Tag Archives: VDT

Idaho fractivist ejected from jail on own recognizance

Arrested for standing silently in the back of a public meeting, Alma Hasse refused to cooperate with booking or to eat, instead helping prisoners with grievances. After a week, the Payette County, Idaho jail ejected her on her own recognizance with no bail. She says they still plan to charge her with something. Meanwhile, she’s back to filing open records requests, presumably about the Planning and Zoning Commission that had her arrested and that has a record of not divulging information even in response to FOIA requests. I smell a lawsuit, and not by P&Z. Maybe they should have gone to the VDT’s Open Government Symposium in Macon Friday. Maybe some of our local elected and appointed officials have learned that this isn’t the answer:

So it’s just if you disagree you’re disruptive.

Alma Hasse’s husband Jim wrote on her facebook page 16 October 2014, Alma is FREE!!!! PLEASE SHARE!!, Continue reading →

Lowndes County officials at Open Government Symposium @ OGS 2014-10-17

300x225 Clay Griner (District 5), Paige Dukes (County Clerk), Joyce Evans (District 1), Scott Orenstein (District 2-elect), in Lowndes County Commissioners at Open Government Symposium, by Gretchen Quarterman, 17 October 2014 Gretchen reports from Macon that Lowndes County Commissioner Clay Griner (District 5), Paige Dukes (County Clerk), Joyce Evans (District 1), Scott Orenstein (District 2-elect), and Valdosta City Clerk Theresa Bolden (not pictured) are all at the VDT Open Government Symposium in Macon. Congratulations, Jim Zachary and the VDT, on getting them to show up! Continue reading →

The Case of the Six Missing Screams: Nydia Tisdale’s video edited by sheriff’s office?

It looks like the “public” Pumpkin Farm Republican campaign rally headlined by Gov. Nathan Deal not only caused a citizen journalist to be roughed up and evicted, and her camera taken, apparently the local law edited her video recording to remove the sound of her screams.

Jim Galloway wrote 22 September 2014, The Case of the Six Missing Screams,

You’ll remember Tisdale as the citizen-journalist from Roswell who was arrested in August at a GOP rally at a pumpkin farm in Dawsonville for pointing a video recorder at candidates. Which is what she does.

In front of the top of the GOP ticket, including Gov. Nathan Deal, Tisdale was grabbed — then roughed up. Her camera was Continue reading →

VDT Open Government Symposium: in Macon?

Yay open government symposium! But why in Macon, why not in Valdosta, if it’s organized by the new VDT editor? Sure, Macon is the geographic center of the state, but it’s only about an hour from Atlanta, and one thing most people in Atlanta don’t understand is how big Georgia is, so asking them to drive four hours to Valdosta would be educational for them. And if the VDT is so interested in government transparency, why doesn’t it investigate the county’s lawsuit against local business Deep South Sanitation at the expense of the local taxpayers that benefits nobody but “exclusive franchise” ADS and its investors in New York City? Why is the VDT’s front page story that gave a platform for Spectra’s Andrea Grover no longer online, especially now that the Sabal Trail deadline she announced has been busted? Let’s see the VDT lead the way. Here’s a first test: Gretchen is going to Macon with the LAKE video camera. Will the VDT let her video?

Unsigned article, VDT, 11 October 2014, VDT leading way in open government, Continue reading →

Why open government matters –VDT

Maybe the Lowndes County Commission should have read these quotes before it approved that unbudgeted no-bid not-discussed-in-the-retreat second water treatment system purchase.

Update 17 October 2014: Fix date of editorial. -jsq

VDT editorial 12 April August 2014, Why open government matters,

“The same prudence, which, in private life, would forbid our paying our money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the disposition of public moneys.” — Thomas Jefferson.

