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Alfred Lott defies bosses, to hire headhunter to help replace Don Buie

– February 3, 2010Posted in: Government

Albany City Manager Alfred Lott says to heck with what his bosses told him: He’s going to hire a headhunter to replace Don Buie whether the City Commission likes it or not.

The job’s just too hard to hard for him and his staff to do, Lott says.

The price tag for the city manager’s defiant decision: a $14,000 commission to be received by the consultant, plus $9,500 in expenses.

In August, the City Commission voted to require Lott to recruit hire departments rather than paying headhunters for their assistance.

“There two good things about that. It saves us roughly between $8,000 and $10,000 per position. Plus, the city manager knows he’s directly accountable because he did the actual hiring,” City Commissioner Roger Marietta said at the time.

In recent years, Lott paid headhunter Bob Slavin, who recruited Lott to Albany, more than $60,000 to help with key hires. Slavin helped lure Buie, ousted police chief James Younger and fired finance director Robert Jones to Albany, and his nationwide searches resulted in the hiring of locals Jim Taylor and Wes Smith as assistant city managers.

Lott says, however, that Slavin botched the criminal background check of Buie by failing to reveal that Buie was a convicted felon when he was hired. Buie is serving a one-year jail term for public corruption that occurred in the city manager’s office.

Lott says he will use another headhunting firm, Mercer Group, to help recruit a new downtown manager.

Kevin By Kevin Hogencamp

Tags: alfred lott, city hall
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Living in dark times

– February 3, 2010Posted in: Tom Knighton

Picture, if you will, living in a land of tyranny and oppression. It’s hard, I know, since we all know we live in the Land of the Free, so I’ll try and help you picture some details that may help you form that picture in your mind. Follow along at home, and we’ll see what you win.

To start with, let’s say that this oppressive land has cameras that scan town to monitor what its citizens are doing. They scan crowds looking for unnamed offenses and for no reason other than something might happen. There’s no reason to assume something will, but privacy isn’t something you really have a right to.

Now, let’s look at your personal property. In a free society, this is something that wouldn’t be touched, but not in our evil state. There, they dictate what you can do with things you own, despite the fact that they don’t harm a soul. They will tell you to dispose of things you own, simply because they can. Failure to do so leads to stiff punishment, and repeated failures to comply with the will of the state will result in possible imprisonment.

However, these are only the tip of the iceberg. In oppressive societies, corruption is the norm. People are given jobs because of who they are connected to in the government, and not so much on qualifications. Others are given free reign to bilk the taxpayers of this oppressive state for large sums of money, and only pretend after the fact to be upset. Little is done to prevent it from happening again.

Taxes are levied using assessments that violate the oppressive state’s own laws, without any regard towards those pesky things the peons call “rights”. They aren’t citizens, after all. They’re subjects, and subjects should be glad they’re allowed to keep any money from their pay and shut up about taxes.

In oppressive states like the one we are picturing, attempts by the press to bring problems to light are laughed at by those in power. Citizens using new media to bring things to light are mocked by those in power, while more established media men are accused of “not having their facts straight” about much of this corruption, despite the fact that every time that media man has been proven right.

Truth be told, this oppressive society I’ve outlined for you doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? Well, it’s not. You and I both know it, because many of us live or work in this society. If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’ve accurately described Albany and its ridiculous assaults on freedom.

From surveillance cameras downtown, we find ourselves leaning more and more towards an Orwellian society where privacy is a silly, childish concept. The government believes it has a right to spy on its citizens in the name of “keeping them safe”, even when there is no threat and statistics show they rarely solve crimes.

Government dictates what kind of furniture people can have on their front porch, and can fine you for failure to have the proper kind. They will cite you for having a vehicle on your property they deem a “junk” car, despite the fact that it’s yours through legal means and is on your own personal property. They will tell businesses what kind of signs they’re allowed to have, even though those businesses are the lifeblood of any town.

Then, we take into account the actions of those who govern. From Don Buie’s shenanigans to the most recent stunt by the Dougherty County School Board, we see government that seems oblivious to it’s obligations to the people of this community. Al Lott dares to accuse Kevin Hogencamp of not having his facts straight, despite Hogencamp having been right previously when Lott made such an accusation.

