Here’s the video: Continue readingWe cannot duck this issue. I couldn’t duck it any more. I couldn’t sleep, if I wasn’t out advocating getting rid of the War on Drugs. You can’t get to end the War on Drugs that the whole bureaucratic institution of the United States of America has declared, unless you end prohibtion. They couldn’t do it with alcohol, and you can’t do it with drugs.
—Alice Huffman, President, California NAACP
Tag Archives: NAACP
Quitman 10 host organization of NAACP in Brooks County
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Education, not Incarceration
Organizational Meeting, Brooks County NAACP,
Quitman, Brooks County, Georgia, 18 July 2010
Videos by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I.
George videoed the whole meeting and posted it on his blog. He wrote in his introduction to this series of videos: Continue reading
School consolidation report: can cause irreversible damage
Craig Howley, Jerry Johnson, Jennifer Petrie wrote 1 February 2011,
Consolidation of Schools and Districts: What the Research Says and What it Means:
…the review of research evidence detailed in this brief suggests that a century of consolidation has already produced most of the efficiencies obtainable. Research also suggests that impoverished regions in particular often benefit from smaller schools and districts, and they can suffer irreversible damage if consolidation occurs.Isn’t such irreversible damage what Rev. Floyd Rose got Mrs. Ruth Council to admit?
They are referring to black schools before desegregation in the 1960s.Rev. Rose: “…we were told about the world, where we came from, how we got here.”
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Mrs. Council: “I think we did receive a better education.”
Rev. Floyd Rose is president of the local SCLC, and here is a statement by Leigh Touchton, president of the local NAACP: Continue reading
Three things to actually improve education —John S. Quarterman
It seems to me the burden of proof is on the people proposing to make massive changes in the local education system. And CUEE has not provided any evidence for their position. Sam Allen of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS) pithily sums up CUEE:
“It’s not about the children. It’s about somebody’s ego.”
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CUEE’s unification push isn’t about education. It’s about a “unified platform” to attract industry. That alone is enough reason to oppose “unification”. It’s not about education!
As former Industrial Authority Chair Jerome Tucker has been heard to remark on numerous occassions, “nobody ever asked me how many school systems we had!” The only example in Georgia CUEE points to for this is the Kia plant that came to Troup County, Georgia. It’s funny how none of the locals seem to have mentioned any such connection in the numerous articles published about the Kia plant. Instead, the mayor of the town with the Kia plant complains that his town doesn’t have a high school. That’s right: he’s complaining that the school system is too consolidated! The only actual education between Kia and education in Troup County is with West Georgia Tech, the local technical college.
CUEE has finally cobbled together an education committee, but it won’t even report back before the proposed ballot referendum vote. CUEE has no plan to improve education.
If CUEE actually did want to help the disadvantaged in the Valdosta City schools, Continue reading
Ohio selling off prisons
According to testimony by a nonpartisan research institute:
“The biggest source of Ohio’s budget problem is not overspending or compenstation for public employees. It is a reduction in revenue.According to a recent poll, the people of Ohio think this is unfair and don’t believe the governor can fix the budget without raising taxes.
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The tax changes also were weighted to high-income Ohioans. More than 40 percent of the income-tax cuts are going to the five percent of families with income of $135,000 or more a year. Meanwhile, the bottom three-fifths of Ohio families will receive just 13 percent of the total tax cut.
There are other reasons selling off prisons to private prison companies such as CCA is a bad idea.
Mark Niquette wrote for Bloomberg 29 June 2011,
Kasich Tries to Avoid Arizona’s Mistakes in Ohio Prison Selloff:
Still, Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Matt Lundy of Elyria, question whether Ohio is making a wise move.
“The buyer wins and the taxpayers lose when we sell in the middle of a recession,” Lundy said during press conference last month, calling the move “a yard sale.”
