Category Archives: LOST

Secret meeting of Lowndes County Commission and state reps @ LCC 2013-12-20


Dexter Sharper (District 177)
The VDT report doesn’t say when or where, and doesn’t say whether
Dexter Sharper (District 177) wasn’t invited or chose not to attend.

There’s nothing about this meeting in the online

agendas
or

calendar,
even though that calendar lists

Pictures with Santa at the Historical Courthouse (12/19/2013).

There is this undated

public notice with no agenda:


Paige Dukes, Lowndes County Clerk
The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will meet with members of
Lowndes County’s Legislative Delegation on Friday, December 20,
2013, at 4:00 p.m. in the Commissioner’s Conference Room located on
the 3rd floor of the Judicial-Administrative Complex, 327 North
Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia.

K. Paige Dukes, County Clerk

pdukes@lowndescounty.com 229-671-2400


Tim Golden (District 8)
Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT 22 December 2013,

Commissioners host local delegation,
oddly omitting the when and where and much of the why from
the traditional

who, what, when, where, and why of journalism.


Amy Carter (District 175)
The Lowndes County Commission hosted Continue reading →

Videos, AAUW Candidates’ Forum @ AAUW 2013-10-15



Water was a popular topic, as you can see in these
videos of the

Candidates’s Forum by AAUW.
Same location (VSU Continuing Education Building)
as the one

Chamber held,
but this time the audience got to ask questions.
Yes, Virginia, they do all live in their districts, and some of them have widely divergent views about what cities or school boards should do.

Local

AAUW President Diane Holliman gave a welcome, and then
Dr. Luke Fowler moderated.
Here’s

the list of qualified candidates.
Here’s

Matthew Woody’s writeup in the VDT.


Valdosta City Council District 2

John Hogan and Calvin Graham Sr. were present; Sandra J. Tooley was not.


John Hogan pointed out that a road issue could really be a drainage issue,
so it’s necessary to look at context.


Calvin Graham Sr.
said he was retired military, lived in the district, and had
been spending a lot of time volunteering.
He indicated the Continue reading →

Next Deep South Sanitation court date: 25 Nov 2013



According to Deep South Sanitation, their next court date is
Monday 25 November 2013 at 9:30 AM, presumably at the

Lowndes County Judicial Complex, 327 N. Ashley Street, Valdosta, GA 31601.
The longer you drag this out, Lowndes County, the more
good press DSS gets out of it.
DSS reports 25 new customers for the fourth quarter,

providing $125 to Lake Park Elementary School.

Oh yes, the
alleged county attorney spending our tax dollars to sue Deep South Sanitation
was the attorney for
many of the cities that sued about LOST
and just

lost before the Georgia Supreme Court,
resulting in many cities and counties

scurrying around to make rapid agreements,
including

Lowndes County
and
Valdosta.

-jsq

OK LOST status quo –Valdosta City Council @ VCC 2013-10-17

Yes we’ll take the 2002 percentages

offered by Lowndes County, voted the
the Valdosta City Council this morning at a Special Called Meeting.

The vote result is from Council Tim Carroll, who says they will revisit the percentages
after the Georgia legislature does whatever it’s going to do about LOST in January.
Here’s

the notice of the meeting on Valdosta’s website:


Notice of a Special Called City Council Meeting

Posted Date: 10/16/2013

The Valdosta City Council has scheduled a Special Called City Council Meeting for Thursday, October 17, 2013 at 8:00 a.m. at City Hall, 216 East Central Avenue, Council Chambers. The purpose of this Special Called Council Meeting is to discuss the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST).

For more information, please contact Teresa S. Bolden, City Clerk, at 259-3503 or tbolden@valdostacity.com.

-jsq

Videos of Special LOST Lowndes County Commission Meeting @ LCC 2013-10-15



In a highly irregular 4 to 1 vote with the Chairman voting,
the Lowndes County Commission voted to stick with
58% for the county, 42% for the cities from
LOST,
the same as the county’s

original position
from

April 2012.


No real agenda was posted by the county,
so below I’ve made one up to match the videos.


  1. Call to Order

    and immediate adjourn to executive session
    for attorney-client privileges.


    County Manager Joe Pritchard shooed
    the Commissioners,
    the alleged County Attorney, the County Clerk,
    the Finance Director, and one or two other staff into the back room.




  2. Reconvene into open session

    Chairman Bill Slaughter divulged the purpose of the meeting so they could
    vote on it.
    The decision was
    58% of SPLOST for the county and 42% for the cities,
    to be divided among the cities as they see fit.
    The vote was 4 to 1.
    Which is rather odd, since you can clearly hear Chairman Bill Slaughter voting ”
    aye”
    and raising his hand. Continue reading →

Lowndes County LOST like Hall @ LCC 2013-10-15

Gretchen reports
LOST was the topic at today’s

special called meeting of the Lowndes County Commission.
And yes, they went into executive session.
Rumor has it that it’s not

120 days to come to an agreement,
rather this week is the deadline.
That’s what seems to be happening over in Hall County.

