Friday. In Citizens to be Heard I readily admitted I didn’t look too hard for it, and expressed astonishment and pleasure at this positive development. Linked from their front page, there’s now an agenda page:

Agenda
Agendas will be posted one day prior to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority regular scheduled monthly meeting.

It has links to agendas for June, July, and August, each with an agenda in PDF. That seems a bit odd for some of those months, when there were several meetings. But, hey, it’s a start!

Here’s the aganda for yesterday’s meeting. That’s in PDF, so here’s a web-readable HTML version:

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Agenda Tuesday, August 16, 2011 5:30 p.m. Industrial Authority Conference Room 2110 N. Patterson Street

Continue reading →

Jack Kingston from Valdosta to Tifton to Atlanta

You may have seen by the front page of the VDT this morning that Jack Kingston was in Valdosta yesterday morning and by the VDT editorial that he will be in Atlanta today. The VDT whines:

Why do you have to take the one politician that actually works for us?

Well, some farmers in Tifton didn’t take kindly to the main idea Kingston was pushing yesterday. Said a farmer:

I have tried working with probationers and I’ll just say that it was a very inconsistent supply of workers.

Hm, the VDT previously was of a similar opinion, an opinion that got quoted in the AJC. Maybe the VDT didn’t know Kingston was pushing HB 87, even though they sat down with him yesterday morning?

We don’t need an ALEC-organized private prison law like HB 87 to profit private prison company CCA, and we don’t need a CC private prison in Lowndes County. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.

-jsq

I live in the shadow of … the biomass plant —protester @ VLCIA 19 July 2011

A protester I hadn’t seen before:

I live in the shadows of where they were talking about building it. So I’m a little sceptical when they tell me that, you know, it’s safe.
They told me the same about Agent Organge before I went to Vietnam. It turned out it was dangerous to us.

He told me his name, but my memory for names is like, er, what was I saying? Somebody please help identify him.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

VLCIA meeting tonight 19 August 2011

According to their web site, the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority board will be meeting tonight:

August 16, 2011 Industrial Authority Board Meeting 5:30 pm at the Industrial Authority Conf. Room

That’s at 2110 N. Patterson Street in Valdosta. Here’s the agenda:

Just joking. They don’t publish their agendas! Or their minutes.