Category Archives: VLCIA

Industrial Authority debts could force Lowndes County to raise taxes

A mil here, a mil there; soon we’re into real money! Can the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) commit we the local taxpayers to a $150 million bond issue for a private company like the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority just did? Maybe.

VLCIA has already issued $15 million in bonds for which apparently the Lowndes County Commission has committed the county, that is, we the taxpayers, to pay the debt service. That comes out of VLCIA’s one mil of dedicated tax income. But according to the intergovernmental contract, it’s actually not even just from VLCIA’s current millage:

Section 4.4 Security for Contract Payments and for Bonds.

(a) The obligation of the County to make the payments required pursuant to Section 4.1(a) hereof shall be a general obligation of the County for which its full faith and credit is pledged, and shall be payable from any lafully available funds, subject to the Tax Funding Limit. In particular, the County agrees to levy an annual tax on all taxable property located within its boundaries, as now existent and as the same may be extended, at such rate or rates, as limited by the Tax Funding Limit, as and when it may be necessary to provide the County with sufficient revenues to make all payments required to be made by the County under this Contract.
The current VLCIA millage is one mil, or about $3 million a year, collected by the county in property taxes and handed over to VLCIA.

But VLCIA’s charter says (in Section 5): Continue reading →

Biomass plant approved for Macon-Bibb County

How to get a biomass plant approved in Georgia: tack it onto an existing business. Remember to get an industrial authority to use a public bond issue to expand the private business.

Carla Caldwell wrote in the Atlanta Business Chronicle 7 June 2011, Graphic Packaging gets $140M bond deal

A deal OK’d by the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority provides revenue bonds for a $140 million expansion of Marietta, Ga.-based Graphic Packaging International’s Macon, Ga. mill. Improvements will include the addition of a biomass boiler and a 40-megawatt turbine generator geared to reduce emergency cost and improve profitability, reports Macon Telegraph website macon.com.

The authority approved the deal on Monday for the provider of packaging for food, beverage and consumer products. The biomass system, which is scheduled for operation by mid-2013, is expected to generate power from about 400,000 tons of logging materials, mostly the tops of trees, the Macon newspaper reports. Graphic Packaging’s (NYSE: GPK) Macon mill makes an estimated 1,600 tons of paperboard daily.

Maybe we should put some parameters on the types of industry we want around here to avoid this happening with the bonds the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (and the Lowndes County Commission) floats.

This rationalization is precious: Continue reading →

VLCIA hires Andrea Schuijer from Albany

According to David Rodock in the VDT today:
…a unanimous decision by board members to submit a formal offer to Andrea Schruijer for the position of executive director.

Absent from the meeting was board member Roy Copeland.

According to Steve Gupton, authority attorney, the three-year contract will include a salary of $100,000 per year. As with all its employees, the authority will pay seven percent into a retirement fund and 75 percent of health care insurance.

Schruijer, pending acceptance of the offer, will officially start employment on July 8.

She’s a former hotel marketing person, according to her LinkedIn account: Continue reading →

Sterling Planet wants to buy biomass site

Why would Sterling Planet want to buy the biomass site, unless they want to come back later and propose to build a biomass plant on it? Funny how the Industrial Authority didn’t mention this when they said Sterling Planet missed the June 1 deadline for building the biomass plant.

Here’s the relevant part of this morning’s VDT story by David Rodock:

The other major announcement at the meeting was the possibility of Wiregrass LLC exercising the option to purchase the 22.2-acre tract of land that was originally planned to be used for the biomass facility.

“We gave them the option to purchase the land based on certain terms and conditions,” said Gupton. “They basically sent us a certified letter prior to June 1 stating they wished to exercise their option to purchase the 22.2-acre tract of land within 60 days.”

“We are currently looking at the letter to understand if we agree if they have that option and will continue our due diligence,” said Allan Ricketts, project manager, via conference call. “We don’t know anything other than they have sent us a certified letter indicating that they would like to pursue that option.”

And why don’t you know anything other? Can nobody pick up the phone and call Sonny Murphy and ask him? You remember him, the Chairman of Sterling Planet who recently said:
It’s not over until it’s over.

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Prisons bad for education budget

Building a prison is not just a bad business gamble now that crime rates are down and state budgets are tight. It’s bad for other things, too. As the reporter who originally broke the story about the empty new prison in Grayson County, VA noted 2 January 2011, Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a national group that promotes criminal justice reform, summed it up:
“Corrections over the past 25 years has become an increasingly big component of state budgets, to the point that it’s competing for funding with education and other core services,” Mauer said. “And you can’t have it both ways anymore.”

If we want knowledge-based jobs here, a private prison is not how to get them. Let’s not build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend those tax dollars on education instead.

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Sounds like trouble is brewing down I-75. —Jim Galloway

What’s even more secretive than the Industrial Authority? Valdosta State Prison!

