Tag Archives: open records

GLPC: Greater Lowndes Planning Commission, 28 November 2011

There’s a meeting of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission tonight. They discuss rezoning requests relevant to the City of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Dasher, Hahira, and Lake Park. We don’t know which rezoning requests they will consider tonight, because they no longer post agendas.

The City of Valdosta’s writeup about GLPC still links to the Southern Georgia Regional Commission pages about GLPC, which is where GLPC agendas used to be, but no longer:

As of July 1, 2011 there will be no more updates to this site. For question contact:

Jason Davenport – Lowndes County
Alexandra Arzayus – City of Valdosta

The Lowndes County government’s website has nothing listed for GLPC, and when you search for it you get:

Search Results: planning commission
No Results Found

Sad, really, considering that GLPC used to be a good example of local government transparency.

Maybe they’ll have an agenda at the door tonight.

-jsq

Citizens at Lowndes County Commission 7 November 2011

Five citizens spoke up at the 7 November 2011 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session. Some got answers, some got excuses, and some got fingerpointing. And one illustrated how the Commission doesn’t follow its own rules.

  • George Boston Rhynes asked about Open record requests and jail deaths and got the same excuses he’s heard elsewhere: nobody seems to be responsible for supplying information to the public about what’s going on in the Lowndes County Jail.

  • John Robinson asked about Contracts on the south side related to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to Title III Section 3 of the HUD program and got a clarification from the Chairman that the county has no Title III projects.

  • John S. Quarterman asked the Commission to video meetings like the Lowndes Board of Education does, and got a slightly different excuse this time than the many previous times he’s made similar requests.

  • Matt Portwood asked the Commission or the individual Commissioners to state a position on school consolidation and was told they weren’t going to. The VDT printed that much the next morning, the morning of the election with the referendum on school consolidation. They did not print Chairman Paulk’s allusion to his already-known support for FVCS in opposing consolidation, but LAKE published a video with that on Election Day, and you can see it here.

  • Tony Daniels wanted to know How can we pursue happiness when we don’t even have a job? and had several recommendations for how the various local elected and appointed bodies could go about getting us more jobs. He also illustrated that the Commissions ordinance on Citizens Wishing to Be Heard is, as we’ve discovered on many previous occasions, merely guidelines at the whim of the Chairman.

Citizen participation!

-jsq

The Comprehensive Plan updates Lowndes County refused to provide

LAKE has obtained the planning revision documents Lowndes County refused, in violation of the law, to return in response to an open records request. Here they are for all to see.

The Standards and Procedures for Local Comprehensive Planning, established by the Georgia Planning Act of 1989, require updates to the Short Term Work Projects (STWP) list and the Report of Accomplishments (ROA) every 5 years. Lowndes County and the cities in Lowndes County have submitted the documents to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA)

An open records request to Lowndes County for the documents was not satisfied. However other government agencies were willing to abide by the Georgia Open Records Law ocga 50-18-70.

The documents are available for review on the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange website for Valdosta, Lake Park, Remerton, Hahira and Lowndes County.

I encourage you to read carefully what our elected officials see as the future of our community.

-gretchen

Do we want a Gladiator School prison in Lowndes County?

Remember FBI investigating CCA “Gladiator School”, the CCA-run private prison in Idaho the FBI was investigating last year? Well, it hasn’t improved much. Cutting corners for private profit endangers prisoner safety and public safety. Is that what we want in Lowndes County, Georgia?

The same reporter, Rebecca Boone, wrote again for AP Sunday, almost a year later, CCA-run prison remains Idaho’s most violent lockup

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — In the last four years, Idaho’s largest privately run prison has faced federal lawsuits, widespread public scrutiny, increased state oversight, changes in upper management and even an ongoing FBI investigation.

Yet the Corrections Corp. of America-run Idaho Correctional Center remains the most violent lockup in Idaho.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show that while the assault rate improved somewhat in the four-year period examined, ICC inmates are still more than twice as likely to be assaulted as those at other Idaho prisons.

Between September 2007 and September 2008, both ICC and the state-run Idaho State Correctional Institution were medium-security prisons with roughly 1,500 inmates each. But during that 12-month span, ICC had 132 inmate-on-inmate assaults, compared to just 42 at ISCI. In 2008, ICC had more assaults than all other Idaho prisons combined.

By 2010, both prisons had grown with 2,080 inmates at ICC and 1,688 inmates at ISCI. Records collected by the AP showed that there were 118 inmate-on-inmate assaults at ICC compared to 38 at ISCI. And again last year, ICC had more assaults than all the other prisons combined.

What improvement there has been is because multiple inmates filed lawsuits.

Even so, Idaho renewed and even increased its contract with CCA. With one small improvement: Continue reading →

Georgia open records law revision

There seems to be disagreement about access to open records in civil suits, regarding changes Attorney General Sam Olens proposes to Georgia’s Open Records Act. There are other issues, as well.

