Tag Archives: Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority

An Industrial Authority agenda with content! Including VSEB and land acreage!

Yesterday Andrea Schruijer promised to get an agenda for tomorrow’s 2PM Thursday 23 February 2012 Industrial Authority board meeting (101 N. Ashley Street) online. It’s there, and it has content! What it does not have is any mention of anything about Project Excel, or CCA, or the private prison, even though Ms. Schruijer told me yesterday to expect the board to say something about that. You can still express your opinion to them before then. And since this agenda says **TENTATIVE** maybe that item will get added before tomorrow afternoon.

Also missing is any item for the Strategic Planning RFP, even though that RFP says the board will review any responses received by their February board meeting.

What this agenda does have is numerous specific items under the usual broad headers such as Existing Industry/Project Report. So instead of listening to Col. Ricketts and trying to figure out what he’s talking about, you can see such things as “e-Snychronist® Existing Industry Retention and Expansion business information system (BIS)” in writing. You still don’t see names of the “five (5) Prospects” or the “three (3) companies that are developing expansion plans”. Maybe I buy the competitive information argument for the prospects, but I’m not so sure about the three expanding companies, especially if they’re already local. And considering the things VLCIA has tried to sneak in under cover of not mentioning competitive information, such as biomass and a private prison, I’m not sure I buy that argument at all.

Also on the plus side, the agenda includes an actual schedule for bids Continue reading →

Still time to contact VLCIA board before tomorrow’s private prison decision

We learned yesterday from Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) Executive Director Andrea Schruijer that we can expect an opinion from the VLCIA board at tomorrow’s 2PM board meeting about Project Excel, the CCA private prison whose contract expires March 13th unless VLCIA gives it a third extension, which they haven’t so far.

Roy Copeland
Roy Copeland
Chairman 		Tom Call
Tom Call 		Mary B. Gooding
Mary Gooding 		Norman Bennett
Norman Bennett 		Jerry Jennett
Jerry Jennett,

It’s not too late to express your opinion to this tax-funded (1 mil of your property taxes + SPLOST funds, for around $3 million a year) appointed board. Follow this link for contact information for the VLCIA board. Or sign the petition online and your signature gets emailed directly to VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer.

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News about CCA’s private prison Project Excel expected at Thursday’s VLCIA board meeting

Thursday’s Industrial Authority retreat and board meeting are both open meetings, which the public can attend. And at the 2PM board meeting apparently there will be news about Project Excel, CCA’s private prison.

VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer clarified on the telephone just now that Thursday’s 9AM-2PM board retreat is an open meeting; the public can attend. She said the agenda was made by the facilitator, and she had not seen it. The purpose of the retreat is for board members to talk about their experiences and roles as board members. The retreat is not for discussing specific projects.

Regarding the 2PM board meeting Thursday, she said she thought the agenda was on VLCIA’s web pages. When we looked and found it wasn’t there, she said apparently there was some confusion due to the rescheduling of the meeting, and the agenda would be there soon.

I asked her whether the Project Excel Project Excel, the CCA private prison, she said the Preliminary Specifications ( see section 1.6.1) had been received. She said they had been received, and they were simply a site diagram, a copy of which was hanging on VLCIA’s office wall. From discussion with her, it appears to be this site plan: Continue reading →

Two VLCIA meetings Thursday: retreat and board 2012 02 23

This month’s cancelled Industrial Authority board meeting has been rescheduled. Not the usual date, not the usual time, not the usual place:
Notice: The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Regular Meeting has been rescheduled for the month of February. The meeting date will be Thursday, February 23, 2011, 2:00 P.M. at 101 N Ashley Street.

Notice of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Board Retreat, Thursday, February 23, 2012, 9:00 AM- 2:00 PM at 101 N Ashley Street.
Since I’m familiar with that location as the old closed pawn shop, I called VLCIA’s new PR person, Meghan Duke, for clarification. I congratulated her on her recent appointment, and repeated what I’ve been saying for some time now, that VLCIA does many good things most people don’t know about and with some PR maybe we would. She said she was working on educating the public.

About the meeting location, she told me Continue reading →

Has CCA already breached the private prison agreement with VLCIA?

