Tag Archives: Wal-Mart

Wal-mart sign variance on Bemiss Road, and water and storage in Lowndes @ ZBOA 2016-10-04

2:30 PM today: Wal-mart wants a sign variance on Bemiss Road at Guest Road (see previous LAKE blog post), water and sewage on Bemiss Knights Academy Road, and a self-storage facility on Old US Highway 41 North, make a relatively light agenda for the decision-making Zoning Board of Appeals.

Valdosta – Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals

Matt Martin, Valdosta Planning and Zoning Administrator
300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia
(229) 259-3563

Carmella Braswell, Lowndes County Zoning Administrator
327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia
(229) 671-2430

AGENDA
October 4, 2016
2:30 p.m.

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Videos: CAC office on Skipper Bridge Rd. + a Wal-Mart on Bemiss Rd? @ GLPC 2016-02-29

LAKE videos of the Planning Commission Regular Session recommendations for the CAC office, also heard yesterday morning at Lowndes County Commission Work Session and to be voted on tonight at LCC Regular Session. At the same GLPC meeting, the Valdosta rezoning for (with small annexation) for the grocery store and gas station; See notes on the GLPC agenda for why that could be a Wal-Mart. See also the LAKE videos of the previous week’s GLPC Work Session, and the board packet materials for REZ-2016-06 CAC on Skipper Bridge Road and “Gusto Development Corp” on Bemiss Road. The LAKE videos of the GLPC Regular Session of 29 February 2016 are linked in below, followed by a video playlist.

Here’s a video playlist:


Videos: CAC office on Skipper Bridge Rd. + a Wal-Mart on Bemiss Rd?
Regular Session, Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 February 2016.

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Bemiss and Guest Rd. VA-2016-03, VA-2016-04, VA-2016-05 @ GLPC 2016-02-29

The letters from “Gusto Development LLC” have an email address of kim@hutton.build, confirming that it’s really The Hutton Company Tax Parcels Aerial doing this work for Bassford Properties LLC; the same Hutton Company that recently did work on Wal-Marts in Chattanooga, TN and Athens, GA.

Received today at 4:17 PM EST, which was before the GLPC meeting started. However, as I told the City Clerk when she also called on the telephone, I was planting potatoes at that time. I recommended to her, as I did earlier that same day to the County Planner, that the agenda packet items go online so neither city nor county staff nor citizens have to go through this rigamarole just to see what Commissioners are looking at. The actual Planning Commission meeting was quite brief; they recommended everything; LAKE videos to come. Meanwhile, see the LAKE videos of the previous week’s Work Session.

The materials she sent are on the LAKE website. Continue reading →

Videos: developer property rights and effects on neighbors, Leninco, Roger Budd, Lake Park @ LCC 2014-08-12

There was at least some reason for the Commission’s approval of the Family Dollar and other use rezoning for Roger Budd Jr. and Leninco out of the Francis Lake golf course in Lake Park: because it would include a condition of a berm that would continue with the property regardless of who owned it. The applicant’s attorney had made it clear that applicant considered the berm too expensive and it, along with other conditions, might make the project unfeasible. Perhaps the Commission should apply the same technique to stop the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline. This was in the 23 August 2014 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission; thanks to Toma Hawk for the video.

6.b. REZ-2014-14 Roger Budd Jr, Lakes Blvd (SR 376), R-10 to C-G, Water/Sewer, ~4.2 acres

[Work Session Start 1 minute 48 seconds.] County Planner Jason Davenport said this was a repeat of a request from 2009 “that Continue reading →

If Wal-Mart fires for not following procedures…

George Rhynes asks if Wal-Mart can fire employees who disarmed an armed robber for not following procedures, why can’t the manager he says didn’t follow procedures when the manager fired him be fired in return? I wonder why Wal-Mart procedures and profit are more important than employee safety, well-being, or the drain on public resources to cover what Wal-Mart does not?

George Boston Rhynes wrote to Wal-Mart CEO and President Mike Duke and Board of Directors 20 February 2011, Wal-Mart Store 899 and 2615, Valdosta, Georgia and China Workers!

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Most corrupt state sells public education to Waltons

Amendment 1 results And it wasn’t even close: 2,152,091 to 1,526,959 (58.50% to 41.50%). Lowndes County went for the Atlanta-power-grab “charter school” amendment 18,606 to 17,619 (51.36% to 48.64%). The voters of Georgia just sold their children’s educational birthright for a mess of slick brochures.

Amendment 2 results The other ALEC amendment, on multi-year contracts, passed by an even wider margin: 2,241,621 to 1,275,809 (63.73% to 36.27%). Lowndes went for it 20,205 to 14,414 (58.36% to 41.64%).

Apparently Georgia voters will vote for any old thing that’s submitted to them as a constitutional amendment.

Esau sells his birthright for a mess of pottage Congratulations, ALEC and Wal-Mart! You’ve demonstrated money talks and slick brochures sell. This was even better for you than ALEC’s so-called anti-immigration law which the legislature passed and that actually devastates Georgia agriculture for the profit of private prison company CCA. This time you got the people of Georgia to vote directly against their own best interests to the benefit of school privatizing corporations in Virginia and Michigan!

Boo Georgia voters. You’ve just given the most corrupt legislature in the country the ability to commit you the taxpayers to contracts for decades. And you’ve just traded your children’s educational birthright for a mess of slick paper.

