Tag Archives: WCTV

WCTV T-SPLOST pro and con, 27 July 2012

Greg Gullberg has updated his WCTV story about T-SPLOST with a new video, this time interviewing private citizen John Gayle (for T-SPLOST) sitting at the Valdosta Mayor’s desk, Gretchen Quarterman (against T-SPLOST) at the Lowndes County Extension Office, and some other people.

Vote No T-SPLOST 31 July 2012The major issue driving people to the polls and dividing them is the TSPLOST Transportation tax. The TSPLOST Transportation Tax is a hot issue here in Georgia.. because it effects everybody. Organizers say with an extra penny of sales tax—when you add all those pennies up over the next ten years— that could be almost 20-billion dollars for the state. One side says it will ease your troubled commute. The other says the measure is so flawed it won’t really help at all.

Another excerpt:

Continue reading →

Ashley Paulk opposes T-SPLOST

In his Tuesday T-SPLOST story WCTV reporter Greg Gullberg noted that current Lowndes County Chairman Ashley Paulk said "the Commission is not taking a stance." Indeed, but Ashley Paulk himself took a stance against T-SPLOST as far back as April 2011, when he said:

I think what disturbs me, is when you've got to put something in the law that's a stick, carrot and stick, you don't do what I've said you're going to get punished….

Right now if I had to vote for it I could not find the interest to get out there.

He also said:

Right now, I do not have a good or warm fuzzy feeling about this. That could change.

He said he'd tell us if it changed. Last time I checked with him, his position had not changed.

-jsq

Valdosta Mayor Refuses to Endorse LGBT Pride Festival

Proclaim your festival? Not if the mayor disagrees with it. Apparently he will inadvertently give you free TV coverage, though.

Greg Gullberg reported for WCTV yesterday, Valdosta Mayor Refuses to Endorse LGBT Pride Festival,

Raynae Williams, Assistant Executive Director of South Georgia Pride One of the top members of “South Georgia Pride” called Eyewitness News reporter Greg Gullberg shortly after leaving the mayor’s office Wednesday morning. She had requested a proclamation for their upcoming festival. But as she says in this Exclusive Interview, the mayor denied their request.

“It made me feel like I did not matter to the City of Valdosta. That I was not a part of anything,” said Raynae Williams, Assistant Executive Director of South Georgia Pride.

They are planning their annual Festival this September. She wanted a mayoral proclamation to recognize the event.

“Our organization is working to educate people on tolerance and against bullying and hate crimes,” Williams said.

John Gayle, Mayor of ValdostaBut Valdosta Mayor John Gayle stands against homosexuality.

“I just don’t approve of that life style. It goes against what I believe in and if I sign that proclamation then I’m endorsing that. And I can’t do that,” said Mayor Gayle.

There’s more in the report, including this:

“I was kind of shocked when I asked how many proclamations have been denied. We are the only one,” said Williams.

And this:

Below is the link to a petition. Their goal is to reach 100 signatures.

http://www.change.org/petitions/mayor-of-valdosta-ga-sign-the-proclamation-against-discrimination-and-hate

Maybe we should ask him to proclaim a No T-SPLOST day….

-jsq

“Poor people and middle class people will pay more. And that’s just not fair” —Gretchen Quarterman about T-SPLOST on WCTV 2012-07-24

Gregg Gullberg reported for WCTV yesterday, Georgia Voters To Decide… What Can An Extra Penny Do For You?

Poor people and middle class people will pay more. And that s just not fair “Sales tax falls unfairly on the poor and middle class,” said Gretchen Quarterman, who is running for Chair of the Lowndes County Commission. “So as a percentage of their income, poor people and middle class people will pay more. And that’s just not fair.”

The current chair says the Commission is not taking a stance. But we did talk to Valdosta Mayor John Gayle by phone.

“Valdosta is a growing city. And TSPLOST gives us the means to keep it on track. The entire region can benefit from improved transportation,” said Mayor Gayle.

Each region will hold its own independent election, so there is no need to worry how a different region will vote. Residents will vote on this tax next Tuesday, July 31st.

As Gullberg promised on-air, the WCTV online story contains a list of T-SPLOST projects and more information. Here’s the WCTV video.

And here’s more about how T-SPLOST doesn’t include any public transportation projects that would help people get to work, about the two I-75 interchange projects, about GDOT changes to costs of projects and about how we can make a Plan B.

-jsq

Cook County schools furloughing teachers

Cook county schools have a budget shortfall problem, and they think they can solve it only by furloughing teachers. Remind me again why we're wasting $1 billion a year on prisons, including private prisons for the profit of private prison shareholders and executives (like CCA CEO Damon Hininger's $3 million a year) and we're furloughing teachers instead?

Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV 10 May 2012, Teachers in Cook County Face Furloughs,

The Cook County School System is facing a $472,352 deficit. Superintendent Lance Heard tells Eyewitness News reporter Greg Gullberg that the only way out may be to initiate system-wide furlough days and cutting jobs.

"We've done everything we can to maintain the level of education for the students that we've always had and we think we've been able to do that," said Superintendent Heard.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but 488 teachers, staff and administrators, may be facing furlough days next school year. Superintendent Heard hopes to limit them to three to five per employee.

"I would like to say also that when we do take furlough days, they are always none instructional days. The students do not miss any school," said Superintendent Heard.

Yet. Keep on in this direction and the students will be missing school. As it is, they just get less-prepared teachers, for less-effective teaching. But this is not Supt. Heard's fault.

Do we in Georgia want to prepare students for jail, or to succeed in life? Prisons cost we the taxpayers lots of money. Successful young people help pay for everything. Maybe we should choose successful young people, starting with education.