The AJC has noticed

Sounds like trouble is brewing down I-75. —Jim Galloway
that the VDT is getting serious about open records requests:
The Valdosta Daily Times’ Open Records request concerning violent incidents in the Valdosta State Prison was denied Monday.

The Department of Corrections (DOC) denied all requests in the Times’ Open Records filing, stating that, under Georgia law, the documents do not have to be released.

After receiving phone calls from concerned individuals who have knowledge of recent violent prison attacks, the Times submitted the Open Records request to Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens.

Kay Harris wrote that in the VDT today.

Curiously, the state doesn’t even provide a picture of the prison.

It’s enough to make you wonder what they have to hide.

Apparently the VDT wonders: Continue reading →

Former Bureau of Prisons chief quit after DUI

At 55, why would Harley G. Lappin retire from his former cushy job as Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons? It might have something to do with being charged with a crime.

According to Ryan J. Reilly at TMPMuckracker 30 March 2011,

Lappin was pulled over less than a half mile from his house at 3:59 a.m. on Feb. 26, the website reported. He’s been charged with driving while under the influence, reckless driving, negligent driving and failure to obey the instructions of a traffic-control device, according to the news website. A spokeswoman said that Lappin informed his staff of the arrest.

Lappin will be due in court on June 16, a little over a month after his resignation becomes effective on May 7.

Well, that will be interesting, to see if the new private prison czar gets off or ends up a felon.

CCA is the company that wants to build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on education, instead.

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New CCA CCO is former Director of Federal Bureau of Prisons

The largest private prison company in the U.S. has hired the former director of the world’s largest prison system, according to CCA’s own press release of 1 June 2011:
NASHVILLE, TN–(Marketwire – Jun 1, 2011) – CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) (NYSE: CXW), America’s leader in partnership corrections, announced that effective June 1, 2011, Harley G. Lappin, 55, shall serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Corrections Officer (CCO). In this role, Mr. Lappin will be responsible for the oversight of facility operations, health services, inmate rehabilitation programs, purchasing and TransCor, the Company’s wholly-owned transportation subsidiary. He succeeds Richard P. Seiter, who announced his decision to step down as CCO earlier this year, effective May 31, 2011.

Mr. Lappin, as a career correctional administrator, previously served as the Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) — the nation’s largest correctional system, a position he held since 2003, prior to retirement in May 2011. He served in a variety of roles with the Bureau of Prisons for more than 25 years, beginning in 1985, including Regional Director, Warden of the United States Penitentiary in Indiana, and Warden of the Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina, among other positions. As Director of the BOP, Lappin had oversight and management responsibility for 116 federal prisons, 14 large, private contract facilities and more than 250 contracts for community correction facilities, in total comprising more than 215,000 inmates managed by 38,000 employees, with a $6.4 billion budget.

How’s that for a revolving door?

CCA is the company that wants to build a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on education, instead.

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“We really need it in the county really bad.” —Grayson County, VA

Is Lowndes County in such bad shape that we, too, want a private prison, no matter that there’s no business case for it? Or should we learn from one bad business bet and not double down on another?

Susan Kinzie wrote in the Washington Post 30 May 2011, New Virginia prison sits empty, at a cost of more than $700,000 a year

This is how bad the economy is in southwestern Virginia: People are wishing they had more criminals in town.

That’s because Grayson County has a brand-new state prison standing empty. No prisoners. And that means no guards, no administrators, no staff, no jobs.

“I wish they would go ahead and open it up,” said Rhonda James of Mouth of Wilson, echoing many residents there. “We really need it in the county really bad.”

Three hundred new jobs — maybe 350 — that’s what people were told when the prison was planned. With about 11 percent unemployment and no relief in sight, that sounded really good to an awful lot of people here.

But months after the commonwealth finished building the 1,024-bed medium-security prison for $105 million, it remains empty, coils of razor wire and red roofs shining in the sun, new parking lot all but deserted and a yawning warehouse waiting for supplies.

And it’s costing more than $700,000 a year to maintain.

Meanwhile, the story continued, Virginia has closed 10 prisons due to budget shortfalls and lack of prisoners. And it’s not just Virginia: Continue reading →

Private Prisons don’t save much money —NYTimes

Richard A. Oppel Jr. wrote on the front page of the New York Times, 19 May 2011, Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings
The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
That’s right, they leave we the taxpayers to pay more in public prisons to house the most expensive prisoners:
The research, by the Arizona Department of Corrections, also reveals a murky aspect of private prisons that helps them appear less expensive: They often house only relatively healthy inmates.

“It’s cherry-picking,” said State Representative Chad Campbell, leader of the House Democrats. “They leave the most expensive prisoners with taxpayers and take the easy prisoners.”

And yet private prisons still cost more.

Could it have something to do with their executive salaries?

Anyway, we don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County. Spend that tax money on education instead.

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