Continue reading →

Sabal Trail admits no Georgia customers, tree destruction, to VDT

The VDT’s page-long coverage wasn’t just fluff. Spectra’s Andrea Grover admitted they need complete survey data, and Sabal Trail admitted they have no Georgia customers, which means they have no Georgia eminent domain, so every landowner who refuses is indeed putting a crimp into Spectra’s fracked methane pipeline. Plus Grover admitted trees don’t grow back fast, so her promise “It’s restored to what it was before” is pretty hollow. She admitted she knows the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Fuels can approve LNG export, but she didn’t admit that it has already done so for three companies right there Spectra’s Sabal Trail pipeline leads on Florida’s Atlantic coast. She still can’t seem to remember Spectra’s long list of safety violations. And she’d already forgotten exactly when her posse of seven rode into Leesburg, GA seeking an eminent domain court order, and rode away without it.

Not a word, though, about Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter’s fourteen points of Continue reading →

Kelly Lenz resigns as Library Director

Via AP from VDT yesterday, Library director accepts new position,

The South Georgia Regional Library Board of Trustees announced the resignation Thursday of Director Kelly Lenz.

Lenz has accepted the position as the director of the Middle Georgia Regional Library System. Since 2008, she has served in various positions with the South Georgia Regional Library.

The Middle Georgia Regional Library System says it is headquartered at the Macon-Bibb County Public Libraries and serves Bibb, Crawford, Jones, Macon, Twiggs, & Wilkinson Counties.

The story says she will continue to work with SGRL until an interim director is named, and she starts her new job in Macon 4 August 2014.

The story doesn’t mention Continue reading →

Video of Gretchen on Scott James radio show 2014-05-01

Lowndes County as the Jewel of the South, and how to get there, was the topic on drive-time radio Thursday.

Local policy issues include what would happen to us if we got 20 inches of rain like Pensacola just did? The county needs to be appropriately staffed and prepared for emergencies. The Army Corps of Engineers study on flooding will be presented at the next Valdosta City Council Work Session (5:30 PM May 6th at City Hall) with a public presentation afterwards (6:30 PM at City Hall Annex). Gretchen added that Ashley Tye will be giving a Lowndes County Emergency Management Continuity of Business Workshop 5:30-6:30 PM 5 May 2014 at the Lowndes County Administrative Building, 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta.

Radio host Scott James noted,

In case nobody picked up on it, I just quizzed Gretchen and she is involved. She answered both very well.

Gretchen added that having things online for people who can’t go to the meetings because they’re at work would be very useful in getting more people engaged. Scott James advocated livestreaming videos of meetings, “or at least recorded and played back”. Gretchen recounted an anecdote about wishing she could have heard the recent Valdosta City Council meeting livestreamed.

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Brooks County asks FERC for five-foot top cover on pipeline

Colquitt, Brooks, next Lowndes?

Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT yesterday, Brooks urges deep-dug pipeline,

Brooks County commissioners unanimously passed a resolution earlier this month encouraging Sabal Trail to bury its proposed natural gas pipeline two feet deeper than the three-feet requirements.

“We do a lot of farming over here, and that was the loudest concern was making sure we try to encourage Sabal Trail to make sure they went the extra mile to make sure their investment, and our citizens were protected,” said Justin DeVane, Brooks County administrator. “The pipeline itself is only traversing three of our five districts and all five of our commissioners were receiving concerns about it. So we wanted to make sure that Continue reading →

VDT has selective smell

To the VDT the county government always smells like azaleas and the city of Valdosta government always smells like sewage. The local newspaper of record doesn’t seem to smell sewage or landfill problems from Lowndes County. Today’s VDT editorial complains about environmental groups paying attention to “theoretical disasters” (presumably referring to the Sabal Trail pipeline), yet the VDT has never covered the group that has most consistently followed the watershed-wide flooding issues that cause Valdosta’s flooding problems: WWALS Watershed Coalition. The VDT recommends citizens get more involved in sniffing out Valdosta’s sewage problems, yet it doesn’t seem to cover Citizens Wishing To Be Heard anymore, nor has the VDT called for the citizen participation sessions promised by the local governments for the Army Corps of Engineers flooding studies. Maybe the VDT could encourage citizen participation, rather than ignore it.

VDT editorial today, It just plain stinks, Continue reading →