And also in her recent response about the Notice to Proceed (NTP), VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer didn’t answer the other question, which was whether VLCIA had received the Preliminary Specifications ( see section 1.6.1) that appear to have been due at least half a year ago, according to the Development Schedule in Schedule 1.6.2 of the Agreement. Without those Preliminary Specifications, maybe CCA has already breached the contract.

She copied VLCIA’s attorney. Probably he could interpret the termination clauses of the contract that way….

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Third extension option offered by VLCIA to CCA for private prison?

Update: Andrea Schruijer’s answer of 21 February 2012.

Also in her recent response about the Notice to Proceed (NTP), VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer she didn’t mention this paragraph:

5.1.2. Expiration. If the Company has not issued the NTP by the expiration of the Term of the Option Agreement, then this Agreement shall expire and terminate, without any further liability on the part of any Party to the other, except as otherwise expressly provided in this Agreement.
The current, second, extension term expires 13 March 2012, one month from Monday. If there’s no NTP and no third extension before then, there’s no private prison (see 5.1.2).

So has VLCIA sent CCA terms for a third extension option? If not, this thing may be over in a month and a few days. If yes, what are those terms?

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Development Schedule for CCA and VLCIA private prison

In her recent response about the Notice to Proceed (NTP), VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer cited and paraphrased paragraph 1.6.2 of the Purchase and Development Agreement. The same paragraph points out the Development Schedule is already in the Agreement, as Schedule 1.6.2.
The Development Schedule contains, among other things, milestones for the work and assignments of responsibility to the Parties for the attainment of certain milestones.
Here it is:

So it’s not clear why she said CCA hadn’t provided a Development Schedule.

-jsq

VLCIA has not received a Notice to Proceed from CCA for the private prison

Received Wednesday. -jsq
From: Andrea Schruijer
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 3:38 PM
To: ‘Matt Flumerfelt’
Cc: ‘Steve Gupton’
Subject: RE: Notice to Proceed and Preliminary Specifications

Dear Mr. Flumerfelt,

In regards to your email of February 6, 2012, CCA has not given to the Authority a “Development Schedule” and has not received from CCA a “Notice to Proceed.” Under paragraph 1.6.2, except for some due diligence provided for in the agreement, the Parties have no obligation to proceed with design, permitting, installation or construction of the Project, prior to receiving a NTP from CCA. CCA has absolute discretion in issuing or withholding the NTP. After the issuance of the NTP the parties shall proceed with the development of the project in accordance with the Development Schedule.

Sincerely,
Andrea Schruijer

Continue reading →

Decatur County newspaper wants more prisoners who compete with local wo rkers

The Decatur County newspaper brags about prisoners competing with free labor, while helping try to attract another prison.

Brennan Leathers wrote for the Post-Searchlight 3 January 2010, Walls going up at new ag building,

Work on Decatur County’s new agricultural office building is quickly progressing, with interior walls being put up and the installation of a roof soon to follow.

Decatur County Prison inmates with carpentry and construction experience were working hard last Friday, putting up the interior walls inside the 9,724-square-foot building under construction near the Cloud Agricultural Building off Vada Road.

Which means some local workers with carpentry and construction experience were not working on that project.

Do we want a private prison in Lowndes County so more prisoners can compete with local workers here, too? If you don’t think so, remember CCA says community opposition can impede private prison site selection. Here’s a petition urging the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority to stop the CCA private prison.

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Georgia legislature giving unelected bodies bond-issuing privatizing power

The Georgia House has just passed a bill authorizing local development authorities to form public-private partnerships as they see fit and to issue bonds to pay for them, putting we the taxpayers on the hook. If this bill passes, VLCIA could issue bonds for a private prison, a biomass plant, a coal plant (apparently not a coincindence; see below), a toll road, a private railroad, or whatever it felt like. It wouldn’t even need cooperation by elected officials. It wouldn’t have to go to the Lowndes County Commission for permission, like VLCIA did for $15 million in bonds to buy real estate. The Industrial Authority could just issue the bonds itself! And we the taxpayers who would have to pay for it? We’ll just get to pay, that’s all. There’s still time to stop it in the Georgia Senate.

Maybe HB 475 should be called the “Easy Jobs for Cronies Act”. It adds various definitions of public-private partnership, and then throws in a wild card: Continue reading →