Recent open records requests at the City of Valdosta and the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office were similar. An unscheduled visit to the respective open records office (Valdosta City Clerk and Information Window at the Sheriff’s Office) resulted in a simple form and information returned on the spot. No waiting, no hassle.
Open records requests at the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners is a different story. It’s not too hard to get the form, it’s here: Continue reading
One effective way to keep an eye on what’s happening in our government is
through open records and open meetings, and Georgia has pretty good laws for both of those.
Attending meetings generally requires only a small amount of time for any agency. Some government agencies meet only once per month and sometimes for less than one hour. Some may meet twice a month (work session and regular session) or some as frequently as four times (two work sessions and two regular sessions). Attending meetings is a good way to show the elected and appointed officials that you are interested in what they are doing as your representative. Making open records requests is a good way to get additional information about issues in which you are interested.
In Georgia, the Open Records Act is O.C.G.A. §50-18 and the Open Meeting Act is O.C.G.A. §50-14 . The official copies of these can be found online at http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/, however there are handy links on the State Attorney General’s site at http://law.ga.gov/law which provide easily readable PDF files.
The introduction of O.C.G.A. §50-18-70 says: Continue reading
Lowndes County’s
Emergency Management Director
reported yesterday on projected icy roads today.
Here’s the video:
Weather report by Ashley Tye, Emergency Management Director
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2014.
All the local schools are closed, public and private, K-12 and college, so the best thing to to is to stay home.
Commissioner John Page said a constituent had just asked him if Lowndes County owned any snow plows. Answer: no, but the county can get access to them if needed.
County Clerk Paige Dukes enumerated ways she had tried to get the word out, including this information on the county’s front web page, which will probably disappear without trace in a day or so, so I’ve copied it below. Continue reading
Yet another
Dollar General,
two
small rezonings in Lowndes County,
a
business office
in Valdosta,
and a proposed
Historical Overlay District.
Here’s the agenda, supplied by an informant. It came as PDF of an image, so I OCRed it to get this text. But why should any citizen have to do that? Oh, right, “the expense”.
Greater Lowndes Planning CommissionContinue readingLowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park
REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING
AGENDA
Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah AvenueMonday, January 27, 2014* 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing
The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission meets tonight at 5:30PM,
but there’s no agenda posted anywhere online.
At
the same meeting at which he asserted
“we have broadband”,
and
“transparency is not a problem”
County Chairman Bill Slaughter said the county doesn’t publish
agendas or minutes for the Planning Commission because of
“the expense”.
“the expense”
v.
“When officials act like
they have something to hide,
they often do”
I suppose I don’t know much about this Internet stuff, so maybe somebody can explain it to me: what’s the big expense in publishing the GLPC agendas and minutes the same way the county publishes its own agendas and minutes? Yet if you search for the Planning Commission on the county’s website, all you find is its name in a list of Boards, Agencies & Commissions; tonight’s meeting is not even listed in the county’s online calendar.
For that matter, what would be the big expense in posting the entire agenda packets, like for example Continue reading
What’s a “Presidio Change Order”? (Not like those change orders in DeKalb County, let’s hope.) A GEFA loan application for what? What’s going on with the Moody AFB Library?
Apparently Nottinghill is going to have a community water system, since it’s on the agenda for a trust deed, but you wouldn’t know that unless you’d followed other trust deeds, such as the one for Raisin’ Cane approved in December.
At least we know they’ve been itching to turn Cat Creek
Road into a highway at least since
they put widening it on their T-SPLOST list in 2012,
and on this agenda is
replacing the old bridge on Cat Creek Road.
The agenda actually says the final item is only in the Work Session. Maybe this will avoid the kind of confusion that happened with the Sabal Trail pipeline presentation in November and December.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue readingPROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
They vote tonight at 5:30PM. Probably there won’t be a repeat of
yesterday morning’s presentation
by
District Health Director Dr. Grow.
The county wants
an architect for a new roof and shower in one jail pod;
it’s considering two interagency agreements,
one for
Valdosta Inspections for Lake Park
and the other for
the county extension,
plus
setting election qualifying fees
and
a Special Assessment Rate for 2014.
There’s a
beer license
and acceptance of
infrastructure for part of Grove Pointe Subdivision.
Here’s the agenda with links to the videos:
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
The Commission’s designated first speaker
confused order with good.
Chairman Bill Slaughter
required a sitting judge to go to the podium to speak,
even though he had not required that for multiple Spectra pipeline reps
the previous morning.
Nottinghill is finally resolved,
after yet more probing questions by Commissioners; more than they
asked the Spectra reps.
A
VSU professor
and
a landowner
asked very good questions about the pipeline,
a
KLVB board member gave a report,
and
Gretchen asked the Commission to post Planning Commission minutes online.
Two people were appointed; one spoke. The two beer licenses, a liquor license, the decorative special tax lighting district for Windstone, the contracts, the resolution to ask the legislature for an additional judge, and the bids were all approved with little discussion. The settlement for back pay it turns out didn’t actually involve employees having to sue to get paid.
Here’s the amended agenda with the two added items, plus links to the videos and a few notes. See also the previous morning’s Work Session.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
AMENDED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
A local landowner said that with no open access in Georgia,
Sabal Trail Transmission should have no standing to use
Georgia eminent domain law.
And Sabal Trail must comply with local, state, and federal laws and
ordinances, including ones that could be passed by the Lowndes
County Commission, she said at their
10 December 2013 Regular Session.
For example, a depth ordinance, or an ordinance requiring
a minimum distance from homes or schools.
Or a tax on the pipeline easement.
She recommended
PipelineSafetyInfo.com.
She asked for the Commissioners to use their voice.
As WCTV quoted her in their coverage, she said,
I don’t want to have to fear for my children as they sleep at night.
County Manager Joe Pritchard shuffled papers and
alleged County Attorney Walter G. Elliott yawned during these
citizen presentations.
Mindy Bland noted Commissioner Powell had asked for Continue reading
How about a profit-sharing venture the pipeline partners and the County? A VSU professor asked that at the 10 December 2013 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Dr. Hochschild listed a few benefits Spectra rep. Brian Fahrenthold had claimed the previous morning.
Considering the vast profits Florida Power and Light and Sabal Trail stand to make from the use of our land, I know they can do a lot better than hotel stays, Big Macs, and temporary jobs. Mr. Fahrenthold claimed the pipeline would be economically beneficial because it will supposedly bring in $460 million in property taxes over the next sixty years.
First I’d like to know if an independent agency came up with that projection, or if Continue reading