Packet: communications tower and minutes of previous meeting @ GLPC 2026-05-25

Yesterday we finally got half of the missing items from the board packet for the Tuesday evening Planning Commission. We got the draft Minutes of the previous meeting, but not the materials for the withdrawn communications tower item.

Packet: communications tower @ GLPC 2026-05-25, Minutes of previous meeting @ GLPC 2026-04-27

The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) almost never modifies their minutes from the initial draft. For example, for the June 30, 2025, GLPC meeting, there is no difference, other than the lack of a big slanted DRAFT marker, between the draft minutes and the approved minutes, by my visual and mechanical comparison. The approved minutes came from the Archive Center linked at the top of the Agenda Center page on lowndescounty.com.

The county could just go ahead and put the minutes of the previous meeting in the agenda center when they post the agenda for the current meeting.

The agenda also is not approved until the actual meeting, and sometimes changes. For example, for the May GLPC meeting, the TWR-2026-01 item was withdrawn after the agenda was posted.

I do not understand what advantage the county thinks it derives from lack of transparency.

We got the other Lowndes County parts of the GLPC packet for May 25 on May 22, in response to a LAKE GORA request of May 19. The City of Valdosta had already sent their items, and the other municipalities had responded saying they had none.

On May 24, I asked the county again:

Please send this part of the request: -jsq
Including the minutes of the previous GLPC meeting (those are NOT on the lowndescounty.com website).

Then it was back to the bad old times with the May 26 county response:

When the minutes are approved they will be uploaded to the county website.

That same day I reminded the county of state law:

The Georgia Open Records Act (GORA) doesn’t say anything about waiting until minutes are approved.
It says:
“50-18-71.(a) All public records shall be open for personal inspection and copying, except those which by order of a court of this state or by law are specifically exempted from disclosure.”

https://law.georgia.gov/document/publication/186385699r1pdf/download
Unless you can cite a court order or a law that prevents providing draft minutes,
please go ahead and send the draft minutes. -jsq

And finally on May 27 we got the Minutes for April from Projects Assistant Jason Davenport. Jason Davenport. Many of you may recall that Jason was the previous County Planner. Maybe he remembers back when we went through this rigamarole before.

Also on May 24 I asked for the materials for the other Lowndes County case, TWR-2026-01. And on May 26, the response from BOC Records was, “As for the TWR-2026-01 it has been withdrawn.”

So I asked again on May 26, noting, “However, you still have a copy of the board materials for TWR-2026-01 and my request still stands.”

And on May 27, Jason Davenport’s response included, “Initial research on the TWR-2026-01 case was done and then before the research was completed the case was withdrawn. We expect the applicants to update the case and then refile it with a new case number. They have not done that yet.”

Yet TWR-2026-01 did get into the GLPC Agenda for May, so presumably the county did have something in writing. Maybe I’ll send another request again citing the Georgia Open Records Act (GORA).

For the tower I have once again inserted a Lowndes County Tax Assessors map. You may recall the proposed site is near Meetinghouse Branch, which runs into the Little River slightly upstream from GA 122 and Folsom Bridge Landing, west of Hahira.

Images of each page of the Minutes from April are below, along with images of the Agendas for April and May.

The corresponding PDF files from the county are on the LAKE website.

And the agenda and board packet for the May 25, 2026, GLPC meeting. To come: the LAKE videos of the May GLPC meeting.

-jsq

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