There’s a lot more going on, so much that I don’t have room to write on it all. But if you think of Albany as a free society, then perhaps you need to rethink your definition of the term. The only thing free about Albany is leaving.

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What-Cha Say, Albany?

– February 3, 2010Posted in: WhatCha-Say?

REGARDING THE SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT flap, I see this as a sad step in the education of Dougherty County’s kids. Does this Board of Education even realize their focus is in the education of the kids? No wonder so many students in Dougherty County go the private schools.

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MY DADDY ALWAYS SAID, “It’s who you know,” and this is a prime example of this. It’s not who is the most qualified candidate, but who he/she knows. Just another example of the “movers and shakers” moving Dougherty County right over the edge of a cliff. If Dr. Murfree has any pride, he would refuse the job.

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DR. MURFREE’S NAME HAS been dragged through the mud now. Most likely he’s through. I hope he didn’t burn any bridges at ASU. What’s bad, though, is that he’s being put through the gauntlet here, when mostly it’s Anita Brown’s scandal. She’s the one who knowingly rammed this through, knowing it is wrong, but he’s bearing the brunt of it. Plus, the board spent an awful lot of money to do this big nationwide search, then hired someone from right here in town. And where does Anita Brown live? Does she live here and travel to Hawkinsville for business or does she live there and travel here for business?

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YOU CAN BET DR. Murfree will take this job but what he doesn’t realize is that he will be watched like a rat by a hawk. I would say in 12 months he will be begging to quit. Wow I wish I had some friends on the school board.

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I JUST READ THE questions that the school board members asked and Michael Windom can’t spell focus. Windom also asked, “Are you a team player?” Hello, Mr. Windom, this is not Little League football; this is education of our kids. We have some real winners here. We need to replace everyone that voted to put this fellow in.

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MAYBE DR. BROWN AND the five yes votes thought 34th out of 37th was actually third best. Thanks to school board members David Maschke and Emily Jean McAfee for trying to make a logical and fair decision. I’d be too ashamed to even take a job I had qualified fourth worst in.

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IT KIND OF TELLS about the qualifications of these board members if they don’t understand what SACS is, it’s in the acronym, people! SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES & SCHOOLS. This is what happens when lay people are expected to fill a very specialized function. This board should be made of educators and this wouldn’t be a problem. As long as we choose unqualified people, like our commission and mayor, we will continue to reap poor results.

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SCARED OF ANOTHER POWERFUL, educated black man?

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LIKE ROBERT MUGABEE OF Zimbabwe? Look where that led.

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WE ARE SCARED OF an ignorant school board..  OR LIKE DON BUIE!

MANY OF THE OTHER applicants that are being ignored are also educated black men. Clue in.

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IT’S NOT ABOUT BLACK or white. It’s about going through the hiring process and not, “Oh, wow, I know this guy. He would be great for the position.” Wake up people of all colors, this is about our children. I don’t care if he or she is purple. The best city manager we have had in a long time was Mrs. Janice Allen Jackson and she was Black, and those clown commissioners ran her off. Look at what’s right, not what‘s black or white.

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A PERSON’S FITNESS FOR a job should have nothing to do with the color of their skin. Promoting people to positions of power in Albany/Dougherty County based solely on their skin color is part of why we are in the shape we are in.

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CLEARLY, RACISM IN ALBANY is a he problem. If you do not like Dougherty County schools, move your children. I attend Darton with hundreds of kids from Lee County and a lot of them are failing miserably. I on the other hand make all A’s. So don’t be so quick to judge.

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YEP, ANOTHER CHANCE TO improve Albany gone again. The board doesn’t want a qualified person. They have to put someone in with less intelligence than they have so they can continue to make poor decisions, but have someone (superintendent) to blame when their own ignorance come’s shining through after many bad decisions. Yet, this same mentality blames everyone but themselves for their problems. They cannot see this mindset is a major reason they will never be self-reliant, and ignorance will continue to flourish.

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GO TO THIS WEBSITE and report this mess to the state board of education: doe.k12.ga.us/sup.aspx  The more people that contact Kathy Cox the better chance we have of getting something done to stop this kind of mess.