-jsq

Valdosta confused about water uses

Is there an outdoor water restriction in Valdosta, or isn’t there? The city and the newspaper seem confused about that. Also remember much of Lowndes County gets its water indirectly from Valdosta through the county’s utility system. And that with groundwater levels at all-time lows, we need to be conserving all the time anyway, and thinking about how much and what kind of growth we want.

The City of Valdosta front page says:

In the Spotlight

The City of Valdosta has issued an outdoor water restriction suspending all outdoor water uses for 72-hours, or until further notice. Click here for more.

Yet if you click there, you get this error page:

Error The page you have requested does not exist. Please click here to go back to the home page.

Similarly, there was a VDT article on that subject, but that link also goes nowhere now.

Stephen Abel wrote for WALB yesterday, Temporary water restrictions in effect for Valdosta,

Folks in Valdosta need to think twice about washing their cars, or doing anything else that uses much water, this weekend.

“The city of Valdosta is urging all citizens to immediately cease outdoor irrigation use and all other nonessential uses of water. Now and throughout the weekend,” said Public Information Officer Sementha Mathews.

Severe vibrations in the water pumps is what put them out of commission. “The city’s water treatment plant experienced some mechanical issues this week with two of its raw water well pumps which caused the low levels in water,” said Mathews.

So, did the city fix its pumps? Or is it just confused about what to do?

WCTV posted this update, and seemed to indicate the water restrictions were still in place:

The City of Valdosta sincerely thanks the citizens who responded quickly to its request today to cease all outdoor irrigation and non-essential use of water. Currently, there are no water quality issues in the system, and the water provided by the city is safe for all purposes.

People should be conserving all the time anyway. These suggestions from the city are pretty good for a start:

Continue reading →

ALEC “covers the spectrum in terms of bad policy for people” –FL news

ALEC will no doubt try to tar WCTV as “liberal media.” That will be amusing!

Troy Kinsey wrote for WCTV Monday, themselves as members of ALEC. Damien filer with ‘progress florida’ says its time for them to break their ties with a group that’s taking national heat over ‘Stand Your Ground’.

“This is not just about ‘shoot first’ laws; this is about everything from the so-called ‘parent trigger’ law that we saw during the last legislative session, the prison privatization schemes that we’ve seen crop up. It really covers the spectrum in terms of bad policy for people, and policy that’s really aimed at padding the pockets of the corporations that fund this organization.”

Hm, I wonder who in the Georgia statehouse are ALEC members?

-jsq

Hoodies and skittles suspicious? WCTV @ SCLC 2012 03 22

That’s WCTV reporter Greg Gullberg leaning over in the picture on the right. Here’s his report Friday, Protesters Rally For Trayvon Martin At Valdosta’s Old Courthouse,

Several protesters wore hooded sweat shirts, held boxes of Skittles and cans of iced tea. They asked if those items made them appear suspicious as well.

More excerpts:

“That this community and every community in this country will continue to press for Mr. Zimmerman’s arrest and conviction,” Rev. Rose told Gullberg.

The news that Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee temporarily stepped down sparked new life into the rally.

“We all know that he botched the investigation. He did not even arrest Mr. Zimmerman, which would have been standard practice,” said Rev. Rose.

“I think the story is still kind of broad right now, people want to know what’s happened. So I’m actually happy about the crowd that came out today,” Valdosta State University NAACP Chapter President DeAndre Jones told Gullberg.

LAKE videos of the rally.

-jsq

Industrial Authority still pushing “benefits” of scrapped private prison

The Industrial Authority appears to have learned nothing from the reams of information about the CCA private prison found for them by members of the public. They’re still pushing the “benefits” while saying nothing about the numerous cons (pun intended), the biggest of which is that the state and federal prison population is already decreasing, meaning we don’t need any more prisons, and if we built one here, it would be likely to close. So it’s not just a bad idea, it’s bad business. But here they go again….

Eames Yates wrote for WCTV Friday, Plans For New Prison Scrapped,

Schruijer went on to say “It would have been a huge economic impact. There were about 400 jobs associated with the project with approximately $150 million dollars in capital investment.”

Those four hundred jobs that the prison would have created, on average, would have payed between $40,000 and $50,000 dollars eah.

To people who mostly don’t live here now and mostly wouldn’t want to live here then, while driving away better businesses; she didn’t mention any of that, or the other problems with the whole private prison bad business.

That picture of Ms. Schruijer is hosted on the LAKE website, by the way. The VLCIA website is still broken, a week after I first pointed it out. Is this how the Industrial Authority plans to do PR, still promoting yet another failed Brad Lofton boondoggle while not making anything positive available on their own website?

-jsq

WCTV spins GABEO meeting as week-long protest

I suppose it is a week-long protest, especially the 3PM march today, but it’s also a meeting of a legislative caucus. Ah, TV, got to be brief!

Greg Gullberg wrote for WCTV yesterday, Protesters Descend On Quitman For Weekend Long Rally: Protesters gear up to rally against what they call voter intimidation revolving around the “Quitman 12”.

Hundreds of protesters from across Georgia descend on Quitman in Brooks County.

They gathered at area restaurants like the Wiregrass Restaurant & Bar Friday night. They’re gearing up for a weekend long rally against what they call voter intimidation.

The “Quitman 12” is the focus of the march Saturday at the Quitman court house. The 12 include three Brooks County School Board members, along with nine other defendants who were indicted for charges of voter fraud.

WCTV quoted George Rhynes, and also:
Latoya Hamilton is a Quitman resident and also a Protester.

“To me, being a small city like this, it’s the first time something like this is being held in Quitman. It’s an honor being a part of this. It’s pretty much history in the making,” Hamilton tells Gullberg.

Appearances are expected by Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, Rep. Tyrone Brooks and many more. Events start Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. The march starts at 3:00 p.m.

I agree with her and with George, that it’s a historic event.

-jsq