Tag Archives: Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority

Who are the “local leadership” who approved CCA’s private prison?

They’re even quieter about it than the Industrial Authority, but the Valdosta City and Lowndes County governments are in the private prison deal just as deep.

Jay Hollis, CCA’s Manager of Site Acquisition, in his Valdosta-Lowndes County, GA / CCA Partnership: Prepared Remarks of August 2010, wrote:

Our Valdosta/Lowndes County site quickly became our primary due to its local and regional workforce, collaboration of local leadership, site characteristics, proximity to necessary services and infrastructure, and accessibility to name a few.
So who is this local leadership?
We look forward to working closely with Valdosta/Lowndes leadership as we move forward in the months to come.

Finally, I’d like to take a moment to recognize a few folks that have been essential to the project:

Continue reading →

Why did CCA pick Lowndes County for a private prison?

Apparently CCA picked Lowndes County for a private prison for reasons that were not what VLCIA’s consultant seemed to think would influence the selection.

According to Valdosta-Lowndes County, GA / CCA Partnership: Talking Points (undated, but it refers to “The agreement formalized by the Industrial Authority on 8/17”),

The Valdosta/Lowndes site became the primary due to the local and regional workforce, collaboration of local leadership, site characteristics, proximity to necessary services and infrastructure, accessibility, etc.
Nothing in there about low poverty or high wages. One could even read that the other way around, as in a low-wage population looking for jobs.

Looks to me like our Industrial Authority didn’t do much due diligence about private prisons.

Also note that the contract of 17 August 2010 between VLCIA and CCA was signed after the announcement in July 2010 that CCA had selected Decatur County. More about that in another post.

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Apparently VLCIA misunderstood what CCA was looking for

Apparently VLCIA, or one of its expert consultants, thought CCA was looking for a thriving county economy in choosing a private prison location. That doesn’t seem to be what happened.

Economic Impact of Project Excel by Clifford A. Lipscomb, Ph.D., 2 November 2009:

The VLCIA has noted that Project Excel is considering other locations. Below I provide a comparison of key economic indicators for these alternative counties — Grady and Decatur.
Table 1. Characteristics of Selected Counties
VariableDecaturGradyLowndes
Population, 2008 28,82325,115104,583
% Pop w/ Bachelor’s degree 12.1%10.6%19.7%
Median HH Income, 2007 32,65033,06038,666
Persons below poverty, 2007 22.5%22.2%20.5%
Persons white non-Hispanic, 2008 54.8%60.6%60.0%
In closing, it appears that Project Excel is an excellent candidate for location in Lowndes County.
So which other county did CCA actually pick? Continue reading →

CCA documents from VLCIA

All the CCA documents VLCIA provided in response to Matt Flumerfelt’s Open Records Request are on the LAKE website. I will continue posting what I see in them (in the category CCA), but you may find things in them I don’t. If you find something particularly interesting, please send it to the LAKE blog submission address or comment on the blog so we can all see it.

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Missing: CCA Submission of Preliminary Specifications

Has CCA supplied a key document required by the contract? If not, is the contract still valid?

According to “SCHEDULE 1.6.2 DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE” CCA was supposed to provide to VLCIA

Submission of Preliminary Specifications (Section 1.6.1)
No later than 6 months after receipt of the Survey
CCA did provide a Title Objection Letter 19 November 2010, and that was due “within 30 days of receipt of the Survey”. So these Preliminary Specifications were due about six months ago. Let’s see them!

If those specifications have not been received by VLCIA, maybe the contract with CCA is no longer valid.

Or maybe VLCIA already received the NTP and is moving on with implementing the project. Seems to me the community should be informed, one way or the other.

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How the Industrial Authority can stop the CCA private prison: no third extension by 13 March 2012

Apparently the Industrial Authority can end the contract for CCA’s private prison six weeks from now, by simply not doing anything until then.

CCA has already paid for two extensions on their Option Agreement for land purchase. The Second Extension Term was paid for in March 2010 and forwarded to the land owner. Here’s video of Col. Ricketts announcing it to the VLCIA board 15 March 2011. That second extension expires 13 March 2012, six weeks from today.

A Third Extension Term is possible, but has to be negotiated. Here’s what Purchase and Development Agreement of 17 August 201 says:

1.4.2.3. Third Extension Term. The Authority shall use commercially reasonable efforts to obtain an option for a third extension term of twelve (12) months (the “Third Extension Term“). In the event the Authority is able to obtain such extension option on terms and conditions such that any required earnest money to be paid by the Company in connection with the exercise of such extension option does not exceed $75,000, and there is no increase of the price of the Site or any other payments not already required by the Option Agreement, then the Authority shall enter into a written agreement (the “Third Extension Term“) with the Seller reflecting the terms and conditions of such extension option….
What happens if the Authority does not provide such an extension option? Continue reading →

CCA and the problem with Industrial Authority confidentiality agreements

In the confidentiality agreeement CCA and VLCIA signed way back on 17 August 2009, I see nothing that says the Industrial Authority can’t talk about CCA in general terms. And I see a lot of things that a governmental entity by state law can’t hide if the public requests them. And that VLCIA has now revealed. Which means the Industrial Authority has violated that agreement because state law required it to. So what does that say about the validity of other contracts VLCIA has signed with CCA? And what does it say about the practice of this governmental entity signing confidentiality agreements?

That agreement includes this legal boilerplate:

it will use any confidential, proprietary, or trade secret information to which it has access solely for the purpose set forth herein and that it will indefinitely protect the confidentiality of such information and will not directly or indirectly disclose, reproduce, distribute, transmit or transfer by any means in any form any confidential documents, information and/or trade secrets that AUTHORITY may have or acquire during the Evaluation Period.
There’s nothing in there that says VLCIA can’t even say in their board meetings that Project Excel is a private prison for CCA. And outside board meetings, some board members have no reluctance to acknowledge that.

Confidentiality agreements like that are normal between two business entities. They seem a little odd between a business entity and a governmental agency. For example, that Agreement continues:

For purposes of this Agreement, “confidential, proprietary, or trade secret information” includes, but is not limited to, marketing materials, conceptual site drawings and images, form contract agreements, the identities of business contacts and the relationships developed with such contacts during the Evaluation Period, proposed terms of purchase and sale, if any….
Yet many of those things are by their nature public records that VLCIA is required to hand over in response to an open records request, such as the one Matt Flumerfelt made which produced documents such as these: Continue reading →

Where is CCA’s private prison site in Lowndes County?

The private prison CCA wants to build in Lowndes County (what the Industrial Authority calls Project Excel) is proposed to be on the east side of Valdosta, at the southwest corner of U.S. 84 and Inner Perimeter Road:

That survey plat was included in EXCEL (CCA) Title-Survey Objections (Reno-Cavanaugh) of 19 November 2010. That’s one of a group of files returned by VLCIA in response to an open records request by Matt Flumerfelt.

We now have some idea of what the prison would look like, due to this plan: Continue reading →

VLCIA and local counties

In which of these five, seven, eleven, or thirteen counties is Athens, Georgia?

According to Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), Regional Hub,

Valdosta is a regional hub for eleven Georgia counties and two Florida counties. Valdosta-Lowndes County acts not only as the regional hub for retail, medical, transportation and entertainment. Our community is also the regional hub for employment for five contiguous, predominantly rural Georgia counties and two Florida counties (as indicated in the chart to the right) and supports a thirteen county region referenced from the 2000 Census (see chart attached below).
The five Georgia counties are (alphabetically) Brooks, Cook, Echols, Lanier, and Lowndes, and the two Florida counties are Hamilton and Madison. In which of those seven counties is Athens, Georgia?

The thirteen counties, barely legible on VLCIA’s webpage, are: Berrien GA, Brooks GA, Clinch GA, Colquitt GA, Columbia FL, Cook GA, Dougherty GA, Duval FL, Echols GA, Fulton GA, Hamilton FL, Lanier GA, and Madison FL. Fulton County, Georgia? OK, that’s odd. Hm, the table is entitled

“Journeys To and From LOWNDES GA (Threshold = 50)”.
It’s about vehicles travelling in and out of Lowndes County. So Fulton makes some sense, due to people travelling between here and Atlanta. Local region, though? Not Fulton. Ditto Duval County, Florida. Jacksonville, local? I think not.

So maybe call it an eleven county region. In which of those eleven or thirteen counties is Athens, Georgia?

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Why doesn’t VLCIA buy locally?

Col. Ricketts reminded VLCIA board members at their most recent regular meeting (2012 01 17) that he had asked them for input about trees for Miller and Westside Business Parks.
We have identified trees from a nursery, Select Trees, in Athens, Georgia, with a special five year warranty on those trees, that meet our landscape plans for both Miller and Westside Business Park. As we discussed in our last board meeting, there is some cost savings available to us, and the ability for us to select trees now and hold them if we make a deposit.
OK, I commend VLCIA staff and board for trying to save we the taxpayers money.

But isn’t VLCIA supposed to be promoting local business and agriculture? Why is our Industrial Authority outsourcing to a company halfway across the state? Why doesn’t it buy locally, even if it costs a little more?

For that matter, aren’t there plenty of local trees, like sycamores, magnolias, and even longleaf pines that would cost very little to transplant to a local business park? Maybe those are the types of trees they’re buying. We don’t know, because only the board got the list of trees.

For that matter, why didn’t VLCIA put out a public request for bids for the trees?

Here’s the video:


Why doesn’t VLCIA buy locally?
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 January 2012.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

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