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):
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.
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?
This is not sitting well with opponents of consolidation.
Here’s JC Cunningham’s reaction:
I personally am not surprised by any tactics that Cuee uses in order to
win on Nov. 8th. In the last 5 minutes I have received 3 phone calls
and 6 emails. Each one asked me what was I going to do about it?
After the last call I began to get a little upset, because I did not
ask that person the same question. What are you going to do about
this?
It was Dostoevsky who said: “The degree of civilisation in a society
is revealed by entering its prisons.” But in contemporary Britain you
don’t even need to do this, you can simply stand on a street corner and
wait for the ghosts to come flitting past in order to appreciate its
parlous condition.
We now have the highest prison population in Europe by a considerable
measure, and following the recent riots there is no likelihood of it
decreasing.
Of course, we aren’t quite at the levels enjoyed by our closest allies,
those prime exponents of the civilising mission the United States, whose
extensive gulag now houses, it is estimated, more African American men
than were enslaved immediately prior to their Civil War – but we’re
getting there.
Mayor Sonny Vickers said he thought it was important for children
and grandchildren and proper for the City Council to take a stand
against school consolidation, and City Manager Larry Hanson read
the statement (transcript appended).
For:
James Wright
District 1
Hoke Hampton
District 3
Alvin Payton
District 4
Ben Norton
At Large
Didn’t Have to Vote:
Sonny Vickers
Mayor
Against:
Robert Yost
District 6
Tim Carroll
District 5
Missing:
Deidra White
District 2
After very brief discussion, the vote was 4 for
(James Wright of District 1, Hoke Hampton of District 3,
Alvin Payton of District 4, and Ben Norton At Large)
and 2 against
(Robert Yost of District 6 and Tim Carroll of District 5).
Valdosta City Council voted to oppose school consolidationo
education, consolidation, resolution,
Regular Session, Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 October 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Here’s the statement transcribed as accurately as I could from the video:
Continue reading →
There are a bunch of changes to the Comprehensive Plan and the
Land Development Regulations (LDR) that people ought to pay attention to,
scheduled for tonight’s Valdosta City Council (VCC) meeting.
But the one many people are going to see is this one:
6.a) Consideration of a Position Statement on School Consolidation.
I know that there are many “newcomers” to the area which supported
consolidation until they connected the dots and realized this has nothing
to do with improving our children’s education.
that the prison privatization plan the Florida legislature added to the
state budget is unconstitutional on a key point of all prison privatization schemes.
Her ruling agreed with the
Florida Police Benevolent Association,
which is a union of correctional workers.
The privatization of 29 prisons in the southern portion of the state
from Manatee County to Indian River County to the Florida Keys should
have been mandated in a separate bill and not in proviso language in
the budget, as lawmakers did in the must-pass budget approved in May
and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, Fulford ruled.
“This Court concludes that if it is the will of the Legislature to
itself initiate privatization of Florida prisons, as opposed to DOC,
the Legislature must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the
hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act,’” Fulford wrote
in
her order issued Friday morning.
The order doesn’t say Florida can’t privatize prisons,
rather that it can’t do it by hiding it in the budget process.
But alleged budget savings are the only reason privatization backers
are willing to admit to, so that’s no small matter.
And if prison privatization is such a money-saver, why did the prison companies’ cronies in the statehouse try to do it like this:
Continue reading →
What about this, is this just a coincidence of names?
Empire Center for New York State Policy put out a press release of
8 October 2009,
According to the data, the highest paid non-professional school employee
(outside New York City) was Steven H. Prigohzy of the New York Institute
for Special Education, who was paid $230,000.
The partnership between
Public Education Foundation, headed by Steven H. Prigohzy, and
the consolidated public schools in Chattanooga and Hamilton County, Tennessee
continues.
So, how have all those great plans for improving education worked out?
In 1994 Chattanooga city voters voted to turn responsibility for education
over to the county, requiring the two systems to merge. At the request
of the Hamilton County School Board, PEF surveyed 3,300 area residents
and convened 135 community members – educators, civic and government
leaders, residents, parents and students – to help shape the vision
for the new school system. When the newly consolidated system emerged
in 1997, the partnership with PEF continued.
Interestingly, Prigohzy is no longer listed as board or staff with PEF.
Maybe we should ask them why….
In the years 2005 – 2010, Hamilton County Public Schools will meet or
exceed national benchmarks for excellence with continuous, measurable
improvement in reading, mathematics, and in the numbers of students who
progress smoothly from grade to grade, graduate from high school and go
on to college or career-path jobs. Because of this sustained progress,
Hamilton County will be recognized among the very best mid-sized public
school systems in America. The community will be justifiably proud
and more and more people will understand and support the investment
necessary for great public schools. The Public Education Foundation
will be instrumental in these achievements as a champion of school
transformation and will devote its expertise and fundraising capabilities
to the Hamilton County Public Schools as a catalyst for bold ideas that
create real and positive change.
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.
