Sandra Tooley, Valdosta City Council District 2,
was among the very few people present who did not have business on
the agenda of the
Lowndes County County Commission Work Session this Monday morning.
They vote 5:30 PM Tuesday evening.
Below are LAKE videos of Monday morning’s Work Session, with a few notes, followed by a video playlist. Continue reading
Here’s the
agenda
for this morning’s 8:30 AM Work Session and tomorrow evening’s voting Regular Session:
will the Lowndes County Commission spend more on mosquito testing than on renting prisoners from Valdosta State Prison?
(Answer: no,
$45,790 on mosquitos
and
$118,500 on three prisoner work details at $39,500 each:
“The details are utilized in the maintenance of over 5,000 easements that require manual hand cutting.”
Hm, if the county didn’t insist on 80-foot easements….
They’re also appointing people to four different boards. If you wanted to apply, how would you know to do so?
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Continue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2016, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2016, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Thanks to County Engineer Mike Fletcher for doing almost
what Gretchen asked
at the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session 26 April 2016.
They rattled through the agenda with almost no questions, unanimously approving everything, including the $89,005 in emergency no-bid repairs. You’d have little idea why they were doing anything if you weren’t at the previous morning’s Work Session or you didn’t view the LAKE videos of the Work Session, in which we discovered for example it’s not Beatty Creek Bridge, rather Bevel Creek Bridge. Nonetheless, the County Engineer still said the creek name wrong.
Here are links to each of the LAKE videos of the Regular Session of April 26th 2016, with a few notes, followed by a video playlist. See also the LAKE videos of the Work Session of April 25th 2016, and the agenda.
They meet again this morning at 8:30 AM. Continue reading
The
FY 2017 Juvenile Justice Incentive Grant was a popular topic yesterday morning, and
some Commissioners showed a little bit of scepticism about that
$89,005 in
emergency no-bid
repairs
on
the agenda for yesterday morning and for voting 5:30PM this evening.
Also $634,800 for a bridge we can’t tell where, and some unknown fraction of $1,663,888.78 to resurface a road that shouldn’t be used as a highway in the first place. Who’s in charge of budget planning for the county?
At the end, there was more from the County Manager about private road Carter Way: they discovered another property owner (“at least one”) after they agreed to spend $67,822 to fix a private road.
Here are links to each of the LAKE videos, with a few notes, followed by a video playlist. Continue reading
In these LAKE videos you can see the Commissioners and staff didn’t mention the contractor for the emergency no-bid $67,822
to fix the
Carter Way Culverts
owns property on Carter Way.
They never said how much the no-bid
Old US 41N paving project would cost.
Citizen
Judy Havercamp thanked the Commission for the recent
animal ordinance.
She clapped, but did not get shouted down by the deputy;
I guess his instructions only apply to people not complimenting the Commission.
Citizen
John S. Quarterman, president of WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc.,
asked for
wastewater spills to be posted on the county’s website and sent out by their alert system,
and with a written letter updated the Commission on many recent pipeline
developments and asked them to rescind their recent Sabal Trail easement
or to help in other ways to stop that boondoggle.
See also Continue reading
The
Old US 41N paving project is no-bid.
If they bid, they would actually know which was the most cost-effective….
In his Report, County Manager Joe Pritchard asked them to add to the agenda an item about fixing a private road off US 84, Carter Way. Most of the Commissioners previously seemed to be unfamiliar with this issue, although we had seen Chairman Bill Slaughter and Commissioner Joyce Evans listen to what seemed to be a request for this same road at the Lowndes County Democratic Party Meet the Candidates meeting the previous Monday.
See also Continue reading
A very busy agenda,
for Monday morning’s Work Session and
Tuesday evening’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
See also
the LAKE videos of
the three county cases from the recent Planning Commission meeting.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Continue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2016, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
The secretive Project Max container company
better not be like when the Industrial Authority bragged about a prospect that would bring in 300 clean jobs and it turned out to be
a private prison,
which fortunately (after much public opposition) never happened.
At last Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commissioner Regular Session, nearby landowner Mike Paine said he is afraid of many things, because it’s a rush job
and nobody has told him anything concrete.
The Industrial Authority, now called the Development Authority, says we should
trust them.
It would help if they wouldn’t say things like no emissions but steam,
when burning natural gas produces CO2,
and if they would admit that methane often leaks, and then it’s a far worse
greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
5.a. REZ-2016-01 Project Max, Rocky Ford Rd, E-A to M-2 123 acres
Video. About the public hearing for rezoning from Estate Agricultural (E-A) to heavy-duty manufacturing (M-2) for the hush-hush Project Max, the big-fish container manufacturing plant proposed for Rocky Ford Road, next to the protected watershed of Mud Swamp and near Valdosta Airport, see Continue reading
If we’re tired of arguing over pieces of cloth, how about we do
something about one of the main tools of racist oppression in the
U.S.? Legalize drugs, thus stopping paying for 75% of the U.S.
prison population, which is far more black than white, and is often
rented out for literally pennies.
Remember, slavery is not illegal
in the U.S., as long as it is punishment for some crime. Second clause, 13th Amendment:
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted
More black men are in jail, prison, probation, or parole now than were enslaved in 1850, as Michelle Alexander has noted. Anyone who says Continue reading
Caught on-camera:
ALEC’s off-duty sheriff’s deputies getting TV reporters thrown out of their own hotel
for “taking pictures in the hotel”, after ALEC’s marketing droid denied any
lobbying going on, nevermind the lobbyist and
legislator in a bar spelling out how it works:
ALEC gives “scholarships” to legislators who then meet in closed rooms
with corporate reps (including all the companies involved in the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline) who have equal votes
on draft bills for legislators to get passed as law in many states.
Bills promoting fracking, pipelines, LNG export, and against solar power,
renewable portfolio standards, not to mention for private prisons
and privatized education and against municipal broadband and country-of-origin labelling, plus many other
corporate give-aways subsidized by the taxpayers and the environment.
It’s time for the IRS to revoke ALEC’s 501(c)(3) status.
And for the Georgia legislature to apply the state’s sunshine laws to itself.
Brendan Keefe and Michael King, WXIA-TV, 22 May 2015, Legislators and corporate lobbyists meet in secret at Georgia resort, Continue reading