Tag Archives: VLCIA

“We really need it in the county really bad.” —Grayson County, VA

Is Lowndes County in such bad shape that we, too, want a private prison, no matter that there’s no business case for it? Or should we learn from one bad business bet and not double down on another?

Susan Kinzie wrote in the Washington Post 30 May 2011, New Virginia prison sits empty, at a cost of more than $700,000 a year

This is how bad the economy is in southwestern Virginia: People are wishing they had more criminals in town.

That’s because Grayson County has a brand-new state prison standing empty. No prisoners. And that means no guards, no administrators, no staff, no jobs.

“I wish they would go ahead and open it up,” said Rhonda James of Mouth of Wilson, echoing many residents there. “We really need it in the county really bad.”

Three hundred new jobs — maybe 350 — that’s what people were told when the prison was planned. With about 11 percent unemployment and no relief in sight, that sounded really good to an awful lot of people here.

But months after the commonwealth finished building the 1,024-bed medium-security prison for $105 million, it remains empty, coils of razor wire and red roofs shining in the sun, new parking lot all but deserted and a yawning warehouse waiting for supplies.

And it’s costing more than $700,000 a year to maintain.

Meanwhile, the story continued, Virginia has closed 10 prisons due to budget shortfalls and lack of prisoners. And it’s not just Virginia: Continue reading →

Private Prisons don’t save much money —NYTimes

Richard A. Oppel Jr. wrote on the front page of the New York Times, 19 May 2011, Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings
The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
That’s right, they leave we the taxpayers to pay more in public prisons to house the most expensive prisoners:
The research, by the Arizona Department of Corrections, also reveals a murky aspect of private prisons that helps them appear less expensive: They often house only relatively healthy inmates.

“It’s cherry-picking,” said State Representative Chad Campbell, leader of the House Democrats. “They leave the most expensive prisoners with taxpayers and take the easy prisoners.”

And yet private prisons still cost more.

Could it have something to do with their executive salaries?

Anyway, we don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County. Spend that tax money on education instead.

-jsq

Find better way to fight crime —Rev. Chuck Arnold

Another Sunday, another preacher against private prisons. Unlike some, this one is not famous; Rev. Chuck Arnold is pastor of Valley of the Flowers United Church of Christ in Vandenberg Village, CA. He wrote in the Lompoc Record 20 May 2011
Going to a RAND Corporation study, in 1994 higher education received 12 percent of the state budget, corrections 9 percent, other services 9 percent (which included controlling environmental pollution, management of parks, fighting of brush fires, regulating insurance and other industries). By 2002 higher education took the biggest hit, along with “ other services,” both of which were virtually eliminated from the state budget. Corrections on the other hand went from 9 percent to 18 percent of the budget.
Which means that California, like so many other states, including Georgia, spends more on prisons than on education.

And not just public prisons anymore: Continue reading →

Biomass down for now: next?

Congratulations to all who worked against the biomass plant: today was the deadline on its most recent extension, so it’s gone for now. Congratulations to WACE and SAVE and NAACP and New Life Ministries and everyone else who was involved, especially Natasha Fast, Seth Gunning, and Brad Bergstrom, who were working against it before almost anyone else.

Congratulations to those who were instrumental even though they were not exactly or originally biomass opponents, especially Ashley Paulk, who came out and said what needed to be said, and George Bennett, who was willing to admit in public that he was one of the earliest proponents of the biomass plant but new knowledge caused him to think differently.

A big shoutout to the VSU Faculty Senate, the only traditional non-activist body that went on record as opposing the biomass plant with an actual vote before the extension deadline. The VSU Faculty Senate did what the Valdosta City Council, the Lowndes County Commission and the Industrial Authority Board would not. Go Blazers!

A special strategic mention to Kay Harris and David Rodock of the Valdosta Daily Times, who came to realize they were not being told the whole truth by the Industrial Authority. The VDT even gave a civics lesson on how to stop the biomass plant.

And a very special mention to the people who did the most to make the name of biomass mud in the public’s eye: Brad Lofton, Col. Ricketts, and the VLCIA board. Without their indoctrination sessions and paid “forum” and stonewalling, people wouldn’t have been turned against that thing nearly as fast!

Yet it ain’t over until it’s over.

According to David Rodock in the VDT today: Continue reading →

Gov. Deal asks state to look into farm labor shortages

GA Gov. Nathan Deal doesn’t know what caused the sudden Georgia agricultural labor shortage; asks Ag. Dept. to look into it. Could it be… HB 87?

Jeremy Redmon wrote in the AJC 27 May 2011, Governor asks state to probe farm labor shortages

State officials confirmed Friday that they have started investigating the scope of Georgia’s agricultural labor shortages following complaints that the state’s new immigration enforcement law is scaring away migrant farmworkers.

Gov. Nathan Deal asked for the investigation Thursday in a letter to Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black. Deal wants Black’s department to survey farmers about the impact Georgia’s immigration law, House Bill 87, is having on their industry and report findings by June 10.

The labor shortages have sent farmers scrambling to find other workers for their fall harvests. Others are making hard choices about leaving some fruits and vegetables to wilt on their fields.

Proponents of HB 87 say people who are in the country legally have nothing to worry about concerning the new law. They hope the law that takes effect July 1 will deter illegal immigrants from coming here and burdening the state’s taxpayer-funded public schools, hospitals and jails.

