Tag Archives: Alcohol

“We expect you to run a clean, quiet establishment” —Ashley Paulk @ LCC 2012 03 13

A month ago (28 February 2012), Chairman Ashley Paulk chastised the VDT for how it reported on recent changes to the alcohol ordinance. This month he singled out an applicant for an alcohol license and said:
We expect you to run a clean, quiet establishment. If not, we expect the Sheriff to enforce the law.
Sheriff Chris Prine nodded.

Here’s the video:


“We expect you to run a clean, quiet establishment” —Ashley Paulk @ 2012-03-13
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission, (LCC), Lowndes County Commission,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 13 March 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

What’s this about, and what’s the connection with the meeting of a month ago? The Chairman was referring to Continue reading →

I kind of like transparent government —Ashley Paulk @ LCC 2012 02 28

It’s good to know County Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk supports transparency. However, if he considers certain details important enough for the public to know, how about if the Commission puts them in its own minutes? Or publishes its own videos of its own meetings? Or even publish a list of changes that it approves when it changes an ordinance?

At the 28 February 2012 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission, Chairman Ashley Paulk said:

I kind of like transparent government.

He proceeded to tell VDT reporter David Rodock that

Not killing the messenger, but it was written in your paper the other day that the alcohol ordinance was kind of rushed and people were not aware of it. If you would go back to your story of May the 11th we discussed that in great depth.

Here’s the video:


I kind of like transparent government —Ashley Paulk @ LCC 2012-02-28
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC), Lowndes County Commission,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 February 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

He recommended that the VDT editors research their own archives. Fair enough, but how about if we look at the Commissions own archives of its own minutes?

First let’s see what the reporter wrote that the Chairman was objecting to: Continue reading →

Alcohol ordinance and license plus two road abandonments @ LCC 2012 02 13-14

What does a Community Corrections Director do? What is the proposed modification to the alcohol ordinance? We don’t know, because the county doesn’t post the details of agenda items, just cryptic shorthand that may mean something to Commissioners or staff, but that means nothing to the public.

At this morning’s work session and tomorrow evening’s regular session, the Lowndes County Commission has a brief but eventful agenda, including a modification to the alcohol ordinance, an alcohol license, a DHS grant a GDOT grant for a road project on Davidson Road (presumably related to the new Moody AFB gate), two road abandonments, and this interesting item:

6.h. Request from Superior Court to establish salary of the Community Corrections Director
Your guess is as good as mine.

Here’s the agenda.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

How to end the epidemic of incarceration

There are historical reasons for why we lock up so many people, some going back a century or more, and some starting in 1980 and 2001. Knowing what they are (and what they are not) lets us see what we can do to end the epidemic of incarceration that is damaging education and agriculture in Georgia.

Adam Gopnik wrote for the New Yorker dated 30 January 2012, The Caging of America: Why do we lock up so many people?

More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then.
In Georgia, 1 in 13 of all adults is in jail, prison, probation, or parole: highest in the country (1 in 31 nationwide). Georgia is only number 4 in adults in prison, but we’re continuing to lock more people up, so we may get to number 1 on that, too.
Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education.

And we can’t afford that, especially not when we’re cutting school budgets. That graph of education vs. incarceration spending is for California. Somebody should do a similar graph for Georgia.

The article does get into why we lock up so many people: Continue reading →

Pop the drug war balloon: legalize and regulate the drug trade —Terry Nelson, LEAP

LTE in the WSJ, 21 January 2012:
The article illustrates what I learned over my 30-year career as a federal agent: Cracking down in one place doesn’t make drugs disappear, it only moves the trade elsewhere. This so-called “balloon effect,” combined with the insatiable demand for drugs across the globe, means that no level of law-enforcement skill or dedication can make a significant dent.

The only way to pop the proverbial balloon is to legalize and regulate the drug trade, which would eliminate the opportunity to make enormous black-market profits. It wasn’t easy for me to come to this revelation after dedicating so many years to enforcing drug laws, but it is common sense. Law-enforcement officers don’t have to chase gangsters selling booze from town to town because we ended the failed experiment of alcohol prohibition decades ago. It is time we do the same for other drugs.

Terry Nelson
Executive Board Member
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Granbury, Texas

And that will pop the incarceration bubble, as well, according to CCA’s own 2010 report to the SEC. -jsq

Reapportionment and Comprehensive Plan @ Lowndes County Commission, 12-13 December 2011

The missing hearing related to the Comprehensive Plan is on the agenda for Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session. Also on the agenda is
6. Resolution – Reapportionment
which I’m guessing has to do with changes in population in County Commission districts. Maybe they’ll say at the Work Session Monday morning.

And these interesting items:

8.f. Lowndes County Fire Rescue Standard Operating Procedures .br> 8.g. Animal Welfare Standard Operating Procedures
I wonder if those procedures are available for citizens to see?

Plus a rezoning, a road abandonment, a beer and wine license, and quite a few other items for the last meeting of the year. Given they haven’t met since 7 November 2011, more than a month ago, I guess that’s not surprising.

Here’s the agenda:

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2011, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Double Lowndes County Commission tonight: Work 4:30 PM Regular 5:30 PM

Alcohol, rezoning, hospital, debt, and an election! Because Tuesday is Election Day, the Lowndes County Commission changed its regular meeting to Monday. Work sessions are usually Monday in the morning; today the Work Session is at 4:30 PM, just before the Regular Session at 5:30 PM. It’s a busy agenda, including two alcohol licenses, two rezonings, and an appointment to the Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County (VLCHA); that’s the body that authorized South Georgia Medical Center (SGMC) buying Smith Northview Hospital, after which SGMC got the County Commission to have we the taxpayers guarantee $100 million in bonds for expansion. Hm, and “SGMC Revenue Certificates” is on this agenda, too.

Here’s the agenda:

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2011, 4:30 p.m.
REGULAR SESSION, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Videos of Candidates Forum by VLCoC last night

Videos of the Candidates Forum put on last night by the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC) are starting to appear in this playlist. The three Valdosta Mayoral candidates are there already (in order of appearance): There’s one more candidate video to come.

Here are the videos so far:


Candidates Forum, Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 October 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Chamber opposes hidden taxes while proposing taxation without representation

Chairman Tom Gooding of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce said that the Chamber was opposed to government adding hidden taxes, and Roy Taylor can be heard going “Amen!”. Yet both of them back the Chamber and CUEE’s school “unification” referendum, which would raise taxes for everyone in Valdosta and Lowndes County plus making conditions more difficult for business. None of the school consolidation proponents seem to see the irony.

Gooding’s talk about the Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee spelled out the Chamber’s theory of local government, which is all about helping business, and apparently not about anything else. He didn’t say a word about government providing public benefits for the common good. Which is the tail and which is the dog?

Also, Gooding promised at least three times (1 2 3) that Continue reading →

Qualifying for local city elections is next week

The VDT editorialized yesterday:
On Monday, qualifying week begins for candidates interested in running in the November election for Valdosta Mayor, City Council At Large and Council Districts 1, 3, and 5; Hahira City Council Districts 2 and 3; City of Dasher Post 3 and 4; City of Lake Park Mayor and four council positions; Remerton Mayor and five council seats; Valdosta School Board Districts 4, 5, and 6.
The VDT points out that city elections usually don’t get much turnout, but this year there are two referendum questions on the ballot that may cause record turnout. They are: Continue reading →