Videos: New Valdosta Mayor, Mayor Pro-Tem, and $2 million budget surplus while record raw sewage was spilling @ VCC 2020-01-09

A month ago at the Valdosta City Council we learned that Valdosta has a $2,410,000 budget surplus.

Valdosta municipal audit and budget surplus
5b) Presentation of the Municipal Audit for Fiscal Year 2019

Maybe they could spend some of that to help fix the well and river testing costs downstream on the Withlacoochee River of Valdosta’s record 7.5 million gallons of raw sewage spill into Sugar Creek, which has taken two months to maybe finally get diluted down the Withlacoochee River, twice entering Florida, with three Florida river advisories, and with Georgia warning signs on the Withlacoochee River downstream of Sugar Creek by Lowndes County and by WWALS (but not by Valdosta).

One City Council member tells me that audit doesn’t mean Valdosta has $2 million cash lying around. But they do have several hundred thousand unspent.

Maybe they could also budget some of that surplus to help fix the stigma, the decades-long reputational damage to all our rivers, caused by Valdosta’s chronic sewage spills. That would involve for example water quality testing or paying for testing downstream on the Withlacoochee River and doing marketing.

Four Citizens spoke at the end of the meeting: George Boston Rhynes, Brenda Vickers Johnson, provoking some discussion of street and bridge naming process, Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman, and Ronnie Pierce.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, followed by a LAKE video playlist. See also the agenda and the LAKE pictures along with that previous LAKE blog post.

Here’s a LAKE video playlist:


Videos: New Valdosta Mayor, Mayor Pro-Tem, and $2 million budget surplus while record raw sewage was spilling
Regular Session, Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, January 9, 2020.

-jsq

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