However, I have seen suggestions that the state send taxpayer-funded prisoners to do the agricultural labor. Should we go back to slave labor on plantations?

Better: we don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County. Spend that money on education instead.

-jsq

Who will pick Vidalia onions now that immigrants are scared away?

Could Georgia’s anti-immigration law already have ill effects?

AP wrote May 20, 2011, Immigration crackdown worries Vidalia onion county:

Signs point to an exodus in Vidalia onion country. Fliers on a Mexican storefront advertise free transportation for workers willing to pick jalapenos and banana peppers in Florida and blueberries in the Carolinas. Buying an outbound bus ticket now requires reservations. While most states rejected immigration crackdowns this year, conservative Georgia and Utah are the only states where comprehensive bills have passed. With the ink barely dry on Georgia’s law, among the toughest in the country, the divisions between suburban voters and those in the countryside are once again laid bare when it comes to immigration, even among people who line up on many other issues.

Guess who wanted this crackdown even though rural south Georgians didn’t:

The crackdown proved popular in suburban Atlanta, where Spanish-only signs proliferate and the Latino population has risen dramatically over the past few decades. Residents complain that illegal immigrants take their jobs and strain public resources.
That’s right: Atlanta, not content with lusting after our water, now scares off our workers.

Do immigrants really take jobs from locals? Such claims never seem to have data to back them up. I tend to agree with Carlos Santana:

“This is about fear, that people are going to steal my job,” Santana said of the law. “No we ain’t. You don’t clean toilets and clean sheets, stop shucking and jiving.”
In south Georgia local people won’t pick Vidalia onions for the wages immigrants will, and the wages locals want the farmers can’t afford.

Remember who profits from this crackdown, at the expense of Georgia farmers and taxpayers: private prison companies and their investors.

We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County. Spend those tax dollars on education instead.

-jsq

PS: Vidalia onion story owed to Jane Osborn.

Lowndes County has to pay Industrial Authority’s bond debts

According to the Intergovernmental Contract between VLCIA and Lowndes County:
WHEREAS, the Authority and the County propose to enter into this Contract, pursuant to which the Authority will agree, among other things, to issue the Bonds, and the County will agree, among other things, to pay to the Authority amounts sufficient to pay the debt service on the Bonds.
So it seems the Lowndes County Commission committed the county, that is, we the taxpayers, to pay the debt service on $15,000,000 in bonds issued by VLCIA.

Still, what did VLCIA want $15 million in bonds for when it already gets $3 million a year in its own tax millage?

WHEREAS, the Authority proposes to acquire and develop one or more parcels of land located in the County for potential economic development purposes (the “Project”);
To buy land to trade to new industries as they come in. A variation on what Brad Lofton got fired for doing in Effingham County. Continue reading →

U.S. drug war afflicts Latin America and rebounds on U.S.

The war on drugs causes violence, poverty, and illiteracy in Latin America that drives illegal immigration into the U.S., for the profit of Monsanto, military contractors, and private prison companies. Does that seem right to you?

Neal Peirce wrote a syndicated column 22 May 2011, Misguided U.S. drug policies afflict Mexico, Central America:

The war on drugs in Mexico, partially funded by hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. government assistance, has not only failed to curb the trade but intensified horrific violence, corruption and human rights abuses, writes Neal Peirce.

For most Americans, the recent news of popular demonstrations in Mexico was probably a small diversion from the daily tide of bloody global reports from such faraway hot spots as Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Bahrain.

Why worry, most of us likely concluded, if thousands of Mexicans are marching in the streets, protesting the horrific violence and high death toll in their nation’s raging drug war? Isn’t that their problem?

It’s true, the news reports focus less on the American role, more on growing anger with the government of President Felipe Calderón and the meager returns from the massive police and military crackdown on the drug trade he inaugurated in 2006.

Since then, more than 37,000 Mexicans have been murdered, often tortured and brutalized before their deaths, as cartels battle for control of drug smuggling routes and brazenly assassinate anyone, official or average citizen, they think is in their way.

The hard lesson is that the war on drug dealers, decreed by Calderón and partially funded by hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. government assistance, has not only failed to curb the trade but intensified horrific violence, corruption and human-rights abuses.

So what can be done? Continue reading →

Reduce prison population —Supreme Court to California

Will Georgia keep packing them into prisons until this happens?

Don Thompson wrote for AP 23 May 2011, High court to Calif: Cut prison inmates by 33,000:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that California must drastically reduce its prison population to relieve severe overcrowding that has exposed inmates to increased violence, disease and death.

We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County. Spend that tax money on education instead.

-gretchen

Expert says Valdosta lags behind Thomasville in Internet speed for business

Let’s leapfrog Thomasville in the 21st century equivalent of roads, rail, and airports: Internet speeds!

Here’s another point from Chris Miller at the 2011 Economic Summit, according to the VDT story by Dawn Castro 18 May 2011, :

“Thomasville didn’t have hi-speed internet, so the process of moving products quickly was not possible,” he said, “With Rose Net hi-speed broadband, it is now able to work 25 times faster. That one simple step boosted economic product growth, and as we all know, the technical industry creates a wage growth path.”


Georgia Internet Speed Results by www.speedmatters.org

So if the Chamber wants, as it says, knowledge-based businesses and jobs, Continue reading →