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HERE IS STATE SCHOOLS Superintendent Kathy Cox’s information. We can stop this: 2066 Twin Towers East, 205 Jesse Hill Jr. Drive S.E., Atlanta, GA 30334; (404) 656-2800 state.superintendent@doe.k12.ga.us.

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RESEARCH DR. MURFREE BEFORE assuming he is less intelligent than the board members. You would be quite surprised. If the board members were so smart, they would be finalists themselves for superintendent.

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IT’S NOT FUN WHEN the rabbit’s got the gun.

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I DON’T KNOW WHY I am so mad. My kids go to a private school.

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HUNDREDS OF KIDS GRADUATE from DCSS every year and go on to college and to become very successful. I am one of those students. Never needed a gun or a body=guard and neither did any of my friends. It came down to my parenting more than anything. A private school doesn’t parent kids or protect them.

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I HAVE TWO CHILDREN that graduated from DCSS … first one seven years ago and the second one three years ago. The changes that took place during this time period were amazing. I’ve never seem something fall to piece quickly. I attended a talent program during my youngest child’s junior year at Albany High and had to end up walking out. Teachers had no control over the students. They were on stage letting the gang signs fly! I became afraid to drop my youngest daughter off for school. I really feel sorry for the children of Albany.

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THIS MUST NOT BE allowed to happen The DCSS is in bad enough shape. Somebody needs to call in the FBI or GBI or whoever investigates this sort of mass corruption. I would say let the crooks have Dougherty County, but there are still many good, hardworking people who live here. What is going to happen when those good hardworking people have enough and leave? How will the crooks be financed? You think their hands are out now …

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UNEDUCATED WHITE RACIST PEOPLE are just too funny.

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SINCE WHEN DID BEING a people person outweigh qualifications? Boy, these are a bunch of idiots.

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THIS WHOLE AFFAIR IS so disturbing. What happened to this town? Where are the elected leaders who lead with honesty and integrity?

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GET OVER IT. ALBANY is a Black city. Black mayor, Black police department, etc. There is no getting them out of office. Move.

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NO ONE WANTS TO get them out of office. We just want the right people in the right jobs. And when we see things happening the wrong way, we all have the right to speak up. If he’s the right man for the job, it’ll all work out fine. If he’s not, then we need to continue the process the way it should have been done in the first place. And whether the person chosen is black or white, man or woman, as long as they are qualified, it will all be okay. People need to quit jumping to racism when that’s not the issue at all.

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LEE COUNTY, HERE COMES more and more business, homes and students for your tax digest.

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IT’S SAD TO SEE that this discussion has turned into a racial discussion. Take race out of the picture altogether. Questions need to be raised about how any person ranking 34th out of 37 candidates can be chosen as the ONLY finalist. With 33 candidates ranking above Dr Murfree, it is hard to believe not a single one of them would be in the running with him. In most business organizations, if the best candidate was 34th out of 37th, they would start a new search for a better pool of candidates.

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WE WONDER WHY INDUSTRY doesn’t locate here … law enforcement … school enforcement … school system … health care … crime rate … quality of life. Folks, we ain‘t got it here.

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SOUNDS LIKE THE CHAIRMAN is upset he got out-voted.

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THANK GOD IT GOT out to the public. I hope it goes further than Dougherty County. I hope there was so much corruption there the dang feds get hold of it and run! Let ‘em all go to jail.

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WE WILL FIND NEW board members white or black that can make sound judgment calls and not let color be an issue.

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WHY DOESN’T THE SCHOOL board promote from within. I know some very qualified people for the job: John I. Davis, Willie Jackson, Bruce Bowles.

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IT IS LIKE EVERYTHING else done in Albany. It is pushed through in a hurry so no one has time to object. This is why our Good Life City has so many people in positions of being arrested for fraud. We need to slow down and really look at each person. We as taxpayers cannot afford more money and time being wasted. Our children can not afford to waste this time.

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SCANDAL? He’s even a better candidate now, and will be paid even more!

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AS USUAL IN ALBANY, it is who you know! Something is not right in this decision. Why did they have to rush it through when the lady retiring is not leaving until this summer? Nothing against the man personally but, does he have any teaching experience or has he ever been a principal of any school?

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HOW ABOUT AN ALBANY Tea Party on the courthouse steps?

