On the LAKE Front

18,246 Voted in Lowndes County Georgia by 30 Oct 2012

1,533 Tuesday and 18,246 Total voting in Lowndes County Georgia through 30 October 2012:

Date	Daily	Total
Monday October 15	1,636	1,636
Tuesday October 16	1,225	2,861
Wednesday October 17	956	3,817
Thursday October 18	643	4,460
Friday October 19	1,433	5,893
Monday October 22	1,289	7,724
Tuesday October 23	1,449	9,173
Wednesday October 24	1,363	10,536
Thursday October 25	1,408	11,944
Friday October 26	1,783	13,727
Saturday October 27	1,279	15,003
Monday October 29	1,707	16,713
Tuesday October 30	1,533	18,246
Data courtesy of Lowndes County Board of Elections.

You can still vote 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, tomorrow, and Friday at the Board of Elections, 2808 N Oak St., Valdosta, or on that great election day, November 6^th, at your precinct. Several recent elections here have been decided by less than 100 votes. Your vote counts!

-jsq

VDT and Chamber feuding about which is the most negative

Image courtesy Fir0002/Flagstaffotos under GFDL v1.2

Break out the popcorn! The VDT and the Chamber of Commerce are feuding. About which one is the most negative! Also, the Chamber hates agriculture. And everything good around here is to the Chamber's credit, but anything bad is not their fault; just ask them.

The VDT editorialized 18 October 2012, Is Valdosta really one of the poorest? mostly criticizing the recent report that ranked Valdosta MSA as the third poorest in the country. The VDT added:

Now that the world wide web has broadcast this story, what can be done locally to combat this image? And what are the various entities involved in job and business recruitment, i.e. the Chamber of Commerce and the Industrial Authority primarily, doing to fix the underlying problem — low household income and the high percentage of individuals living below the poverty line.

Valdosta can attract retailers. But can Valdosta step it up and attract larger industries offering high paying jobs? Has the community turned away from what made this a successful, viable up and comer in the state, namely manufacturing and agriculture? These industries sustained Valdosta for many years and provided good, well paying, solid blue collar and middle income jobs. Educational opportunities are far greater today, there are more high school, tech and college graduates in the area than ever, and blaming the quality of the work force is starting to lose its luster as a viable excuse for not bringing in industry. We have the land, we have the workers, we have the infrastructure and we have a great location with a good quality of life.

Perhaps the community leadership should focus on the assets that are already here and less on what's not. Then maybe the next time a story like this appears on the Internet, Valdosta won't be cast in such a poor light.

The Chamber fired back a broadside to its members, which I've included below here, since I don't think you can find it online elsewhere. Here's the most precious part:

Second, while there is still farmland in Lowndes County, it's shrinking and when it sells, it's for uses at prices that rule out agricultural use. Agriculture had begun moving to nearby more rural counties even before the cotton field at the end of Baytree Road was paved over for Valdosta Mall. Our largest tractor and farm implement dealers followed.

That's right, farmland is good for nothing but paving over, so says the Chamber! Nevermind that knowledge-based workers generally like

Library Architect Selection Documents (part 1)

Thanks to a very organized open records response from the South Georgia Regional Library, we have available agendas and minutes of the SGRL Board and other materials related to the selection of an architect for the new library at Five Points. Here is a first batch of those materials, which sheds a little light on the library architect selection process.

According to the SGRL Board minutes of 17 July 2012 as approved at the SGRL Board meeting of 18 September 2012,

SOUTH GEORGIA REGIONAL LIBRARY
BOARD MINUTES
July 17, 2012

...

V. Architectural (Building and Grounds Committee)

The Firm of Clemons, Rutherford and Associates (CRA) was approved as the architectural firm for construction of the Five Points Library.

Moved:	Ray Devery	Second:	Wyn Miller
Ayes:	All	Nays:	None

No further detail is provided in those minutes.

A Library Scoring Worksheet for the design and construction of the "Lowndes County Library" was included in the materials received in response to the open records request (it's the extra item in the left edge of the picture in the previous post). It lists 30 topics with a potential score of 3 points each for a total of 90 points, grouped in categories of "Responsiveness/Quality of Presentation/Capabilty", "Experience, Design Concept and Creativity", and "Personal Overall Impression of the architectural team". However, no marked-up worksheets with scores for any architecture firm were included.

The complete agenda packets for the SGRL board meetings of 18 September 2012 and 17 July 2012 are available on the LAKE website where more will be added later.

Next: the RFP.

-jsq

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?

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 6^th.

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

WALB on Lowndes County Commission Chair candidates

WALB says we have a choice for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission.

Lydia Jennings wrote for WALB yesterday, Meet candidates vying for Lowndes Co. Commission Chairman,

Bill Slaughter and Gretchen Quarterman are two very different candidates. Both are running for Lowndes County Commission Chairman. Slaughter is the CEO of Waller Heating and Air Conditioning and Quarterman is a farmer and owner of Okra Paradise Farms.

"I'm very curious, I have a math and science background so I'm always asking why do we do it this way, not just what do we do, but why do we do it, what problem are we solving," said Quarterman.

