Category Archives: Lowndes County Commission

Hahira twins and three each Lake Park and Lowndes County @ GLPC 2014-03-31



The twin
Hahira cases are to

rezone
and then

annex
a lot on the east edge of town.
No city of Valdosta cases this time,
but three each for

Lowndes County
and

Lake Park.
One of the Lake Park cases is

a Zoning Ordinance change.

Here’s the agenda, which arrived as a PDF of an image,
which I have OCRed into HTML.

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission

Lowndes 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 Avenue

Monday, March 31, 2014* 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing

Continue reading →

Whom do you serve? A question for local government

A question asked about big oil and Mobile is just as relevant
to every local and state government along the proposed Sabal Trail
fracked methane pipeline,
and Transco and Florida Southeast Connection, too.
A couple of local elected officials and several candidates did make
public statements Saturday (stay tuned), so maybe we’re starting to
get some answers to this question in Lowndes County, Georgia.
Some other locations have already been getting answers.

Brad Nolen wrote for New American Journal 28 March 2014,

How Big Oil Controls Local Governments:
Whom Do You Serve? Thoughts on Local Government and Dirty Industries,



Now, it should go without saying that the purpose of councils,
commissions and public office in general is to represent the varied
interests of the citizens, and hopefully through consensus- seeking
achieve some semblance of collective wisdom; and then, if we’re
really lucky to apply said wisdom in charting our course toward a
Mobile our great grandchildren will be proud to inherit.

Yet, when it came to finding a voice to protect our drinking water
from Big Oil, we heard nothing substantive from our local leaders,
even though we marched on their doorsteps in boots that are still
wet with BP oil.

And now, Continue reading →

How to invite toxic industries to your county



Maybe we should stop inviting toxic industries to Lowndes County.
We’ve been doing that with coal ash, PCBs, superfund wastewater,
used diapers in recycling, and suing local businesses while not terminating
an exclusive franchise with a company that is involved in all of that.
Not to mention Sterling Chemical.



Here in Lowndes County we have

TVA coal ash and Florida coal ash
in our landfill,
and the landfill operator spreads the coal ash on roads on the site,
which is just uphill from the Withlacoochee River.

GA EPD
fined that landfill operator $27,500 in January 2013

for accepting PCBs into that same Pecan Row Landfill.
The same landfill that accepted

196,500 gallons of wastewater from the
Seven Out Superfund site in Waycross, GA.

A landfill that is

in an aquifer recharge zone. Continue reading →

District 3 down to two candidates for Lowndes County Commission



The southern District 3 for Lowndes County Commission is down to
only two candidates, one Democrat and one Republican, so there will
be no primary races and Tom Hochschild (D) and Mark Wisenbaker (R)
will face each other in the general election in November.
Retiring candidate Don Thieme (D) throws his support behind Hochschild.
District 3 is mostly the south half of the county,
but it also wraps around Valdosta to incorporate Remerton and VSU.
See

detail map
or
PDF of district 1,2,3
as found on

lowndescounty.com.

And Crawford Powell has withdrawn from the race for House District 174,
so that leaves only two candidates there, too:
Jessie Smith (D) and John L. Corbett (R), with no
primary races, to face each other in November.

Continue reading →

Videos: Mostly Paving and Bridges @ LCC 2014-03-24


Yesterday morning they discussed a

turnkey government website service.
And an

annexation request by the City of Hahira.
And they may actually be serious about coming into the 21st century with

online county services.

Turns out the

road resurfacing of four roads
is actually mostly from a GDOT LMIG grant,
but the other three,
shoulder paving on

Val Del Road
and

Boring Pond Road
and a

bridge replacement on Cat Creek Road
are all from SPLOST VII funds.
Plus

some trucks for Animal Control and

tablets for the Fire Department,
an

alcohol license, and some alphabet-soup agreements,
one of which turned out to be for

a grant for a victim advocate position in the Solicitor General’s office.

Here’s

the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Animals, Alcohol, Alphabet Soup, Paving, Bridges, and Fire @ LCC 2014-03-24



Got to spend those SPLOST dollars widening roads and bridges
to promote development farther out in the country!
Plus some trucks for Animal Control and tablets for the Fire Department,
an alcohol license, and some alphabet-soup agreements.
It may be healthy as food, but I wonder if opaque acronyms
unexplained in the agenda is good for local government.

Here’s

the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Videos: Water under Moody Family Housing and Sabal Trail @ LCC 2014-03-11



Two

speakers about

the Sabal Trail pipeline,
one about

water issues under Moody Family Housing,
One
request to do something about speeding
(good luck),
a

recognition (firefighters),
a

proclamation (purple hearts),
and
an

award (budget),
one rezoning

withdrawn,

three

others

approved,
two contracts (bus system renewal
and

software master contract),
some but not all

streets accepted in Nelson Hill,
and no mention of the

Lake Park annexation request that took up at least five minutes the
previous morning.

For why John Page is no longer on the Commission, see

the previous post with the agenda.
Here’s the agenda again with links to the videos and a few notes.
See also

videos from the previous morning’s Work Session.
And see also

Lowndes County becomes third purple heart county in the state,
by Matthew Woody, VDT, 12 March 2014.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

PROPOSED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 10, 2014, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Can we get pipeline update and citizen input? –Carolyn Singletary @ LCC 2014-03-11



A directly affected landowner wanted to know what happened
with the talks

among several local county attorneys about the
proposed Sabal Trail pipeline, and was there any way citizens
could provide input,
at the

11 March 2014 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

Here’s

the video:



Can we get pipeline update and citizen input? –Carolyn Singletary

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 March 2014.

Also she wondered if she could hear Continue reading →

Speeding on Academy Drive and Parkwood –Warren Scoby @ LCC 2014-03-11



A local citizen said he was concerned about speeding by
people cutting through his road to get to Bemiss Road.
The Chairman promised they would look into it,
at the

11 March 2014 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
That would be a refreshing change from the Commission’s previous refusals to
do anything about that problem on other roads.

Here’s

the video:



Speeding on Academy Drive and Parkwood –Warren Scoby

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 March 2014.

Continue reading →

There are things you can do about the Sabal Trail Pipeline –Mario Bartoletti @ LCC 2014-03-11



Apparently the community believes the Commission thinks

there’s nothing they can do,
but Mario Bartoletti, speaking for himself and for

WACE,
said he thought there were things the Commission could do
about that 36-inch methane pipeline, and he listed some things,
at the

11 March 2014 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

Here’s

the video:



There are things you can do about the Sabal Trail Pipeline –Mario Bartoletti

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 March 2014.

His list included:

Continue reading →