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Propaganda for charter school amendment 1 paid for by out-of-state donors

Who can afford to pay for these two glossy mailers pushing the charter school amendment? Who are GeorgiaHope2012.org and BrighterGeorgia.org, anyway? Recipients of millions from Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation to push a bill sponsored in the statehouse by ALEC’s “our state legislators”. Will we believe Alice Walton and ALEC, or will we believe our Georgia educators, who overwhelmingly oppose Amendment 1?

Two glossy mailers pushing the charter school amendment

GeorgiaHope2012.org’s mailer (the big one) says in really light grey type:

Paid for by Families for Better Public Schools Edward Lindsey Chairman

We’ve heard of them before. They raised $486,750 by September, about 96% from outside Georgia, including Alice Walton ($250,000), K12 Inc. of Virginia ($100,000), Charter Schools USA of Florida ($50,000), J.C. Huizenga and National Heritage Academies Inc. of Michigan ($25,000 each). Their spokesman Bert Brantley (who went to Lowndes County public schools) claims the bogus preamble to the charter school amendment, the one that uses ALEC Family Trigger jargon and asserts things that just aren’t in either of the authorizing bills; he claims that preamble is “factual”. His previous PR campaign was pushing the T-SPLOST transportation tax that failed by a landslide.

Families for Better Public Schools is still playing the charter school bait and switch in their mailer by pretending Amendment 1 is needed for charter schools:

EVERY CHILD DESERVES A CHANCE! VOTE YES! for Public Charter Schools on November 6th.

We don’t need this amendment to create charter schools. Any local school board can already do that.

BrighterGeorgia.org’s mailer (the smaller one) says in grey on grey type:

Paid for by Georgia Charter Schools Association

GCSA got $700,000 from the Walton Family Foundation last year, and is a member of Continue reading →

K12 CEO Packard: $5M in 2011, up 36%

Does your school superintendent get paid $5 million a year? Ronald J. Packard, CEO of K12 Inc., the second biggest donor to the pro-charter school amendment campaign, does. Is that where you want your tax dollars to go?

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Executive Profile, Ronald J. Packard CFA, Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director, K12, Inc. K12 CEO Packard made $551,539 in salary in 2011, but was awarded other compensation totaling $5,002,933. Which is even richer than the approximately $3,266,387 total compensation private prison company CCA’s CEO Damon Hininger got in 2010, which, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, apparently only went up to 3,696,798 in 2011.

According to Emma Brown for the Washington Post 9 December 2011, K12 Inc. chief executive Ron Packard paid $5 million compensation package in 2011,

That’s nearly twice the $2.67 million Packard earned in 2010. It includes $551,000 in cash, $4.2 million in stock awards and about $290,000 in other compensation.

Packard’s pay reflects a new employment agreement negotiated in September 2010 and good until 2014. The company had $522 million in revenue in 2011, up nearly 36 percent percent from the year before.

“We determined that these awards were necessary and appropriate to retain Mr. Packard as our Chief Executive Officer and in recognition of Mr. Packard’s leadership and performance over the term of his employment with the Company,” the filing said.

Do we want our tax revenue going to retain K12 Inc.’s CEO? What if we retain our local schools instead? After all, it’s dubious that charter schools would be any better Continue reading →

Walton Family Foundation granted $1.05 million towards GA charter schools in 2011

The total amount of Walton family affiliate money backing the Georgia charter school referendum is far larger than Alice Walton’s $250,000.

In the Walton Family Foundation’s list of 2011 Education Reform Grants, there are two Georgia organizations:

Georgia Charter Schools Association Inc. 700,000
Georgia Family Education and Research Council, Inc. 350,000

GCSA has made the news quite a bit lately, and its name makes its purpose pretty clear. According to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), GCSA is a NACSA member. You remember NACSA, the organization that Zaid Jilani discovered was an ALEC member, and that bailed out of ALEC two days later. That was in May 2012, after the Georgia legislature passed the bill putting the charter school referendum on the ballot.

Georgia Family Education and Research Council, Inc. (GFERC) is slightly less obvious. According Continue reading →

Class action lawsuit against second largest donor to GA charter school referendum

K12 Inc. of Virginia has a class action lawsuit against it, as well as allegations of lack of effectiveness of its courses. K12 is the second biggest contributor to the Georgia charter school referendum which would privatize Georgia’s public schools. Shades of CCA desperately offering 48 states to privatize their prisons! And we know there’s a connection: ALEC helps push both private prisons and privatization of public schools. We didn’t fall for ALEC’s privatized prisons: let’s not fall for ALEC’s privatized schools.

Emma Brown wrote for the Washington Post 31 January 2012, Shareholder lawsuit accuses K12 Inc. of misleading investors,

A shareholder in Virginia-based K12 Inc. has filed a lawsuit against K12 Inc. CEO and Founder Ronald J. Packard, named in class action lawsuit the virtual-schools operator in federal court, alleging that the firm violated securities law by making false statements to investors about students’ poor performance on standardized tests.

The class-action complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, also accuses K12 of boosting its enrollment and revenues through “deceptive recruiting” practices.

Herndon-based K12 is the country’s largest operator of full-time public virtual schools, a growing sector in which students as young as five learn at home via computer.

The lawsuit comes after a spate of national news stories — including in The Washington Post — raised questions about the effectiveness of virtual schools, K12’s in particular. The firm’s stock has since plummeted.

There’s more in the article, and in the actual Harry T. Hawks, K12 Inc. executive vice president and chief financial officer, named in class action lawsuit Class action suit against K12 Inc. Named in the suit are Ronald J. Packard (K12 Inc’s CEO and Founder) and Harry T. Hawks, executive vice president and chief financial officer, both pictured here.

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