Category Archives: VLCIA

Felony sentencing for possession — Are you high?

And now a word from the ACLU (yes, I am a card-carrying member):

As we watch the state budget crisis deepen, one of the most wasteful and harmful policies of our state government – felony sentences for simple drug possession – remains in place. We are spending unnecessary millions to incarcerate people who pose no threat to public safety.

Sentencing reform is the way to bring prison spending back in line with other priorities – like public schools and universities, social services, and drug treatment.

That’s actually from the ACLU of Northern California, but the point is the same for anywhere that locks up people for minor drug offenses, like Georgia.

We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County. Spend that tax money on schools instead.

-jsq

Expand the array, publish the minutes, private prison is a bad idea —John S. Quarterman @ VLCIA 17 May 2011

Here’s what I said to the VLCIA board on 17 May 2011. Notes are appended after the video:


Expand the array, publish the minutes, private prison is a bad idea —John S. Quarterman @ VLCIA 17 May 2011
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Acting Executive Director,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 May 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Congratulations on the Wiregrass Solar commissioning. Since this was not ever the largest array in Georgia let’s encourage Mayor Fretti and Commissioner Powell to help VLCIA expand the local array.

Referring to Mary Gooding’s comments about people who wanted to see minutes probably going to be frustrated, I pointed out that Continue reading →

Minutes online? VLCIA 17 May 2011

VLCIA is still indecisive about minutes online, but is at least talking about it. Support for publishing minutes came from a surprising source.

Col. Ricketts said he had been asked by Roy Copeland to look at putting the minutes online and had talked to local authorities (Parks & Recs, Hospital, Prison, Airport) and other economic development authorities around Georgia (Macon, Albany, Tifton, Columbus, Savannah, and Augusta) and found none of them publish minutes online. He said their concern was prospective project details.

Col. Ricketts said Chairman Jerry Jennett asked him to talk to former Executive Director Ken Garren. Ricketts said Garren said that even though Continue reading →

Operating at a slower pace VLCIA 17 May 2011

Chairman Jerry Jennett reported that VLCIA was generally operating at a slower pace due to the economy. Roy Copeland asked for the board to come back to the operating budget later in the meeting when they could ask their CPA a few questions. He was out of town, so they agreed to try to get him on the telephone later.

Here’s Part 1 of 2: Continue reading →

Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs

The war on some drugs has failed. Locking up people for marijuana while oxycontin is legal makes no sense. Locking up huge numbers of people for private profit at taxpayer expense while schools are getting defunded makes even less sense.

David Gutierrez wrote in Natural News 10 November 2008, Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs

A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission has concluded that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of death.

An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found that three times as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines put together. According to state law enforcement officials, this is a sign of a burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem.

Is this just in Florida? Continue reading →

VSU Faculty Senate passes anti-biomass resolution

Karen Noll reported on WACE’s facebook page that the VSU Faculty Senate passed a resolution Thursday 19 May 2011 that biomass will not be considered renewable for VSU’s climate commitment goal.

Why? Because leading medical associations have identified woody biomass incineration as increasing risks of “a variety of illnesses, some life-threatening”, because biomass incineration produces more CO2, NOX, and fine particulates than existing coal plants, and because it “may lead to unsustainable forestry practices and a net increase in global greenhouse gas emissions”.

Who proposed this? Continue reading →

Solar power is the peoples power —Alden Hathaway

After he talked about expanding the Wiregrass Solar plant by another megawatt, Alden Hathaway of Sterling Planet said this:
Solar power is the peoples power.

Whether you’re talking about grid tied power here in America tied to the wire, or solar in the rural countryside of Uganda, it’s immediately available and accessible in all sizes. So I can use it to power a cell phone, charge a laptop, put light in a school, or pump water in a hospital. Solar is immediately available to do that, without massive which is a barrier to development in much of the developing world.

And to development in south Georgia, for that matter. So we can leapfrog that barrier with solar.

Here’s the video:


Solar power is the peoples power –Alden Hathaway
Commissioning Ceremony,
Wiregrass Solar, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 May 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Protesters at VLCIA 17 May 2011

Those biomass protesters were back, playing hopscotch!

Industrial Authority board meetings have turned into sidewalk cultural events. This was outside the 17 May 2011 meeting.

A couple of different signs: Susan Wehling with her traffic signal stop biomass sign, and a Honk for Clean Air sign.

-jsq

A key to community organizing work —Seth Gunning

This comment by Seth Gunning came in on the backfire effect and how to leapfrog it. -jsq
Great article John. Thanks for turning me onto the research presented here, I’ll be looking into and using it. I’d also suggest a book called “Breakthrough: from the death of environmentalism to the politics of possibility”. I think you will love it.

Beyond changing the messaging on signs, which I think is a great idea, I think what the research reflects is a fundamental change in the approach to the work.

A key to community organizing work, as opposed to activism,

Continue reading →

VLCIA meeting right now and this evening

Skipping in to the Industrial Authority office to file an open records request, I noticed all five board members in the board room having a meeting. So I asked whether an appointed board was bound by the same state law as for an elected body that it had to announce meetings in advance. Lu Williams said that it was a special called meeting, that they sent a notice to the VDT, and yes, they were bound by the same rule.

I asked if I could have a copy of the agenda of the meeting in progress. She said they had all the copies in there but she would get me one later.

A few minutes later I went back and asked if they were in executive session. She said yes, they already went from the open called meeting into executive session to discussion personnel.

However, I did pick up a copy of tonight’s agenda, and typed it in, so, for apparently the first time ever, here is the agenda for a VLCIA board meeting on the web before the meeting. -jsq

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Agenda
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Continue reading →