Author Archives: admin

Developer didn’t get his way: change the zoning code! @ GLPC 2012-11-26

A developer didn’t get his way at the Lowndes County Commission last month,
so now the county is proposing to change the zoning code for him!
To change zoning right next to Moody Air Force Base,
the largest employer in this area.
A change opposed by Moody because

of flight safety and safety of property,
and
“the longterm viability of Moody Air Force Base.”
A change that would set a precedent for further sprawl,
as Moody indicated indirectly when
the related rezoning first came before the Planning Commission.
Apparently a developer can get whatever he wants around here,
no matter how much it threatens the livelihoods or well-being
of the rest of the citizens.
Does that seem right to you?
To their credit,

the Planning Commission at its 26 November 2012 meeting
unanimously voted against this TEX-2012-02 just as they
did the rezoning case REZ-2012-17 last month.
Both will be decided by the Lowndes County Commission
at its 11 December 2012 meeting.




4. TEX-2012-02

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners

A proposed text amendment to the Unified Land Development Code as it pertains to Single Family residential
Density and Minimum Lot Area within the MAZ (Moody Activity Zone)

County Planner Jason Davenport introduced this item.


TEX-2012-02 ULDC changes
Ultimately at the end of the day this text amendment is a request
to change the minimum lot sizes allowed and the minimum residential densities
allowed in a MAZ-3 zoning district.
We have those changes highlighted on the screen but they have also been
highlighted in the packet….
At the end of the day that is what has happened.

Well, yes, at the end of that day.
At the end of many future days this zoning code amendment
if approved will be used as a precedent for more sprawl
right next to Moody Air Force Base,
which is by far the biggest employer in this area.
The packet he referred to is not available to the public.
The changes he mentioned are not on his

Unified Land Development Code (ULDC) web page.
A view of them as seen from the back of the room is shown on the right here.
Can you read them?


Moody insert in ULDC Map
The

ULDC map linked on that page
includes the Moody Area insert map shown here on the right.

Davenport added that he had received one open records request and a response
from Moody.
Plus state law requires 30 days for Moody to respond and it had been 31 days.
Then he walked through some history using pages in Commissioners’ packets
that we the taxpayers, voters, and residents of Lowndes County can’t see.

Davenport

specifically tied this text amendment to a tabled zoning case:

Continue reading →

Planning Commission recommends nineteenth Dollar General @ GLPC 2012-11-26

The

Planning Commission 26 November 2012
ignored a Naylor citizen’s questions about
a market survey, traffic, trees, peace and quiet, rural living, and sprawl
and unanimously recommended a rezoning request for
the eighteenth Dollar General in the area.
They did this for a developer who doesn’t live in Lowndes County,
and who didn’t even have her name revealed by the Planning Commission,
even though anyone who spoke against had to show up in person
and state name and address.
All this for a location that wasn’t specified in the agenda.
Does this seem right to you?


Dr. Bobbie Robinson

3. REZ-2012-19 Robinson Milltown Properties, LLC

US Highway 84 East, Naylor, Georgia

Request to rezone 2 acres from E-A (Estate Agriculture)
to C-G (General Commercial)

It’s for a Dollar General.
County Planner Jason Davenport said nobody had called in.
The agenda doesn’t say which parcel is the subject,
and the County Planner didn’t specify.

Robinson Miltown Properties map
Judging by the map displayed on the screen, it’s the southeast corner of

parcel number 0250 003, 101.91 acres owned by
Robinson Milltown Properties LLC of 2605 Hall Ave., Tifton, GA 31794.

Dr. Bobbie Robinson of ABAC
According to the Georgia Secretary of State,

that LLC’s agent is
Bobbie Ann Robinson of 2605 Hall Avenue, Tifton, GA 31794.
I’m told she is the Dr. Bobbie Robinson

Professor of English and
Dean, School of Liberal Arts at ABAC in Tifton.
It’s curious how anybody speaking in opposition had to show up in
person and state their name and address,
but she the developer didn’t have to do any of those things.


Clayton Milligan of Lovell Engineering

Clayton Milligan of Lovell Engineering spoke for,
merely saying he offered to answer questions.
Commissioners asked him no questions.


Matthew Richard of 5569 Upper Grand Bay Road spoke against.

Continue reading →

Videos, Solar Energy Forum @ CSC 2012-12-01


Solar Energy Forum at Center for a Sustainable Coast, Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia, 1 December 2012
Here are videos of Saturday’s

Solar Energy Forum
at the

Center for a Sustainable Coast (CSC)
in Savannah,
with

We will probably post more later on the presentations by Paul Wolff
and Robert Green, and the ensuing questions and answers.
Meanwhile,
here’s

a video playlist
of the entire event:


Videos, Solar Energy Forum

Solar Energy Forum, Center for a Sustainable Coast (CSC),

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia, 1 December 2012.

-jsq

Georgia statehouse and the anti-sustainability astroturf talking points (aka “Agenda 21”)

Somebody wrote me a week or two ago:



I saw in todays paper Chip Rogers and other Senate leadership was changed yesterday.
Thank goodness!

Well, don't cheer too soon.
According to Jim Galloway in the AJC

15 November 2012,

"Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock withdrew his re-election
bid and endorsed Ronnie Chance of Tyrone, the governor's floor leader,
for the position."



Ronnie Chance is not only

also ALEC,
Chance is

the other ALEC state Senator
who put both the charter school amendment
and the multi-year amendment on the ballot.
Is this leadership "change" improvement?
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

Why must we get fooled again?
When will the people of the state of Georgia get tired of government
by astroturf and elect some legislators who will represent the people?

