Noemi Romero, who came to the U.S. illegally at age 3, was arrested
in January working at a Phoenix grocery store, where she used
someone else’s name to get the job.
Romero, a 21-year-old who likes to draw and dance, spent the next
four months behind bars, almost half of it in a cramped cell at a
1,596-bed detention center in Eloy, Arizona, run by Corrections
Corp. of America. The company, with Geo Group Inc. (GEO) and other
for-profit prison operators, holds almost two-thirds of all
immigrants detained each day in federally funded prisons as they
face deportation, U.S. data show.
And finally, beware! Most of the discussion in these videos is about specific lists of non-discretionary projects. There’s also 25% of the T-SPLOST money that could be spent on discretionary projects, which are already being specified by the local governments,
and which may include many of the same projects that were on the original unconstrained project list but got bumped off the constrained list.
Videos T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), Corey Hull, Travis Harper, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Larry Hanson, Valdosta City Manager, asked for the regional council to reconsider aviation projects, especially considering that the tax was supposed to be for projects of regional significance. Then he pointed out
Out of that $503 million about 40% of it or $212 million is projected to be generated here in Lowndes County. And when you look at what's being returned, for instance to the city of Valdosta, it's $47 million. It is certainly one thing to be a donor, but that's a pretty substantial donor.
He said he appreciated all the other counties, but much of the money would go to counties that are not contiguous to Lowndes County and are not part of the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes the four counties of Lowndes, Brooks, Lanier, and Echols. He continued:
Lowndes County is about 26% of the region's population and we generate about 38% of the revenue, and we're not quite getting that back in terms of the distribution.
You may wonder why a City of Valdosta official was speaking for Lowndes County. County Manager Joe Pritchard was there at the start of the meeting, and I think County Engineer Mike Fletcher was, as well. County Chairman Ashley Paulk came in late and summoned Pritchard and Fletcher outside the glass doors of the meeting room. They stood there for quite some time, peering in, and then vanished.
Aviation Projects, and Valdosta is a substantial donor –Larry Hanson @ T-SPLOST 2011-09-19 T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), Corey Hull, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
I asked why the Old US 41 North widening project changed from $8 million on the unconstrained list to $12 million on the constrained list, an increase of $4 million or 50% when the description did not change?
The answer indicates GDOT and local governments want to drive development north in the county, leaving pedestrians and bicyclists stranded yet having to pay.
Corey Hull responded:
Halfway through we received new cost estimates….
GDOT did the cost estimates, in cooperation with the local government that was responsible for that.
A state employee told me after the meeting that GDOT raised some estimates because it thought the local government, in this case the Lowndes County Commission and staff, didn’t put in enough to cover the project. I don’t know whether GDOT was figuring by Atlanta costs or not…. At least the cost didn’t go up further in the final project list; I just checked and it’s still $12 million.
Corey elaborated that some projects increased and some decreased. I asked him which ones did which. He said he’d have to go back and compare. Later he helped me produce a list of comparisons of costs of Lowndes County projects, which shows that one went down by 30% and three went up by 50% or more. One, RC11-000099 St. Augustine at Norman Intersection Improvements, went up by 131.5%.
That $12 million for widening less than 3 miles of one road is more than one item that was in the unconstrained list but cut from the constrained list: $7.5 million for a bus system, with three bus lines that would connect Wiregrass Tech, Five Points, Downtown, Moody, East Side, South Side, West Side, and the Mall. A bus system recommended by the Industrial Authority’s Community Assessment to aid in employee attendance, industry recruitment, and workforce.
You could probably even start up a substantial commuter rail system using existing freight line tracks for less than $12 million. Even though GDOT apparently only believes in roads and bridges, busses and trains are actually more cost-effective, especially for lower-income people. The same lower-income people who will be disproportionately taxed by T-SPLOST as a percentage of their income.
Instead, the description for the Old US 41 North project admits the county is driving
Continue reading →
Roy Taylor pointed out gas taxes are higher in Florida, and:
The people who use the gas pay the tax.
Then he told a story about a woman he knows who can't afford T-SPLOST.
Yes, he seemed to be proposing a gasoline tax to pay for transportation projects, an idea which I've been floating for some time. That's how Eisenhower paid for the Interstate Highway System: gasoline and diesel fuel taxes.
Gasoline tax? —Roy Taylor T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), Corey Hull, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Maybe you’d like to know what are the T-SPLOST projects and how much they cost, so you can decide whether you think the tax is worth it (in addition to all the other considerations). That can take some work. Here’s an example.
Gretchen Quarterman wanted to know what the money was going for, with an example:
…at Gornto. That's a total of 5 million dollars! I'm having trouble imagining what you could do for $5 million in that one block. Do you have to buy the new McDonald's that they're building? I mean what are we doing there?
Corey Hull said he didn't know, since at that time many of the projects didn't actually have plans. See the next post for what eventually happened with that one.
Five million dollars for one intersection? —Gretchen Quarterman T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), Corey Hull, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Not a special Local tax: it's a Regional tax –Nolen Cox T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), Corey Hull, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
T-SPLOST regions are an intermediate level of government in which all the people in the region vote together, not by counties.
Gretchen Quarterman asked:
When the 18 counties vote, is it county by county, say Atkinson votes yes, and Lowndes votes no, and if there were 9 counties that voted yes and 9 counties that voted no, or is it the total of all the voters together, and then we say there were 400,000 voters and it’s a simple majority.
Corey Hull answered:
It’s a simple majority. It’s the latter of how you described it, it’s all the voters together.
How do we vote on T-SPLOST? T-SPLOST Public Meeting, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), Corey Hull, Nolen Cox, Gretchen Quarterman, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 September 2011. Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Noemi Romero, who came to the U.S. illegally at age 3, was arrested in January working at a Phoenix grocery store, where she used someone else’s name to get the job.