Jim Galloway wrote for the AJC on 1 Sep 2011, Sam Olens, Mike Bowers at odds over change to Open Records Act,

At issue is House Bill 397, which was drafted by Olens and received its first public hearing at the state Capitol this week. One provision in the bill would prohibit those who file lawsuits against state or local governments from using the Open Records Act to obtain records for use in court.
Bowers has successfully used open records to win a lawsuit on behalf of fired librarians. The proposed law would prevent such uses. Olens said:
“What we’re trying to do is incorporate past judicial decisions so we’re all on the same page,” Olens said. “When you’re suing the government, you should have no other advantage that you would when you’re suing a private party.”

The current Georgia sunshine law has two parts: open records and open meetings. Continue reading →

Georgia hearing on open meetings law

GA Attorney General Sam Olens is trying to change Georgia’s open meetings law and there will be a hearing on it next week (30 August 2011).

Walter C. Jones wrote for jacksonville.com 5 August 2011, Sunshine law changes to come up in Georgia redistricting session Public records statute is part of redistricting session, says state AG.

Olens unveiled news of the hearing by the House Judiciary Committee while he was participating in a panel discussion hosted by the Atlanta Press Club.

Members of the club offered him suggestions on how to broaden the law to help them get documents from government agencies.

One reporter even suggested extending the open-records requirements to the governor. Current law exempts the governor’s office, but recent occupants have chosen to voluntarily comply in most cases.

Olens said he had to be realistic.

“The problem is I need a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate, and I need to get the bill passed,” he said. “Everyone should be subject to the Open Records Act … but you have to make a decision if you want to improve the law or you just want to whine.”

Good point.

AP reported more detail back on 1 March 2011, Georgia may change open meetings law: New attorney general offers many changes, tougher penalties Continue reading →

VDT gets feisty with VLCIA over biomass

After noting that the Industrial Authority still hasn’t resolved still hasn’t decided about Sterling Planet’s land purchase offer even though they had a meeting last week at which they could have, with their new executive director and their new chairman, the VDT editorialized today:
The IA promised a future of more open communication.

And yet Tuesday, the board’s attorney refused to answer any questions regarding the potential sale of the land to the company, citing a caveat in the Open Records Act that protects information involved in a current legal issue. The Times issued an Open Records request Tuesday to obtain the information requested or copies of the litigation documents, assuming that since the attorney cited this exemption, there is an active lawsuit over the land sale.

Good point!

The VDT acknowledged its own mistake and moved to correct it: Continue reading →

Arrests for speaking in an Arizona town

Something seems familiar about this story of a couple of people being arrested at small town council meetings for speaking up.

Ben Popken wrote for the Consumerist 15 July 2011, Small Arizona Town In Furor After 2nd Citizen Arrested For Speaking At Town Meeting:

The town of Quartzsite, AZ, population 3,466, is in disarray after a video showing police hauling away a citizen for speaking at the town meeting podium went viral. The woman was saying that the town council had been violating open meeting laws.

It was the second citizen arrested at a Quartzsite town meeting in two weeks.

What’s all this about? Continue reading →

Residential home owners of Lowndes County take notice —Vince Schneider @ LCC 14 June 2011

Vince Schneider warned county homeowners that it could happen to them, too:
To permit the establishment of the Foxborough Avenue McDonalds, the county has irreversibly established a most terrible precedence. You too can wake up one morning to find a Fast food store being built in your front yard.
Like many of us, he wondered what the county government is thinking:
I cannot comprehend how the county can possibly benefit from allowing such an establishment to be built in a quite county residential neighborhood. Is it because it provides unskilled low paying jobs? Will this McDonalds look good on a resume? It was my understanding that Valdosta and Lowndes County wanted to attract a more skilled, professional work force. The real estate on Foxborough Avenue the county permitted McDonalds to build on would have been, and is prime real estate for just such a professional enterprise….
Good questions.

Here’s the video:


Residential home owners of Lowndes County take notice —Vince Schneider @ LCC 14 June 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 June 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

After Vince Schneider finished reading his letter, Chairman Ashley Paulk handed him a paper, which was apparently a communication from County Engineer Mike Fletcher.

Appended is the text of the letter Vince Schneider read to the Commission. Continue reading →

Jeanie P. Boland resigns as executive director of Brantley County Development Authority

Chris Buchanan wrote in Enterprise online on 4 March 2011, Boland resigns from DA executive director’s post:
Boland had also been working to gain more information on the possible expansion of the Humpty Dumpty Hotel owned by Foodonics, however, she came under fire for holding private meetings with the company without the knowledge of the rest of the authority which has caused some in the community to cry foul.

But after the allegations arose, Boland maintained that the meetings were for gathering information only and that she was merely waiting to get all the facts before presenting them to the board.

Their board is considering passing an open records policy to match the Georgia state law, but doesn’t like it much:
“They can ask you until you’re blue in the face and they don’t have to explain what they’re going to do with them,” he said. “But I know there’s nothing you can do about it.”
They also want to change their financial audit cycle from annually to every three years.

-jsq