Category Archives: Law

Open meetings needed for county attorney selection?



Could there be any problem with selecting a county attorney without
any open process?

CNHI in VDT today,

Officials violate Iowa’s open meeting law,

CENTERVILLE, Iowa. — The Appanoose County Board of Supervisors
and County Auditor Linda Demry violated the state open meeting law
three times in less than three weeks recently when they interviewed
candidates for the vacant county attorney’s position, a state agency
has determined.



Well, apparently we don’t have that problem here Continue reading →

Videos: DFCS and ZBOA appointments + guns, lawyers, and money @ LCC 2014-06-10



They wouldn’t say

what they would do to secure their own building after July 1st
when the Georgia guns-everywhere law goes into effect.
A split vote for not opposing the

Hahira annexation
recommended against by the Planning Commission
plus unanimous approval of everything else under

For Consideration, including
declaring some Finance computers surplus.
They voted to approve their

opaque selection of auditing services
and to buy

an unnamed firewall replacement
among other things for unknown amounts.
Maybe somebody should bring that up at the county Budget Hearings.

They reappointed
Lonnie Denton to a sixth five-year term on the

Lowndes
Division of Family and Children Services (he spoke)
and Willie Houseal and Gretchen Quarterman each
to a third three-year term on the

ZBOA (they spoke yesterday morning).
Also Public Hearings for

well and septic
and

a special events change to the ULDC.
in their Luke Bryan balancing act.

Here’s

the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes.
See also the
videos of the

Work Session of the previous morning
and the

videos of the 27 May 2014 Planning Commission meeting.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 9, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

What else you missed: Landfill public hearing 2014-07-17

In Georgia Public Notice for the VDT,
but not on the county’s calendar or website public notice list:

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING


300x273 0058 002B Veolia ES Evergreen Landfill Inc., in Evergreen Landfill, by John S. Quarterman, for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), 20 June 2014
In accordance with Section 12-8-24(d) of the Georgia Comprehensive
Solid Waste Management Act, the Board of Commissioners of Lowndes
County gives notice of a public hearing to be held at 5:30 p.m. on
July 17, 2014, in Chambers of the Board of Commissioners in the
Lowndes County Judicial and Administrative Complex, located at 327
North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia. The purpose of the hearing
is to receive public comments regarding the issuance by the Georgia
Environmental Protection Division of a proposed modification to the
solid waste handling permit for an expansion of the existing
Evergreen Municipal Solid Waste Landfill located off Wetherington
Lane in Lowndes County, Georgia, requested by Advanced Disposal
Services Evergreen Landfill, Inc., for the purpose of modifying the
boundaries and waste disposal capacity of that solid waste handling
facility.

Board of Commissioners of Lowndes County

00073850

6/13/14

Here’s

the law the public notice cites: Continue reading →

Guess what you missed: Lowndes County Budget Hearing



Asking the full Commission and staff

in a public meeting
wasn’t enough to get an alert on the budget meeting
that was held Tuesday:


Lowndes County Budget Meeting (6/17/2014)

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners

327 N. Ashley St – Commission Chambers, 2nd Floor Administration Building

Valdosta, GA

5:30 p.m.

Apparently everyone is really supposed to watch the county’s
website every day.
They did send email to department heads about that meeting.
They could have also sent that to interested parties.
But they didn’t.
And almost nobody showed up.

There’s another one Tuesday: Continue reading →

Seven Out Superfund Assessment Public Meeting @ GA EPD 2014-07-17



6-8PM Thursday 17 July 2014

Memorial Stadium, 715 Dewey St., Waycross, GA 31501

The Environmental Protection Agency, GA Environmental Protection
Division, and Georgia Department of Public Health will be present to
discuss sample collection and results from the Seven Out Tank site
in downtown Waycross.

EPD will also be available to address issues and answer questions
regarding CSX.