Sarah Mueller wrote for Gainesville Times today,

Hall commissioners to consider new local option sales tax certificate,




Hall County Administrator Randy Knighton said the special called
commission meeting today at 4 p.m. at the Hall County Government
Center in Gainesville was in response to a suggestion from the
Association County Commissioners of Georgia. ACCG has talked with
the Department of Revenue and the Georgia Attorney General’s Office.

“(ACCG) has advised us that each county who has been engaged
in the LOST arbitration proceedings submit a new LOST certificate to
the Revenue Department this week,” Knighton said.

Knighton declined Monday to say Continue reading →

Special Called Lowndes County Commission Meeting @ LCC 2013-10-15

Could that pending litigation be

the county’s lawsuit against

Deep South Sanitation
about
that

exclusive franchise
that benefits

ADS investors in New York City?
Will they go straight into executive session?

On the county’s

online calendar, with nothing on their
front page,
and nothing in the online VDT public notices.
Here’s the county’s

PDF and here’s the text:


Lowndes County Commission logo
Lowndes County, Georgia

Board Of Commissioners

SPECIAL CALLED MEETING

A Special Called Meeting of the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will be held on Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at 3:00 p.m.
The meeting will be held in Commission Chambers, located on the second floor of the Lowndes County Judicial‐Administrative Complex, 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia.
The Special Called Meeting is being held for attorney client communication regarding pending litigation.

Office of the County Clerk

K. Paige Dukes

229‐671‐2400

pdukes@lowndescounty.com

-jsq

County lost LOST; now has 120 days to negotiate with cities



So all our tax money the county spent on the

alleged county attorney
arguing
before the state Supreme Court was wasted.
The remaining law seems to say by 120 days from Monday
the cities and the county need to come to an agreement.

Kay Harris wrote for the VDT yesterday,

Lowndes LOST in limbo:
Supreme Court tosses key amendment,

In a ruling issued Monday, Oct. 7, the Supreme Court of Georgia
declared a 2010 amendment to the Local Option Sales Tax Act
unconstitutional, reasoning that the amendment would delegate a
legislative function of allocating tax proceeds to the judicial
branch of government, a violation of the Separation of Powers clause
of the Georgia Constitution.



For Lowndes County, the ruling effectively renders the lawsuit moot
that was filed by the five cities against the county in September
2012.

The Supreme Court’s ruling came in the case of Turner County vs. the
City of Ashburn over a dispute in splitting the proceeds from the
one cent sales tax, the same issue in the Lowndes lawsuit. By
declaring the portion unconstitutional that would allow a judge to
decide how to allocate the tax dollars between the entities, the
issue is now in limbo for several counties in Georgia.



You may recall that

former Chairman Ashley Paulk
wasn’t interested in discussing proposals from the cities,
and said from before

the LOST negotiations began
that he expected it to go to arbitration.



This was the same Chairman Ashley Paulk who put SPLOST VII on the ballot
a year early and

lost it.
I wonder how much input County Manager Joe Pritchard had into these two losing decisions?

At least SPLOST VI hasn’t expired yet
and there’s time for the voters to go again on

SPLOST VII in November.

What happens now with LOST? Continue reading →

Ashley Paulk’s Guardian Bank sues Hahira

Hahira declared a moratorium on water and sewer taps in a subdivision
financed by Guardian Bank, apparently in hopes of getting the bank
to do something about a drainage problem there.


Instead, the bank is suing Hahira, echoing a lawsuit the county is pursuing
about a contract let when the bank’s Chairman was Lowndes County Chairman.

According to

Stuart Taylor in the VDT Friday,
Guardian Bank’s chairman said, perhaps using the royal “we”:

“We’re a little disappointed with Hahira,” said Ashley
Paulk, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Guardian Bank.
“We’ve actually helped them build up their tax base up
there…Over the years, we’ve encouraged builders to be up
there.”

Me, I think Hahira should have Continue reading →

Lowndes County vs. Deep South Sanitation this morning

The county government’s attempt to put a local business out of business
is this 9:30 AM at the county palace this morning 14 June 2013.

Physical Address:

Courtroom 5D, Fifth Floor

Lowndes County Judicial Complex

327 N. Ashley Street

Valdosta, GA 31601


WALB’s earlier story said June 4th, but now it’s June 14th (today),
because Lowndes County Attorney Walter Elliott is also an attorney
for Turner County in the
LOST case before the GA Supreme Court,
and he was going to be
in Atlanta arguing before the Supreme Court
on June 4th.
Funny how everything is done for the convenience of the county
government, and not for its citizens.

Maybe we should change that.

-jsq