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IT’S SCARY HOW MUCH Albany mirrors Washington, D.C. If Alfred Lott were transparent and honest about things, he wouldn’t have the worries he expressed about what was reported about the proposed city bus station.

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REGARDING THE CITY BUS station project, isn’t there some oversight somewhere? We ARE Clayton County.

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THE CITY MISMANAGED SOMETHING? Really? Come on, people. The true state of the city isn’t even known due so many stealing or mismanaging the departments. I think its such a shame I have to take my family to another city, when money is good — another state, because my city is only concerned about how to take care of certain people that live in it.

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ALBANY LEADERS … THERE LIES the problem … couldn’t plan a birthday party.

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REGARDING THE SKATE PARK closing, Albany needs to plan very well before deciding to add attractions to the city. They need to see what is working in other cities. I think the City of Albany and the Recreation Department need to get together and plan healthy attractions, like Dothan, Ala. They have a huge nice water park that is fun, healthy, and benefit the community. The skate park was alright. It could have been better . Wake up Albany, get it together. Stop wasting our money on mess! If you are going to build a project, do it right, nice, and with class.

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WHAT ELSE IS NEW? Albany spending money for the kids and now it’s closed. What about the homeless population.

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READ THE MINUTES OF past meetings. The fact that Tommie Postell is racist is clear and documented by his comments on countless occasions.

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GOING AFTER FEDERAL DOLLARS to build something that may, .and I stress may, be used in another 25 years to “support” a planned statewide passenger rail network is ludicrous and potentially deceitful if not outright theft. The chances of a viable passenger rail operation to Albany has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever happening, unless the state plans on taking over the privately owned (yes, PRIVATE!) freight railroads operating in the state (NS and CSX) or somehow finding the hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to construct an isolated, purpose-built high-speed railroad infrastructure. Get real .. never gonna happen, and if it does, a structure built 20-25 years before the need exists would probably not meet the actual needs of that time. Operationally, the building location makes no sense for rail. Planning on a bridge over Roosevelt at Washington? Hmm? How about a bit of specificity, Mr. Lott? What was false? Who’s REALLY going to benefit from this project?

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THOSE WHO RE-ELECT TOMMIE Postell obviously care nothing about truth or integrity.

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THIS CITY HAS ALREADY been destroyed by small minds, look around at your handy work sub-par officials of Albany. Look how downtown has yet to thrive despite so much money wasted already. I have no problem with a new bus station, but it must be realistic. This project needs to be re-thought from the beginning. Downtown does not need more vacant storefronts until there is genuine need. Given the economy and that we’re talking about Welfare City USA, recovery will take decades, if even then. Should Albany want to be proactive in confronting our problems, the first steps are to rid ourselves of this horrible city manager, demand more of our commission, and have a full time mayor to handle Mr. Lott’s job. You know, someone who can truly fell the wrath of the voting public and not just point fingers.

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MR. POSTELL, time for you to go! You and the mayor are driving this town into the ground. You are the small minded person on the Commission and in this town. Also, Mr. Lott what part of the Albany Journal’s story about the bus station is untrue? You never told us.

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THE PUNISHMENT FOR SAGGING should be mandatory nudity from the waist down. That’s right, make them walk around nude. If they had to walk around naked, then maybe the savages would appreciate clothes after a month or two. Seriously though, the police have more to do than to enforce wardrobe malfunctions. Idiots will do anything to gain attention and normal society has to look at dirty drawers.

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WHY DON’T YOU PEOPLE just stop looking? No one cares how you feel about saggy pants. And you talk about all this Christianity and whatnot — are you serious? Well, how do you think people that aren’t Christians feel when they see you walking around with crosses and all this Jesus stuff on and going to church on Sundays, but they see you at the bar getting trashed on Friday nights. And people wonder what the world is coming to. There are more important things to spend money on than enforcing saggy pants laws. What about the people in Haiti? You think they care about saggy pants right about now? No. Now grow up and do something that matters.

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DO YOU REALLY WANT your kids looking at saggy pants. If you have little children and you let your kids dress or look at this, then you should go to jail. Pants should be up around your waist. Thank you, Mr. Jack Stone. At least some one in our local government has Christian values and family values.