From Satilla Riverkeeper’s

facebook event.
Here’s
a map: Continue reading →

Videos: appointments, well, events, annexation @ LCC 2014-06-09



They vote tonight on their

opaque selection of auditing services
and to buy

an unnamed firewall replacement
among other things for unknown amounts not revealed in yesterday morning’s Work Session.
Maybe somebody should bring that up at the not-yet-scheduled
county Budget Hearings.
They will also vote on

their Luke Bryan musical neighbor balancing act
and on


reappointing Lonnie Denton for a sixth five-year term to the

Lowndes
Division of Family and Children Services (he will speak tonight)
and reappointing Willie Houseal and Gretchen Quarterman each
to a third three-year term to the

ZBOA (they spoke yesterday morning as you can see in these videos).
Also Public Hearings for

well and septic
and

a special events change to the ULDC.
The

Hahira annexation
recommended against by the Planning Commission
is still waiting for signatures from the applicants under

For Consideration,
along with a request from Finance to declare items surplus and several purchase requests
from Finance and IT.

Here’s

the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes.
See also the

videos of the 27 May 2014 Planning Commission meeting.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 9, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Two arrest warrants issued for $1 mllion landfill scam

Interesting things sometimes turn up when a landfill is investigated.

Taylor West wrote for the AJC 5 June 2014,

Police: Arrest warrants issued in connection with $1 million scam,


Robert Stevens (Fulton County Sheriff’s Office)
Multiple arrest warrants have been issued in relation to a trail of
criminal activity resulting in the theft of more than $1 million
from a Fulton County business, authorities said.

Police began an investigation in mid-April when Waste Management
Inc. made a complaint regarding Willow Oak Landfill, which it owns,
following an anonymous tip and a private investigation, according to
the Palmetto Police Department today.

In this case it was the landfill operator that filed a complaint.
Waste Management is one of the two largest solid waste companies
in the U.S.; the other is ADS.

The complaint alleged Continue reading →

Energy Policy Act of 2005 considered harmful



The same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that

subsidized dirty oil and fracked methane including LNG exports
also funded

that oxymoron “clean” coal such as Southern Company’s Plant Ratcliffe
in Mississippi,

ethanol production lining the pockets of Monsanto, and

the $8.3 billion loan guarantee
to Georgia Power for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.



2005 was a very long time ago in solar PV years:

prices are halved, and installed solar power production is up more
than ten times and growing exponentially like compound interest.
We need to stop throwing money at dirty, water-sucking,
centralized baseload 20th century non-solutions and get on with
clean 21st century distributed solar and wind power
for jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and water,
not to mention less climate change.

-jsq

Executive Session for Real Estate @ VLCIA 2014-05-27



The Industrial Authority is having a Special Called Meeting Tuesday at 4:45 PM,
the agenda for which goes straight into Executive Session for no stated reason.
Is that even legal, as

I’ve asked before about a VLCIA executive session?

Also, why is
G. Norman Bennett still listed as a board member and Vice Chairman, even though according to the VDT
he resigned from VLCIA 13 March 2014?
I asked him about that in Hahira
a month ago today
and he said he’d talk to VLCIA.
Somebody didn’t follow through.

Here’s

the agenda,
which says they’re having an invocation for the purpose of discussing real estate
and gives no reason for the Executive Session.
Also from the
Georgia Open Meetings Act of 2012, 50-14-3(b)(1): Continue reading →

Insurers suing for lack of preparation for record floods

What if, in addition to the record floods of 2009 and 2013 and 2014
apparently caused by local lack of planning in our watersheds,
what if we got 15 inches of rain in one 24 hour period like
Pensacola did a few weeks ago?


Local governments might get sued by insurers for lack of planning,
like 200 communities in the Chicago area already got sued.
Maybe we should plan ahead for greater weather variability
caused by climate change.

Eric Holthaus wrote for Future Tense on Slate 30 April 2014,

The Calamitous Climate Responsible for Florida’s Record Rainfall, Continue reading →