Author Archives: admin

This issue has a lot of peculiarities. —Barbara Stratton

Received today on Valdosta water project on county land, with no city or county approval. -jsq
This issue has a lot of peculiarities. The city engineer was quoted as saying he hoped Radney Plumbing, Inc. could be chosen for the project since the company had provided them a low price on similar work. Whatever happened to the bid procedure that is supposed to proceed any new construction activity regardless of personal preferences. Is this an impromptu public/private partnership where bidding gives way to cronyism? Oops, seems like I recently read that PPP’s were now being called beneficial corporations. Either way they are blatant fascism (mixing government & private business)& we don’t need them in Lowndes County. Under proper bidding procedures it would have been imposible for a contractor to have been given a go ahead by any mythical person. The project is expected to cost $132,000 of tax payer money & I think we deserve proper bid procedures to be certain we are getting maximum benefit from our expenditures.

I have no comment on the statement the pipe needed to be put in the ground so it would not go to waste other than I never new water/sewer pipe had a short expiraton date. Perhaps we should ask how so many feet of pipe were left over from another project since I’m sure 12″ pipe is not cheap. Does our project estimator need to sharpen his pencil?

It seems County Commission Chairman Paulk questions “the wisdom of spending that much taxpayer money without any prospect of income in the near future’. I’m glad someone is concerned about the taxpayers. Since it has been acknowledged we citizens have an interest in the obvious four way fiasco between city, county, private contractor & private landowners,I trust the VDT will continue to keep us informed of all the facts as they surface.

-Barbara Stratton

GLPC: Greater Lowndes Planning Commission, 28 November 2011

There’s a meeting of the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission tonight. They discuss rezoning requests relevant to the City of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Dasher, Hahira, and Lake Park. We don’t know which rezoning requests they will consider tonight, because they no longer post agendas.

The City of Valdosta’s writeup about GLPC still links to the Southern Georgia Regional Commission pages about GLPC, which is where GLPC agendas used to be, but no longer:

As of July 1, 2011 there will be no more updates to this site. For question contact:

Jason Davenport – Lowndes County
Alexandra Arzayus – City of Valdosta

The Lowndes County government’s website has nothing listed for GLPC, and when you search for it you get:

Search Results: planning commission
No Results Found

Sad, really, considering that GLPC used to be a good example of local government transparency.

Maybe they’ll have an agenda at the door tonight.

-jsq

GLPC: Greater Lowndes Planning Commission, 29 August 2011

Before any rezoning case gets to the Lowndes County Commission or the Valdosta City Council for final approval, it first goes to the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC), an appointed advisory body that decides nothing, yet has significant weight in the decisions of the elected bodies.

Here’s a playlist for the GLPC 29 August 2011 meeting. I would post an agenda, but where those used to be there is now this cryptic red comment:

As of July 1, 2011 there will be no more updates to this site. For question contact:
Jason Davenport – Lowndes County
Alexandra Arzayus – City of Valdosta
I would label these videos, but that’s difficult to do without an agenda. There’s a GLPC meeting tonight; maybe they’ll have an agenda for that at the door.


GLPC: Greater Lowndes Planning Commission, 29 August 2011
Regular Session, Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Last call for Georgia redistricting comments

Jeanne Bonner wrote for GPB News 23 November 2011, Redistricting Map Review Underway
Georgians have until Dec. 23 to comment on new state and congressional district maps. The U.S. Department of Justice is in the midst of its 60 day-review of the maps. Voter advocate groups say this may be the last chance to comment before the maps go into effect for a decade.

…

Elizabeth Poythress, president of the League of Women Voters of Georgia, says the Justice Department is eager to receive citizen comment.

“We’re just encouraging people to take the advantage they have

Continue reading →

Valdosta water project on county land, with no city or county approval

It seems the City of Valdosta is installing a mile of water and sewwer pipe on county land without approval or prior knowledge of the Lowndes County government. Or, cats and dogs not playing well together. And, given that the Valdosta City Council apparently didn’t approve it either, cats not playing well together. Who is in charge of herding the cats?

David Rodock wrote in the VDT 23 November 2011, City project on county land

Without City Council approval, the installation of 5,600 linear feet of water/sewer pipe is being installed on Racetrack Road, at the very edge of annexed City property.
County says City didn’t notify. City says did.