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IT’S NOT ABOUT CRIMES; it’s about showing respect to others around you. Nobody wants to see your underwear, dummy!

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PUT THEM IN LOCKDOWN, Mr. Stone.

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AS FAR AS THE saggy pants go, they can charge them with public indecency. The texting-while-driving can be handled by charging them with distracted driving after an accident. No need to put new laws on the books when they already exist.

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THE POINT OF TEXT-MESSAGING legislation is to PREVENT crashes. There are existing laws that cover the concept of driving while distracted in the context of causing an accident. In fact, the legislation now considered in Atlanta is a joke because it only fines the driver $100. There needs to be teeth in this law so that people will think twice before driving and texting so that people won’t have to be killed or seriously injured. It’s about prevention, not punishment.

Tags: WhatCha-Say?
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Is Michael Windom scared?

– February 3, 2010Posted in: Politics

Letter to Editor:

I sincerely hope the reason Michael Windom wants to reconsider his choice for Dougherty County schools superintendent is not because he is scared. Scared of what, you ask? Now, let’s see. The vote fell between racial lines, so that it is questionable. Maybe he is scared of being voted out of office, which could happen from what the people in east Albany are saying.

Whatever his fear or reason, maybe, I hope he understands that he has to live with the choice he makes. I hope since he is now starting to want to do the right thing, Mr. Windom, can we please get some help at Dougherty International Middle School and Dougherty High School — please, for the sake of our children that attend these schools. The schools need to be renovated from the inside out, along with the sport facilities.

My son is in the ninth grade at DHS and they not have enough math books for every student to get one. That is sad if and disturbing if you ask me. I hope whoever you vote for to be our next superintendent, please bring some help to our east Albany schools. Monroe and Westover are really good right now. And Albany High to me it is a dead school that be closed to save money. If not closed, it could be converted into a science and math magnet school for those students gifted in those areas. Then you could discontinue the sports programs and focus just on education.

But I know we have to be patient and wait our turn. So maybe we’ll wait until July to speak to someone else Mr. Windom.

Christopher E. Rapley
Albany

Tags: education, michael windom, school board
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MLK far from conquerer in Albany, Georgia

– February 3, 2010Posted in: Outlook

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a pretty good grasp of the historical significance of his civil rights work as it was happening and afterward. And King’s self-assessment of his attempts to effect social justice in Albany was brutal:

“The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it,” King said in his autobiography. “Our protest was so vague that we got nothing, and the people were left very depressed and in despair. It would have been much better to have concentrated upon integrating the buses or the lunch counters.

“One victory of this kind would have been symbolic, would have galvanized support and boosted morale … When we planned our strategy for Birmingham months later, we spent many hours assessing Albany and trying to learn from its errors. Our appraisals not only helped to make our subsequent tactics more effective, but revealed that Albany was far from an unqualified failure.”

Many historians agreed with King, calling his efforts in Albany “a failure” as few concessions were garnered from city government in the name of equality for local citizens. But many Albanians who fought for freedom in their hometown said their efforts indeed were fruitful, as Blacks began being elected to local political office by the late 1960s.

Before King first visited Albany on Dec. 15, 1961, Albany police chief Laurie Pritchett had studied the tactics of nonviolent protest. He did not allow his troops to confront demonstrators or creating scenes of police brutality, especially while the press was around. And he farmed arrested protesters to jails and prisons as far away as Americus, keeping his jail free. King said he “had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel.“ But the next day, he was indoctrinated to the civil rights rebuttal, Albany style, by being arrested along with dozens other Blacks.

King declined bail until the city made concessions, which were reneged by the city when King left town. When King returned to Albany in July 1962, he was arrested again and sentenced to 45 days in jail or a $178 fine. Three days into his sentence, Pritchett arranged for King to effectively be kicked out of jail. He stayed in town, was arrested again and jailed for two weeks, and left town after he was released.

King, Albany Movement founder William G. Anderson, the SCLC and other locals and visiting civil rights activists attracted nationwide attention with mass meetings and marches that mobilized thousands of citizens. But attention and sympathy to the cause occurred when King and the SCLC moved on to Birmingham and Selma, where violence on the part of hard-line police forces brought attention and sympathy to the cause. And while organizers failed to accomplish their goals, the Albany Movement is credited as being a key lesson in strategy and tactics for the national civil rights movement.

