As I was out campaigning, it was interesting what people are
interested in having their pennies spent on. Many want better
sidewalks and safer places to ride their bikes. One Valdosta police
officer particularly commented on the dangerous bike riding
conditions (especially on North Oak Extension). Many in the
un-incorporated areas want increased fire protection and it seems
that everyone better drainage (and I don't mean simply open ditches
for rain water) and still others would like to see some soccer
fields.
It seems like we should be able to do some prioritizations and then
save up for these things. I guess that will be up to the new
commission chairman and members and they will have to figure out how
to move forward without a SPLOST immediately in 2014.
Personally, I'd like to see a public accounting of how the previous
SPLOSTS were spent. And not in big categories, but the actual
details… But that's just me.
After reading this post, a question came to mind. Have we the
citizens of Lowndes County
actually been encouraging our elected
officials to be fiscally irresponsible with public funds by allowing
SPLOST to continue? if elected officials had to allocate resources
in a yearly budget, we may actually encourage our officials to
allocate resources towards public projects that would be desirable
by the public rather than a priority in pthe minds of our elected
officials.
Speaking of
transparency,
Lowndes County voters defeated SPLOST VII 18,864 to 17,923 (51.28% to 48.72%).
Kay Harris in the VDT today quoted Ashley Paulk with this reason:
The defeat came as a surprise to Mayor John Gayle but not to Lowndes
County Commission Chairman Ashley Paulk, who said he warned the
mayors of the five municipalities that if they continued to argue
over
LOST, the local option sales tax, that voters would turn
against SPLOST in retaliation.
“I told them at the beginning if they didn’t stop arguing over
a few percent of the LOST and refused to leave the numbers as is by
taking the county’s offer, that taxpayers were going to turn against
the SPLOST,” said Paulk.
“Voters are disenchanted with the way their local governments
have gotten greedy and they’re tired of the arguments over money.
They voted SPLOST down because they don’t trust us with their tax
dollars, and it’s a real shame.”
I would agree
bickering over the
LOST pie was one of the reasons
SPLOST lost, and add to that the opaque back-room processes by which
the SPLOST VII projects were selected.
While the library needs updated and expanded facilities,
the lack of documented decision process
for the architect
and lack of adequate explanation for that
probably didn’t help, either,
nor did
the county’s puzzling lumping of the library in with Parks and Rec.
which they later tried to clarify.
Perhaps the voters are
tired of seeing transparency be a constant source of tension.
And I’m using the library as just one example. I could equally cite the
project for a farmers market under the overpass, which I think is a bad idea
because the farmers market already has a fabulous location at the historic
Lowndes County Courthouse, and so far as I know none of the vendors who sell there
were even asked if they wanted a new location, much less the public who buy there.
There’s an election going on!
Here are some pictures of precincts around Lowndes County today.
I’ve seen no lines, and everything seems to be flowing smoothly.
Except there are multiple reports that when people call the Board of Elections
to ask where they vote they’re getting a “this number disconnected” message.
Apparently there are ten phone lines down there but only three people
answering them, and the phone is not rolling over properly.
Given all the recent changes in precincts, this is a problem.
Around 1PM Sara Crow said she heard at Pine Grove that about 900 people had
already voted there today.
Yet another example of government contracting not following the fair
bidding practices or allowing community public input. Even if you
attend government meetings no bid information is made public & even
if bids are referred to the amounts are always in those elusive
"packets before you" that only the members have access to.
In a recent Hahira City Council meeting the city attorney ruled that
the city council did not have to put out the garbage service for
bids & that it did not even have to have a contract. As of December
31, 2012 the city collection services will not be under contract at
all so who knows what the rates may be or if a lower bid would have
saved citizens money?
I've been involved in government contracting for years & I can tell
you that the recent path government bodies have endorsed is leading
further & further away from the bidding procedures that were enacted
to prevent good old boy politics & kick backs & is opening the door
wide for public/private partnerships that never answer to the
citizens.