16,713 Voted in Lowndes County Georgia by 29 Oct 2012

16,713 people have voted in Lowndes County Georgia in the first two weeks of early voting, through Monday:

Date	Daily	Total
Monday October 15	1,636	1,636
Tuesday October 16	1,225	2,861
Wednesday October 17	956	3,817
Thursday October 18	643	4,460
Friday October 19	1,433	5,893
Monday October 22	1,289	7,724
Tuesday October 23	1,449	9,173
Wednesday October 24	1,363	10,536
Thursday October 25	1,408	11,944
Friday October 26	1,783	13,727
Saturday October 27	1,279	15,003
Monday October 29	1,707	16,713
Data courtesy of Lowndes County Board of Elections.

You can still vote during extended voting hours 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. this week at the Board of Elections, 2808 N Oak St., Valdosta, or on that great election day, November 6^th, at your precinct. Several recent elections here have been decided by less than 100 votes. Your vote counts!

-jsq

Update 30 Oct 2012: Added missing Monday 22 Oct 2012 numbers to table and figure.

LibertYOUtbreak @ LO 2012-10-27

A local group, LibertYOUbreak, met at Valdosta High School Saturday for a series of brief talks of opinion on issues by a variety of local people.

The first talk, Why No on Amendment 1 by J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175, has already been posted separately. Here's a video playlist for the rest.

LibertYOUtbreak
Talks, Liberty Outbreak (LO),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
VHS PAC, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2012.

First they showed an animated movie, The American Dream by the Provacateur Network, which is mostly about money as debt. As I remarked to one of the organizers afterwards, that's also the theme of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber, one of the founders of Occupy Wall Street (here's a video interview with him, and a text interview). The cartoon movie, while presenting that theme in some depth, only briefly mentions Wall Street and focuses on the Federal Reserve and an octopus-like long-lived financial villain it calls Red Shield, which is English for Rothschild. I find that last a bit far-fetched, not to say outdated, considering that recent research shows that the real current octopus-like set of interconnected corporations looks more like this. But then plenty of things were said in the recent local political forums that I didn't agree with, either.

-jsq

Why No on Amendment 1 —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175

J.C. Cunningham, running for state representative district 175, reminded us all that the basic purpose of the Georgia state government is to provide public education, according to its constitution, and that local school boards already can and do approve charter schools. He gave five reasons for voting No on Amendment 1:

1. Because out-of-state corporations are paying for this campaign....
2. It creates a new Atlanta-based government bureaucracy.
3. The new commission will be filled by appointments done by politicians, not the citizens.
4. Georgia already has 200 charter schools, and we've already proven the process works.
5. A Yes vote would... cost us an additional $430 million while most of our schools are not open a full year as it is....

The only reasoning that I can tell you that proponents have been giving us is school choice, and again, they already have school choice; we have school choice. The only new things about Amendment 1 are higher cost and unnecessary state bureaucracy....

Here's the video, followed by a partial transcript.

Why No on Amendment 1 —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175
Talks, Liberty Outbreak (LO),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
VHS PAC, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2012.

Partial transcript:

Agenda @ GLPC 2012-10-29

The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) meets tonight. Here's the agenda.

The agenda was faxed by GLPC Chairman Bill Slaughter to Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, at her request; GLPC itself still doesn't have agendas online, fifteen months after SGRC stopped posting them.

In his fax cover letter of 23 October 2012, Bill Slaughter noted:

Great Job Last Night!

See You Wed. Evening!

Presumably he was referring to her appearance at the 22 October Candidates Forum 30 Club at Serenity Church and the then-upcoming 24 October Candidates Forum by AAUW at Valdosta High School. Gretchen Quarterman and Bill Slaughter are the two candidates for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission. You can see LAKE videos of all four Candidate Forums online.

There is one Valdosta permit case on tonight's GLPC agenda, and three rezoning cases, one from Hahira, and two from the county. I have been transcribing these faxes, but I don't have time today, so here's a brief summary table.

Valdosta, Final action Thursday 8 Nov 2012	2. CU-2012-07 Stafford Properties 1609 Norman Drive, Valdosta Request for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP for a Car Wash in a Community Commercial C-C zoning district.
Hahira, Final action Thursday 1 Nov 2012	3. HA-2012-01 Gateway Pines 1022 W. Stanfill Street, Hahira Request for a Variance to Parking Requirement prescribed by Section 7-1.1, 7-4, and 9-3.2 of the Hahira Zoning Ordinance
Lowndes County, Final action Tuesday 13 Nov 2012	4. REZ-2012-16 Cook County Land Ventures SW corner of Georgia Highway 122 East and Cat Creek Road, Hahira Request to rezone ~2 acres from E-A (Estate Agriculture) to C-C (Crossroads Commercial)
	5. REZ-2012-17 John Henry Davis dba Lowndes Development, LLC Davidson Road, Valdosta Request to rezone 23.49 acres from MAZ-II and MAZ-III (Moody Activity Zone) to R-10 (Suburban Density Residential)

-jsq

Two more charter school polls: Amendment 1 still losing support

Two more polls about the charter school amendment show conflicting results, but even the most optimistic still shows decreased support since September. Opponents of the Amendment 1 power grab are winning.

Wayne Washington wrote for the AJC 12 October 2012, Poll shows tight race for charter schools amendment,