Tags: MLK
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The problem with America? Americans

– February 2, 2010Posted in: Tom Knighton

Every day, in any given media outlet, someone will tell you who’s to blame for the sorry state of our country. Liberals will shout from the roof tops that the problem lies at the feet of conservatives who favored going to war with Iraq and in stripping away civil liberties. Conservatives will point their wagging fingers at liberals who, they claim, want to support those who refuse to work with your money and are actively seeking to destroy the American family.

Both are wrong. As a Libertarian, I have the good fortune to be able to look at both sides and recently I realized one very important thing. Both have completely lost sight of what has really happened in this country. The problem with America is, unfortunately, that it’s full of Americans.

When I was a kid, welfare was in full swing, but there was a stigma attached. You didn’t brag about your “check”. You hid that fact as best you could. People were shameful of a government handout. The disabled didn’t so much hide it, because often they couldn’t, and the retired didn’t because no one viewed Social Security as a hand out. They had paid into it after all.

The American family was going strong, despite the climbing divorce rate, because people looked at family as a constant. You entered into marriage with the intent, at least, of it being for a lifetime. You married, had kids, and lived a long life together.

What happened to those days?

The conservatives and the liberals will each blame the other for what has happened, but that’s not true. You see, the liberals and conservatives forget that they can only do what the people of this nation allow them to do, and they’ve been allowed plenty. I’ve heard some pretty ridiculous things out and about in this town, and so far few have seen anything to indicate that the problem is that the culture of America has shifted.

Americans of today are softer, more used to getting their way than ever before. With the comforts that exist is just about every home in this nation, it’s little surprise. They expect things to happen and they expect only good to come of life. When it doesn’t, it’s somebody’s fault.

Take, for example, the recent housing crisis. It’s so recent, it’s still going on. How many times did you hear “predatory lending practices”? Plenty, right? Now ask yourself this: who made those people take out loans for houses they knew they couldn’t afford? The answer is no one. They did that themselves, but as with most Americans these days, they want to blame someone else.

The answer to a lot of this nation’s problems aren’t political, they’re cultural. People have lost sight of what we once were as a nation. They forget that our heroes of yesteryear suffered mightily and that their suffering helped forge them into the nation we have today. From Washington at Valley Forge, to Davy Crockett at the Alamo. Men, and women, dealt with hardship stoically. They didn’t whine about how unfair it was or how it was someone else’s fault.

Our culture has lost that toughness it seems. Not completely, as was evidenced after 9/11, but a lot of it. If we don’t get it back soon though, we may just lose it forever. And that would be a loss of a national treasure that is beyond measure.

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Interest heavy in replacing Sanford Bishop

– February 2, 2010Posted in: Bill Waller

It may be one of the coldest winters on record, but things may be about to heat up in Georgia’s Second Congressional District. At least three, possibly four, candidates are running on the Republican side to challenge Rep. Sanford Bishop.

Mike Keown entered the race early. He currently serves as a state representative and a pastor for the Coolidge Baptist Church. Keown has some political experience, but he is running as the common man citing that he loves to fish, hunt, ride motorcycles and dirt track cars, and has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Mike Keown says on his web site that he has earned a doctorate, but he is not the only candidate to earn a PhD. Rudy Adams received a PhD, too. Adams has a youtube campaign advertisement. Judging from his web site, Adams does not appear to have ever held a political office. He is running as an average citizen. He mentions that he is a member of several civic organizations, but he is not specific as to which ones. He has flown in an aerial application business for farmers, is a master farrier, has worked in law enforcement, and is a Vietnam veteran.

Bobby Brown announced to the Thomasville Times-Enterprise on Dec. 3that he, too, is a candidate for Congress. As I write this, he does not have a web site. Brown lives in the Thomasville area. Brown is a Realtor and has been a longtime Thomas County commissioner.

While it is not exactly clear yet about Lee Ferrell, he may, too, be a candidate for the Republican nomination. Ferrell ran for the seat in the previous election. He is a medically retired from the military and served during the Vietnam era. Ferrell enjoys painting in his spare time. To my knowledge, he (like Rudy Adams) has never served in politics. Ferrell said late last year that he would give up his bid for the nomination due to financial reasons; but as this post is being made, he and Mike Keown are the only two of the four that have registered with the Federal Elections Commission.

