John, this is the first open records reguest I did with GDA. The rest will be in order of date of the request.The document Shirley King attached for Item #2 was this PDF of a letter from Joe Pritchard of 27 August 2010 telling
Documents about the animal shelter are appearing here on the LAKE web pages. Here are the messages Susan Leavens forwarded along with this particular letter.
-jsq Continue reading
Concerned Citizen,Continue readingPlease understand that there are state laws that people get arrested for each day also; the county ordiance mirrors the state law(s) however if you have not read the statements no one was arrested either. And do you think the bulldog was the first incident? Keep reading!! Below are some other things which have occured in the shelter.
Page 3 #15 Cruelty,
Page 5 #23 hoplesly disable animal,
page 5 #26 humane care,
page 7 #36 records,
Section 5 page 10 Emergencies involving animals,
to name a few of the Lowndes County Ordinance.So when you say why didn’t I(Officer Leavens)end
…the Humane Society provided two county employees with undercover cameras as a gratuity.The picture shows Ashley Paulk (center) motioning to VDT reporter David Rodock (foreground) as he directs the VDT to publish what he just said. Mechelle Sullivan is on the right, and County Manager Joe Pritchard looks on from left. Voting Commissioners Evans, Raines, and Powell are just visible between Paulk and Sullivan.
…
I want those two undercover cameras returned by my two employees, or there will be some administrative action.
…
I’m making this a public record.
…
If I don’t get those cameras back and the gratuity I’m going to pursue it through the Sheriff’s office.
…
Needs to be public record in the VDT.
The VDT did take dictation and publish that this morning, adding this quote from Chairman Paulk:
“It’s a gratuity. You can’t give a government employee something in order to get something in return. It’s not legal.”Other things are also not legal, yet never seem to be pursued.
Speaking of pursued, Chairman Paulk encountered a group of Continue reading
Sheriff Prine was at last night’s
budget hearing (his office accounts for more of the county
budget than anything else).
Afterwards I asked him how matters such as the complaints about
the animal shelter could be brought to the attention of his office.
He said that was a code enforcement matter, and if code enforcement
thought it rose to a criminal matter, they would take it to Magistrate
Court, which would issue a warrant, which would go to the Sheriff’s office,
where it would be pursued.
Remember who code enforcement is in Lowndes County. Continue reading
These are the open records that me and another animal control officer sent to GDA and I also have Amanda Jordans Statement if you would like that. Please excuse some of the language in my statement she (pat smith GDA inspector) told me to write it like it was said….Here they are on the LAKE web pages.
These records include much more detail than what we’ve heard before.
After reading them, do you think installing a few cameras is adequate to deal with this situation?
-jsq
This is ridiculous.This comment came in yesterday on Proposed Lowndes County Budget published by LAKE.
- Why make it hard to obtain the budget?
- What is the “Bird Supper”?
- Why is the County Attorney $100k over budget?
- Why don’t I see those cameras listed for the Animal Shelter?
-Jessica Bryan Hughes
Megan McArdle wrote in the Atlantic 21 June 2011, Georgia’s Harsh Immigration Law Costs Millions in Unharvested Crops. She started by quoting Jay Bookman, who quoted the VDT. She then goes into the economics:
Yes, that would be the problem. A law that benefits private prison company CCA at the expense of Georgia taxpayers while putting Georgia farmers out of business.The economics here aren’t particularly complicated, and I’m sure they won’t be new to the sophisticated readers of the Atlantic, but they are useful to look at and consider explicitly when thinking about issues like this.
It goes like this. If you’re not going to let illegal immigrants do the jobs they are currently being hired to do, then farmers will have to raise wages to replace them. Since farmers are taking a risk in hiring immigrant workers, you can bet they were getting a significant deal on wage costs relative to “market wages”. I put market wages here in quotations, because it’s quite possible that the wages required to get workers to do the job are so high that it’s no longer profitable for farmers to plant the crops in the first place.
She concludes: Continue reading
“Maybe this should have been prepared for, with farmers’ input. Maybe the state should have discussed the ramifications with those directly affected. Maybe the immigration issue is not as easy as &lquo;send them home,&rquo; but is a far more complex one in that maybe Georgia needs them, relies on them, and cannot successfully support the state’s No. 1 economic engine without them.”Except of course HB 87 doesn’t just send them home: it also locks up as many as it can catch, to the profit of private prison company CCA, at the expense of we the taxpayers.
That’s as quoted by Jay Bookman in the AJC 17 June 2011, Ga’s farm-labor crisis playing out as planned:
Continue readingAfter enacting House Bill 87, a law designed to drive illegal immigrants out of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that HB 87 is, well, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia.
It might be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
The blogger then goes on to quote Georgia Code, which only brings in the word “maliciously” for higher fines or imprisonment for aggravated cruelty to animals.I beg to differ with Mr. Pritchard’s opinion regarding “malicious intent”.
Lowndes County Manager Joe Pritchard says, “I don’t believe through our investigation, nor through any info we received from the Department of Ag, are able to indicate any malicious intent.”
Mr. Pritchard should understand that it matters not if this was done with “malicious intent” or not. “Malicous intent” should be determined by the investigating criminal agency, not a county manager. “Malicious Intent” is only important in determining whether the crime should be filed as a felony, or a misdemeanor.
The law is crystal clear regarding the denial of necessary medical care, and/or humane euthanasia, for any animal deemed to be in need of such. Any time a shelter impounds/houses a live animal, the shelter is required, by law, to afford that animal with humane care – to include necessary medical care or treatment.
The blogger summarizes: Continue reading
Yesterday:
Tomorrow will be a week and I have had no response! Very disappointing.-Jane Osborn
Today:
Continue readingMrs. Osborn,
Thank you so much for your support. The County manager and several county employees interviewed all the workers after a drug screen was conducted on all employees back in late august of 2010. Several (4) employees advised the people conducting the investigation (Joe Prichard, Mickey Tillman, Page Dukes and Suzanne Pittman) of the charges brought to the Department of Agriculture. From the