-jsq

Arctic sea ice melting faster than expected —WMO

A major source of the water for the

sea level rise already affecting Savannah and Jacksonville
is melting Arctic Ocean sea ice.

WMO Press Release No. 966:
2012: Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt, Multiple Extremes and High Temperatures,

“Naturally occurring climate variability due to phenomena such
as El Niño and La Niña impact on temperatures and precipitation on
a seasonal to annual scale. But they do not alter the underlying
long-term trend of rising temperatures due to climate change as a
result of human activities,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel
Jarraud.

“The extent of Arctic sea ice reached a new record low. The
alarming rate of its melt this year highlighted the far-reaching
changes taking place on Earth’s oceans and biosphere. Climate change
is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a
result of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,
which have risen constantly and again reached new records,”
added Mr Jarraud.


30 years of Arctic sea ice

15 September 1982 vs 16 September 2012

The Arctic reached its lowest annual sea ice extent since the start
of satellite records on 16 September at 3.41 million square
kilometers. This was 18% less than the previous record low of 18
September, 2007. The 2012 minimum extent was 49 percent or nearly
3.3 million square kilometers (nearly the size of India) below the
1979—2000 average minimum. Some 11.83 million square
kilometers of Arctic ice melted between March and September 2012.

WMO noted other effects of climate change outside the arctic, including:

Continue reading →

Citizens can video on duty police —Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has declined to review a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
decision that struck down an Illinois law prohibiting audio recordings
without permission,
echoing last year’s

First Court decision that you can record police on the job.
Let’s remember it’s not just police:

“Gathering information about government officials in a form that can
readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment
interest in protecting and promoting

‘the free discussion of
governmental affairs.’

”

That means all elected or appointed or employed government officials, from
County Commissioners and City Councils down through sheriff and
police departments to the Animal Shelter.
Police are employees, not elected or appointed, so these rulings would appear
to apply to other governmental employees.

Radley Balko wrote for Huffpo 27 November 2012,

Supreme Court Inaction Boosts Right To Record Police Officers,

The Illinois and Massachusetts laws have been used to arrest people
who attempt to record on-duty police officers and other public
officials. In one of the more notorious cases, Chicago resident
Tiawanda Moore was arrested in 2010 when she attempted to use her
cell phone to record officers in a Chicago police station.

Continue reading →

Community Calendar —Jane F. Osborn 2012-11-19

The latest update (19 November 2012) 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.

This time she remarks:

Note that the calendar runs nearly 60 pages, so you may not want to
print it. Please be sure to send in notices of community events open
to the public. Jane

Jane F. Osborn, MSSW

Valdosta, GA

229-630-0924

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

How to implement trash, health, and safety?

Disposal of solid waste (trash/garbage) is a matter of

community public health and safety
and providing such service

is the responsibilty of the local governing bodies.
How should trash health and safety responsibly be implemented?



We cannot be left in a situation where residents are either “forced
to buy” service from a provider, or have no option but to burn
their trash. The government can levy a tax, but they cannot say that
residents are forbidden to buy a service from an independent provider.

Such a ruling is

  • unfriendly to those who currently own, or want to
    start

    a waste collection business in our county    ,
  • unfriendly to the
    residents who are counting on the government to follow
    the state-legislated goals to

    “protect the health
    safety, and well-being of its citizens and to protect
    and enhance the quality of its environment” ,

  • unfriendly to the environment as trash ends up on the side of the
    road or polluting the air by being burned and leaves us to
    face a new problem on a different day.

Residents in the unincorporated areas of the county who want curb side
collection, for the most part, already purchase it. Those of us using

the collection centers do so because it is our preference.

The county
should (in my opinion) create a special tax district for waste disposal
(it already makes special lighting districts) and tax the residents
for the maintenance of the collection centers.

-gretchen

Board of Health members

Here is a list of the members of the

Lowndes County Board of Health:

Board Members
William R. Grow, MD, FACP

District Health Director
Mark Eanes, MD

Chair, Physician
Mary Margaret Richardson, EdD

Vice Chair, Licensed Nurse
Randy Smith, DDS

Secretary, Consumer Advocate
Sheila Warren

Advocate for Needy,
Underprivileged or Elderly
Richard Raines

Lowndes County Commissioner
John Gayle

City of Valdosta Mayor
Wes Taylor

Lowndes County Schools
Superintendent

Continue reading →

Who implements trash, health, and safety?

As we’ve seen, solid waste is a matter of public health, safety,
well-being, and the environment,

according to Georgia state law.
Whose responsibility is it to protect the environment
and the public health, safety, and well-being from solid waste?

Many health and safety issues are handled through the health department,

Diagram of the waste hierarchy

including the Georgia Department of Public Health,
and the

South Health District
(Ben Hill, Berrien, Brooks, Cook, Echols, Irwin, Lanier, Lowndes, Tift and Turner Counties).
Particularly, water quality (septic tanks, well water), food safety,
cleanliness of hotels, motels, restaurants, swimming pools and so on
are the responsibility of the local health department,
such as the

Lowndes County Health Department.

However, disposal of solid waste (trash/garbage) is handled by
the local municipality or governmental body (county).

The EPA has a variety of documents available about solid waste.

So does the state EPD, as enabled through Georgia Legislation:

Existing Rules and Corresponding Laws.

So, where does this leave us?
See next post.

-gretchen