So, this could be a very interesting primary on July 20, 2010. Southwest Georgia Patriots is in talks with the Lee County Young Republicans to co-host a debate for the possible candidates. No specifics have been given yet on the day or time, but a debate is definitely needed.

Written by Bill Waller.

Tags: sanford bishop
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Message from Kevin Hogencamp

– February 2, 2010Posted in: Headlines

It was on my birthday in 1999 when, being fairly new to the community, I first heard the song, Oh, Pritchett, Oh, Kelley, Open Dem Cells.

The Albany Freedom Singers were performing at the civil rights museum as they’ve done on virtually every second Saturday over the past 15 years. And I’ve been singing along to Open Dem Cells and other freedom songs every since — because of their catchy tunes and their messages of love and hope –while steadily becoming educated about what white people put black people through in this community throughout Albany’s history.

In 2000, retired Albany schoolteacher Mary Royal Jenkins compiled and penned Open Dem Cells: A Pictorial History of the Albany Movement, the most complete account of how Black people in Albany straightened up their backs and stood up for their constitutional rights. The book is a staunch resource for history educators and I trust it is part of the Dougherty County public schools’ curriculum.

Since the publication of Jenkins’ Open Dem Cells, I have served on the civil rights museum’s board of directors (with Jenkins) and I even portrayed Pritchett — the venerable Albany police chief — in a King Celebration play about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in the Albany Movement. It’s been a blessing, spiritually and otherwise, to learn from Jenkins, the Freedom Singers and others who unselfishly tell the story of the Albany Movement at the museum and in travels domestically and even abroad.

Today and over the next three weeks, we at The Albany Journal are extremely proud to share “Reliving and Learning Black History: A Black History Month 2010 Celebration” with our wonderful community. We think the Journal’s February editions, which liberally extracts information from Open Dem Cells with Jenkins’ permission, could become keepsakes themselves.

Please join us in thanking Jenkins, a civil rights activist herself during the Movement, and Albany’s other heroes for advancing social justice for all of us in our community and beyond.

Kevin Hogencamp

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This stimulus abuse is environmental crime

– January 28, 2010Posted in: Politics

Editorial

What the city of Albany effectively did through its bogus environmental assessment and in the name of “stimulating” the local economy at taxpayer sacrifice was effectively and willfully violate federal environmental law. That crime should be prosecuted.

Amid the secrecy and shenanigans associated with the city’s proposed $9 million-plus bus transfer facility, the city of Albany would be creating an unnecessary and massive environmental hazard, public records show. Rather than separating sanitary sewer and storm drainage, the city is planning to pave over the sewer system on Booker Alley, which runs east-west under the proposed bus facility, and thus is content with allowing sewage to flow into the Flint River forever, records show.

When city hall falsified documentation to make its case for a so-called “multi-modal” transportation center to be built downtown, the federal government pulled its “stimulus” funding for the project. But, promising to tell the truth this time, City Manager Alfred Lott, continues to vigorously and mysteriously pursue federal funding for the project by producing, at taxpayer expense, independently derived, federally mandated due diligence.

The transfer station would be in Sandy Bottom bordered by Roosevelt Avenue and the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks to the north, Flint Avenue to the south, Washington Street on to the east, and Jackson Street to the west. Already, the combined sanitary sewer and storm drainage system under Booker Alley dumps directly into the Flint River during periods of high flow. Astonishingly, the bogus, taxpayer-funded environmental assessment thrown out by the federal government because of the city’s chicanery did not recognize the existence of the 125-year-old sewer system, much less the fact that it has crumbled to the environment’s peril in the past. The assessment also doesn’t contemplate that fully loaded transit buses and commercial coaches would be traveling over the sewer system, which was designed for horse-and-buggies, not 30 34,000-pound buses traveling atop it each day.

The assessment also failed to address the chemical monitoring wells on the site or mention the substructure underneath that has been prone to lime sinks. And it doesn’t mention that Sandy Bottom was a downtown pond before it was drained in the 19th century.