This part is particularly interesting:

City Engineer Pat Collins said they had sent the county a letter and had not started on the project. He also said the city hoped to bring the project before council on Dec. 8, so they could make use of approximately 1,000 feet of 12 inch pipe leftover from a previous project.
So “not started” apparently includes digging ditches and installing 12 inch water mains. And “approval” means ask the Valdosta City Council after that’s already been done. And never ask the Lowndes County Commission, despite this project being on county land.

Not to worry, there’s a familiar excuse: blame the contractor! Continue reading →

SGMC Hospital Bonds go for sale this week

The bonds the Lowndes County Commission is guaranteeing for South Georgia Medical Center (SGMC) are up for public auction this week.

According to the NYTimes yesterday, Treasury Auctions Set for This Week

The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues are scheduled for pricing this week:

…

ONE DAY DURING THE WEEK

…

Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County, Ga., $148.5 million of revenue anticipation certificates. Morgan Keegan

-gretchen

Community Calendar —Jane F. Osborn 22 November 2011

The latest update (22 November 2011) is online for the community calendar produced by Jane F. Osborn who organizes the Valdosta Civic Roundtable. She wrote:
…the calendar is not produced for civic roundtable, it is just a project of mine for the many counties that lost a source of information when 2-1-1 was discontinued.
LAKE will attempt to remember to update new ones in this web page as Miss Jane sends them. We hope you, dear readers, will remind us if we don’t.

-jsq

CUNY’s idea of a public meeting

City University of New York’s trustees were holding a public meeting, and some of the public, namely CUNY students, attempted to attend. CUNY police and NYPD staged a welcome for them:
Carlos Pazmino, 21, a City College student who helped organize the protest, said that after students began opening doors to the auditorium where the CUNY trustees were to hold a public hearing at 5 p.m., CUNY police officers surrounded the entrances and pushed back, using their batons, and that when students formed a line to push past, the officers began hitting the students with the batons.

“I saw two people knocked down by cops,” Mr. Pazmino said. “They were arrested and one guy’s head was bleeding.”

That’s in a NYTimes story by Alice Speri and Anna M. Phillips, CUNY Students Protesting Tuition Increase Clash With Police. Interesting title considering that the content says that the public went to a public meeting and were violently attacked by police.

And that’s the cleaned up version: Continue reading →

Map of traffic fatalities in Lowndes County related to paving and widening

What do you see when you zoom in on traffic fatalities in Lowndes County, Georgia? Lots of road deaths on roads recently paved, for one thing.

Simon Rogers wrote for the Guardian 22 November 2011, US road accident casualties: every one mapped across America

369,629 people died on America’s roads between 2001 and 2009. Following its analysis of UK casualties last week, transport data mapping experts ITO World have taken the official data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – and produced this powerful map using OpenStreetMap. You can zoom around the map using the controls on the left or search for your town using the box on the right – and the key is on the top left. Each dot represents a life
The national view is very interesting, but let’s look at Lowndes County:

I don’t know what that adds up to, but it looks to me like a lot of dead people, and in just nine years, from 2001 to 2009. Far more dead people than killed by terrorism.

OK, but where are these fatalities happening? All over the county. Let’s zoom in on Hambrick Road: Continue reading →

Baltimore’s place-based model

Growth isn’t everything, and vacant lots can be leveraged to deal with food disparity and obesity, Baltimore is demonstrating.

Vanessa Barrington wrote for Grist 21 November 2011, Baltimore’s can-do approach to food justice

…43 percent of the residents in the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods had little access to healthy foods, compared to 4 percent in predominantly white neighborhoods. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of the city’s adults and almost 40 percent of high school students are overweight or obese.
That’s the problem.

There are solutions:

Speaking on a panel at the recent Community Food Security Coalition Conference in Oakland, Calif., Abby Cocke, of Baltimore’s Office of Sustainability, and Laura Fox, of the city health department’s Virtual Supermarket Program, outlined two approaches to address the city’s food deserts. Both were presenting programs that have launched since Grist last reported on Baltimore’s efforts to address food justice. And both programs come under the auspices of The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative, a rare intergovernmental collaboration between the city’s Department of Planning, Office of Sustainability, and Health Department. They also show how an active, involved city government and a willingness to try new ideas can change the urban food landscape for the better.

According to Cocke, Baltimore’s Planning Department has a new mindset. She calls it a “place-based” model. “In the past,” she says, “growth was seen as the only way to improve the city, but we’re starting to look at ways to make our neighborhoods stronger, healthier, and more vibrant places at the low density that they’re at now.”

The article outlines the specific solutions, such as: Continue reading →