Tag Archives: Executive Director

Why all those VLCIA special meetings?

Here’s the VlCIA board approving minutes for some of those recent meetings, although you can’t tell what they were for, since they were listed on the agenda like this:
Minutes
  • Special Called Meeting, May 17, 2011
  • Executive Session, May 17, 2011
  • Regular Meeting, May 17, 2011
  • Special Called Meeting, May 20, 2011
  • Executive Session, May 20, 2011
  • Special Called Meeting, May 21, 2011
  • Executive Session, May 21, 2011
  • Special Called Meeting, June 7, 2011
  • Executive Session, June 7, 2011
That’s right: no indication of what the meetings were for.

I was told outside afterwards by one board member that the special meetings were for Continue reading →

I’m all for openness —Tom Call

The member who hardly ever speaks at board meetings makes a strong case for openness.

Tom Call called me back about the biomass plant, and we talked about a number of other matters. He remarked that he was not an appointed spokesperson for the Industrial Authority, so this is just him talking.

I asked him about Ashley Paulk’s remarks in the 26 April 2011 Lowndes County Commission meeting. Tom Call said VLCIA was not standing behind any other body, and he clarified what had happened.

He said the biomass plant had been brought to the Industrial Authority by Continue reading →

Lame-duck Lofton cranks the same old scratched wax cylinder

After he gave his goodbye speech, I wished him happiness in Myrtle Beach and thought maybe he’d make a graceful exit. Nope, he’s still cranking the Edison phonograph on the same old scratched wax cylinder. Here he is last week responding to James Wright and dozens of other people in the same thread to which I later posted It’s an opportunity. In Lofton’s case, he’s still fixated on the losing proposition of biomass fuels. -jsq
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:59:49 -0400

James:


© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons.
Thanks so much for sharing this and for your continued strong support of our client’s green renewable energy project. In addition to assisting the country in reducing our consumption of middle eastern fuel and improving the environment, this project will provide a much needed economic impact for landowners of every race, and the Industrial Authority will assist in the efforts underway to assist local farmers. Google “benefits of biomass electricity,”

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What was missing from Brad Lofton’s speech?

Seems like there’s something from Brad Lofton’s speech at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce on 28 January 2011. Right at the end he mentioned:
a project we’ve been working on


Brad Lofton, Executive Director, Valdosta-Lowndes COunty Industrial Authority,
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

What could that project be?

Right at the beginning Lofton said:

Ben Copeland beat me slap silly
Maybe that’s a clue. What did Ben Copeland say about Brad Lofton?
Brad Lofton was going to talk after me, and he’d talk about biomass. [laughter]
Continue reading →

Brad Lofton’s memory fails him again, and again….

Speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce 28 January 2011, Industrial Authority Executive Director Brad Lofton remarked about:
The largest solar panel array that we are aware of today in the state of Georgia. That’s 350 kW solar panel array that you’ll be seeing coming out of the ground February first.


Brad Lofton, Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

That’s funny, because as readers of this blog may recall, on 18 January 2011 I pointed out to Lofton that: Continue reading →

Brad Lofton asks for your ideas

In a generally congenial and well-received speech to the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce (LPCoC), Industrial Authority (VLCIA) executive director Brad Lofton gave an update on various projects and concluded by asking for input. “Economic development is a team sport,” he said, and “Give us ideas” and “There’s one of us and hundreds of you.”

Lofton was introduced by LPCoC chairman Dan Bremer who said that Lofton and VLCIA brought a plant to Lake Park with 400 workers.

In his speech, Lofton lauded the LPCoC as a great incubator of local businesses.

It’s going to come from all of you.
He talked about expanding local industries, especially PCA at length, asking David Carmon of PCA to stand up, saying PCA made a $230 million expansion in 2010, and noting “We had to compete for the PCA project.” Continue reading →

Brad Lofton wants you to see this (again and again)

You can hear him say he hopes I record it. This is what VLCIA considers “proof”: reciting a list of “authorities” without addressing the specific criticisms or directly debating critics. He still hasn’t produced the citations to scientific literature he’s been repeatedly asked for regarding health care, nor has he produced the wood sourcing study.

