Category Archives: Forestry

Rural revaluation meeting at Farm Bureau 2015-08-04

Are Bill Gates and subdivisions really more important than agriculture
or rivers or public transportation?

Come to Farm Bureau tomorrow evening
and find out what’s
going on with the rural land revaluation. facebook event.

When: 7PM, Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Where: 3296 Greystone Way, Valdosta, GA, (229) 242-7876

By: Farm Bureau board member Buddy Coleman called this meeting.

What: Compare the Comprehensive Plan to this revaluation here (PDF).

Sprawl: sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin (Or at least big tax increases).
PDF of the report by UGA Prof. Jeffrey H. Dorfman Lowndes County paid for in 2007,

The Local Government Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in
Lowndes County.

Who: At least some of the

Lowndes County Tax Assessors Continue reading →

Who are the Lowndes County Tax Assessors?

This should be an easy question, but it isn’t.
Why not?

And the answer is a saw sales owner who previously promoted
development in an agricultural region of Lowndes County,
a realtor whose job is to promote development, and a preacher
who previously chaired a board that wanted to take tax money
from the county without rural citizens being able to vote on it.
None of them appear to have any experience in agriculture.
These are the people who oversaw the recent revaluation of rural
(and commercial) properties that would drive development into parts of Lowndes County that the Comprehensive Plan says should be agricultural.
Now I know all three of them, and they’re fine people.
But perhaps some rural people need to ask them some questions.

The

list on lowndescounty.com
of Lowndes County’s elected
Tax Assessors
is not remotely correct: Doyle Kelly is no longer
serving due to illness, yet he’s still on that list,
along with Mike Hill and W.G. Walker.

Mike Hill runs Continue reading →

Rural tax revaluation: Bill Gates and subdivisions more important than agriculture and public transportation?

Does this

rural land revaluation map
resemble the

Comprehensive Plan Future Development map?

Why not?
And why were rivers and public transportation not considered either
by the Lowndes County Tax Assessors
while tracts with road frontage were considered the
“highest market area”
and
land purchases by Bill Gates
were considered
“benchmark sales” instrumental in pricing large tracts?

This rural land revaluation is yet another vehicle to drive development straight north into the agricultural areas of the county, not even stopping at the Withlacoochee River.

That way lies sprawl, which as Dr. Jeffrey H. Dorfman of UGA has said,
“is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin* * Or at least big tax increases.”

The City of Valdosta better watch out! Much of this Continue reading →

Fixing climate change is profitable

Batteries are just one of many reasons,
including electric vehicles, smart grid, solar and wind power
(including

pass HB 57 and you can profit by getting financing
for your own solar panels),
plus massive savings on health care and electricity bills;
batteries are one of many reasons that fixing climate change will
save us all money, clean up our air and water, expand our forests,
preserve property rights, and make some people rich:

In fact, a recent report suggests that revenue from the distributed
energy storage market — meaning battery packs and other
storage devices located directly at homes and businesses (many of
which now generate electricity through solar) —

could exceed $16.5 billion by 2024.
Another report predicts

$68 billion in revenue in the same time frame from the grid-scale storage market.
This includes large-scale battery packs, hydro-storage systems that
use cheap abundant electricity to pump water uphill to drive
turbines later on, or even solar thermal systems that store energy
as heat in molten salt.

And it’s all happening fast,
so fast your jaw will drop if you’re not paying attention.
So let’s stop talking about the costs of fixing climate change.
It’s not just

no-cost and free, not just in the future but right now;
we’re all actually going to be better off through fixing climate change:
healthier and more prosperous.

Sami Grover wrote Continue reading →

Video: Baytree Nichols House, Alfred Willis Lecture @ VSU 2014-10-01

First all-electric house in Valdosta, new materials, unusual arrangement
of space for indoor-outdoor living on the same level outside as in, with light throughout because mostly only one room wide,
in a western atomic ranch house adapted for Valdosta.
Will what Dr. Willis had to say about
“a replete instance of the diffusion of Californian”
be enough to preserve the masterpiece of Lloyd Greer Sr. (1885-1952)
from development?

Announced as Continue reading →

Nichols House frat no longer; maybe historic preservation @ VCC 2014-09-11

LAKE has video, but meanwhile, so you can prepare for the
Oct. 1st talk about that historic Nichols House,
here’s some background.

Chip Harp wrote for Valdosta Today 17 September 2014,

In

last week’s Valdosta City Council meeting, Council voted 5-2 in
favor of re-zoning nearly 4 acres of land in the Alden Park
Community, near the campus. Some neighbors in the community stand
firmly against the development, which would include a 180-bed
student housing complex, and say it takes away from their
neighborhood, based on a report from WCTV’s Winnie Wright.

Winnie Wright reported for WCTV 16 September 2014,

The Historic Standing Of One Home Could Determine Future Of Surrounding Community, Continue reading →

Water issues in rezoning near VSU, appointments to Hospital and Tree Authorities @ VCC 2014-09-11

WWALS adds some water issues about that

Turner Brooks rezoning,
and there are appointments to the
Hospital
and
Authorities
at tonight’s Valdosta City Council meeting.

Here’s

the agenda.

AGENDA

REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL

5:30 PM Thursday, September 11, 2014

COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL

Continue reading →

Agricultural Workshop in Douglas May 29 2014

Agriculture is Georgia’s biggest industry, and USDA is holding
a workshop on that in Douglas at the end of May.

On

Team Agriculture Georgia‘s blog,

Team Ag Georgia is coming to Douglas!

The Spring 2014 TAG workshop will be held at the City of Douglas Central Square Complex in Douglas, GA (click here for directions) on Thursday, May 29, 2014.

Courses being offered during the Spring Workshop include:

Organic/Naturally Grown Certification

Financing Small Farms – Ag Aware

Olive Production

Continue reading →

Annexation and watershed monitoring @ Hahira 2014-04-03

The

rezoning
and

annexation
previously recommended by

the Planning Commission
and

discussed by the Lowndes County Commission.

And there’s a

Proposal for Long-term Watershed Monitoring from TTL,
which may or may not be related to the

flood risk management study
or

flood mapping
previously discussed by the city of Valdosta and

the Lowndes County Commission.

Curiously, both

Wikipedia
and

the Hahira City Council’s own web page
seem to think Wayne Bullard is still mayor.
I read in the VDT that Bruce Cain was sworn in as mayor in January.

Thanks to
City Manager Jonathan Sumner for
the agenda.

Hahira City Council

April 3, 2014

Agenda

7:30 pm-Hahira Courthouse

Continue reading →

Recent clear cutting in north of Lowndes County

Multiple people reported clearing work at the site of the

Moody Family Housing project on Val Del Road,
with its

sinkhole next to an aquifer recharge zone,
that

not even
Moody Air Force Base can get in to inspect.
So we went out to look. There is clear cutting happening on Val Del Road (both sides) but it does not appear to be happening on the property slated for Moody Family Housing.

There has been clear cutting going on in the north of Lowndes County
for some time on large tracts near Skipper Bridge Road, Staten Road (near the
new river bridge) and on Val Del Road immediately south of the Moody Family
Housing tract.

It appears that most of those properties are owned by Natco LLC: Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange