Tag Archives: development

Protesters at Industrial Authority, 19 April 2011

The protesters are revolting these days! Is there nothing an Industrial Authority can do to keep them off its doorstep?

Where are these people protesting? Could it be outside the Industrial Authority?

Protesters @ VLCIA 19 April 2011 Part 1 of 4:
Biomass protesters,
Regular monthly 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, 19 April 2011,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman and John S. Quarterman
for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Why that sign says Continue reading →

Explain about the penalties if the voters don’t pass T-SPLOST? –Norman Bennett

What about those penalities Corey Hull of VLMPO mentioned when he explained T-SPLOST to VLCIA?

Norman Bennett, VLCIA board member and former chairman of the Lowndes County Commmission, asked Corey Hull:

Can you explain that again for me about the penalties if the voters don’t pass the tax? If the county’s got a project, then they’ve got to put up ten percent or whatever the percentage is?

Continue reading →

Corey Hull explains T-SPLOST to VLCIA, 15 Feb 2011

What’s this about yet another sales tax decided on by regional transportation boards and GDOT?

Corey Hull of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO) explained T-SPLOST at the regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). Georgia HB 277, which was passed by the legislature and signed into law last year, calls for a 1% regional sales tax (T-SPLOST) to fund transportation projects.

The region including Lowndes County has 18 counties, Continue reading →

Greening Of America –James R. Wright

In a long-running email discussion that started with a post by Valdosta City Council member James R. Wright about switchgrass for biomass, Councilmember Wright wrote two messages on Saturday, 26 March 2011, each asking questions of Dr. Michael Noll. The first one contained this paragraph:

Economic development is a high priority on the mind of many people. If you read the local paper you will see page after page of foreclosures, failing businesses, and unemployment at a all time high. Please explain to me how we can address these problems through energy needs?

Councilmember Wright elaborated later that same day: Continue reading →

Georgia is CCA’s model partner

“Primary site?” Really?

The initial writeup in the VDT quoted CCA as being all coy about if a need arose from the state they would be ready to deploy the private prison in Lowndes County:

“This is (for) a future need that we don’t even know what it’ll be yet,” Frank Betancourt, CCA’s vice president of real estate development said. “There’s no ground breaking to announce. When the need (for a facility) does arrive, we can be the first ones to offer (our services).”

Yet if you look on CCA’s own website under partnering:

CCA has been a great partner with us for nearly a decade now. Coffee Correctional Facility and Wheeler Correctional Facility certainly meet the standards of the Georgia Department of Corrections. I particularly appreciate CCA maintaining exemplary accreditation status with both the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare. I look forward to a continued long relationship with them.”
—Commissioner James E. Donald, Georgia Department of Corrections

And over in Decatur County people actually asked about this, and were told Continue reading →

Wiregrass Technical College @ VLCIA 15 March 2011

Wiregrass Technical College wants to expand onto some land owned by the Industrial Authority, using SPLOST funds.

Chairman Jerry Jennett:

The point is they’re landlocked.
And so what you want to do is you want to take what your tract is now and have the ability to expand your building in the future. You want to move your training facility now and….

CCA for Lowndes County in GeorgiaTrend

Ed Lightsey writes in GeorgiaTrend for March 2011, Valdosta/Lowndes County: Taking Off about many good developments in Lowndes County. But among them is this:

About two years ago, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) began looking for sites on which to build a prison, and after an 18-month search chose Lowndes County, a decision that promises 400 to 600 new jobs. “It’s a $150-million investment,” Lofton says. “That’s the second largest investment in the history of the county. And of those promised jobs, about 120 will require post secondary education; they are nurses, physician assistants, dieticians and vocational rehab folks.”
CCA is the fifth largest penal system in the country, behind Florida, Califor-nia, Texas and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, according to Lofton. “They have about 20,000 employees across the country,” he says.

So why do we need them here? Continue reading →

Decatur County thinks it’s getting the CCA private prison

Jeff Findley wrote in the Post-Searchlight on 25 January 2011 about Economic activity picking up:

Engineers with Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison company that signed a memorandum of understanding almost a year ago with the Authority to construct and operate a prison in the industrial park, will be in Bainbridge on Feb. 18 to begin site work preparation.
Officials from Decatur County and the Development Authority with meet with CCA officials and tour the site where the prison will be located.
“They’re anxious to get it going, but very guarded on making any kind of projections about when things might start, but all indications are it would be sooner rather than later,” said McCaskill.
Initial projections have the capital investment by CCA in the neighborhood of $150 million and, when fully staffed, the facility would employ up to 600 people.

Findley wrote that Rick McCaskill is the “executive director of the Development Authority of Bainbridge and Decatur County.”

So in Decatur County CCA has gone from an announcement last July to a site visit six months later this January. According to Col. Ricketts at the 15 March 2011 VLCIA board meeting, CCA was coming to do a site visit in Lowndes County two months later on 16 March 2011. And according to Brad Lofton at that same meeting, Lowndes County is CCA’s primary site. What’s going on here (and there)?

The story continues in later posts.

-jsq

CCA private prison in Decatur County?

Brad Lofton mentioned (at the 15 March 2011 VLCIA board meeting) that the competition for VLCIA’s Project Excel, the CCA private prison, is Decatur County. Bainbridge and Decatur County seem to think they’ve been selected.

The Post-Searchlight editorialized on 16 July 2010 that the prison would be A good fit. The next day, BainbridgeGa.com posted on 17 July 2010:

Corrections Corporation of America has finally announced their intention to build a prison in Decatur County.
The not so secret secret was announced when the Bainbridge-Decatur County Development Authority agreed to a memorandum of understanding with CCA on Thursday.
The plans are to build what is thought to be in the range of a $100 million facility on 110 acres located in the Decatur County Industrial Park on Highway 27 north. The site is in the back of the Industrial Park, well back from the entrance on Highway 27 north.
It is hoped the facility will provide 400-500 jobs for our area in the next couple of years.

So how come VLCIA thinks it’s getting a private prison from CCA?

The story continues in later posts.

-jsq

Competition for CCA’s private prison? –Roy Copeland

Roy Copeland had a question about Project Excel, the private prison that Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) wants to build in Lowndes County, at the 15 March 2011 VLCIA board meeting.

Q: He wanted to know if there are other communities competing for the project, and whether they had also paid a second extension.

A: Col. Ricketts answered that there is another community competing, but he did not know whether they had made that payment: Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange