Tag Archives: Valdosta

Orr, Barrington, Whitewater, New Statenville + VLD * 2 + Dasher + Hahira variance @ GLPC 2013-09-30

A county developer has moved roads, plus 3 out of 5 local cities at the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission tonight, plus “Attendance policy for appointed Boards”: are we going to expect them to show up now? A Hahira variance, a Valdosta conditional use permit and a rezoning, a Dasher zoning text amendment, and rezonings on four Lowndes County roads, including New Statenville Highway, Whitewater Road @ Williams Road, Barrington Drive @ Bemiss Road, and Orr Road.

That Orr Road one uses the same name, Nottinghill, as one that on Cat Creek Road that previously got tabled and never came back. GLPC didn’t list any street numbers of parcel numbers, but there’s only one property on Orr Road that’s 14.99 acres, owned by William Henry Wright, backing up to his property on Stafford Wright Road. Have the Nottinghill developers made a deal with him for Orr Road since the neighbors didn’t want them on Cat Creek Road?

Here’s the agenda. Continue reading →

Cash for Trash –Deep South Sanitation

The longer you drag on that lawsuit, Lowndes County Commission, about your bogus exclusive franchise that benefits nobody but ADS investors in New York City, the more good PR local company DSS gets. We could use better than trash government around here.

Advertisement by Deep South Sanitation in the VDT yesterday: Continue reading →

Florida Power and Light selected Sabal Trail for pipeline through Georgia

A Florida company selected a Texas company that can use eminent domain in Georgia to take your land. Does that seem right to you? Florida PSC has to review this pipeline. Where’s Georgia PSC on this?

FPL PR 26 July 2013, FPL selects Sabal Trail Transmission and Florida Southeast Connection to build new natural gas pipeline system into Florida,

Florida Power & Light Company today announced that its evaluation of proposals for additional natural gas transportation capacity determined that the best, most economical solution for ensuring Florida’s continued access to the clean, affordable, U.S.-produced fuel necessary to meet the growing electricity needs of the state’s residents and businesses is a combination of a natural gas pipeline and interconnection hub to be built by Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, and a second natural gas pipeline to be built by Florida Southeast Connection, LLC….

Both Sabal Trail and Florida Southeast Connection will be interstate natural gas pipelines subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval and oversight.

In conjunction with today’s public announcement, FPL filed a petition for prudence review with the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC). Subject to PSC approval, Continue reading →

Bloomberg discovers mandated prison beds for CCA profit

The feds also fell for CCA’s prison snakeoil; it’s not just for states like Georgia.

William Selway & Margaret Newkirk wrote for Bloomberg 24 September 2013, Congress Mandates Jail Beds for 34,000 Immigrants as Private Prisons Profit,

Noemi Romero, who came to the U.S. illegally at age 3, was arrested in January working at a Phoenix grocery store, where she used someone else’s name to get the job.

Romero, a 21-year-old who likes to draw and dance, spent the next four months behind bars, almost half of it in a cramped cell at a 1,596-bed detention center in Eloy, Arizona, run by Corrections Corp. of America. The company, with Geo Group Inc. (GEO) and other for-profit prison operators, holds almost two-thirds of all immigrants detained each day in federally funded prisons as they face deportation, U.S. data show.

Under law, taxpayers must pay Continue reading →

Broadband fiber correlates with increased house prices

Preliminary research indicates that broadband fiber results in about 5% increase in property values for connected houses. This would indicate that an MSA wanting to profit from broadband should want to deploy it as widely as possible, especially in new housing. Hm, what’s the Homebuilders’ Association’s position on this?

NCM 0268 fiber ... result in 5.1% change in real estate value

The authors report that “fiber presence is associated with a positive effect on property values”, in The Impact of High-Speed Broadband Availability on Real Estate Values: Evidence from United States Property Markets by Gabor Molnar, University of Colorado at Boulder; Scott Savage, University of Colorado at Boulder; Douglas Sicker, University of Colorado at Boulder.

Continue reading →

Madison 9 down to 2

9 people were arrested just across the Florida line in Madison on charges similar to the Quitman 10, but on trial all charges have been dropped except for 2, as George Rhynes pointed out.

Interviewing one of their lawyers 20 December 2012, George heard that at least her clients refused to accept plea bargains.

The Madison 9 were arrested in November 2011, and the obvious question came, as Trymaine Lee wrote for Huffpo 18 January 2013, Nine Election-Related Arrests In Florida: A Case Of Voter Fraud Or Voter Suppression?

As soon as Judy Ann Crumitie answered the banging on her door one November morning Continue reading →

Transparency for all

David Brin wrote on his blog yesterday, a Transparency Tsunami!

Of embracing the tech waves and ensuring that no cop, no public official, goes un-recognized, unwatched.

This will happen. We have far more cameras than they do.

-jsq

Quitman 10+2 trial, three years late

Trials for the Quitman 10+2 have finally started. George Boston Rhynes is covering them every day on YouTube.

The only other reporter George has seen there was one from the Valdosta Daily Times. George is waving a copy of the VDT here as he discusses what the case is about: the Quitman 10 registered enough voters that several black people got elected to the school board in Brooks County for the first time ever.


Front Row: Linda Troutman, Lula Smart, April Proctor, Diane Thomas
Back Row: Latashia Head, Sandra Cody, Robert Dennard, Angela Bryant Nancy Dennard, and Kechia Harrison

Front page of the VDT yesterday, Quitman 11 trial gets under way, with no byline and no pictures, Continue reading →

Common Community Vision for Lowndes County

What do you the citizens want Lowndes County to be? Here’s a chance to speak up, so when somebody asks where were you when the decisions were being made, you don’t have to answer “lying on the couch watching television.” (Thanks to Nolen Cox for that phrase.)

Corey Hull wrote on facebook today, Help Spread the Word for the Future of Lowndes County,

My office is conducting a survey and gathering public input on Facebook (go to www.facebook.com/valdostalowndesmpo) about what they want the Lowndes County Common Community Vision to be ( www.bit.ly/LowndesCCV). So far our participation has been low. I am calling on all of you to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to spread the word and let us know what you think about the future of Lowndes County and its cities.

Over the next two months there will be future opportunities for public input so stay tuned.

Thanks for your help.

On the Southern Georgia Regional Commission’s website, Lowndes County Common Community Vision, Continue reading →

No contract and no bids for County Attorney, yet 20% raise to $300,000

In response to (a second) open records request, County Clerk Paige Dukes stated in writing that Lowndes County does not have a contract with the person referred to in numerous minutes as “County Attorney”, and that no bids have been entertained for legal services for the county. According to the budget documents the Clerk referred to, the county raised the County Attorney’s budget 20% to $300,000 for 2013. Illustrations below (some with links) were added by me. -jsq

From: pdukes@lowndescounty.com
To: b-ahuntley@hotmail.com
CC: asmith@lowndescounty.com; JPritchard@lowndescounty.com; bswaller@bellsouth.net
Subject: Open Records Request
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 13:22:08 +0000

Good Morning Mrs. Huntley,

In response to your open records request Continue reading →