Selling assets for “one-time” money is a mistake, Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy said. He opposed a plan by Republican Governor Bobby Jindal to sell three prisons to raise $90 million, a proposal the Legislature didn’t approve.
“A junkie can sell his TV or his stereo or his iPod and generate money for his next fix,” Kennedy, also a Republican, said in a telephone interview from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “But if he’s going to ever get well, he needs to face his addiction.”
An even better quote in that story comes from CCA’s own Steve Owen: Continue reading
The health of the community is way more important than the job —Leigh Touchton
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She also brought up an incident with Brad Lofton and recommended that VLCIA hire an executive director who wouldn’t act like that.
And she said she deals with VSEB all the time:
I’ve taken men through there, I’ve signed them up.She referred to me when she said that, so what I said before is appended after the video.
Here’s the video:
The health of the community is way more important than the job —Leigh Touchton
Regular 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,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 May 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
What I actually recommended regarding VSEB, in response to a specific request from Leigh Touchton for recommendations, was maybe schedule a meeting with Roy Copeland to talk about VSEB and solar job opportunities: Continue reading
Biomass down for now: next?
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Congratulations to those who were instrumental even though they were not exactly or originally biomass opponents, especially Ashley Paulk, who came out and said what needed to be said, and George Bennett, who was willing to admit in public that he was one of the earliest proponents of the biomass plant but new knowledge caused him to think differently.
A big shoutout to the VSU Faculty Senate, the only traditional non-activist body that went on record as opposing the biomass plant with an actual vote before the extension deadline. The VSU Faculty Senate did what the Valdosta City Council, the Lowndes County Commission and the Industrial Authority Board would not. Go Blazers!
A special strategic mention to Kay Harris and David Rodock of the
Valdosta Daily Times, who came to realize they were not being told the
whole truth by the Industrial Authority.
The VDT even
gave a civics lesson on how to stop the biomass plant.
And a very special mention to the people who did the most to make the
name of biomass mud in the public’s eye:
Brad Lofton, Col. Ricketts, and the VLCIA board.
Without their indoctrination sessions and paid “forum” and stonewalling,
people wouldn’t have been turned against that thing nearly as fast!
Yet it ain’t over until it’s over.
According to David Rodock in the VDT today: Continue reading
Do you miss him yet? Brad Lofton in SC
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Adva Saldinger wrote in The Sun News 8 May 2011, Lofton hits ground running in new post; CEO asking taxpayers for $1.6 million:
The new Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp. president and chief executive is by many accounts aggressive and personable, and he says, ready to take charge and bring much needed jobs to the area quickly.And a pony!Brad Lofton said he will bring 500 jobs in the first 18 months, and an average of 500 jobs each year over the next five to 10 years.
Has anybody verified the jobs Lofton claimed he brought to Lowndes County? Continue reading
How to get public officials to respond to the citizens?
Mr. Quarterman, what can we do, do we have to go to the state legislature to get a law passed to force these so-called public officials to answer questions and respond to the citizens?First of all, my compliments to anyone such as Leigh Touchton who has been doing politics around here longer than me for asking my opinion, because that indicates they are pretty good at it and are probably asking many people their opinions.
My answer: carrots along with sticks, and shine some light!
That all builds political capital, which will be needed for elections.
We need many people building a community doing many things. If I knew a simple answer that would change things magically overnight, I’d recommend it, but I don’t. I don’t even know if I know a long answer, but I’m pretty sure that any answer will require a community, because Continue reading
What does this mean? —Leigh Touchton
Continue readingI asked VLCIA Board member Roy Copeland afterwards whether this means the biomass incinerator is STILL going to be built? He shrugged and walked away.
Karen Noll asked Allan Ricketts what does this mean, since we all
heard Lowndes County Commission Chairman Paulk give us a very different scenario at the last LCC meeting, and his remarks were covered in the Valdosta Daily Times. Mr. Ricketts said he was not aware of Chairman Paulk’s remarks.