What the city of Albany effectively did through its bogus environmental assessment and in the name of “stimulating” the local economy at taxpayer sacrifice was effectively and willfully violate federal environmental law. That crime should be prosecuted.

A new or even a renovated bus transfer station isn’t mentioned in the city’s long-range transportation plan. Yet, the price tag for a new place to catch the bus mysteriously grew in price virtually overnight last summer from $2.3 million without public input. Meanwhile, more than $100 million of taxpayer funds has been spent on downtown redevelopment.

Before any additional significant expenditure is spent downtown, the aquatic Flint River environment needs to be seriously and – this time – legitimately contemplated.

Kevin By Kevin Hogencamp

Tags: bus station, city hall, eco news, enviroment, featured
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Mountainop Removeal Roadshow Tour in Albany, Ga

– January 28, 2010Posted in: Events

The vivid and shocking story of the destruction done by mining coal from the Appalachian Mountains will be told when the Mountaintop Removal Road Show comes to Southwest Georgia. Your south and west Georgia Riverkeepers present Kentucky engineer and environmentalist Dave Cooper will present:

Tonight

* Thursday, January 28th, 7 p.m.; The Bridge House at 112 North Front Street (Albany Welcome Center), downtown Albany, Georgia

Called “stunning” and “outrageous” by members of audiences who have seen the Roadshow which began touring the country in 2003, the presentation will be followed by a discussion of the far-ranging effects on people, communities and the land when power plants are fueled by coal. Mercury in our fish, failures of coal-ash disposal, high water demand, missed economic opportunities and logical alternatives to energy supply will also be addressed.

Cooper describes how mining companies abandoned the more dangerous and less efficient traditional method of extracting coal from underground seams in the 1970s for the practice of blowing off mountaintops. Employing no more than fifteen to twenty people, it takes about a year to turn a forested mountain and its surrounding trout streams into a barren, grey desert. Rock and dirt, discarded after the coal is extracted, is dumped over the edge of the flattened mountaintop and left to bury streams and contaminate drinking water with sediment and heavy metals.

Even if residents manage to withstand the year of blasting, they may be finally forced out of their homes by the flooding caused when there are no longer any trees to prevent erosion. “Once the out-of-state companies leave a devastated landscape, communities are left with no jobs save those provided by prisons and landfills,” said Cooper.

State and federal data clearly show that fish in all of Georgia’s blackwater systems, like the Ogeechee and Satilla, the Okefenokee Swamp and the tributaries of the Flint and Altamaha, are particularly vulnerable to mercury contamination from burning coal. Most fish are on a one-a-month or one-a-week meal advisory. Certain larger catfish are classified as “do not eat”.

“Coal is a threat to the Satilla River,” according to John Carswell, Acting Executive Director of Satilla Riverkeeper, “beginning in the 1980s with the contamination of our fish, to 2004 with the proposal to import toxic coal fly-ash to be piled up in Ware County, to the recent proposal to build a coal-fired power plant in Ben Hill County, eight miles from the Satilla headwaters. When you hear the stories of the folks who have seen the mountains their people have lived on for generations left as piles of mud and rubble, loaded on boxcars of coal heading south to burn in Georgia, it makes you feel like you don’t want any part of it,” said Carswell.

”The Flint is flanked by two proposed plants, the one in Ben Hill county and the one in Early county,” said Gordon Rogers, Flint Riverkeeper. “Our fish are already contaminated. Plant Scherer, the largest coal-fired plant in North America, is just off the edge of our watershed. Plant Mitchell, in the watershed, is currently slated for conversion to biomass combustion. THAT is the way we need to head, not toward more coal-fired plants. We can have new jobs and stabilize our ad valorem tax base without coal.”

“There are so many loopholes for the pollution from these coal plants,” said Chandra Brown, Ogeechee Riverkeeper. “In the case of Plant Washington, proposed to discharge to both the Ogeechee and Oconee Rivers, none of the sewage and rainwater discharges would be monitored for the toxic metal, mercury and many other known contaminants found in the solid waste and water from burning coal. All this pollution to fuel a declining demand that could easily be met with simple and much less costly conservation measures.”

All citizens who care about their rivers and their communities are encouraged to attend. Admission is free and refreshments will be served.

Tags: enviroment, riverkeepers
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