The state attorney general's office which should regulate bidding
practices will not interfere with county or municipal issues unless
a citizen is willing to pay $500 to a lawyer to present the case to
them. They justify this as catering to "home rule" but in actuality
they are turning a blind eye because it is within their jurisdiction
to rule on non-adherence to proper bidding practices.
If the state believes in "home rule" why is Governor Deal pushing a
state charter school board amendment that will take away local rule?
The state seems to pick & choose its standards.
Some residents in unincorporated Lowndes County have complained that
their garbage cans have been taken up, leaving them without a way to
dispose of their trash until Jan. 1.
Allgreen Services, one of the waste management companies ousted out
of unincorporated Lowndes County with the Oct. 9 Commissioners
decision to award a waste contract bid to Veolia Environmental
Service, has begun picking up the waste carts in anticipation of the
holiday season.
“We hate to have to remove them, but we have to,”
Allgreen General Manager Sam Sullivan said. “We thought about
waiting a month, but the problem is if we wait until the end of the
year, we would be removing the carts around Christmastime. We didn’t
want to be out there then.”
Funny how there was no mention of this possibility in
the County Commission meeting that adopted this new solid waste plan.
“I don’t think it could get any easier,” said Commissioner Richard Raines.
It looks like it’s not getting easier for county residents who want
to dispose of their trash.
My op-ed in the VDT today. Remember
to vote today or Tuesday.
-jsq
This spring,
the University at Buffalo turned on 750 kilowatts of
solar electricity.
Rutgers U., in New Jersey, installed 1.4
megawatts in 2009 and started on 8 MW this summer. Down here with a
lot more sun, how about solar panels on VSU parking lots?
Bill Slaughter and Gretchen Quarterman are two very different
candidates. Both are running for Lowndes County Commission Chairman.
Slaughter is the CEO of Waller Heating and Air Conditioning and
Quarterman is a farmer and owner of Okra Paradise Farms.
“I’m very curious, I have a math and science background so I’m
always asking why do we do it this way, not just what do we do, but
why do we do it, what problem are we solving,” said Quarterman.
LibertYOUtbreak
Talks, Liberty Outbreak (LO),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
VHS PAC, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2012.
First they showed an animated movie,
The American Dream by the Provacateur Network,
which is mostly about money as debt.
As I remarked to one of the organizers afterwards,
that’s also the theme of
Debt: The First 5,000 Years,
by David Graeber, one of the founders of Occupy Wall Street
(here’s a
video interview with him,
and
a text interview).
The cartoon movie, while presenting that theme in some depth,
only briefly mentions Wall Street
and focuses on the Federal Reserve and an octopus-like long-lived financial
villain it calls Red Shield, which is English for Rothschild.
I find that last a bit far-fetched, not to say outdated,
considering that recent research shows that the real current
octopus-like set of interconnected corporations looks more
like this.
But then plenty of things were said in the recent local
political forums that I didn’t agree with, either.
J.C. Cunningham, running for state representative district 175,
reminded us all that the basic purpose of the Georgia state government
is to provide public education, according to its constitution,
and that local school boards already can and do approve charter schools.
He gave five reasons for voting No on Amendment 1:
Because out-of-state corporations are paying for this campaign….
It creates a new Atlanta-based government bureaucracy.
The new commission will be filled by appointments done by politicians,
not the citizens.
Georgia already has 200 charter schools, and we’ve already proven the
process works.
A Yes vote would… cost us an additional $430 million
while most of our schools are not open a full year as it is….
The only reasoning that I can tell you that proponents have been giving us
is school choice, and again,
they already have school choice;
we have school choice.
The only new things about Amendment 1 are higher cost
and unnecessary state bureaucracy….
Here’s
the video,
followed by a partial transcript.
Why No on Amendment 1 —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175
Talks, Liberty Outbreak (LO),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
VHS PAC, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2012.
interested in having their pennies spent on. Many want better sidewalks and safer places to ride their bikes. One Valdosta police officer particularly commented on the dangerous bike riding conditions (especially on North Oak Extension). Many in the un-incorporated areas want increased fire protection and it seems that everyone better drainage (and I don't mean simply open ditches for rain water) and still others would like to see some soccer fields.