You can hear Lofton recite much the same laundry list in Continue reading →

Brad Lofton’s Selective Memory

I see by yesterday’s VDT story about the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) meeting that Brad Lofton, executive directory of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), is reported as saying:
The people … that are opposing the plant … have yet to agree to sit down and talk with the authority directly about the plant.
He said somehing similar at the 29 Sep 2010 meeting of the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE). Except then he at least admitted that I had gotten the VLCIA presentation. Yet even then he forgot about the other people in this picture of that 10 June 2010 meeting at the VLCIA offices:


Pictured: Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Even earlier, Dr. Brad Bergstrom and Seth Gunning got a presentation from the VLCIA.

I pointed all this out a month ago, after the VBOE incident.

Why does Brad Lofton, a public employee, keep standing up before elected bodies and saying something that is not true?

-jsq

Michael Bryant: “the appalling silence”

Pastor Michael Bryant expands on his previous letter.

-jsq

Dear Pastors and fellow laborers in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior,

I was born and raised here in Lowndes County. Today I am as disturbed as I was in 1973 when I, along with 42 other students, four ministers and their wives, were jailed for protesting unfair treatment of students in the Lowndes County School System. We were arrested while standing in the parking lot awaiting to enter the building for a meeting called by the Lowndes County Board of Education at their office on St. Augustine Road. The meeting was supposed to be a good faith gesture designed to mediate an amicable solution to the picketing which had been in process for nearly six months. After being arrested, we were moved from Big 12 in a prison truck in the dead of night. We were to be housed in the Cook County jail and none of our parents knew where we were. When we exited the truck, both sides of the walk way upon which we had to walk were lined with numerous State Troopers and other Law Enforcement officers sporting riot gear and shotguns. On the following day they refused to feed us breakfast. We began to complain and the judge came upstairs dressed in his robe. He said “I want you to stop making noise, and if you don’t, I can make you stop.”

When we complained again, the cell in which we were jailed was sprayed down with tear gas. We had one toilet and one sink in which to clear our eyes. These are facts that went unreported by the papers. In fact they said we were rabble rousers. The late Ralph Harrington signed all our bonds, and we went through a lengthy trial, represented by the late Mr. C. B. King, Sr., of Albany, GA. At the close of the trial all charges were dismissed and expunged from our records.

As a student then, I witnessed the appalling silence of men and women of God who preached the hell out of people on Sundays, collected their checks, and went home untouched by the happenings in the community. This was much like the appalling silence of ministers who sat on the sidelines while Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., placed his life on the line for “the least of these.”

Some years ago, Rev. Floyd Rose, two of my sisters and several other

Continue reading →

Phyllis Stallworth: “I am gravely concerned and disappointed”

I received this on 7 Oct for posting.

-jsq

Valdosta is an innovative city with expanding opportunities for our growing community. Valdosta has recently celebrated 150 years of progress. As a citizen, I have spent most of my adult life experiencing this progress. I’ve seen economic developments through recruitment, retention and expansions that benefit our city, with tremendous support from our communities. I’ve seen job opportunities that improve the livelihood of our citizens, through the recruitment of national companies who have established their businesses in our great city.

Our school systems are innovative, and they serve as models for other school systems in our state, with great parental involvement and encouragement toward improvements. Our University and College systems are some of the best in the state, with phenomenal enrollment and retention of traditional and non-traditional students in our city and abroad.

Our religious establishments are growing from leaps and bounds with more and more people becoming citizens of our great city, who are leaving larger unsafe, polluted, and unproductive cities, for a safer, less polluted and productive small town lifestyle, such as our wonderful city provides.

The development of small businesses, through our downtown projects, have been a great success story for our city. The innovative improvements make our city one of the most visited in our state. We pride ourselves as a Titletown community, through continuous progress over 150 years.

When I contemplate our shared 150 years of progress, I find it disturbing that our Industrial Authority would make such a bad decision as to bring a Biomass incinerator into our community. As an advocate for the welfare of children, women, and families I am gravely concerned and disappointed that such a project has been endorsed by leaders who were elected to carry out the wishes of the community for the betterment of all citizens.

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