Tag Archives: Sports

Celebrate citizen participation –John S. Quarterman

A message to the only elected body in Lowndes County that represents the entire county. I’ve added a few links, and otherwise what you see is the suggestions I sent to the Commissioners and the County Clerk Thursday after offering them Tuesday. -jsq
From: John S. Quarterman
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 1:40 PM
To: Commissioner@lowndescounty.com
Cc: Paige Dukes
Subject: Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing to be Heard

Dear Commissioners,

At your most recent meeting I mentioned I had a few suggestions about your new Policies and Procedures for Citizens Wishing To Be Heard, and at least one of you has indicated he would like to see them, so here they are.

“2. A maximum of 10 persons shall be allowed to speak at any meeting.”
I think that number is too low. On the one hand,

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.

Continue reading →

Village Green or Detention Pond?

George Monbiot writes in the Guardian about how We have allowed developers to rob us of our village green:
Build loose suburbs carved up by busy roads and without green spaces and you help to create a population of fat, lonely people plagued by criminals. Build dense, leafy settlements with mixed uses, protected from traffic, and you help to create safe, fit and friendly communities.
Here’s one picture of what a fit, safe and functional community might look like. There’s nothing radical or new about it: similar developments have been built for centuries (and most are now monopolised by the rich). Houses or apartment blocks are built densely around a square of shared green space. It is big enough for playing ball games, but without fixed goalposts, allowing children and adults to define the space for themselves. It could contain trees; perhaps rocks or logs to climb on. There might be a corner of uncut meadow, or flowerbeds or fruit bushes. The space will work best when it is designed and managed by the people who live there.

Most important, the houses face inwards, and no cars are allowed inside the square: the roads serve only the backs of the buildings. The square is overlooked by everyone, which means that children can run in and out of their houses unsupervised, create their own tribes and learn their own rules, without fear of traffic accidents or molesters. They have a place in which to run wild without collecting asbos.

(An asbo is an Anti-Social Behaviour Order, like a citation for disturbing the peace.)

Suppose instead of walling off a detention pond and letting it grow weeds and snakes we made most of it high enough not to flood and let it grow trees, flowers, grass for children to play on, and maybe even vegetables. That wouldn’t cost much more to develop. The detention pond pictured is in the Hamilton Pointe development, where several residents told me they had no place to play football or basketball. If the detention pond was turned into a village green, they would have a place for sports.

-jsq

Valdosta in bottom 10 metro areas for wages

Richard Florida writes about The Geography of High-Paying Jobs, including this map based on Bureau of Labor Staistics (BLS) data:

The Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) comes in the bottom 10 nationwide. That’s for overall average wages.

It doesn’t look quite as bad for specific classes of jobs (creative, service, and working class), but that’s mostly because there are almost no MSAs in the lowest pay tier. However, for service jobs, Valdosta is not as good as Tallahassee, and makes it into the bottom 10: Continue reading →

Local Thanksgiving

Here in Lowndes County and the surrounding area we have plenty of things to be thankful for:
  • A growing local food community, anchored by Jason DeLoach’s F.M. Guess Pecan Company of Valdosta, the Packhouse Market of Hahira, and of course Jim Fiveash’s Food Store of Hahira. Let’s not forget the Valdosta Farmer’s Market (1500 South Patterson Street) and Farmer Brown’s Produce. There’s even at least one local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) starting up.
  • Long distance transportation: Interstate 75 near I-10, numerous state highways, and an airport.
  • Delta Airlines (I never thought I’d be writing this) for competitive airfares (except during holidays). And landing on one of the longest runways in the state.
  • Railroads going in every direction carrying freight, which can also carry passengers whenever state and local people and governments get organized to do it.
  • Businesses moving in to take advantage of the transportation; working towards enough good jobs that young people don’t have to move away to find one.
  • County and city governments that are at least a little bit sceptical about exactly which businesses they encourage to move in.
  • Moody Air Force Base, by far the biggest employer, bringing diversity to the community both in serving personnel and in later retirees.
  • Two hospitals: South Georgia Medical Center and Smith Northview Hospital.
  • There’s even a Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) including the counties of Lowndes, Brooks, Lanier, and Echols, with a combined population of about 130,000. This is enough people to try things without waiting for Atlanta or Washington to tell us what to do.
  • Valdosta State University, one of two large regional campuses of the University of Georgia System, and one so active politically that it got its own voting precinct this year, the only college precinct in the state.
  • Live election results during each election, on the Lowndes County website. It’s the only county in the state that does this!
  • Georgia Military College, a liberal arts junior college.
  • Valdosta Technical College, or whatever it’s being called since the state reorganized it.
  • Thriving downtowns in Valdosta and Hahira. First Friday, Winterfest, Honeybee Festival: those are doing more to attract attractive businesses than any number of road projects.
  • Grand Bay Wildlife Management Area, preserving a little bit of the original ecosystem of the area; you know, pine trees, live oaks, wiregrass, pitcher plants, cypress swamps, alligators, great blue herons, and bobcats. Maybe you don’t. Go and see!
  • Trees, for forestry, and for themselves. See Patterson Street (a little planning kept it from looking like Ashley Street), and the oldest longleaf pines in the county are on the VSU campus; older than Valdosta. There are even a few left elsewhere in the county. Protecting forests is not just the right thing to do, it’s good business.
  • Rain, so trees and crops will grow.
  • Sunshine, much more than Germany, for example, so we can do solar if we want to.
  • Winning sports teams in Lowndes County and Valdosta high schools and VSU caused ESPN to name Valdosta TitleTown. Maybe that winning attitude can carry over to improving academics.
  • Theatre at the Dosta, VSU, and the high schools. If theatre was a sport, we’d be winning that, too!
    Dites-moi
    Pourquoi
    La vie est belle,
    Dies-moi
    Pourquoi
    La vie est gai?     		    Tell me why
    The sky
    is filled with music,
    Tell me why
    We fly
    on clouds above?
We live in an area with many advantages. You can probably list more of them.

Why stop with what we’ve got? Why not play up our advantages of transportation, natural environment, local culture, etc., and attract jobs for young people and make the place even better for everybody?